For the next several hours, they practiced increasingly refined versions of the basic exercise. Xiaolong carefully modulated her performance—improving steadily but not miraculously, occasionally introducing minor failures to maintain the illusion of a learning curve.

  What she hadn't anticipated was how absorbing the process would become. There was something oddly satisfying about the deliberate restriction of her abilities—like a master musician playing a simple folk tune and discovering new beauty in its uncomplicated melody.

  By midday, she had progressed to maintaining a stable water sphere that could complete simple directional changes without dispersing. Li Feng nodded with approval as she successfully guided the sphere through a figure-eight pattern.

  "Excellent progress. Most disciples take days to achieve that level of control."

  "I have an aptitude for water," Xiaolong replied, which was true in the sense that she had aptitude for all elements, water included.

  "Indeed. Though your technique remains... unusual." Li Feng watched as her water sphere completed another circuit. "You direct the water as though commanding a subject rather than partnering with it. Effective, but not aligned with our sect's philosophy."

  This observation cut closer to truth than Li Feng could know. Dragon cultivation fundamentally differed from human approaches—dragons didn't partner with elements, they mastered them through inherent superiority.

  "How would you suggest I adjust my approach?" Xiaolong asked, genuinely curious.

  "Try feeling the water's natural inclination before directing it," Li Feng suggested. "Like testing the current of a river before steering a boat. Work with its nature rather than imposing your will entirely."

  He demonstrated by forming a new water sphere, then allowing it to distort slightly based on its natural surface tension before guiding it into a smooth flow. The difference was subtle but undeniable—his water moved with grace while hers moved with precision.

  "I see," Xiaolong said, though she wasn't entirely sure she did. The concept of yielding control seemed fundamentally counterintuitive. Power was meant to be exercised, not restrained.

  "Don't worry if it doesn't come naturally at first," Li Feng assured her. "This philosophy takes time to internalize. Even sect-raised disciples struggle with the concept."

  He gestured toward the stone dais beneath the waterfall. "I need to resume my meditation now. The afternoon is the optimal time for communion with the waterfall's boundary essence."

  Xiaolong nodded, releasing her water sphere back into the pool. "I'll continue practicing while you meditate."

  "Try not to create any more ice dragons," Li Feng said with that small smile again. "They attract attention, and I'd prefer to complete my pilgrimage without interruptions."

  With that, he moved to the dais and assumed the lotus position beneath the cascading water. Within moments, his breathing had slowed and his spiritual essence had aligned with the waterfall's unique energy signature.

  Xiaolong watched him with undisguised fascination. There was something mesmerizing about the absolute focus he achieved—as though nothing existed beyond his communion with the water.

  She had observed countless human cultivators over the centuries, usually with detached amusement at their limited understanding, but never with this peculiar sense of... admiration?

  The concept was so foreign that she nearly dismissed it immediately. Dragons did not admire lesser beings. It violated the natural order of things.

  And yet.

  She turned her attention back to the water circulation exercise, determined to master this strange philosophy of partnership rather than dominance. Not because she believed it superior to draconic methods, of course—merely because understanding it would further her experimental goals.

  As afternoon drifted toward evening, Xiaolong practiced with uncharacteristic patience, attempting to feel the water's "wishes" rather than simply commanding it to move. Progress was frustratingly slow. Every instinct rebelled against this approach—like asking an emperor to request permission from peasants before issuing decrees.

  Occasionally she glanced toward Li Feng, still motionless beneath the waterfall. Water streamed over his form without seeming to touch him, a continuous curtain that somehow left him dry. His spiritual essence had harmonized so completely with the waterfall that they had become indistinguishable to normal senses.

  As twilight approached, painting the waterfall with amber and violet hues, Xiaolong made her first genuine breakthrough. Rather than forcing the water sphere along her predetermined path, she allowed her awareness to merge with the water itself, sensing its natural tendencies before suggesting—not commanding—a direction.

  The sphere responded by flowing with unexpected grace, moving not with mechanical precision but with living fluidity. The sensation was utterly different from her normal manipulation of elements—less like a craftsman carving stone and more like a dancer moving with a partner.

  "Remarkable, isn't it?"

  Li Feng's voice startled her so completely that the water sphere burst apart, showering them both once again. He had emerged from his meditation without her noticing—a feat that should have been impossible given her heightened senses.

  "I didn't hear you approach," she admitted, surprised by her own lapse in awareness.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "You were fully immersed in the water consciousness," he explained, seeming pleased rather than bothered by the second soaking. "It's an encouraging sign. Most cultivators remain separate from their element for years before achieving even momentary communion."

  Xiaolong wasn't entirely sure how to process this assessment.

  Had she genuinely achieved something new, despite her millennia of elemental mastery? The very idea was preposterous. And yet the sensation had been unlike anything in her vast experience.

  "It felt..." She searched for words to describe the unfamiliar experience. "Less like control and more like conversation."

  Li Feng nodded, his expression brightening with evident satisfaction. "Exactly. That's the essence of the Way of Flowing Water—dialogue rather than monologue."

  He stepped closer, studying her with new interest. "You truly have remarkable aptitude. With proper training, you could advance quickly through the early cultivation stages."

