Maxine was staring at the landscape of the shadow world while contemplating what she had done after she had finished cleaning. She was alittle disappointed that Emily had to leave earlier to do something. Emily hadn't been very forthcoming about what it was. Silky had reverted to her arachne form. Mikari had said it had something to do with Silky's upcoming breakingthrough into iron stage. However both Kena and Mikari cautioned that Silky should avoid using essence cores for a minimum of a month after breakingthrough to ensure the stability of her essence core.
After seeing them off, Maxine had gone out of the house to search for more Twilight Iron in the Shadow Cat's den and discovered a large vein of it buried a few feet in the rocky walls of the Shadow Cat's lair. She hadn't discovered it before because it had been too deep at the time for her spiritual sense to detect it through five feet of rock. After mining and collecting it all, she estimated that she had acquired enough to make a dozen war scythes. I will use the extra to make a few weapons for my school's armory. I could make some money selling them too. Although I best keep the sales to the military or my students that will actually use them. If not the weapons that I sell could very well end up as a display pieces and that would be a complete waste..
Maxine shrugged to herself as she shoved those thoughts aside and checked on the village with her spiritual sense. The villagers were practicing using spears at the moment. Although their weapon usage was crude, it would suffice for them to defend themselves. She had thoughts about making them her personal fighting force, but got angry at herself for even considering it. The villagers were peaceful and she didn't want to involve them in matters that didn't directly affect them.
Maxine noticed a group of villagers building a stone fence around an acre of land She knew that what that land was set aside for her medicinal garden. She had mentioned that she needed a large space for it before, but never thought that they would set aside a full acre of land for it. Regardless it gave her plenty of space to plant more herbs that she may find. It even had plenty of space for the Troll's Blood Sap tree to be transplanted to it, if she had the mind to. However she had no intention of doing that for the time being.
Maxine shook her head and reminded herself that she was here to test the limits of her Shadow Lord Form. After clearing her mind, she attempted to activate her Shadow Lord Form. Unfortunately it wasn't as easy as she had thought since she had no idea how to trigger her transformation without some of Emily's divine essence. She tried looking for the bloodline energy inside herself with her spiritual sense and wasn't able to detect it. This is frustrating. Next she injected her essence directly into her bloodstream, but it didn't work. What am I doing wrong?
Maxine tried to remember the sensations and feelings that she had when she changed originally. She relived the wonderful kiss with Emily. A smile slowly spread across Maxine's lips as she recalled the sweet taste of Emily's lips and the silky texture of her tongue. It was at that moment that she remembered exactly how Emily's divine essence reacted to her blood. Unfortunately she didn't know how to cause that same reaction without Emily's essence. Can I mimic Emily's divine essence? Only one way to find out.
Maxine visualized the behavior and feel of Emily's essence and tried to mimic it with her own essence. She formed a strand of essence within her blood as she adjusted it and felt a slight tremor in her blood that she recognized as bloodline energy. Maxine's mind instantly sharpened. That's it! She immediately found the source of her bloodline energy. It was eminating from her marrow and she used both her spiritual sense and essence to completely activate it. If I can do this again without mimicking Emily's divine essence, I will be able to do this quite easily.
Immediately, Maxine felt warmth that she had associated with the transformation to the Shadow Lord Form moving across her skin and enveloped herself in her spiritual sense to watch her transformation unfold. This time she actually got to watch as her skin changed to a pearlescent silver, her ears took on their pointed elven version and the three golden jewels formed on her forehead .I definitely look like an elf of some kind.
Maxine smiled and reverted back to normal. She sent her spiritual sense and essence into her bone marrow once again and felt that same warmth from before as she transformed. It works! Awesome. Now to test my abilities.
Maxine created as many shadow tendrils as she could while maintaining her ability to control them individually. She could control nearly fifty of them while each one picked up stones of varying sizes and juggled them. Okay, I have the multitasking ability and I can control the equivalent of five hundred constructs. That is if my dragon counts as two hundred constructs that is. And I know that I have the enhanced intellect. I should check to see if the range of my spiritual sense is doubled as well just to get my bases covered.
