Maxine was alittle depressed as she arrived at school. Emily had been reluctant to talk to her ever since she left Maxine's house last friday. Maxine was guessing that Emily was trying to deal with the fact that Maxine had transformed infront of her. Emily's reaction was exactly what Maxine expected would happen when she originally told Emily that she was an alien in the first place. Maxine's transformation had most likely cemented that idea in Emily's mind. Due to Maxine's lack of experience in romantic matters, she didn't know what to do and decided to give Emily space to let Emily decide how she felt about it.
After Maxine entered the school, she noticed an announcement on a poster and wondered what the announcement was. She stopped and started to read it. The top-half of the poster contained a notice that some of the janitorial staff had been replaced with veterans that couldn't get work anywhere else and that they were all armed to fight off any essence beasts that may appear on the school grounds. On the lower half of the poster, it showed a newspaper clipping of a story from earlier this year. It described the heroic actions of a janitor that happened to be a former marine. He fought off a dozen essence beasts while wielding a broken broom handle to protect a group of students. That guy must have been one hell of a badass to pull that off, especially since he didn't have a proper weapon. Hell, if I was in his shoes, I would have had no choice but to run. That guy has my respect.
Maxine checked the time and noticed that it was roughly ten minutes until class started. She made her way to the first period classroom. Even though she knew that she would be bored to tears, she would still pay attention in class, but that isn't all that she was going to do. She intended to practice the seal-type spiritual mark during class. This multi-tasking ability definitely makes things more interesting. With my current abilities, I can control three clones, listen to my lessons at school, and practice this spiritual mark all at the same time with mental capacity to spare. It's too bad that I can't access the information in Knowledge Crystals without dedicating my entire mind to it. Otherwise I would be studying the stuff in it as well.
It was still roughly five minutes before the bell rang when Maxine walked into her classroom. As expected, her teacher was looking at her fearfully. Poor guy is looking at me like I am terrorist threatening him with an AK-47. Fortunately her classmates had a much wider range of emotions displayed on their faces. She tried to ignore them when they gave her greetings while making her way to an empty seat.
After sitting at the desk, Maxine pulled out a notebook and pencil and placed them on top of the desk. Even though she had near perfect memory due to her cultivation, she was still going to take notes to practice fine muscle control with her current strength. She hadn't found a reason to work on it before now and it seemed like a good time as any to practice it now. When the bell was about to ring, she readied her pencil to take notes and it snapped in half. Oops, I used too much strength. I need to be more careful and my teacher looks even more nervous now. Damn it. I guess he will just have to get used to having me in class. I hope after a week of classes he will figure out that I am just here to learn.
As Maxine expected, her morning classes were boring and she wasn't able to participate in the physical education class. It was mostly because the teacher there was worried that Maxine would use too much strength in the heat of the moment and accidentally injure one of the other students. I expected this, but it is still irratating. To add to Maxine's aggrivation, Emily didn't share the same lunch period as Maxine. Although if she wanted to she could find out where Emily was and see her using spiritual sense, but it wasn't the same as seeing Emily with her own eyes.
After lunch, Maxine made her way to her next class. Once she was seated, she started to come up with plausible ways to fake her death to keep her mind occupied. She was doing this in preparation for the possible event that both her decoy is seen through, she is discovered and Guan isn't able cause a suffcient distraction to allow her to flee. It was infinitely harder to pull it off in a universe with spiritual sense. She didn't like the idea to begin with since it would upset her mother and Emily a great deal to think she was dead. Would using a poison to put myself in a Death-like state work? No, that can be seen through as soon as someone notices my soul is still in my body. Using a portal to the shadow world right before an explosion is out of the question as well. I would need a powerful nuke in order for it to not leave a body. Not only would it cause too much collateral damage, I don't even know how to get ahold of one. What about switching out with one of my shadow clones mid-battle? No, that wouldn't work. Mom can tell those things are not me and she is an ordinary person and anyone sent to find me probably has pretty good perception. ARGH! I can't think of anything. If only I could duplicate myself perfectly. Wait, didn't Hellen already teach me how to make something like that already?
Maxine felt like smacking herself over the head for not thinking about that sooner. All she had to do was let it form as it wanted to and hide in the shadow world while her clone performed her day to day activities. She would just have to keep a small portal open at all times in order to maintain the link to it but since she already did that to keep in constant contact with her shadow clone in the shadow world, it wouldn't be that much of an issue.
