Everything had been going according to Max's plan thus far. She has gathered ten essence strands and had just sat down for lunch. She didn't even bother with getting a tray of food. She needed every second to form her essence core. She reviewed the process in her head one last time.
"Why don't you have any lunch?" Emily asked as she sat down beside Max. Max didn't have time to talk with Emily. Fortunately, she had already thought of a way to keep the conversation short or very simple.
"I am not hungry," Max tried to sound depressed.
"Is it because of what we talked about yesterday?" Emily asked.
"I don't know. I just...," Max lets out a frustrated sigh.
"Do you want me to go?" Emily asks with concern.
"No. I just don't want to talk today. Okay?" Max says while trying to sound exasperated
"Okay," Emily replies with a reassuring tone.
Finally, now back to forming my core. Max stared off into space while only keeping the minimum attention to her surroundings. She slowly began drawing all of the essence strands scattered in her body towards her heart. When all of the strands had been gathered, they left her heart and slowly revolved around each other at increasing speed forming a small black and white vortex. She forced that vortex to spin as fast as she could make it to blend the ten essence strands together making it turn to a greyish color. A round crystal slowly formed in the center of that vortex. As the crystal grew the vortex shrank until finally the crystal engulfed the vortex. However the vortex did not disappate into a mist within her core as Max had expected. It remained inside of the crystal even without her maintaining it. Well at least I don't have to worry about reforming it when I go up to rank 2 of the copper stage. Max could immediately feel small strands of essence slowly flowing out of her core and circulating in her blood stream nourishing and strengthening her body. It was one of the benefits to having an essence core and it didn't drain her strength either. The other benefit was spiritual sense. Although her current range of it was only about fifty feet, it was still useful.
No matter how strong she felt at the moment, Max was forced to remind her self that she was still only a copper rank 1 cultivator and had the body of a thirteen year old girl. Her physical abilities were at most comparable to an unarmed proffessional soldier, but no more. Her essence could make up a difference against one armed opponent, but not against many. She still needed to be cautious.
She used her spiritual sense to examine her immediate surroundings. She immediately noticed Emily was giving her an odd look. Max turns her head to face Emily while retracting her spiritual sense. Before she could ask what was wrong, a chorus of metallic shreiks shrieks filled the air. Max stood up in terror. Oh my god! IT'S TOO SOON!
"What was that?!" Emily asked with alarm as she stood up as well, but Max ignored her. She hurled her spiritual sense towards the direction of those shrieks while praying that she was wrong. Unfortunately, her fears were confirmed. She saw a manhole cover being violently hurled several feet into the air as a swarm of Sadist Rats surged out of the ground. All of them were racing towards her school.
Max grabbed Emily's arm before bolting straight to the stairwell that led to the second floor roof. Her chances up there were far better than hanging around in the cafeteria. She couldn't handle any more than one or two at a time as she is now. If Max were to run out the back, those rats could easily overtake her. Going to the roof was her only chance. Even if a few did track them to the roof, Max had some means to throw them off her trail.
Emily tried to break free of Max's grasp up until she heard the screams. It took them ten seconds to reach the stairwell. They were both running up the stairs two steps at a time. When they reached the roof access door, both of them were panting with both fear and exhaustion. Fortunately the door was unlocked and they exited to the roof. Max spun around to get a good idea of the roof's layout.
Max quickly kicked off her shoes before removing her socks. Right as Max was reaching to undo her jeans did Emily exclaim, "What are you doing?!"
"Those things hunt by smell. I need your socks and panties, NOW!" Max explained as she removed her underwear. Those pieces of clothing were in direct contact with big odor zones and would make a great fals trail. She quickly slid her jeans and shoes back on while Emily hastily removed what Max had asked her to. Max picked up the articles of clothing and created a trail leading off of the roof. She rubbed her panties along the ledge of the roof before throwing them down. "Follow me," Max said as she ran to the opposite side of the roof and hide behind a large air conditioning unit that had a large fan blowing air away from the stairwell. She positioned herself and Emily infront of that fan. I hope this works.
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Ten minutes later half a dozen rats started ripping and tearing at the roof access door. Max could hear police sirens in the distance. The police immediately exited their vehicles and rushed into the building. Gunfire immediately followed. At the same time, the roof access door finally broke apart. Max heard their shrieks of bloodlust as the rats followed her false trail followed by four thuds. Max sent out her spiritual sense and saw that two of the rats hadn't followed the others and were sniffing the air. Max started cursing inwardly as she slowly formed two blade-like darts at her fingertips. They had taken nearly half of her total strength to make. She heard Emily inhale sharply, but didn't have the luxury to explain herself.