Maxine extended her spiritual sense in a every direction around herself. Normally she could cover just under four miles using this method. However her spiritual sense extended to eight miles in her Shadow Lord Form. Oh? It seems the detail that I can gather without concentrating has gone up as well. I can detect the sweat running down the faces of the villagers as they train. I normally just see their basic shapes when I spiritual sense out like this. This is great!
Maxine retracted her spiritual sense and jumped straight up. It was the simplest and easiest means that she knew of to test her strength other than smashing things and there wasn't an over abundance of boulders in the area. Normally, She could jump two hundred feet into the air. However once she was airborne, she didn't notice that much of a boost to her strength while in her Shadow Lord Form. From what she could tell, she got roughly twenty feet higher into the air than in her normal state. Hmm, looks like a ten percent boost. Looks like most of my mutated bloodline focuses more on my mental acumen. Still, ten percent isn't that bad. I wonder if it applies to my speed as well.
As soon as Maxine landed on the ground, she sprinted into the forested area around the cave and the village. She quickly noticed that her speed had increased as well as her reaction time. Very nice. I doubt that I have a body comparable to a high grade essence beast. Hmm, I wonder what qualifies as a high grade essence beast anyways. I know there are weak ones and strong ones. I think asking Hellen would be best way to find out.
"Hey, mom," Maxine said via spiritual sense to Hellen, "Are you there?"
"Yes, I have been for some time," Hellen answered, "How do you like your Shadow Lord Form?"
"It's amazing," Maxine admitted, "By the way, which grade would I be if I were an essence beast as of right now?"
"Based on physical ability alone, I would say you are at the bottom end of medium grade," Hellen said honestly, "However if I include all of your other abilities, you would be equivalent to a very powerful high grade essence beast, but that is only if you use all of your abilities. Is that what you wanted to know?"
"Yes. Also I was curious as to the grade of a Terror Bear?" Maxine asked.
"Do you mean those strange bears with the black fur and red eyes?" Hellen asked in return.
"Yes, those things," Maxine answered.
"Those things barely qualify as a high grade essence beast. However the golden variety of that essence beast is very close to being a top grade essence beast," Hellen said.
"Do you mean to tell me there are things that are more powerful than that golden bear?" Maxine asked.
"Yes, there are. In fact, this world already has a top grade essence beasts in what you call the Pacific Ocean. Luckily for your mariners, that overgrown serpent prefers deep waters and hasn't come near the surface," Hellen answered.
"How powerful and big is it exactly?" Maxine asked.
"Oh about five hundred and fifty feet long and the last time I checked, it was silver stage rank one," Hellen said, "That's quite impressive considering how long Earth has had essence."
"That's a little disconcerting," Maxine said, "Well I need to check one more thing before I head back to make a war scythe for my decoy."
"Alright," Hellen said.
Maxine remotely controlled her shadow clone that was collecting medicinal herbs and their seeds to send Maxine's Twilight Iron Blades to her through a portal. As soon as the handles to them appeared, she grabbed them and sent her shadow clone back to it's duties. She wanted to see if her attacking power had gone up proportionately as she took a fighting stance.
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Maxine readied a Crescent Moon Blitz and unleashed it. She watched as the attack landed on a nearby tree. However Maxine couldn't care less about the attack as the woodchips were throw into the air when she realized how quickly her essence was recovering. It took her a moment to realize that the large jewel on her forehead was passively drawing in essence and refining it to suppliment her essence reserves.
Before Maxine got too excited at this find, she waited to see how quickly it actually recharged her essence that consumed to unleash the Crescent Moon Blitz. She waited roughly two and a half minutes for her essence to fully recharge. I can throw around twenty of those attacks before I run out of essence. So that means I have around a two percent per minute recharge rate. Not good for duels, but it would be great for large scale battles. That is IF I could use it without being seen, which is never. It's good enough just to know that I have it.