Maxine was confident that every possible scenario was covered with a decent countermeasure. The only glaring hole in her preparatory plans was that she had no idea if anyone from the Alliance, or any other group for that matter, had discovered her while she was in the shadow world. However she was confident that no one aside from the shadow world's residents had seen her. She endured the remainder of the day as patiently as she could, so that she could make a clone of herself once she got home in a similar fashion to her decoy.
Once classes were over, Maxine went outside and saw that Emily was waiting outside. Maxine showed a huge grin and happily trotted to her. Maxine carefully gave Emily a hug once they were close enough.
"I missed you," Maxine whispered into Emily's ear before parting from her.
"You just saw me last friday," Emily replied and she turned to walk down the street, "Sorry for not talking to you much over the weekend." Much? Try not at all. Maxine took up position beside Emily as they walked to her house.
"I don't really blame you for that though," Maxine said and added with her spiritual sense, "It's not every day that your girlfriend morphs into a type of elf while kissing you. I figured you needed some space."
"You were right, but all I really needed to do was remind myself that you are still the same person inside. You know I am alittle curious about something. What exactly are you? A human, space elf or something else?" Emily asked with spiritual sense.
"I don't really know," Maxine answered, "Well if I think about it, my physiology is practically identical to a humans. So I guess I am mostly human with something else mixed in."
"That's correct, but it's two things not just one," Hellen added without any hint that she had been listening in.
"Thanks, mom," Maxine said to Hellen.
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"What are the two things?" Emily asked.
"Twelve-Headed Hydra King and Shadow Lord," Maxine answered. As soon as she said it, she wondered what kind of pervert would have sex with a hydra enough times for an unlikely child to be conceived. On second thought, I don't want to know. Thinking about it too hard might give me nightmares.
"I am guessing that a Shadow Lord is something like a space elf, but how does it work in the case of the hydra?" Emily asked, "One is a mammal and the other is a reptile. I don't see how they could ever have a child together." That is a good point.
"Maxine's father wasn't born with that bloodline. He absorbed it after killing a Twelve-Headed Hydra King by refining it's blood through a clever use of alchemy," Hellen answered, "As for how he poisoned it to death, I havn't the the slightest clue since that beast was immune to all poison. However, he rightfully earned the title Poison Emperor after slaying it in that manner. However he is still a formidable warrior even without his poisons."
"That's amazing," Emily said and suddenly had a confused look on her face, "But if he is as powerful as I am led to believe, why wasn't he able to raise Maxine himself? And why the fuck did he let that bastard beat her for so long?"
"He didn't know I was being beaten until recently," Maxne answered, "And if he attempted raise me, he would have been constantly worrying that I would be kidnapped by those that want to control him."
"I forgot about that," Emily said, "But he still should have watched over you properly."
"And doing so would have given those assholes enough to be suspicious and I would end up being kidnapped because of it," Maxine reasoned, "Anyways, I have you and your grandpa to thank for putting that child-beating asshole in prison."
"That's true," Emily said and looked around for a moment with a confused expression on her face, "That's wierd. I would have though you would have been swarmed with people wanting to learn how to cultivate long before now."
"I noticed that myself. I wonder where they are," Maxine replied and had her shadow clone at the house take a small peek out of a window on a hunch, "Crap. They are camping out around my house."
"That makes sense," Emily said, "Since you would probably run away to avoid talking to them, right?"
"Yeah," Maxine admitted and asked something that was mildly concerning her to change the subject, "Did you tell your grandpa about my transformation?"
"Yes," Emily replied calmly and Maxine tensed up before Emily added, "Don't worry, he would never tell anyone your secret. I think he is afraid of how people would react to finding out that you are an alien."
"That isn't what I am worried about," Maxine said, "What if someone listened in using spiritual sense?"
"I don't think that happened," Emily answered, "Grandpa turned on a strange device after I mentioned that I wanted to talk about you. That thing gave me a headache when I tried to use my spiritual sense."
"A spiritual sense jammer? He has one?" Hellen asked, "That's amazing. Your government must have put in alot of effort into countering essence cultivators to have developed something like that this soon."
"Well, the US does throw a large chunk of it's income to the military," Maxine said, "It only makes sense that a chunk of that would go to researching essence cultivators."
"That's true," Emily agreed, "Well, I best head home quickly. Grandpa was a bit angry at me earlier when I snuck out to help you clean. Later."
"Later, Emily," Maxine said as Emily turned around and ran full speed back to her house.
