"Canis, there are some soldiers approaching," Maxine said calmly, "I don't see any thing to indicate if they are friendly to your village or not."

"Do not concern yourself with them, my lady," Canis replied, "They are probably the bi-yearly patrol sent by Lord Mikael Kenta. They are only in this area to root out bandits and any beasts that may become a threat as well as collect taxes. However they often take bribes from bandits to look the other way." Maxine got rather angry at that last part. Those soldiers should protect the villagers. Not let them suffer under the cruelty of bandits. 

Maxine felt her bloodlust rising, but suppressed it immediately. She wanted to kill them for derelection of duty, but it would most likely anger the local lord if he ever found out about the murder of his soldiers. That would make using this world as a hideaway much less feasible since she didn't know if he had an army of iron stage essence cultivators or not. She also didn't want to cause any trouble for the villagers. 

"Will my presence cause any trouble?" Maxine asked Canis.

"Only if they see you, my lady," Canis said nervously, "Most of them are young men afterall and your beauty may cause a problem."

"Understood," Maxine said calmly, "I will leave the village with my clone until they leave. However if they cause trouble, I will come to protect you."

"There is no need for that, my lady," Canis said, "They will at most ask for additional taxes since the size of our village has increased before they continue with their patrol."

"Regardless, I will still keep an eye on them," Maxine said as she noticed that the guards were almost in visual range, "Take care. Remember I will still be nearby if you need me." Canis nodded to her respectfully as she turn around and disappeared from Canis' sight into the dense forests surrounding the village. Her shadow clone followed suite an instant later. 

Maxine watched the encounter between the villagers and the soldiers using her spiritual sense once she felt that she was far enough away not to be spotted. The mounted soldiers rode up to Canis and their leader dismounted. He took off his helmet as he approached Canis and Canis revealed a happy smile as he embraced the leader of the soldiers. Huh? 

They began talking a few moments later. Maxine listened in to their conversation and found out that the leader was infact Canis' son, Makin. She left them to talk privately since she would want the same curtesy if she hadn't seen her mother in some time. However Maxine didn't like how Makin kept looking at the youths of the village. It wasn't a look of hostility, but one of curiosity and confusion. Can he sense that they are stronger than they are supposed to be? Maxine continued to watch them for awhile longer, but it seemed that they were just catching up. 

While they talked, it gave Maxine a few minutes to think about the possibility of being discovered. That idiotic Shadow Lord keeps watching me and is a huge liability. If anyone knows that Shadow Lords tend to watch the younger generation of the Kavros Clan, I am in deep shit. I need something to draw their attention away from me. Maxine rememberd that she could make another shadow clone if she wanted. Hmm, that gives me an idea. She thought about it carefully. If she could craft a male version of herself and have it use everything that she didn't dare to, it would definitely draw a great deal of everyone's attention away from herself. To add credence to it, she could give it the same color pattern that recently appeared in her eyes. She envisioned it in her head and knew that it would make an excellent decoy. However Maxine had no idea if the essence cultivators had a means to determine if it was her shadow clone or not. She needed to talk to Hellen about it later.

Maxine returned her focus back towards the village when she noticed that Canis and his son seemed to have finished catching up. Makin went back to his men and continued with his patrol. However before he left he looked straight at Maxine and smiled. She could see the gratitude in his eyes. She had no idea how he had noticed her presence since no one in the shadow world had shown that they could use spiritual sense aside from her students. 

Maxine nodded to him reflexively and Makin returned it before putting his helmet back on. He mounted his strange horse and led his men away. Maxine stayed in the forest for a short while to make sure that they were not going to return and walked towards Canis. 

"Did you enjoy talking with your son?" Maxine said.

"Yes, I did," Canis replied, "It was an unexpected delight, my lady."

"I didn't see them take any taxes. Will they be back later to collect it?" Maxine asked.

"Yes, they will return in a few days to collect the taxes after they check on the other villages," Canis replied.

