In another training session, Caroline and Jason were both trying to construct a special Xuanli seal right in front of them. But no matter how hard they tried, they still could not form a complete seal in the air.

“Don’t worry. If you cannot finish the seal in this session, you can always bring it home with you and I can give you a quiz on our next session.” Jianmen walked around them with his hands and the bamboo stick behind him.

“Homework and quiz?” Jason took a long drink of his wine and shook his head with a wry smile: “I thought I’d dropped out of engineering school for a good reason.”

“And here you are again.” Jianmen smiled: “You know, constructing a sealing spell is very much like doing an engineering project. If you treat it like building a circuit board or writing a piece of program, you may have a better time.”

“Yeah. But you’re also teaching someone who barely graduated high school.” Caroline frustratedly waved away the crumbling Xuanli seal she was not able to construct fully: “How did you first learn to do this?”

“Well, the initial elemental property of my Xuanli is thunder. So the first day I tried, I electrocuted myself so many times I smelled like barbeque chicken.” Jianmen said: “And then my Shifu beat my ass for frying his precious fish in the pond. If not for one of my peers who knows some healing spells, I’d be lying on the bed for a month.”

“Yeah. Tiger Shifu. I can relate.” Jason sighed at the sight of his crumbling seal and said: “Is that why you chose a broom and a meat cleaver as your weapon?”

“No. That’s more of a combination of personal choices and a tragic history of being sent to the kitchen on cooking and cleaning duty for my mistakes.” Jianmen answered: “It is also a product of self discovery and self improvement. You will get your own soul-weapon as you progress on your path of cultivation. But first you need to have a better connection with your Xuanli and have a better control over it. And there is no shortcut, practice, practice, practice. Just like exercise and sports.”

“Yeah. Now you’re speaking my language.” Caroline chuckled: “But normal sports don’t have complicated constructs like seals and arrays.”

“Well then, better start working on the science and engineering part of your brain.” Jianmen nodded: “There are cultivators who relied too much on instinctual path of cultivation - normally the kind that focus way too much on body tempering and close quarter combat. But most of them couldn’t progress past the fifth layer. And as far as I know, none of them ever made it past the eighth layer.”

“But the eighth layer is good enough right?” Caroline sighed and sat down on the ground to take a break.

“Good enough. But barely strong enough to survive big catastrophes.” Jianmen sighed: “You remember the vision you saw? It was a real battle in my last world. In that battle, layer eight cultivators were just slightly more expensive cannon fodder.”

“And which layer were you during the war?” Jason also sat down.

“I was a ninth layer freshman. I was barely above cannon fodder level. And I was lucky to have survived.”

“What is that monster that you were fighting again?” Jason scratched his nose and asked.

“I told you five times already.” Jianmen shrugged: “But you know - when you’re not at at least layer seven, any description or name I gave you will either hurt you or just gradually fade away from your memory.”

“Oh, yeah, I think I forgot about that too.” Jason thought for a few seconds and said.

“You and me both.” Caroline stood up again: “What are the other benefits of making it to higher layers of cultivation again?”

“You live longer; You can survive more dire situations; You have better abilities to protect your families.” Jianmen counted with his fingers: “And, you get to know about the secrets to the universe.”

“Yeah well… that’s not appealing enough. You’ll need a better PR slogan for the Mr. Yu’s School of Cultivation.” Jason joked.

--------------------------------------------

“Thank you everyone!” at the set of The Haunting Crescent, where the big hole made by the Nekomata was not too subtly fixed, Benny the director was standing on a prop chair and ready to give a toast to all the set staff, including paranormal consultants like Lady Manzene, Caroline and Jason: “For your timeless hard work and for your dedication! Today is the final day at this set, and it was the final big milestone of our movie! All that is left, is post shot production!”

“Yay!” “Hear hear!”

“Now! Since it is close to Christmas already, let us have a pre-holiday celebration. All drinks on me!” Benny opened up a bottle of champagne and poured himself a cup: “To completing the shoot! And to a great movie!”

“To a great movie!”

Everyone started the celebration, and while Caroline and Jason were about to simply drink a little, steal some snack and leave, Lady Manzene and Madison came over to them, and Lady Manzene extended a hand to Caroline and Jason: “Hey, haven’t seen you for a while. How are you guys?”

“We’re good. We’re good.” Caroline shook hands with Lady Manzene and tried to keep the interaction casual: “Just um… preparing for Christmas.”

“And uh...” after shaking hands with Jason, Lady Manzene struggled for word, even though she appeared to have thought about what she was about to say: “I … I just wanna say, thank you for the other day. For saving us from those cats.”

“Yeah no problem. How are you feeling?” Jason asked.

“Kinda lousy. That kind of … power was not something meant for humans to take.” Lady Manzene sighed: “How were you guys able to fight them off?”

“This may be a surprise. But they were not dangerous … at least not the source of danger that day.” Jason took a shot of supposedly high degree vodka he grabbed from the bar, yet was left wondering why he wasn’t feeling the buzz at all.

“Is … is that true? Can you tell me more about it?” Lady Manzene stammered while looking Jason in the eye.

Both Caroline and Jason noticed, with a little bit of surprise, that there were a little tears in Lady Manzene’s eyes.