Maxine mentally groaned in frustration as she looked at dozens of students laying exhausted on the ground. This was the fifth session so far and none of them even knew how to properly manage their energies in drawn out fights. They hadn't lasted even fifteen minutes. If I don't correct this, they'll be lucky to return after their first extended hunt. This needs to be corrected.

"You guys need a lot of work before your first job or some of you won't be coming home," Maxine told them directly, "First thing is that none of you practice any martial arts. While some moves can't be used in a fight, they can teach you how to properly control your muscles and minimize your movement when you do attack. So, once you are able to stand, I'll show you a few basic katas to help you master proper muscle control and it wouldn't hurt for some of you to improve your flexibility as well."

"And how does flexibility relate to combat?" one of the more muscular male students asked.

"Being flexible allows for a greater range of mobility and indirectly improves your speed," Maxine explained, "Think of it this way. When you stretch rubber, the first few inches are rather easy and the further you stretch it the greater the resistance is. Bulky muscles like yours tend to behave in a similar manner. We stretch to make those bulky muscles more limber and thus should improve your speed without reducing your power. Any other questions?"

"Are any of us any closer to developing weapon energy?" a tiny girl asked.

"A couple of you are very close and just need another push to awaken it," Maxine replied honestly, "Unfortunately, I don't know how to force it to awaken without an extreme external trigger."

"Then, what have we been doing here all this time?!" a rather large man asked.

"Learning as much as you can before you throw yourselves into actual danger," Maxine said coldly, "I've been on multiple battlefields and I can assure you that none of you would've survived more than a few hours had you been at any one of them."

"Bullshit!" the rather large man said as he jumped to his feet, "I've gone through multiple hunting trips and survived!"

"On Earth, no doubt," Maxine said calmly as she looked him in the eye, "But let me remind you, that Earth is the equivalent of easy mode compared to the rest of the universe. I've seen and experienced nightmare mode and suffered horrible injuries from the smallest mistakes. For example, I was participating in a conflict between two clans and tried to save some beastkin children that were being used as trackers by some particularly abusive pricks. I made the mistake of approaching them before checking them over with my spiritual sense. If I had checked, I would've noticed the teleportation trap hidden on one of them. I was almost immediately teleported into the middle of the enemy's camp with those two kids. After suffering a severe beating from a much stronger opponent, I just barely managed to escape with them in tow. So, how exactly do you think you would fair when I can beat the ever living shit out of all of you while using a tiny fraction of my full strength?"

"Wait, what?" the large man asked in confusion.

"Oh, you didn't notice?" Maxine asked in surprise, "I've been limiting my strength and speed to be not much more than your own and havn't used blade energy during our training sessions. I thought by doing this that you would be humbled at the difference in our skill levels. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect. So, allow me to let you experience a measure of my full strength. Now, SIT!" With a single thought, she unleashed enough of her killing intent to frighten all of the assembled students. The large man took a step back in fear and lost his footing. He ended up landing on his butt. The other students reacted in different, but they were all fear responses. She made a mental note of the students that pulled out their weapons as they took on a defensive stance. I'll need to remind them it's sometimes better to run than to fight back. As for the others, I need to chew them out later for freezing up. That's literately the worst thing they could do.

"Maxine, could you please retract your killing intent before those kids have an accident," Amanda said as she walked closer to them.

"Oh? Sure," Maxine said calmly as she retracted her killing intent and smiled when she noticed something amongst her students.

"I hope all of you now understand that angering Maxine is a very bad idea," Amanda advised the students, "And if any of you are wondering, why Maxine's killing intent is so intense. Let me remind you that killing intent is built up through killing both people and beasts. So, for her to have such intense killing intent, she must have killed quite a large number of enemies. Keep that in mind the next time that any of you feel like testing her."

Amanda turned to Maxine with an angry glare, but she froze for a moment once she noticed that Maxine was smiling. Maxine simply pointed at the tiny woman and said, "Congratulations, you've awoken sword energy. If you want proof, just go over to that training dummy and attack it with the intention to cut it." The tiny woman walked towards the training dummy like she was asked and slashed out with her short sword. Sword energy immediately appeared around her weapon and cleanly cut the training dummy in half.

"Alexis! You used sword energy!" Amanda said excitedly, "Congratulations!"

"Yes, very well done," Maxine praised, "Now all you need is a bit of practice to perfect it and at this stage, there is very little I can do to help you. So, you can train off to the side while I continue with these guys."

"Thank you!" Alexis said in an excited squeal as she dropped her sword and gave Maxine a hug.

