As she walked toward a huge amphitheater, Maxine wished grandma Victoria hadn't convinced her to wear Hellen's old clothes. What she was wearing looked almost identical to what grandma Victoria wore on the day that Maxine arrived. Due to Hellen clearly possessing greater height than Maxine, the clothes had been adjusted to fit Maxine's smaller frame. Unfortunately, she couldn't get over the fact that she basically looked like a shorter, bigger breasted version of her grandmother while wearing it, so she went over the events of the past few days to distract herself.

Maxine remembered her own surprise when she found out that Neesa, Yumi and Talia were triplets after she finished removing their scars. Although in hindsight, the chances of that three girls with the rarest eye and hair color combination as well as the fact that they are the same age and size should have been a dead giveaway. Unfortunately when Maxine asked about who damaged their faces, grandma Victoria wouldn't give her a straight answer and Maxine was forced to find out the truth through other means, which could take her some time to do.

Maxine had spent the remainder of her time coming up with finishing moves. Her intent was to make them as flexible as possible in their use and only managed to come up with four that might be effective. Two of them she could use at any time, but the other two had to be used in conjunction with either her wolf or harpy essence armors. Unfortunately she couldn't use those two due to what she was wearing. The essence armor variants would damage her clothes. However she doubted that she would find very many uses for single target attacks outside of duels or tournaments. Since in the past, she had mostly been in many vs many or one vs many fights and very rarely fought in a gentlemanly one on one fights. At least, I can use these attacks as nice finishing moves against powerful essence beasts.

When she entered the amphetheater, Maxine started paying attention to her surroundings more closely and dragged her thoughts to the present as she looked around. Grandma Victoria was leading her to the competitor seating area and finally got to see who she was going to be up against. She was in the tournament for the younger generation, whose participants were thirteen to fifteen years old. She quickly ran her gaze over the nearly one hundred assembled competitors.

Only a few of the teenagers present had any kind of killing intent emanating from their bodies. I really wish grandma Victoria mentioned the age group I would be primarily fighting against when she mentioned the tournament a few days ago. I doubt any of these kids have been in any kind of life threatening danger. It almost feels like I am going to be up against a bunch of cuddly kittens instead of fearsome tigers that I expected three days ago. I feel like all of the work I put into making those attacks was for nothing. Oh well. At least, this a good place to see how feasible my new attacks will be in combat.  

"Here you are. The tournament should start shortly," grandma Victoria said, "I will be watching the competition with your grandfather and the other elders. Remember I don't care if you win or not. All you need to do is try your best." 

"Alright, grandma," Maxine said with a small appreciative smile on her face before grandma Victoria turned around and left. Although she didn't like it when grandma Victoria gave her a nosebreaking hug, Maxine still enjoyed the affection that she got from her grandmother since that affection partially satisfied her desire to be loved. She just wished grandma Victoria wasn't so rough in dealing out that affection.

Maxine was unconsciously smiling to herself when she sensed someone was next to her. She turned to see a young man much taller than herself. His loose fitting clothes didn't do much to conceal his considerable muscle mass. "Yes?" Maxine asked. She didn't like it that such a large young man was this close to her.

"You are the Patriarch's grand daughter right?" he asked amiably.

"Yes, why do you ask?" Maxine responded and saw his face light up. However his eyes revealed his true intent. And here come the droves of assholes trying to court me so that they can become the son inlaw of Guan for their own benefit. 

"Is there anything you wanted to know about the tournament, young miss?" he asked politely. Huh? I thought for sure he was going to ask something else.

"No, I don't have any. My grandmother was quite thorough in regards to the rules," Maxine answered and she started to turn away. Yeah, there was only one rule that applied to me and it stated that I can only use one construct at a time.

"After the tournament would you like to spar or hunt essence beasts?" he said as she stepped infront of Maxine. 

"No, thank you. I have no desire to be social with any male unless he is a real man," Maxine answered calmly, "Not a boy that thinks his massive muscles makes him one." 

"What is a real man?" he asked.

"That's hard to answer," Maxine replied calmly, "But perhaps this will help you understand." She created an illusion beside her of images from when she had still been Maxwell in the other timeline. She started with how he had found Emily's mangled form and nursed her back to health. She followed with his rage and anguish at her death. She finished it with the sight of Maxwell holding his ground and fighting to his last breath against a horde of essence beasts while innocent refugees fled. Compassion, bravery, ferocity in battle, the capacity to feel love for someone regardless of outward appearances and the capacity for noble sacrifice to protect strangers. I dare you fuckers to find a young master like that. There might be a few that have three or four of those traits but not all five.