Maxine watched Emily until she was out of sight and readied herself to head home herself. However the blonde prettyboy appeared in her path before she could start running. Huh? Isn't he only supposed to observe me?
"Hello, Ms. Levings," the prettyboy said, "I apologize for approaching you, but I need to know something." Maxine was taken aback by his polite behavior. It was nothing like the arrogance that she was expecting after reading that note hidden in the knowledge crystals she got from the Kavros Clan.
"Shouldn't you introduce yourself before you ask questions?" Maxine asked and she saw a twitch at the corner of his left eye. I think I made him alittle angry just now.
"Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten my manners," the pretty boy said, "My name is Turan. Pleased to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too, Turan," Maxine answered politely on reflex and decided to show her displeasure for being watched all this time, "Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, what the fuck do you, a piece of shit stalker, want to know?" Turan's expression soured immediately and it looked like he wanted to retort in kind.
However Turan didn't react like she had expected and answered with his spiritual sense, "I am sorry that you feel that I am a 'stalker,' but I was ordered to observe you by the elders of my race. However I am only approaching you to get an answer to a question since observing you has proven to be fruitless thus far. Let me start by saying that I know you are hiding your abilities. I want to know which abilities you have. It is important to my race."
"Constructs, manipulation of shadows and Shadow Warp," Maxine answered coldly. I am not giving any more detail about my abilities than I have already given to Zephyr.
"Don't lie to me," Turan warned angrily and calmed down before continuing, "I am fully aware that isn't the extent of what you can do. I only saw a glimpse of it, but I know you have the Shadow Lord Form. What shape is the gemstone in your forehead and does it have any black markings or shapes in the center of the primary jewel?" What the fuck? Hellen didn't mention that anyone had seen me with spiritual sense when I transformed. Is he bluffing?
"I don't know what you are talking about," Maxine answered as she walked past Turan, "I'm leaving."
"Fine, play it that way," Turan said and a sinister tone was added as he continued, "But I wonder how hard it will make your life if I let it slip to someone that you are his child."
"I don't believe you are that stupid," Maxine retorted, "Since the instant that you do, the chances of my survival will drop sharply. After all, there are bound to be people that simply want to hurt Guan rather than control him and IF I am captured, I WILL self-destruct to avoid being violated by some idiot that is too horny to think straight. But know this, I have already let daddy dearest know who might let it 'slip' that I was his daughter and I sincerely doubt that your elders will shield you from his wrath because you were too inept and impatient to figure out if I am this 'ruler of shadow' or not that you assholes are looking for." Maxine revealed a vicious grin to Turan, but he didn't seem to be disturbed by her threat at all. He simply gave her a thoughtful look.
"Responding to threats with threats of your own. Interesting. If nothing else it proves that you are smarter than normal. It seems that the jewel of your transformed state is most likely is a marquise jewel," Turan answered calmly, but his tone seemed to have a hint of anticipation as he continued, "Fortunately, there is still a chance for it to evolve when you reach silver stage. Until then I will do my best to divert those looking for you as best as I can. I bid you farewell." Holy shit, he counted how many Shadow Wolves, shadow clones and ravens that I have. It's a good thing he doesn't know about my dragon. And what did he mean by evolve? It doesn't matter anyways. I am not breakingthrough to silver stage in a place that he, or anyone else for that matter, can see me.
Maxine started to run home, and an odd thought cropped up in her head when she was about halfway home. Wait, Hellen said I have the Twelve-Headed Hydra King and the Shadow Lord bloodlines. Why has only my Shadow Lord bloodline manifested? One second thought, I think it's better that the Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline hasn't manifested. I could get scales all over my face and body like Guan or something even creepier could happen. I could sprout multiple heads! Although I would really enjoy having the absurd regeneration powers of a hydra, I don't think my relationship with Emily could take another shock if my appearance changed. I am pushing it as is.
Maxine's face slackened slightly and immediately after a big grin appeared on her face as she changed her destination. She had finally formed the sealing-type spiritual mark perfectly and is going to put it on the queen bee in the bee hive that she found earlier. She was going to do it now since she didn't know how much longer it would take her to duplicate it. After I tame that queen bee with this spiritual mark, I will put a few essence cores inside of the hive so the queen can slowly absorb their essence. That might speed up the process of it becoming an essence beast. If it doesn't, I will try something else. I wonder what essence honey tastes like. It was considered a luxury good a couple months before I died in the previous timeline and I never got to taste it.