Maxine was remotely controlling her clone from the shadow world and was patiently waiting for the end of school bell to go off. It had been a month since she started school. She had a few issues when her teachers kept asking her to pay attention in class, but that quickly ceased when she kept giving a perfect answer to every question that she was asked in class. During that entire time, only Silky had noticed that it was her clone moving around and Maxine guessed that it was due to the spiritual mark that acted like a two way road between them. Otherwise, her clone seemed to be working perfectly as her double.

As for the bee hive, Maxine had taken control of the queen bee and was currently trying to raise it properly into an essence beast. The queen bee had doubled in size from absorbing essence eminated from a bronze essence core that she placed inside of the bee hive. Due to the increased size of the queen bee, the hive had nearly doubled in size as well. However this growth was still far too slow for Maxine's tastes. The queen bee needed to be at least six inches long in order to house an essence core and it was currently slightly over two inches long after a month of raising it. In the meantime, Maxine decided to run alittle experiment with the bees. She ordered the queen bee to attempt breeding a warrior type bee. It was going to be twice the size of a normal bee and it wouldn't have a barbed stinger like the other bees. She didn't want these warrior bees to die after a single sting like their drone or worker counterparts. However she knew that if this worked, it would be the limit to modifying them until the queen becomes an essence beast.

In the shadow world, the village had increased in size. There were numerous immigrants from the surrounding villages that had been too badly damaged by the bandits and Maxine had to help them with planning on where to build houses. Unfortunately, city management wasn't her strong suite but she helped where she could by offering the modern grid pattern for housing. However most of her time outside of cultivation within the shadow world was spent studying the various kinds of medicinal ingredients, but to change things up, she studied the alchemical techniques as well as a few alchemical recipes. She found some that would be suitable to help her students to progress more swiftly with the medicinal ingredients that she had managed to acquire.  

As for Maxine's school, she was going to start up classes tomorrow. She had selected individuals from wealthy families for her first batch of students, and insisted that her students go through a thorough psychoanalysis performed by a psychiatrist if they wanted the opportunity to be taught first. She was making use of the fact that they could pay for the psychoanalysis themselves and have them send her the results to ensure none of her students had sociopathic or psychotic tendancies. As for the other potential students that left her an address, she sent a few of her ravens to monitor them one at a time while she trained her first batch. However she knew that her precautions were not perfect and a dangerous student could still slip into her essence cultivation classes. So she called General Cullens to help her resolve that issue. His idea involved that she sign a contract with them stating that she would assist them in bringing in any of her students that became involved in criminal activity while they monitored her students in return. She was more than willing to do that for them if it helped prevent a disaster, and she signed it after making sure there were no unfair clauses inside of the contract. She framed a copy of that contract and a simplified version of it and mounted both of them on a wall where her students could see them.

However for today, Maxine intended to hang out with Emily and Amanda once school was over. Amanda was stressed since not many essence cultivators had joined the police force that she had spent a great deal of effort to make happen. In response to this, Maxine wanted to give Amanda a day that she could have fun and relax. The best way she knew how was to spend some time with her doing things she found relaxing. 

Maxine looked up at the wall mounted clock in the classroom once more impatiently and was literately watching as the final seconds of the day counted down. Finally the end of schoo bell sounded and she was dismissed with the rest of her class. Once she was outside, she quickly met up with Emily and waited for Amanda to arrive.

"Hey," Maxine said to Emily while smiling. 

"Hey, Maxine," Emily said in return, "I still think it's great that you want to take Amanda out to have some fun. She needs this."

"I thought so too," Maxine answered, "By the way, will our outting make it difficult for you to do your homework?"

"No, it shouldn't be a problem," Emily replied, "It's amazing how easy it is to do all of it. It's like my brain got upgraded along with my strength ever since I started cultivating." 

"That is just one of the gifts that essence cultivators receive," Maxine stated, "Although there are limits to it. Only your ability to store and analyze information are improved while your creativity and problem solving skills remain the same."

"That's great!" Emily said happily and looked down the street, "Isn't that Amanda's car?" Maxine looked and it was indeed Amanda's car down the street.

"Yes, it is," Maxine answered, "I wonder if she realizes that she can run faster than her car."

"Probably not," Emily replied, "I didn't realize it until you pointed it."

"I think you are right," Maxine said as Amanda pulled up to their school, "We can talk to her about it later. For now, let's just enjoy the day with her."

"Agreed," Emily said and the both of them got into the backseat of Amanda's car.

Amanda smiled and ask, "Where to first?"

"This is your day to relax. You decide," Maxine answered.

"Alright," Amanda said as she drove off torwards the shopping district. To no one's surprise, they went to a clothing store. It seemed Amanda liked to go shopping. 

Once they were inside, Amanda went straight to the lingerie section and Emily browsed through various outfits. Maybe Amanda needs a new bra or two. Never hurts to have a few extras. Huh? Why is she looking at the sexy variety rather than the practical ones? Does she have a boyfriend now? My curiosity is burning to find out. 

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Maxine sneaked up behind Amanda and said teasingly, "So, who's the lucky guy?"

Amanda froze for an instant before she turned around while blushing every so slightly before she said, "Don't sneak up on me. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"If you were using your spiritual sense, I wouldn't have been able to," Maxine said, "Now about my question."

"You will meet him later," Amanda answered.

"Cool. Has he been treating you good?" Maxine asked.

"Yes, he is an absolute sweet heart," Amanda answered as a fond smile spread across her lips, "He cooks these delicious meals for me every night and does other little things to let me know he cares." 

"That sounds awesome," Maxine said, "So how did the two of you meet?"