"You're welcome," Maxine said as she gently hugged Alexis back, "Now, try to practice. It would be a shame for you to forget how to use it so soon after acquiring it. And once you've perfected it, I can imagine there will be a lot of groups that would want you to join them. It's not every day that they can team up with a user of sword energy, especially one at your age."

"You got it!" Alexis said happily as she swiftly snatched up her sword and began training off to the side. Her sword energy wasn't evenly distributed across the edge of her sword, but she was swiftly making progress as she slashed and stabbed out her sword. Huh? Where did she get all that energy? She had collapsed from exhaustion a few minutes ago. She must've taken a potion while I wasn't looking. I'll caution her against that in the future. Potions can be expensive when she gets more powerful and she shouldn't be wasting money like that.

"Now, is there a reason that you wanted to come see me?" Maxine asked Amanda.

"Yes, there have been complaints about your 'rough' training methods. Are they entirely necessary?" Amanda asked.

"It is," Maxine said directly, "I'm harsh on them because I want them to survive. The harsher that I train them, the more prepared they'll be for the real thing."

"It looks like I'll have to update the introduction for your class to give fair warning to your future students," Amanda sighed.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Alright, but be sure that they know that my training is going to be intense by their standards," Maxine said and she glanced at her still recovering students, "And after my little display of killing intent, I think most of these guys have had enough for today. Even if they could keep going, I don't think they would be able to pay attention enough for it to be of any help."

"You heard her. Get up and go home," Amanda shouted at them and they dragged themselves to their feet before heading out, "So, what are you going to do about Alexis?"

"Nothing," Maxine answered honestly, "It's all up to her how far she can take her sword energy."

"No, I mean do you want me to reveal that you helped her awaken it," Amanda clarified.

"I just provided a training environment to speed up the process," Maxine replied, "Her innate talent is what helped her awaken sword energy this quickly. In fact, the earliest that I was expecting her to awaken a weapon energy was after two months of this training. But that just demonstrates how much raw talent that Alexis possesses when it comes to sword energy. Oh, and the rest of them do not have much talent, if any, for weapon energy."

"How do you know that?" Amanda asked.

"Alexis was able to use sword intent within a day of me explaining it," Maxine said, "And the others havn't figured it out yet. A couple of them are close to figuring out weapon intent, but it will be months, if not years, for any of them to figure out how to use weapon energy. So, for now, these training sessions will just help them improve their stamina and their ability to work in teams."

"And here I thought you were just beating them up for fun," Amanda said in amusement.

"Pain is one of the better motivators for people to improve," Maxine pointed out, "But I am being careful to only give them bruises. Hence, why I'm training them without using my blades."

"I suppose that makes sense," Amanda said uncertainly, "Anyways, those elves want to talk to you about something. I think it's important since they're being far more insistent than they usually are."

"Alright, I'll go see what they want," Maxine said while mentally sighing. Can't those high elves find someone else to bother?

Maxine threw out her spiritual sense to find the high elves and began walking towards them. It figures that they would be in the medicinal garden. When she reached them, she greeted Allana Trenz, "Hello, Miss Trenz. Amanda said you wished to talk with me about something. Could you elaborate?"

"Straight to the point. I've always been fond of that trait amongst humans. And yes, I wished to tell you something of importance," Allana Trenz said with a smile as she held up a small disk before a hologram of a small hydrakin appeared above it, "Some kind explorers found this small child on a desolate planet and brought her to a world controlled by my people. They wanted to find her homeworld to return her to her people. Sadly, the only other known member of her species is in the care of your parents and they're notoriously difficult to get in contact with. Do you think that they would be willing to take this little one in?"

Maxine immediately looked over the hologram to compare it to Lucas' physiology. She's older than Lucas and I think I spot some odd growths below her arms and on her back. Maybe, growing extra limbs is a sign that they are reaching adolescence. Certain types of hydras undergo something similar as they age by growing extra heads. Although, those types typically cap out at nine heads and the ones with more are rare enough that no one has studied them to know how or why it happens.

"She definitely appears to be a hydrakin, but without a thorough physical examination, I can't say for certain," Maxine said out loud, "But I don't see why my parents wouldn't take her in. They've already adopted Lucas." And I should ask them to keep an eye on the little thing as well. It's strange that such a 'coincidence' happened. Still, I really hope that this really is a coincidence and not some scheme.

