"I didn't think my family would care enough to look for either of us," Hellen replied with a hint of anger, "I was disowned by my father when I eloped with Guan. Originally, I had been arranged to marry a man that I hated."

"What the hell? Arranged marriages stopped being a thing since the dark ages," Maxine said, "And Your family should have known you wouldn't agree to it."

"Maxine, while arranged marriages are unheard of on earth, they are quite common within the alliance," Hellen responded, "The logic behind it is if two conflicting parties are kin they won't fight, but that practice slowly became corrupted. Eventually they only performed arranged marriages to give two families an excuse to share valueable resources. I ruined any chances of that for my family when I eloped with Guan. That is why I was disowned and I am afraid that they may try to use you the same way that they tried to used me."

"Like hell they will," Maxine responded.

"You may not have a choice," Hellen said dispairingly, "That young man may just be here to locate you. There could be dozens of others on standby that are ready to forcibly take you back to my family." Maxine really didn't want to leave Earth, but she didn't want to be forced to marry anyone. For one she was far too young to even think about that. She tried to think of another reason why they would come here and realized that they could have mistaken Maxine for Hellen since they had very similar essence wavelengths.

"Let's not jump to conclusions just yet," Maxine said while trying to reason things out, "It could be just coincidence that young man is here. You said it yourself those bloodline stones are not typically used by stronger essence cultivators. He could be working on his own and confused you for me." 

"I had no siblings when my body died. It is far more likely that my parents had another child. Making that young man my brother," Hellen responded, "Also neither you or him are that powerful and he already had a rough idea where to look. So using a bloodline stone would make perfect sense."

"Well shit," Maxine said and could sense Hellen's concern. However Maxine had her own ideas about how to deal with this problem. One of them was to kill anyone that tried to take her away, but that wasn't a good idea at this point. Maxine was currently not in any condition to fight. The most strength she could display, without enduring severe pain, was bronze rank 7. She couldn't have Emily heal her either. Hellen had told Maxine that it wouldn't help her recovery rate in the least. Although it may help her muscles and bones recover, Emily's attempts at healing could make the damage to Maxine's essence pathways worse. Emily's control would have to be perfect and know what she is doing in order to heal Maxine's essence pathways. The medicine that Poison Emperor Guan gave her was the best thing for her current injuries anyways.

Maxine decided that she needed a surveillance system in place to be able to give her enough time to flee on the chance that they were there to kidnap her. She immediately summoned all of her ravens, including all but one of the ravens in the shadow world. She was going to have them sit in trees like fixed cameras and patrol in the air to keep an eye out for essence cultivators. Fortunately, her ravens could quite literately see the strength of someone's essence just based off their aura. All she needed to do was have them alert her to the approach of anyone surpassing bronze stage.

Next Maxine conceived of an escape plan that could be put in motion instantly. She set up one of her shadow clones to be able to open a portal to the shadow world beneith Maxine's feet on command. However she was worried about Silky and her mother. They could easily be used to draw Maxine out and she decided it would be best to take them with her when she fled. Unfortunately, she didn't think that her Shadow Wolves would be a match for more than two or three iron stage cultivators. She would need at least a thousand of them to stand a chance at beating a dozen of them. 

Suddenly the doorbell rang and brought Maxine out of her thoughts. She immediately flung her spiritual sense to the front door to see who it is and saw that same young man again. Maxine was confused. She thought he was going to try and kidnap her in the middle of the night, not come to her front door to say hello. 

Maxine's mother answered the door and was greeted by the young man with the sword, "Hello, Ma'am. Could you give this to your daughter for me? I am a fan and I want to give her a gift." He held out a small gift wrapped box while scratching the back of his head. It was covered in green wrapping paper. A red ribbon was used to bind it closed with a bow at the top. The gift box was barely big enough to be able to fit a golf ball inside of it.

Her mother smiled as she answered, "Of course."

"Thank you," He said as he turned away to leave, "Have a good day."

"Wait a moment," Maxine's mother said, "Can you tell me your name? My daughter may want to know who to thank for this gift."

"Zeph," he said as he looked over his shoulder as he left. Maxine felt confused as she tried scanning that box with her spiritual sense, but it wouldn't penetrate into it. Her mother had already closed the front door and Maxine tried finding Zeph again. However he was no where to be found. Maxine got up and went to her mother to get the gift box.   

"One of your fans dropped this off," her mother said as she handed the gift box to her. 

"I know," Maxine said as she took it.

Maxine quickly went to her room and used her spiritual sense to talk to Hellen again, "What is inside of this thing? My spiritual sense won't penetrate into the gift box. I don't want to open this up to get a cloud of knockout gas to my face."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"One moment," Hellen said as Maxine detected Hellen's powerful spriitual sense at work, "A dimensional pouch is inside of it and a letter. It's addressed to you."

"Thanks," Maxine said as she removed the ribbon that was binding the gift box shut. She already knew that the ribbon was made out of a material even more durable than Silky's silk from trying to scan the inside of the gift box earlier. When Maxine opened the box, she pulled out the letter and began reading it. 'Do not trust any of the people that invite you to join their sect. They only want to use for their own purposes. I can't explain why, but you need to trust me. There is a communication device inside of the dimensional pouch. You can contact me with that later by injecting your essence into it.' is what was witten. 