"Well, I met him while I was on the job actually," Amanda answered, "When I found him, he was wreathed in flames standing in the center of an abandoned parking lot and he wasn't able to properly control his fire attribute essence. It took some doing, but I managed to talk him through on how to control it. Although we were both embaressed at .. umm..his state of dress afterwards." I bet you both were. Those flames probably burned off every bit of clothing that he was wearing. 

"I bet," Maxine said and remembered a certain fire-attribute essence cultivator that had a thing for red heads in the previous timeline, "Is his name Chris Maze by any chance?" 

"Now how did you know that?" Amanda asked in return.

"I saw the future, remember?" Maxine reminded Amanda, "That big softie wouldn't shut up about his red headed lady." Now that I think about it, Amanda does match up with the woman that Chris described. Is is just a coincidence or is something else going on here?

"That sounds like a similar complaint I heard from the few essence cultivators that have worked with him," Amanda admitted.

"The fact that he does that should prove that he thinks the world of you," Maxine stated, "Anyways, Emily looks like she wants my opinion on some clothes, so I will be off." In truth, Maxine just wanted an excuse to get away from Amanda to avoid revealing any more of the future that she came from. She didn't want to messing up any potential romance between Amanda and Chris anymore than she already had. It was especially important since in the previous timeline Chris' beloved had been brutally murdered in such a method that made Maxine sick to her stomach to even think about it. The only clue to who did it was a single strand of silver hair. HUH!? Why did I just now remember that?! If the future Maxine did that and Chris is a reincarnator, it might be bad. He may try to 'stop me' before I can hurt anyone. But certainly he has seen me helping people on TV and realize that I am not a bad person, right? Regardless, he wasn't able to contorl his essence so the chances of him being a reincarnator are practically zero.

"Maxine, are you okay?" Emily asked while touching Maxine's shoulder, "You got pale for a second there."

"Yes, I am," Maxine answered softly, "I just remembered something horrible from my visions." 

"It's okay," Emily said comfortingtly as she hugged Maxine, "That future shouldn't happen anymore." 

"You're wrong," Maxine said, "It could still happen if there are not enough essence cultivators."

"Is that the real reason why you are starting that school?" Emily asked.

"Mostly," Maxine admitted, "If I only wanted money, I wouldn't have given anyone the opportunity to join my school."

"Actually, I thought that was an effective way to get as much money out of someone as you could," Emily said.

"Making money that way is the same as gambling. It's almost like betting with someone's life rather than with money since any job that is taken from the government is likely to be hazardous to their health," Maxine answered, "It's upsetting to know that some of them could die, but it is necessary."

"I know you don't want anyone to die. You are agood person," Emily said softly and continued as if she didn't realize that she was thinking out loud, "I wonder what you would do if I got hurt doing a job for them." 

"I'm not sure," Maxine answered vaguely, "But I know it won't be pretty." I would kill every last bastard that was involved in hurting you in the most agonizingly brutal fashion that I can think of, especially the dumb son of a bitch that gave you the job in the first place.  

"I see," Emily said and pulled out a red dress that would reveal too much cleavage for a thirteen year old girl to wear, "How do you think this would look on me?" Maxine knew that Emily was changing the subject to put her at ease and appreciated the thought.

"Not something I would let your grandpa see you in," Maxine commented, "I think this one here would suite you better anyways." The dress had a similar color, but had a far more conservative style.

"Mhmm," Emily appraised it and glanced past Maxine, "Looks like Amanda picked out what she wanted. Shall we go?"

"Sure," Maxine said as she put the dress back and the two of them joined up with Amanda. 

Their next stop was a hair salon. Maxine didn't even bother letting them try to cut her hair. It was on the level of trying to cutting hair made of of steel. Neither did Emily for that matter. The hair stylist was working up enough of a sweat just working on Amanda's hair with a pair of scissors.

While Maxine and Emily waited for Amanda to get her hair done, a very attractive, maybe sixteen year old, girl walked in and took a seat just across from Maxine. The girl had raven black hair and sterling blue eyes. She picked up a magazine to read, but every once in awhile she glanced at Maxine with a flirtatious smile. However Maxine wasn't fooled by this act. She could sense the woman was an iron rank six essence cultivator and it was almost a certainty that the girl was not from Earth. I knew someone would approach me in an attempt to persuade me to leave Earth, but I never thought they would use an approach just to get my attention. I guess it makes sense that they would send a girl first. It's publicly known that I am a lesbian. Although it is really insulting that they would think I am dumb enough to fall for something so childish. I will just use this as an excuse to flirt with Emily and let this stupid bitch know that she is nothing in my eyes.

Maxine ignored the woman's further attempts and turned to Emily while showing a big smile. Emily quickly noticed Maxine and appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable. "What's that look for?" Emily asked.

"No real reason," Maxine answered, "I just get really happy when I look at to girl I love." Emily immediately blushed.

"Maxine," Emily sounded very uncomfortable, "Not in public. It's embaressing."

"But you look even cuter when you blush like that," Maxine teased while retaining her smile.

"Maxine, please," Emily said while her face turned a deeper crimson.

"Okay, I'll stop," Maxine said and she deftly planted a kiss on Emily's cheek. Maxine leaned back into her seat and was satisfied when the raven-haired young woman seemed to loose interest. 

After a few moments, Emily whispered, "I love you too, Maxine." A huge smiled spread across Maxine's face as she hugged Emily impulsively and resisted giving Emily a kiss. It would only embaress Emily further..Regardless, she couldn't be happier.

"Ahem," Amanda said from beside of them. Maxine was blushing faintly but had a huge smile on her face. Emily on the other hand revealed a shy smile as her face burned scarlet.

"So, where to next?" Maxine asked both of them shamelessly.

"We are going to eat at my favorite restraunt. My boyfriend will meet us there," Amanda announced, "Let's head out. I need to take you both home after we are done eating. Chris is going to take me out to watch a movie."