Of course when we got out the attendant that I had tipped heavily had returned with not only her favorite food but something for me as well. So we towelled off, put on robes and retired to a nice dinner.

"Everything feels so vivid now," she said, in between bites of her yak steak.

"The best part is when you reach out. It's like seeing without your eyes. You don't get colors, but you do see literally everything."

She gulped mid bite then had to hit herself in the chest several times to start again.

"So if say someone were to stuff things in places to appear like they had more assets then they actually had, a nascent soul cultivator would be able to see that?"

"Why I have no idea whatever you mean, my dear Lee. Do you know of anyone who would do something like that? And would readily admit to it?"

Her face turned red.

"No, it's just that. Um. How do I put this? If say someone was trying to do something that would be easily be found out, it would be very apparent, correct?"

"Correct."

"So if say a friend of mine decided to do such a thing and say their friend had a Nascent soul... Then the second friend could save the first friends face by not telling them that the whole time they known. And that it would just be easier for the second friend to kind of forget about some of the details?"

"If your friend's friend was going to say something about the thing that he or she had seen or felt, they probably would leave these details out. It doesn't do them any good."

"And if say both friends could come to an agreement where certain details of a personal nature don't get leaked out, that would be those kind of details? It would be something that a nice dinner might make up for?"

I paused to finish chewing my yak steak. The sheer variety of food on this world always made me giggle a little bit. This steak had been seared and felt nearly overcooked for how chewy it had ended up.

"I feel like that would be appropriate."

She held out a pair of chopsticks with a chunk of steak.

"Sold. Now how are the girls doing?"

"Egiya dropped by while you were in closed door cultivation. Nothing much is going on with her. Xueyie was too busy with work."

"Do you think Lorenzo might become a cultivator?"

"It's possible. Everything is possible. The foundation is there even if nothing else is. He is from my world so he could progress to the first realm relatively easily. But he-all of them are going through something now."

Lee waved her chopsticks at me conspiratorially.

"So let them be. Let them find their way to cultivation on their own, but open the door for them?"

"Exactly. Something just like that."

The silence grew comfortable for a minute as we both chewed on our yak steaks.

There had to be some reason why people from my world were more susceptible to becoming cultivators when they came over. It was probably something that the Red Fang sect new when they were taking people. If I recalled correctly, it felt like I had made significant jumps quickly, far quicker with anyone that I had met here. It had been a fiery welcome to this new world. I had been a bit of a loose cannon earlier but now was trying to get on my ducks in a row and finding that they have been replaced by squirrels.

"While we're here though. Would you mind doing me a favor?"

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I explained how it taken the mandarin into my dreamscape and he had just felt like a force of nature. I hadn't so far taking anyone else of the fourth roman and I was curious as to how that would affect their experience in the dreamscape.

We had trained together thoroughly prior to this so she understood what it was like in there. And she was partial to giving and the honest truth. And not just the brutal, honest truth where someone just concerned with being brutal and not just honest.

"I wouldn't mind going into the dreamscape for a little bit. I feel like it's been a week since we did so anyway. However, we haven't talking a lot and I would appreciate the chance to finish this damn fine yak steak."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Sometimes we sparred each other. Sometimes it inspired something out of one of our dreams. And sometimes it worked as a team. On a particularly tough nightmare. Today we just decided to scale a small mountain and see how that one would go. At the top of the mountain of course I would put a nightmare for us to face together.

So it was that we were sprinting up the side of the mountain when a griffin began to toss boulders at us, making us both have to perform a full body Dodge or get crushed in the process.

"It feels more fluid," she yelled, jumping past a boulder three times her size.

"Like you're a liquid?"

"Like I'm a cat."

I narrowly missed a boulder as it grazed my right shoulder. The pain was notional, but my reaction wasn't.

She shot forward ahead of me. She had always been a bit faster until I had advanced ahead of her but this felt like she had surpassed me once again.

I started to wonder how many boulders that could be but it was a dream so the answer was probably as many as needed. When the next Boulder was approaching me head on, I decided that I might want to test out my own path. I reached out with my nascent soul and then it got closer, grabbed it with my tactile telekinesis. It still had a lot of velocity coming down the hill, but now it was me working against gravity.

It was a fight with the boulder and instead of using it to move myself, I instead made it float. Then without letting go I took one step then another making sure that I kept contact at all times as a walked around the boulder. Once I circumnavigated it and was on the top side, I released my energy, pushing off of it and jumping to the mountain. As I looked up, there were no more boulders coming. Whoever had been throwing them was now fully occupied in whatever they were doing.

Which was, as I found out, was fighting against moon Lee.

The pair traded blows. The griffin was an unfortunate nightmare mashup of a fox and a seagull. Fur and feathers flew as they flew at each other trying, each trying to punch or slam harder than the other one. One of its sides was a bit more wounded than the other, or it just wanted to favor it's other.

She on the other hand, was a woman in her element. She ran faster than an olympic sprinter, head first into the griffin, trying to dislodge it from her path as it did the same. They both rocketed back after clash.

The griffin saw me, warily checking his side as he probably ran some calculations about how much he valued his life.

The answer, as he charged at me, happened to be, 'Not much.'

Instead of running at him, I stepped back, in midair, then grabbed on his beak, turning him into a ball.

"Catch!" I said, tossing the griffin over to Moon Lee.

She had never played soccer before-I know, I asked later-but her kick to the griffin ball would have made a fan cry. I choked up a bit as she spiked it into the ground, turning up a cloud of dust and debris.

There she stood, fury incarnate, her hair finally out of it's perennial updo as it moved freely around her.

This was the kind of woman who was a bit out there and to see her lay it all out right there on the battlefield gave me chills. Her choice to bury the griffin under a load of rock and then continue to press her luck warmed my heart. I wondered briefly what fo tasted like. So nasty that it would be a travesty. I should have let that one go, but then the griffin decided to go for a slice of Moon pie.

I descended upon the griffin, a royal axe kick snapping its head around. It was a damn shame too, because I wanted a slice suddenly.

'You feeling hungry?'

We left the griffin, and shortly thereafter the dreamscape.

"It's not your fault. I just wanted to save your face."

"We were in the dreamscape. I had it well within hand," She said in between bites of sweet buns.

Cultivation and fighting made one well skilled and hungry in equal measure. I wanted to make sure I had enough of both.

"I'm so proud that you got stronger, but I raised two girls. Of course if I get a clean shot at something that is attacking you, I'm going to take it."

"Noted."

"Noted?"

"Noted. You're still a dick."