"That isn't the only message on there. There is a secret one that has been placed on this paper using an old method only known to my family," Hellen said through her spiritual sense, "Inject a thread of essence into the bottom left corner of the note and you will see it for yourself."

Although it cause a minor stinging sensation, Maxine did as Hellen directed and saw golden lettering appear on the paper. She quickly began reading it, 'My name is Zephyr Kavros and I am your uncle. If you are reading this then my suspicions that Hellen's soul is in that bracelet are true. There are some important things that you need to know. Guan's strength has increased immensely in the last one hundred years and he is about to ascend. Once he does, he won't be able to protect you any more. Two years ago, he halted his cultivation to avoid ascending. I can only assume he did that so that he could watch over you until your strength was great enough to protect yourself. Unfortunately I haven't had an opportunity to confirm this by talking to him. However even though he is that powerful, there are individuals that want to control him. Personally I think they are being suicidal considering your father's history, but they think with the right leverage it would be possible. If they find out that you are his daughter, they will believe that they have found that leverage, but all they will find is death. Through their stupidity, and his, they would greatly weaken the Alliance as a whole and it would allow the evil races to gain more territory than they already have. It is in the best interest of everyone that you remain unknown. So I am begging you, do not join any sect. For if you do, they will realize you are his daughter and it will doom many innocent people to slavery and death.'   

Maxine cut off the flow of essence to the letter and it returned to it's previous state. She was relieved that her identity as Poison Emperor Guan's daughter was for the most part unknown to those that come to Earth. However she was worried about the intentions of her 'uncle,' but what he had said made alot of sense. She needed to confirm that Guan is like that with Hellen before she would trust Zephyr alittle bit.

"Hellen, what do you think about this letter?" Maxine asked through her spiritual sense.

"It's plausible. Guan never was one to tolerate others trying to control him and he has the strength to destroy any single faction within the Alliance just with his poisons. That was before his increase in strength. Now that he is stronger, he could probably do it without them," Hellen responded, "I remember when Guan was still weak. He was being forced to concoct medicines for a sect. That same sect became a poisoned ruin two years afterwards. Last time I checked, no one below gold stage could go there without being killed by the residual poison mist." 

"Well that answers that question," Maxine said as she wondered why Zeph would even care about her. He wasn't around when she was growing up, so he shouldn't have any familial feelings towards Maxine. She didn't even know if they had the same familial values as people from Earth. However it would make sense if he had been ordered by his family to give this warning. Why would those assholes order Zeph to do that? Wait. Hellen said her father disowned her, but said nothing about her mother. Is my biological grandmother the one pulling the strings here? 

Maxine grabbed the dimensional pouch that was in the gift box and searched it's contents. Just like the note said there was a device inside of the dimensional pouch and nothing else. It was disk shaped with alot of engraved runes on it and had a small blue spherical gem in the center. She withdrew it from the dimensional pouch. It was only about the size of her palm. 

"Hellen, what is this thing and how do I use it?" Maxine asked using her spiritual sense.

"It's a Communication Disk. It allows essence users to communicate with each other from across the galaxy instantly. The gem in the center projects a holographic display of the one you are talking to," Hellen explained, "As for how to use it, just inject your spiritual sense into it and feed some of your essence into one of the recorded essence wavelengths of a person that is holding one. The disk will do the rest." Maxine put her spiritual sense into Communication Disk and found two recorded essence wavelengths. One was Zeph's, but she had no idea whose the other one was. She guessed that it was one of her biological grandparents. However Maxine had to restrain herself from using this thing to contact Zeph. Part of her wanted to trust him, but her logical side of herself knew better. She quickly retracted her spiritual sense and placed the disk into her dimensional pouch.

As for the dimensional pouch that Maxine wasn't using, she thought it would be a good gift to give to Emily. Maxine put fifty bronze essence cores into it as well. It would do wonders for her cultivation. Now all Maxine had to do was give it to Emily and give her some training. Emily needed to learn how to avoid getting hit and flee since she had already learned the defensive barriers. It would be a good way for Maxine to distract herself from her worries and it would nice to spend some time with Emily.

Maxine called Emily's cellphone and once Emily answered, she said, "Maxine? Are you home now?" 

"Yes, I am," Maxine replied, "I wanted to know if you wanted to do a few things with me tomorrow." 

"I can," Emily said, "What do you have in mind?"

"I want to do some training and take you out to lunch," Maxine replied.

"Training!? You just got out of the hospital! You shouldn't push yourself like that," Emily reprimanded.

"It's not for me. It's for you," Maxine said, "You need to learn how to dodge. I also have a gift for you."

"Oh," Emily said, "What's the gift?"

"A surprise," Maxine said teasingly.

"Alright," Emily chuckled lightly, "When should we meet up?" 

Maxine thought for a moment before she answered, "Around ten."

"See you then," Emily said.

"Alright, bye," Maxine said and the call ended. She was in a better mood now that she had talked to Emily. However she still didn't like the fact that essence cultivators from the Alliance were on Earth. Fortunately, she learned from Zeph that none of them, besides himself, even suspected her ancestry, but she wasn't going to take any risks. She was going to have her ravens on lookout and have them wake her if any essence cultivators approached her house.