Maxine formed her essence armor as she arrived roughly fifteen minutes early to her class. She had arrived early to look for Amanda. She looked around and spotted Amanda was sitting in a corner waiting for class to start. Fortunately her students hadn't arived yet so Maxine could talk to her without any worry of being heard. Maxine was worried that Amanda had told Gen. McKenzy about Silky evolving. Maxine didn't know if he would try to capture Silky to study her if he discovered Silky was an arachne. Maxine could only imagine how badly that would go. Afterall if Silky thought her life were in danger, she would eliminate those sent to capture her with lethal force regardless of what Maxine had told her to do. 

Maxine walked up to Amanda and said, "Hey Amanda. Did you tell anyone about Silky's evolution?" Maxine had wanted to call Amanda last night about it, but thought better of it. Maxine's phone could easily be bugged. It wouldn't surprise her if the general thought it had been a necessary measure.

"Yes, I told General McKenzy about that yesterday morning. He was actually quite interested about the whole thing," Amanda answered and alarm flashed across her face, "Is something wrong with Silky?" 

"No, nothing is wrong with her. She finished her evolution yesterday and looks rather adorable," Maxine answered honestly. 

"Oh thank goodness. I thought something had happened to your pet," Amanda said as her face brightened up, "So what kind of spider did she turn into?" Maxine really didn't want to answer that.

"Before I answer that, could you tell me exactly what you told the general about Silky?" Maxine asked. It was something that Maxine needed to know. Depending on how much Amanda had told him, Maxine may have to go talk with him about Silky earlier than she would like.

"I didn't tell him anything other than what you told me. Why do you ask?" Amanda said. Maxine hesitated and decided to tell Amanda since it would get out eventually anyways.

"Because Silky became an arachne and I don't want her to be poked at by any scientists wanting to know how she ticks," Maxine answered. Amanda's eyes widened for a moment and her expression immediately became thoughtful as she pulled out her smart phone. Maxine didn't want to interrupt Amanda and simply looked over her shoulder at the screen.

"Is this Silky?" Amanda said as Maxine saw a blurry picture of Silky throwing a Copper Fang Wolf at a tree in the middle of the night. Amanda dragged her finger across the screen to reveal another crystal clear picture of Silky hugging a young woman that she had just saved.

Maxine was startled for a moment before she remembered most people carried smart phones. Those things all but disappeared at the time of her death in the previous timeline. Those that kept them did it only for sentimental reasons. Maxine herself only carried a flip phone due to it's superior durability and because her mother wouldn't buy her anything nicer. 

"Yes, it is," Maxine answered mechanically. Maxine felt a headache coming on. She had forgotten to factor in social media when she gave Silky those instructions. She had thought it would take weeks, not less than a day, for word to get around that an arachne was wandering around helping people. Maxine felt a shiver run up her spine as she remembered he own identity might be at risk due to groups of people looking for her in concert over the internet. In fact it was a miracle her identity hadn't been discovered yet. 

Amanda seemed to noticed Maxine's fear. "Don't worry. The general won't do a damn thing to her even if he wanted to. She saved at least five people last night and since she is obviously a child I doubt anyone would hut her. Because if she got hurt during an attempt to capture her, the resulting political and public backlash would be brutal to the responsible party," Amanda said. Maxine calmed down somewhat as she heard that.

Maxine said a quick thank you to Amanda as her class arrived and told Amanda that she would talk to the general later about Silky. She knew he would want Silky to come in and be examined by the same scientists that had examined Maxine. She thought she may as well bring it up with him while she was at the base. Instead of the general calling her into his office to talk about it at another date.

Maxine's students performed very well during their class. All of them had managed to hit their assigned targets with near perfect accuracy using essence darts. However Maxine was still disappointed that none of them had shown any signs of an elemental awakening. It would seem that her students would be limited to the use of essence darts for ranged attacks. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. If Maxine had to describe the difference between a normal essence cultivator and an elemental one, it would be like the difference between a warrior and a mage.

After the class ended, Maxine went to the general's office and told him about Silky's evolution into an arachne. Fortunately General McKenzy was reasonable and guaranteed that Silky would only get a blood test and a few scans done on her to figure out her internal structure. They would do their best not to hurt Silky. Maxine was told that Silky's examination would be in a few days from now. It was on the same day Patrick was also going to be looked over. With that headache out of the way, Maxine left the general's office and asked Sergeant Randall to take her to her house to grab a few books before heading over to where Silky was.