Maxine turned back towards the cave, but stopped as she realized something. "Mom, what is Guan planning to do if I get discovered?" Maxine asked, "I mean I have been making preventative measures to ensure that I am not discovered, so I want to know what he has up his sleeve in case I am."
"If you get discovered, he will do something that will give you an opportunity to flee to the shadow world. At least that is what he told me. He wasn't real big on the specifics though," Hellen said, "Although it would be better if everyone thought you were dead that would almost be a certainty that they would never look for you again." I have no idea how to fake my death infront of people that have spiritual sense. It's practically impossible.
"Why doesn't Guan just ascend?" Maxine asked, "That would solve the dilemma of the Alliance searching for me."
"He can't," Hellen said.
"What do you mean he can't?" Maxine demanded.
"If you havn't figured it out from seeing Guan's face, he has a unique bloodline. It's the bloodline of the Twelve-Headed Hydra King," Hellen said calmly, "It's an extremely powerful bloodline and the laws of the universe are preventing him from ascending due to it. You see the stronger your bloodline is the more difficult it is to breach certain levels of strength in the form of bottlenecks. There are ways around bottlenecks, but he is an orphan. He doesn't have anything like a clan to help him figure that out and has broken through each of his bottlenecks on his own." Wait, isn't the Shadow Lord bloodline fairly powerful as well?
"Mom, does our bloodline have bottlenecks?" Maxine asked.
"Yes," Hellen answered after hesitating for a moment.
"Where is the first bottleneck typically appear?" Maxine asked.
"The first major bottleneck is when you try to go from silver to gold stage. The next one is gold to immortal stage. There are other bottlenecks, but I don't know when you will encounter them. Only the clan elders know that, "Hellen answered, "And there is one other spot of bad news, each bottleneck that you encounter will be harder to breakthrough than the last." Shit.
"Why didn't you tell me before now?" Maxine asked with as much calm as she could muster.
"Because I didn't think that it would be a problem," Hellen answered, "Your father can provide you with the resources necessary to breakthrough each bottleneck. The only reason he hadn't helped me breakthrough to immortal stage is that I wanted to give birth to you first."
"You mean to tell me that bottlenecks don't exist if you have enough wealth?" Maxine asked.
"That isn't entirely accurate," Hellen said, "Our bloodline requires a very specific potion in order for us to breakthrough without difficulty and each bottleneck requires potions of increasing potency. Most alchemists wouldn't even consider crafting such a specilized item without being paid an exoribitant fee and they wouldn't even guarantee that they would be able to make it either."
"In that case, I should be happy that I am Guan's daughter," Maxine said.
"Indeed," Hellen said.
"Well, I should really make that war scythe for my decoy before it gets too much later," Maxine said, "After I am done, I will get ready for bed."
"Alright, Maxine," Hellen said, "Try to sleep well. Even though essence cultivators don't need much sleep, we still need some."
Maxine retracted her spiritual sense from the golden bracelet and reverted back to her normal state before she ran towards the cave. Once she was there, she walked past her decoy and went straight to the Twighlight Iron ores that she stashed inside of the cave earlier. She picked up just enough Twighlight Iron ores to make the scythe. She went through the same refinement process as she did with her blades and formed the mass of Twighlight Iron into a war scythe as quickly as she could.
Maxine picked up the war scythe and checked it's balance and weight with a few casual swings. It was considerably heavier than both of her blades put together. Once she was satisfied that no flaw was present, she took her newly made warscythe to her decoy and handed the war scythe to it. Afterwards she ordered it to go outside and practice with the weapon for some time while she got ready for bed. It took additional concentration on her part to maintain her decoy's movements while managing her other clones, but it was necessary to become familiar with it's movements since her decoy's frame was so different from her own. She needed it to be as believeable as possible. A few weeks of practice and I should be able to make my decoy move naturally.