  There was genuine professional pride in his voice—the satisfaction of a teacher seeing unexpected potential in a student. Xiaolong found herself oddly pleased by his approval, despite its objective irrelevance to her true capabilities.

  "Thank you," she said, the words still unfamiliar on her tongue. Dragons did not express gratitude to lesser beings; it violated the hierarchical principles that governed draconic interaction.

  The sun had nearly set, casting long shadows across the waterfall basin. Li Feng glanced at the darkening sky with a practical air.

  "We should establish camp for the night," he said. "The temperature drops quickly in this boundary region."

  He moved toward a small outcropping where he had stored his modest travel supplies, retrieving a bundle wrapped in oilcloth.

  "I have provisions for myself, but..." He glanced at Xiaolong questioningly. "Did you bring supplies? I didn't notice any when you arrived."

  This simple practical question highlighted yet another oversight in Xiaolong's planning. She had been so focused on her transformation and backstory that basic human necessities like food and shelter had entirely escaped her consideration.

  "I..." She searched for a plausible explanation. "I travel light."

  Li Feng's expression suggested this answer was insufficient. "No bedroll? No provisions?"

  "I adapt to my surroundings," Xiaolong improvised, drawing on draconic pride to mask her embarrassment. "Excessive comforts dull the spiritual senses."

  "Asceticism has its place," Li Feng acknowledged, "but proper rest and nourishment support rather than hinder cultivation. Even mountain hermits understand this balance."

  He unrolled his bedroll and began arranging stones for a small fire, his movements efficient and practiced. "You're welcome to share my fire and food," he added, the offer made casually but with genuine hospitality. "Tomorrow we can discuss more sustainable arrangements if you truly intend to accompany me on my pilgrimage."

  This was yet another novelty—a lesser being offering resources to a dragon, with neither fear nor expectation of reward.

  In dragon society, resources flowed from lesser to greater beings as a matter of natural order. Gifts moved downward through the hierarchy only as demonstrations of power or benevolence from a superior position.

  Yet Li Feng's offer contained no power play, no status assertion—just straightforward kindness. The concept was so alien that Xiaolong found herself momentarily at a loss for an appropriate response.

  "Thank you," she said again, the phrase becoming marginally less strange with repetition. "I would appreciate that."

  As Li Feng prepared a simple meal of dried fruits, nuts, and rice cooked with herbs, Xiaolong found herself watching his movements with the same fascination she had observed in his cultivation techniques. There was an economy and grace to his actions that suggested harmony with his environment rather than domination of it.

  Even more intriguing was her own reaction to these observations. Not just intellectual curiosity, but something warmer and less definable—a sensation that seemed to center in her chest rather than her mind.

  How peculiar that a simple human preparing food could provoke more complex emotional responses than the rise and fall of empires had ever managed to elicit.

  As they sat beside the small fire, watching darkness envelop the Sacred Waterfall, Xiaolong contemplated this unexpected development.

  She had begun this experiment seeking to understand an approach to power contrary to her nature. She had not anticipated that the most profound contradictions might emerge not in cultivation philosophy, but in the simple human interactions that accompanied it.

  The most accomplished dragon scholars had always dismissed human connections as primitive evolutionary adaptations to compensate for individual weakness.

  Yet observing Li Feng—his thoughtful provision of food, his patient instruction, his genuine pleasure at her progress—she began to wonder if dragons had perhaps overlooked something significant in their dismissal of human relationships.

  "You seem deep in thought," Li Feng observed, offering her a cup of fragrant tea.

  She accepted the cup, noting how the simple ceramic felt warm against her fingers—another sensation her draconic form would have barely registered.

  "I was considering," she said carefully, "how much one might learn from perspectives different from one's own."

  Li Feng nodded, his expression thoughtful in the firelight. "Elder Wei used to say that the greatest barriers to wisdom are not what we don't know, but what we think we know with certainty."

  He sipped his tea, gazing at the waterfall now visible only as a silver shimmer in the darkness. "Each waterfall on this pilgrimage teaches a different aspect of water's nature. This Fourth Waterfall represents boundaries—not just between realms, but between ways of understanding."

  She followed his gaze, seeing the waterfall with new eyes—not as a minor boundary anomaly between mortal and immortal realms, but as a symbol of transitions between fundamentally different states of being.

  How appropriate that her own unprecedented transformation had begun here, at this boundary between worlds. Perhaps there was meaning in such symmetry.

  "What do the other waterfalls represent?" she asked, genuinely curious about the human cultivation framework that had produced someone like Li Feng.

  His expression brightened at her interest. "Each waterfall embodies an essential principle. The First teaches persistence, the Second teaches discernment, the Third teaches hidden strength..."

  As he described the remaining waterfalls on his pilgrimage, she found herself drawn into his obvious passion for the journey ahead. The simple human cultivator spoke of spiritual insights with the same reverence a dragon might describe cosmic phenomena.

  Watching him in the flickering firelight, his hands sketching water patterns in the air as he explained each waterfall's significance, Xiaolong experienced an unsettling realization: she was genuinely enjoying his company.

  Not as an amusing curiosity or an experimental subject, but as a being worthy of attention and respect.

  Five thousand years of draconic certainty, and a single day of human interaction had introduced more questions than millennia of existence had answered.

  How very troubling. How very intriguing.