"Makes sense," Maxine said, "By the way, it shouldn't take another day or two before the young ones fully understand my technique. I will leave for a few days afterwards."

"Understood, my lady," Canis said.

"One last thing, did you tell him I was here?" Maxine asked.

"I did not, my lady, but he seemed to be aware of your presence," Canis stated and started to look nervous, "Are you going to silence my son?"

"No," Maxine said, "Just be certain that he knows that he shouldn't tell anyone that I am here. It may draw unwanted attention to your village." 

"My son is not an idiot," Canis replied, "He knows better than to reveal your presence here. It would be quite ingratious of him to do so and it would cause harm to the village if he does. Afterall which lord wouldn't want to possess the daughter of a goddess as his wife?" Maxine's skin crawled at the thought of being forcibly married to a lord in this world. However she doubted that would ever happen even if word got out. Her Shadow Wolves could tear apart almost any essence cultivator in the iron stage. 

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"Good," Maxine said, "I will head out then. I will leave my clone here to finish teaching the young ones my technique."

"Very well, my lady," Canis said with a slight bow.

Maxine walked away from him and headed towards the cave. The Shadow Wolve maintaining her portal didn't seem to be having any trouble. Maybe I should use them for that more often. It would free up my shadow clones to do other things. 

Maxine jumped into the portal to head back home. Once she was in the comfort of her room, Maxine contacted Hellen via spiritual sense, "Mom, if I made a shadow clone to act as a decoy, would it fool the essence cultivators observing me?"

"Depends on how much effort you put into it," Hellen responded, "Your current ones are completely lacking in that regard. Even Claudia can tell the difference."

"How do I make a convincing one then?" Maxine asked.

"You need to construct it cell by cell and infuse it with some of your blood," Hellen responded, "That should fool your current observers into believing that it is genuine, but if it gets captured, they will quickly discover that it is a decoy." So, I should self-destruct it if I can't prevent it from being captured.

"Understood," Maxine said to Hellen.

"What did you have in mind when you asked that question?" Hellen asked.

"I was thinking of making a male version of myself and have it save people from the essence beasts while using my Shadow Wolves and shadow essence to attack," Maxine answered.

"That's a good start," Hellen said, "However it might be a good idea for it to use a war scyth as it's main weapon. That's your father's weapon of choice. It would only make sense for your father to pass down his combat skills to his 'son.'"

"That's a good idea," Maxine said, "Thanks, mom." Just as Maxine was thanking Hellen, a mental image appeared inside of her head. It was a polearm with a scythe blade pointing upright rather than out at an angle. She had no idea how to wield it properly.

"That is what your father's weapon looks like. Although he may have gotten a new one. It has been more than one hundred years since I have seen him use it," Hellen explained. 

"Alright," Maxine said, "Do you know any techniques for using it?" She knew the chances of her mother knowing a technique to use it was slim, but had asked it anyways.

"I'm afraid not," Hellen said, "My fighting style relies heavily on one-handed weapons."

"It's alright," Maxine said, "I can always look up on the internet for videos of people using polearms and make my own technique." 

"That will have to suffice," Hellen said, "I will leave you to it." Maxine felt Hellen disconnect from their spiritual sense contact as she went silent. 

Maxine knew whatever technique she developed would be crude at best regadless of how much energy she put into it. However when she checked the internet, there were no demonstration videos for war scythes. This made her a bit frustrated, but based on it's overall design, she looked up weapon styles for a similar weapon: the glaive. Most of the demonstrations with a glaive were clumsy and awkward. However when she looked up the eastern version of the glaive, she got quite the treat. There were several martial arts demonstrations using one. Unfortunately the fighting techniques were simpler than she had expected but they were still better than the ones for the glaive. 