No one present said a word. The young man only left with his head hanging low probably because he knew that he didn't qualify. 

Maxine looked around for a spot to sit down. She saw a few spots with other girls beckoning her over, but from the looks in their eyes, she knew they had ulterior motives. She just didn't know what they were. The only spot she felt like sitting at was next to a young man with long black hair in a pony tail. The reason she wanted that seat is because the young man, unlike everyone else present, was ignoring her.

Maxine took a seat next to him and got a better look at his face. He is ruggedly handsome, and his blue-steel eyes were mesmerizing even from her current angle. He is still ignoring me. I am not sure if I feel insulted or happy about that. Oh well, his reaction is still way better than everyone else's.

"You shouldn't sit next to me," he said without any warning. 

"I will sit where I want," Maxine responded. 

"I am only warning you," he said in a neutral tone, "My great grandfather is trying to find me a wife and with your beauty, he may decide that you and I are a good match."  

"Only if he has a death wish," Maxine retorted, "Daddy dearest has already warned the clan and everyone else for that matter about what would happen if they tried that."

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"And who is this 'daddy dearest' of yours?" he asked with a slight smile on his face. Does this guy live under a rock?

"Poison Emperor Guan," Maxine stated flatly.

"What?" he said in surprise as he finally turned his head to look at Maxine, "You're the Patriarch's grand daughter?" 

"Yes," Maxine answered.

"I apologize for my rudeness earlier, young miss, but you still shouldn't sit next to me," he said before facing forward again, "Some of the elders may view it as a political move on your part."

"I could care less how they view this as," Maxine answered while feeling frustrated that it wasn't socially appropriate to curse, "I just want to be left alone and you were the only person here ignoring me. So please, continue to do that."

"Very well," he said with a small smile, "My name is Joshua Keniph." Huh? Why did he introduce himself and shouldn't his last name be Kavros? That's wierd. Maybe he is announcing which branch of the Kavros clan he is from? I will have to ask grandma Victoria about it later. 

"Thank you," Maxine said as she faced forward while trying to keep her inner thoughts to herself and began to wonder when this tournament would begin.

As if on cue, Boreas stood up and said with an authoritve tone, "Before the youth tournament begins, let me remind all of you that this arena has been modified to prevent accidental deaths by projecting a forcefield around the participants. Once sufficient damage has been inflicted to it based off of your physique and defensive techniques, a specially created AI will teleport the looser out of the arena and announce the winner. So feel free to unleash your techniques at will. There is also a special formation array to equalize the strength of competitors, so this tournament will be based on skill alone, not on who is stronger. Now without further interruptions, may the youth tournament begin." That makes things a little easier if we are all fighting on an even playing field. Now it all depends on skill and experience, which I have an abundance of, rather than power.   

After Boreas sat back down, the synthetic voice of the AI announced, "Joshua Keniph vs Liam Raas." 

Joshua stood up and leapt onto the arena the instant his name was called followed by the young man that talked to Maxine earlier. A pair of heavy gauntlets made of a metal Maxine had never seen before adorned Joshua's fists and Liam was wielding a heavy sword. Liam has a slight advantage in this fight due to his greater reach and more powerful strikes, but that heavy sword's weight will try to throw him around offsetting his advantages to a degree. 

"Begin," the AI boomed.

As Maxine expected due to his inexperience, Joshua rushed at Liam. Idiot, never do a frontal assault on a heavy weapon user unless you know what you are doing. Liam performed a vertical chop, but the chop was stopped in mid-swing as another pair of arms appeared on Joshua's back to grab the heavy sword before it could gain that much momentum. What the actual fuck?! He can manifest body parts using shadow essence?! That is hard to pull off. I know. I have tried. The two extra arms threw the weapon to the side before transforming into rapidly dispersing mist as Joshua's normal arms started unleashing a flurry of essence-empowered blows to Liam's chest, ribs and stomach. 