"Excellent," Allana Trenz said in a pleased tone, "I already took the liberty of having my people bring her here as soon as I heard about her and she should arrive within the next few weeks. I'll leave it up to you to bring her to introduce her to your parents. In the meantime, I want you to know that there are two problems with the child. She doesn't speak Alliance common or any other language that my people have encountered before and the other problem is that she is quite frankly too wild and savage to safely handle by my people. She's nearly killed four of her handlers already."

"Ahh, gotcha," Maxine nodded in understanding, "Those little guys can be quite vicious if you don't look like one of their kind."

"We've noticed," Allana Trenz said dryly.

"Anyways, I should go tell my parents about this," Maxine said.

However, before either of them could say a word, Guan chimed in via spiritual sense, [No need. I heard everything. I'll see to informing my wife.]

"Does your father do this often?" Allana Trenz asked cautiously.

"Far more often than I would like," Maxine complained, "But you shouldn't mind it too much. He's just being overly protective of me."

"I can relate with that," Allana Trenz said with a smile, "My own father wouldn't allow me to go off world until I was well over five hundred years old and even then I could only do so with powerful protectors in tow."

"Daddy isn't that bad, but he makes sure that I'm suitably equipped when I need to go anywhere," Maxine said as she played with a warp stone in one hand and a poison vial in the other.

"I see," Allana Trenz said in clear discomfort.

"Well, I have other things that I would like to do today. So, have a good day," Maxine said as she stood up to leave. Today, I need to make another batch of healing and breakthrough potions for Amanda's guild and I need to make a few pills that uncle Zeph requested. And I need to check up on Andrea and Miguel Silva to see how they are settling in.

"You as well," Allana Trenz said calmly.

Maxine created an arch with a thought and walked through it to the other side of the headquarters near the recruit barracks. That was where Andrea and Miguel Silva were staying for now. They were still studying American history and in Miguel's case, learning how to speak english.

She walked up to Andrea's room and gently knocked on the door. A few moments later, Andrea answered with a smile, "Maxine, what are you doing here?" Maxine spotted Miguel with a sour look on his face as he made a show of trying to read on a datapad.

"Just see how you and your brother are settling in so far," Maxine said calmly, "And to see how far along your studies are coming. It shouldn't take you guys that long to learn everything that you need to."

"Well...," Andrea said reluctantly, "Miguel isn't very good at studying. He takes several times longer to learn something than I do."

"I doubt that," Maxine said with a straight face, "Even a very slow learner can absorb all of that information in a matter of hours with his cultivation. He probably doesn't want to or doesn't see a point to it due to how powerful he is."

"Are you sure?" Andrea asked.

"Absolutely," Maxine replied, "There were a few 'young masters' that thought they could get away with yelling at some earthlings in Alliance common, instead of the local language, because their strength was greater. Let's just say that they learned to speak the language of the land very quickly."

"What happened to them?" Andrea asked cautiously.

"It's what normally happens when an overgrown man child has a tantrum," Maxine explained, "Someone got tired of their shit and either gave them a beating or scared the hell out of them." A cycle of being beaten and healed will teach anyone how to behave. Although, it is a bit of a pain when I have to teleport them to some remote location to avoid assault charges.

"So, how does that apply to my brother?" Andrea asked.

"All I'm saying is that I'm not asking him to do any more than any other immigrant. Even normal people can pass that test and the American government would be more than happy to have him," Maxine emphasized and raised her voice enough that Miguel could hear her, "So, he can either behave like an overgrown man-child and get deported. Or he can do the bear minimum to become a naturalized citizen. It's his choice. I'm not going to break or bend any rules for him, if he won't even give it a decent try. No matter how much I might want to."

"I'll pass that along," Andrea said nervously.

"Now, do you need anything from me?" Maxine asked, "Better studying materials?"

"No, you've done enough for us already," Andrea replied.

"Alright then," Maxine said, "I hope you two have a decent day. See you when I see you."

"Bye," Andrea said as she closed the door.

Maxine decided to take a stroll through the Fire and Ice guild headquarters before she worked on her alchemy. She felt annoyed when a few of her fans spotted her before she spotted them, but she put up with it. However, whenever any of them tried to touch her, she used a pulse of her energies to form a sturdy barrier around her without hurting anyone. She tried to make it clear that they can talk to her all they like, but touching is off limits.

After entertaining them for a few minutes, Maxine shadow-stepped to a quiet room and brought out various medicinal ingredients. Now, time to get to work on this. I've got a lot of stuff to make and not that long to make it before that possible hydrakin girl shows up. I wonder how Lucas will respond to seeing her.