Maxine shivered from the memory of her nightmare as she got ready for today's class. Her nightmare was of her students transforming from her eager to learn soldiers into violent rapists. She knew that she could beat all of them into a bloody paste in under a minute, but it had still frightened her. It made facing to her class today much more difficult than the day before. She had to keep telling herself it was an irrational fear and began dispising her father more for instilling this fear in her. She hoped that bastard was in a cell with a particularly cruel sodomite.
Maxine took a deep breath and checked her scalp in the mirror. Her hair hadn't shown any signs of growing back in brown since her suicidal boost in power. The hair that grew was still silver-grey. Maxine let out a sigh. It appeared the change of her hair color was permnament. It made her frustrated. Silver-grey hair was extremely rare in someone her age and would make it easier for the general populace to figure out that she was the one that fought the Terror Bear. Infact, it was a small miracle no one had figured it out yet. She doubted there was another girl with her physique and hair color in the St Louis area.
Maxine shoved those thought out of her mind as she went to see if her ride had arrived yet. After that feeling those eyes on her yesterday, she had called General McKenzy. He had offered that it might be a spy from another country observing her in order to assess her as a threat. Since she could protect herself quite easily, he didn't send anyone to watch her, but insisted that she get driven to the base from now on.
After Maxine finished breakfast she looked outside and saw a grey sedan parked infront of her house. She had an hour to get to the warehouse. She hadn't expected her ride to arrive this early. Maxine saw no point in making someone wait on her and went outside. It was being driven by the same man that took her to the research warehouse. At least, it's a familiar face. As she got into the back of the car, she felt those eyes on her again, but this time she felt a hint of hostility. She tried to find whoever it was with her spiritual sense, but like before she found nothing. It was unsettling.
Maxine sat as far away from the driver as possible. She didn't want to be any closer to him than absolutely necessary and tried to think of other things during the drive.
When she arrived inside of the warehouse, she noticed no one else had arrived yet and wouldn't for at least another thrity minutes. Maxine didn't see any point in wasting time and refined some essence cores. It didn't take her very long and as soon as she finished she decided to practice her weapon skills for a few minutes before her class could arrived. To make the essence expenditure as close to actual combat as she could, Maxine created a chinese blade in each hand with her essence and formed her essence armor. These weapons weren't as durable as a normal steel version, but they were great for practicing. Maxine visualized an opponent wielding a sword and shield infront of her and started shadowboxing with it at one tenth her normal speed. It was akward to swing her blades at first, but it was within expectations. The original Maxine had never done any martial arts, so it would be idiotic to expect anything different.
Maxine slowly adjusted her fighting style to better suit her feminine form and flexibility. Once her movements became more smooth, she started incorporating a combination of kicks and punches into her fighting style as she shadowboxed. However she didn't increase her speed. She wanted to make her movements as smooth as possible before she gradually increased her speed.
Unfortunately, she had become so focused in her practice that she hadn't noticed that Amanda and her students were arriving one at a time. It had taken her several minutes to notice their presence. When she noticed them, she remembered her nightmare last night and felt fear course through her as she retreated at full speed to the far side of the warehouse. Maxine turned around and saw that none of them chased her. Amanda didn't appear too surprised at Maxine's speed, but her students were staring at her wide eyed.
"When will we be able to move that fast?" one of them asked. Maxine ignored the question as she took deep breaths to calm her violently beating heart. She was grateful that none of them tried to approach her. It seemed that they had been informed of her androphobia.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Once she had calmed herself sufficiently, Maxine pointed at the small pile of refined essence cores and ordered them, "Well? What are you waiting for grab an essence core and start cultivating."
Amanda approached her and asked, "Are certain that you are up for this? I could always look after them for the day."
"I'll be fine. Just jumpy from a nightmare is all," Maxine answered, "Grab an essence core and join us in cultivating. Can't have you lagging behind our students." Maxine pulled out bronze essence core as she walked into position infront of her students. Amanda followed suit and took an essence core out and cultivated herself. It took Maxine far longer that it normally did to get into a cultivation state due to the fear she felt earlier.
The following three hours were quiet and her students made good progress as an additional two essence strands formed in their bodies. Each of them now had four essence strands each. At this rate, they will start forming their cores on Friday. It shouldn't be a problem as long as they follow her instructions. After they had all finished cultivating three hours later, Maxine dismissed her students. Maxine made certain to give them a wide berth. She could have sworn that she saw a few sympathetic looks sent her way as they left.
Maxine released her essence armor and let out a sigh. Amanda walked over and patted Maxine's shoulder before she too left. Maxine didn't know if she could make it through their training at this rate. Just thinking about it made shivers of fear run up her spine. At least Amanda will be around to help make it more tolerable. I am not sure how well I would be doing if she hadn't agreed to help me.
Maxine had her ride take her to the conservation area. She wanted to check on Silky and get a few more bronze cores. She had tried absorbing essence from three copper essence cores at once the night before and it did nothing for her cultivation. She could only cultivate using bronze or iron essence cores and the iron essence core that she knew about was under lock and key. She doubted they would just give it to her.
After she arrived at the conservation area, she told the man she wouldn't be gone much longer than an hour and sped off at a normal jogging speed. It wouldn't take her long since she knew where she needed to go. She made her way to where Silky was and noticed that there were some new cocoons hanging around. She scanned them with her spiritual sense to make sure none of them were humans. Fortunately they were mostly normal animals and a few essence beasts. Her spider ran out of her webs and greeted her like a dog would by circling while making chirping sounds. She found that behavior cute and sat down to pet her spider. Silky seemed genuinely happy to see her. Maxine was actually enjoying the slightly fuzzy feel to Silky's chitinous body.
After a few moments of petting, Silky ran into it's den of spiderwebs and brought out a two foot long branch with spider silk wrapped around it. Her spider gave her a expectant look. Maxine smiled at it's intelligence and gave it one of her last two bronze essence cores. After devouring it, Silky did a strange dance. Maxine giggled at the creature's antics. Maxine felt alot better than she had before coming here. It was odd how Silky was able to cheer her up. Almost everyone else would have been terrified by it. She just sat there and petted on it for a short while. That simple action seemed to settle her nerves.
Maxine checked the time and noticed she only had about fourty minutes left before she needed to be back at the car. She gave Silky one more reminder not to feed on humans and grabbed branch with silk on it before running at a slow speed through the woods to locate some bronze stage essence beasts. There were very few bronze stage essence beasts roaming around and she only managed to find three during the time she had left. She had run past or completely ignored the copper stage ones that she encountered.
Maxine managed to make it back to the car before she said she would and got taken home. When she got home, she still felt those eyes on her, but she did her best to act nonchalant about it. She had a late lunch and felt alot better about everything. She definitely needed to visit Silky more often. She had a feeling that she wouldn't have a nightmare tonight. She placed the silk laden branch in her room. There was alot more silk on this branch than the spool she had gotten from Silky last time. Countless shadow tendrils with either sharp or hooked ends appeared all around her and she began weaving the silk. Hmm, what should I make. Maybe I will make a copy of that outfit Emily likes.