The two sadist rats turned towards their direction and charged while making as much noise as possible. Emily was trembling in terror. Max jumped out from behind the air conditioning unit and hurled her two darts with precision. Both of the darts sank into a sadist rat's skull killing them instantly. Max let out a sigh of relief as she turned around to look at Emily. Emily looked uncertain, but not afraid. Max needed to explain some things now. "I ...," Max's voice trailed off as Emily's face twisted into terror. Max spun around only to see a one of those rats coming at her in mid-air. Max blocked it's path with her right arm. It's claws dug deep into the flesh of her arm. She stifled the scream that wanted to escape her lips. She didn't have enough time to use another essence dart. She grabbed one of it's fore legs with her left hand and spun around as fast as she could. It's claws tore at her flesh and she threw it off of the roof. She was hoping the fall would kill it.
Max's knees buckled and she landed on her ass. Her arm hurt immensely. She scanned her arm with her spiritual sense. Her muscles were torn, but repairable with her essence. The biggest problem though was her bloodloss that her essence was struggling to stop. If she couldn't stop the bleeding soon, she would pass out and die. She could already feel the effects of bloodloss.
Emily was kneeling beside her was freaking out. "Help me apply pressure to my wounds. It will help with the bleeding," Max says with a weak voice. Emily shakily applied pressure to her wounds. Max groaned in pain as she channeled what essence she had left to aid in staunching the bleeding. It didn't stop completely, but it slowed down greatly until it stopped completely. She felt weak, but she would live.
Max could heard gunfire coming from below. That must be attracting the rats. She was grateful since she was in no condition to fend off any more of those things. She managed to drag herself to an air conditioning unit to lean up against while they waited. It felt like an eternity had passed before a group of police officers made it to the roof. Max had lost too much blood earlier to move very well on her own and had to lean on Emily to walk as the officers led them through the school with guns drawn. There were bodies of other students and those rats everywhere. She didn't bother trying to count them all. A horrible realization hit her as she walked down those halls. Did I cause this? The timing of the arrival of the rats and her core forming was too damning. How could I have known? There wasn't anyone that ever attracted essence beasts when they formed their essence core.
Max looked toward the main entrance of the school and saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles just outside. There were medical teams rushing survivors to various hospitals. Max looked around and it was clear that her injuries were far lighter than most of the others. There were fewer than 50 survivors from what Max could tell. She was led to an ambulance. Max and Emily had been the last ones to be taken out of the school. They wouldn't let Emily ride in the ambulence on the way to the hospital.
Max was given a full treatment for her arm. They stitched her arm up, took an x-ray and drew her blood. She felt it unnecessary, but let the doctors have their way. She couldn't exactly tell them she could heal the wounds herself in less than four days. She had puked whenever she had enough time to think about what she had done.
Max was waiting in an ER room with her right arm in a sling when her mother arrived looking panicked. The woman looked relieved when she saw Max sitting upright, if a bit pale. The doctor came in shortly after to give a report to her mother. The doctor told her mother the extent of the damage to her arm and something else as well. He told her that Max's platelet count was normal and that it was possible that the lab messed up when they diagnosed her originally. Her father arrived looking haggard after the doctor walked out. He didn't say a word as he rushed to her and hugged her. He was actually quite nice when he was sober.
They were on their on the way out of the hospital when she saw Emily in the waiting area. Max tried to smile at her. A pair of police officers appeared out of nowhere. One of them spoke, "Jonathan Levings?" "Yes?" her dad said cautiously. "You are under arrest for child abuse," one of them said while reaching for his handcuffs. Her father looked stunned for a moment before his face twisted with rage while glaring at Max. He shook them off and swung his fist straight at her face. Max tried to avoid it, but was too weak from bloodloss and the depletion of her essence. Max felt the impact of his fist on her cheek as she landed onto the ground. She was still conscious but her head was spinning. She hadn't expected him to be that violent while sober. She felt like an idiot.
She heard them pin her father to the ground as they put handcuffs on him. Max tried to sit up, but a nurse had stopped her. Emily and her mother were looking on with worry. A stern older man was standing beside Emily while scowling at Max's father. She could see the his name and rank printed left side of his chest: Gen. Mckenzy.