Maxine entered the portal back to her room that she left open earlier. Once there, she saw a dimensional pouch on her bed with a note beside of it. She quickly picked up the note and began to read it, "Maxine, I was surprised when your mother said you were interested in alchemy. You can't imagine how happy that made me. I just wish I could guide you on that path myself. Unfortunately I can't. I can't even send you medicinal ingredients to practice with. I can only send you a detailed list of all of the medicinal ingredients that I know of, so that you can find them more easily. You need to memorize the appearance and effects of each medicinal ingredient before you try to perform your first attempt at alchemy. Trust me. It will be easier if you do. Afterwards familiarize yourself with the various alchemical techniques. I have included my own among them. However it would be best if you developed a method unique to yourself to perform alchemy. No one can use your own technique better than you can. This alchemical knowledge that I have given you is everything that I have gathered in my entire life. It is my life's work. Please, use it wisely." Maxine paused from reading the letter as she realized the enormity of what Guan had just given her because she asked for alchemy for beginners. He is giving me his life's work?! I didn't ask for him to do this. I just wanted a starter to alchemy, not this. It's too much ... Once she calmed down, she realized that she wasn't able to hate him as fiercely as before.
Maxine paused for another moment before she continued to read, "On another note, your mother told me that you have the Shadow Lord form. By now you most likely know the benefits that form brings. I know it must be quite the temptation to use it publicly, but you must not, especially where the Kavros Clan can see. This has been a concern of mine ever since I had an interesting conversation with one of the immortal level cultivators that was checking on the disciples from his martial school. He mentioned that not two months ago a young man in the Kavros Clan had been confined to the clan because he possessed the Shadow Lord Form and they are searching for a suitable wife for him. I doubt they will ever let him leave the clan and I have a feeling they would try to forcibly marry you to him in order to increase the chances of your children having that ability. I know you do not wish to be controlled anymore than I do, Maxine. I care about you and want you to live happy and free. Be careful. Your father, Guan." Eugenics? Seriously? Well upside is it's just a feeling of his and not an actual fact. Well just to confirm I will talk to Hellen.
"Mom, you read this note as well I take it," Maxine said, "What do you think about the end of it?"
"I can't read it. Your father rigged it so that only you could read it," Hellen answered, "Just tell me the part of the letter that is bothering you." Maxine relayed what was on the latter half of the letter. "It's not unheard of for that sort of thing to happen in the Kavros Clan, but it hasn't been done in nearly a millenia," Hellen said, "However your fears are unwarranted. When I was still in the clan, there was a rule that required the express permission of the parents from both children in order for that to be allowed. So don't be worried. I would never give permission. I don't think your father is aware of that rule." Oh, thank goodness. I don't think Guan would never agree to that, especially since he probably knows that I don't like men. At least I think he does.
"Thanks for clearing that up for me, mom," Maxine said.
"Your welcome, sweetie," Hellen said, "I know your father sent you his wealth of alchemical knowledge. Why don't you start studying it a bit before you go to sleep? No one becomes an alchemist over night."
"Alright, mom," Maxine said as she set down the note from Guan and turning back to the bed.
Maxine picked up and scanned the interior of the dimensional pouch on her bed. There were several Knowledge Crystals of different colors inside of it. She retrieved the green one from the dimensional pouch and injected her spiritual sense into it. She was hit with an instant headache as she saw literately over a million different plants within a void. Each of them had a small book underneith them with the title being their name. She reached out with her mind to a familiar looking medicinal herb, Heart Protection Grass. She found it odd that the name of the medicinal herb was called the same thing as the herb she knew. She hadn't expected that. She opened up the small book beneath it and started to read. It preferred growing at the entrance of a den that belonged to a fox-type essence beast. It had the same effects as what she knew of, but what she didn't know is that it also can repair heart damage even without refinement. Guan is quite thorough. I never expected that there would be a 3D image of each medicinal ingredient. He probably knows how much I appreciate it. If he hadn't included it, I would have a hell of a time telling some of these medicinal ingredients apart with just descriptions and a basic drawing. Unfortunately, I have no idea how long it will take me to memorize the appearance and effects of each of these things. At least, I have plenty of time to mess with it if my decoy works as planned. Now time for bed. School starts on Monday and I have a lot of preparations to do before it starts.