While Maxine was waiting for Emily to arrive, Maxine tried to remember everything she knew about the divine attribute based skills. What she did know was what she learned by observing a poor maimed, amnesiac girl that had it in the previous timeline. Everyone called her Jane because she couldn't remember anything about herself. Maxine's group of essence cultivators had found her whimpering in some debris after two groups of essence cultivators fought over some resources. Maxine could still remember the extent of that girl's wounds. Her face had been shredded, her left arm had been ripped off at the shoulder and it looked like she had been savagely beaten. Maxine had been the only one that tried to save her life. Everyone else thought the girl would die from her wounds regardless of what kind of aid was given. It caused her to get rather close to the girl and Maxine had been the one to discover Jane's healing powers because of it. However she died nearly a year later during a skirmish against raiders while they were escorting a caravan. It wasn't until after Jane's death that Maxine had realized that she had loved Jane and wept as she buried her. Maxine shook herself lightly to bring herself away from those painful memories when she heard a knock on the front door.
When Maxine opened the door, she saw that it was Emily and introduced her to Silky. Silky seemed to like Emily right away as she gave Emily a big hug. The three of them headed to the couch. Maxine gave Silky a few of her old toys to play with while Emily and herself walked to the more open space of the TV room.
"Alright what would you like to try first? Barrier or support skills?" Maxine asked. She prefered that Emily learned barrier skills first, but it all depended on Emily.
"I want to learn barrier skills first," Emily answered, "I can't heal anyone if I can't protect myself." Maxine approved of her choice in that matter. It was always a good idea to focus on defense before learning support skills. She would be too fragile otherwise.
"Alright. I know three kinds of barriers. They are the revolving, rumble and revolving rumble barrier," Maxine said, "Now the revolving and rumble barriers are relatively easy to learn. It's when you combine them into the revolving rumble barrier that it gets realy hard. For the revolving barrier, you only have to extend out your essence into a bubble around yourself and spinning it on an axis. This spinning motion redirects the force of the attack and minimizes the damage to it. It might appear weakest on the top, but if you are constantly shifting the axis around that weakness disappears. I will demonstrate it, but it requires alot of concentration on my part since I normally don't use barriers like this." Maxine closed her eyes in concentration as she formed a barrier around her whole body in a perfect sphere and began to put it into a rapid spin. She immediately began shifting the axis of the spin in random directions. It had been far easier to do that than she remembered, but the last time she did that was in the previous timeline. When Maxine opened her eyes, she saw that Emily was watching her with intense focus.
"That's amazing. I don't know if I could ever do that, but I will try," Emily said excitedly as she stood up trying to recreate the barrier Maxine had just demonstrated. However she could only manage to make the barrier spin on a fixed axis rather than a moving one. Emily looked increasingly frustrated as she tried to shift her barrier's axis while maintaining the spin.
"Don't try more than you can handle. Just getting it spinning is enough for now. There are not many essence beasts that attack from above or below," Maxine consoled Emily, "How about I go over the rumble barrier?"
"Alright," Emily said.
"The rumble barrier is more or less a vibrating barrier. You need to constantly make the barrier bigger and then smaller in rapid succession. It repeatedly hits anything that approaches you that way and disperses the force of an attack. If you are doing it right, it should create an optical illusion that looks like constantly repeating waves that are eminating from the inside edge towards an outside edge of the barrier." Maxine demonstrated the barrier to Emily.
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"Why does it make a sound similar to the rumble of thunder?" Emily asked.
"Not sure myself, but it's why it got the name of rumble barrier," Maxine answered, "Try to make one yourself."
"Okay," Emily said. Emily tried to make a rumble barrier, but she couldn't contract and expand the barrier fast enough for it to create an optical illusion or generate a rumbling sound.
"Well it's not perfect, but it is good enough for now. Keep practicing," Maxine told Emily after awhile of watching her. Emily's first efforts to use those barriers reminded her of how Jane had worked on creating them.
"Alright," Emily said, "You said something about support skills. What do those look like?" Emily's question.
"Oh, those are detoxifying and low level healing, but I can't show you how to do it. I can only describe what to do," Maxine answered and made certain that Emily was paying attention before continueing, "Detoxifying requires that you to find what doesn't belong in the human body and removing it however you can. As for your healing skills, I have noticed that you are using them inefficiently. You cover far too much area with your divine essence and need to try to focus it into narrower beams. You conserve more essence that way by healing only what needs it."
However before Emily could ask or even respond that she understood, a rumbling sound followed by Silky voice softly asked, "Mama, am I doing this right?" Maxine knew that Silky would have listened in and watched. She didn't even need to look to know what Silky was doing, but did so anyways. Silky had created a revolving rumble barrier. It wasn't that much of a surprise that Silky could do that on her first attempt considering her intelligence, but Maxine wished Silky hadn't done it infront of Emily. It would effect Emily's confidence.
"Yes, but I wasn't teaching you, silly," Maxine answered.
"I am sorry, mama," Silky said as she looked at the ground and retracted the barrier.
"I thought you were amazing, Silky," Emily commented which seemed to cheer up Silky.
"I thought so too that's why I am not angry with you, Silky," Maxine said, "So, next time try not to disrupt any lessons that I am teaching. It's not fair to the person learning."
"Okay, mama," Silky said softly.
"Good," Maxine said, "Now let's watch a movie. How does that sound you two?" Both of them promptly agreed. Maxine picked out a child friendly movie and sat down to watch it with them.
After the three of them got comfortable, Maxine noticed that in this light Emily seemed to have the exact shade of hair color that Jane had. That prompted her to compare them against each other. Emily's bust was smaller and she was alittle shorter. However the time she found Jane was roughly one year from now and Emily could easily gain that extra height and curves in that time. On closer inspection, she noticed that their eye colors were the same. Even the small imperfection in the left eye was the same. However that didn't mean they were the same person. They could just be very similar or even be related somehow. However Maxine had never heard of another person with the divine attribute in this part of the USA.
However when she thought about it, Maxine realized that the time that General McKenzy went on a warpath against cultivators was literately days after they had found Jane. How could I have forgotten that? It appeared that Jane and Emily were the same person based on what she knew. Or I want them to be the same person because of how much I like Emily. I need something more concrete. Maxine knew a way to be certain. Although Jane's face had been horribly scarred, she did possess a unique birthmark on her left shoulder blade that Maxine could easily identify. She needed to know if Emily had that same birthmark. The easiest way to find out was to ask her directly if she had one and if Maxine could see it.
However Maxine didn't want to speak over the movie, so she decided to use her spiritual sense to ask Emily, "Sorry for asking this out of nowhere, but do you have a birthmark on your left shoulder blade?"