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After Maxine arrived at the usual spot that her driver dropped her off at, she noticed that there were more people around than normal. She told her driver that she would be back in roughly three and a half hours as she got out of the car. Two young men were watching her rather intently as she walked into the woods. She got a suspicious feeling and took a roundabout path to Silky's nest in case someone was following her. They hadn't followed her and dismissed her suspicion as paranioa.

Before she could even announce her presence, Silky had already sprinted out of her nest and was barreling at Maxine. "Mama!" Silky yelled as she hug tackled Maxine. Maxine was nearly knocked off her feet by Silky, but she wasn't angry at Silky. The little arachne was just excited to see her. 

Maxine chuckled lightly as she hugged Silky back. Silky looked up from within Maxine's embrace with a big smile on her face. "Mama, I saved people like you told me to and one lady even let me hug her. She gave me something really tasty. She called it chocolate," Silky announced, "Did I do good?" Maxine was immensely amazed at how fast Silky could learn. Yesterday she could only say one word and now she could form complete sentences. Although Maxine wasn't happy that Silky had discovered chocolate.

"Yes, you did," Maxine said while looking at the tattered state of the shirt that she had lent Silky, "Now let go of me so I can help you make a new dress." Maxine had searched the internet for styles of clothing that might work on an arachne. Unfortunately she hadn't found anything acceptible and made her own design. She decided make a specialized skirt for Silky's dress to allow her to use her forelimbs while wearing it. However the best material for the job was Silky's own silk and Maxine intended to take her time knitting it for Silky's benefit. With the learning speed Silky had already demonstrated, it shouldn't take long for her to understand how to do it herself and she could make her own clothes in the future.

Silky let Maxine go and backed up with an excited look on her face. Maxine knew that arachne had an almost compulsive desire to make clothing for themselves and it was no surprise to her that Silky was excited to learn. "Silky, I need some of your silk to make your dress. Can you give me a thin strand like you made for me before?" Maxine asked. 

"Yes, mama," Silky said as she turned around and started to make silk with her spinnerets. Maxine grabbed the thin strand of silk protuding from Silky's spinneret and pulled it slowly towards herself, but didn't start right away. She  walked over to the left side of Silky so that she could watch her work.

"Pay attention, Silky. This will be hard to learn if you don't," Maxine said as she felt Silky's gaze lock onto her hands. Maxine manifested a pair of very fine knitting needles and began to work on making Silky a dress. Maxine occassionally looked up to make sure Silky was still paying attention. However that was a needless concern. Silky's attention hadn't wavered even once the whole time. Although Maxine was taking her time, she was still working very quickly by a normal person's standards. It took her nearly three hours to make the dress for Silky. Maxine put down the needles and held up the finished dress for Silky to look at. It was a simple sleaveless dress that was light gray. It had two small openings in the skirt to accomdate her forelimbs to pass through it. "What do you think?" Maxine asked Silky.

"I like it, mama," Silky answered with a smile. Maxine could see that Silky had enjoyed watching her work.

"Good. Come here so I can put it on you," Maxine said as Silky got closer to her. Maxine swiftly switched the shirt that was on Silky with the dress that she had made. Maxine had to help Silky get her forelimbs through the small gaps she had made in the skirt. It looked lovely on her. "Do you think you could make your own dresses after watching me do it?" Maxine asked Silky.

"I think so, but I rather wear the dress mama made me," Silky answered adorably. Maxine thought that was extremely sweet of Silky to say. Maxine knew that she needed to leave soon to hunt for a few more bronze essence cores. She had run out of them last night and needed to reward Silky for doing what Maxine had asked. She only had roughly twenty minutes before she had to be back to where her driver had dropped her off at.

"I know, but I may not have the time to make you more. So you need to make a dress or two yourself," Maxine said to Silky, "Now I need to go hunt for some essence cores. Go back into your webs until I get back."

After making sure Silky had gotten into her nest, Maxine ran into the woods and used her spiritual sense to scan for any bronze stage essence beasts. There was only a few and they were quite some distance away. She wondered why there were so few essence beasts nearby, but shoved it out of her mind as she sped towards them. She killed and harvasted four bronze essence cores from those essence beasts before heading back. Maxine gave Silky one of them and told her to keep being good. 

Maxine quickly ran back to where her driver was waiting and noticed those two young men were still there. They were still watching her every move. It made her skin crawl. She quickly got into the car and thought about the Twilight Iron ores she had found yesterday. She had already tried forging them into a set of blades last night to no effect. No matter how hot of a flame she generated using her shadow essence it wouldn't melt it. It wouldn't even become the slightest bit malleable no matter what she had done. It was frustrating. She would just mess with it some more tonight.