After watching a dozen of the weapon demonstration videos, Maxine had a good idea of how to use a war scythe before she decided to check the email she set up to recieve students. She didn't really expect anything in it, but when she opened it up, her jaw dropped. There were already over two hundred emails and all of them were asking to be her students. That's a lot faster than I thought. The evening news hasn't aired yet. How did they find out about this? In the moment she was stunned, another two hundred emails were recieved by that same email account. This could take awhile to look through. 

However before Maxine could start going through them, her mother touched Maxine's shoulder. Maxine turned her head and asked, "What is it, mom?"

"Thank you, sweetie," Maxine's mother said.

"What for?" Maxine asked curiously.

"For becoming a teacher, rather than continueing as a fighter," her mother said with an appreciative smile on her face.  

"I didn't do it just for you, mom. Although I will admit that I won't teach others for free," Maxine admitted, "But I also did it, so that more people are able to fight against essence beasts. I really don't like fighting in the limited numbers that we have." Maxine saw a sparkle of appreciation in her mother's eyes. However her mother quickly took on a confused look as she grabbed Maxine's jaw and moved closer to look into her eyes.

"Are you wearing contact lenses?" her mother asked as she seemed to study Maxine's eyes. 

"No, I am not wearing any contact lenses," Maxine said calmly.

"Strange," her mother said as she released Maxine's jaw, "I could have sworn that I saw a glimmer of gold in your eyes. Well, I will go work on dinner before Silky decides to raid the fridge." What?! How the hell did she see that?! 

Maxine waited patiently until her mother got to the kitchen before she bolted to the bathroom to look in the mirror. She carefully examined the eyes of her reflection. Maxine saw an extremely faint golden glimmer in her eyes. Shit! She concentrated more essence into her eyes in an attempt to keep that faint glimmer from showing up. However it still remained. FUCK! Why won't it vanish?! I know I am camoflauging it properly with my essence. At least it is faint and no one will notice it unless they get in real close. Maxine started to relax until she remembered that essence cultvators had far better eyesight than normal humans. Maxine was on the verge of panicking. Got to remain calm. Maybe, Hellen knows what is going on and how I can fix it.

"Mom, I need some help," Maxine said via spiritual sense while trying to remain calm.

"Oh? Do you need advice on cosmetics?" Hellen asked.

"NO!" Maxine replied while revealing her fear, "Look at my eyes! I can see a golden glimmer."

"Is that all?" Hellen replied calmly, "You have nothing to worry about. I have noticed at least five people with that golden glimmer in their eyes in the past week. I doubt any of the one looking for you have paid it any more attention to it than I have."

"Really?" Maxine asked disbelievingly before she got irratated with herself, "So you're telling me that I got exicted over nothing?"

"More or less," Hellen said.

"God damn it," Maxine said.

"Don't get too upset about it. You were only being extremely careful," Hellen said comfortingly, "Regardless, Zephyr would have warned you if the other investigators had noticed your eyes."

"I still feel like an idiot for over reacting," Maxine said.

"Anyways, when do you intend to make that decoy?" Hellen asked.

"After dinner," Maxine replied.

"Good," Hellen said, "The sooner that decoy is running around the more effective of a decoy it will be and I suggest making it in the shadow world to avoid being seen making it."

"Way ahead of you, mom," Maxine said and detected the aroma emanating from the kitchen, "Smells like dinner is almost ready. Thanks again for the advise."

"Any time," Hellen said, "Enjoy your dinner."

"Will do," Maxine replied before retracting her spiritual sense and heading to the kitchen. As soon as she got there, she saw Silky sitting at the table and was already digging into her food. Maxine sat and joined her.

It was rather quiet at the table while they ate and Maxine went back to her room after she had finished eating. She entered a portal to the shadow world and retrieved an iron essence core from her dimensional pouch. Now let's see. What should my decoy look like? On another note, how do I even make it a male? The Four-Tailed Fox mentioned that all of my Shadow Wolves are girls and I didn't even do that intentionally. This is going to be interesting to say the least.