Liam quickly drove Joshua away by unleashing a powerful kick, but unfortunately it didn't connect as Joshua kicked the ground to propel himself backwards. Liam released a frustrated roar as he slashed at the air creating a visible shockwave that hurtled toward Joshua. Joshua avoided the attack by kicking the groud to propell himself to the side. Joshua quickly closed the distance and grabbed Liam's wrist to seal the heavy sword own before spawning a set of arms again. What followed would have been a savage beating had the forcefield not been present, but before too many blows had fallen, Liam was teleported out of the arena as the AI announced that Joshua was the winner. Afterwards Joshua quickly returned to his seat to allow the next match to begin.   

Maxine began to critique Joshua's performance. He used the right approach to beat Liam, but the way he moved was restrained. He is probably holding back for when he fights against a more challenging opponent in order to catch them off guard. Too bad for him that my experience outweighs his by far. Only, I don't know exactly how much he is holding back. For all I know, he could be as good or better than I am.

Maxine's attention was drawn when the next combatants were called up to fight, but she quickly lost interest. Their skill level was horrible and it was almost painful to watch. They were making every mistake possible. Their edged blades collided instead of dodging or parrying the attacks properly. One of them even used a flying kick which was idiotic since that move was originally used to dismount calvary and not to be used against a stationary opponent on foot. She even saw an excessively long combination attack, which failed to do that much damage. After ten minutes of that stupidity, the winner was finally announced. Please dear lord, tell me those two were only screwing around and weren't taking this seriously.

"Maxine Levings, vs Casey Krant," the AI announced. I'm a bit happy that Grandma Victoria insisted that I keep that last name, even if it's the family name of my abusive father. It's too bad that grandma's intentions were motivated to keep me out of the clan politics. By having the AI anounce my family name as Levings, I am, more or less, announcing my intentions to stay out of clan politics.  

Maxine formed her essence armor and leapt onto the arena. Her opponent was scrawny young man wielding a spear. He looked only a year older than Maxine. Since I don't want to show off too much, I might as well use a polearm too. She expanded her shadow and had her decoy drop the war scythe into the portal. It literately jumped out of her shadow and she snatched it out of the air before getting into a fighting stance.

Casey as well as half of the elders were looking at Maxine with varying degrees of surprise. Oops, I should have jumped into the arena with the war scythe in hand. Oh well, too late to worry about it now. 

"I hope you're at least as good as Liam," Maxine said calmly, "Otherwise, you will loose badly." 

"I can handle myself, young miss," Casey stated confidently as he got into a fighting stance. We shall see about that. Let's start off with a probing attack. 

"Begin," the AI announced after Maxine felt her cultivation being surpressed down to Iron stage rank 1.

Maxine quickly rushed at Casey, whom got into a defensive stance instantly. She thrusted her war scythe towards Casey's neck while creating eleven duplicates of her attack using her essence that were aimed to either kill or cripple Casey. However she was only using this attack at ten percent of it's maximum strength to determine his abilities, so other than her primary attack, the remaining strikes made of essence possessed only one tenth her normal striking power. She called this move Hydra King's Fury. 

Casey's defense was quite good compared to the previous two competitors, but it was still horribly lacking. He barely managed to defend against her primary, but failed to block the other ones. In the instant after her attacks landed, Casey was teleported out of the arena and back to his seat. That was disappointing. It was like fighting someone with almost no combat experience. That attack wasn't that hard to defend against, especially after I toned it down. All he had to do after blocking the primary attack was to employ a partial barrier to defend against the other ones. 

"Winner, Maxine Levings," the AI announced as Maxine deactivated her essence armor and placed the war scythe into her dimensional pouch before sighing.

As Maxine returned to her seat, she realized that many people were making comments about her. They were wondering what could have happened to her to make her so vicious at such a tender age. Vicious? I was taking it easy, but if they consider me vicious, they are far more peaceful than I gave them credit for. That is unless they typically don't have their children battle other humans until their mid to late teens. That might account for their lack of experience in that department.

Once she was seated, Maxine looked to the elder's seating area and, she saw an approving smile on her grandmother's face. At least grandma approves. Now I just have to wait for my next match and watch the other matches. Hopefully there will be some promising opponents. Otherwise I will have to lower my skill level in order not to humiliate these children and create enemies within my own clan. If I piss too many people off, they may just look the other way if some bold dipshit tries to kidnap me. Now that I think about it, I better smooth things over with Casey. She looked over to the still shocked Casey while wondering what she could say to soothe his wounded ego.