Dragon's Descent [Xianxia, Reverse Cultivation]

The trek into Azure Waters regional territory carried them through landscapes that grew progressively more vibrant the farther they traveled from the main compound. Grassy hilltops gave way to valleys crisscrossed by streams that sparkled with crystalline clarity.

Flowing Creek Village lay at the intersection of the three principal tributaries that defined the region's spiritual infrastructure. Two centuries of cultivating in harmony with these waterways had transformed the area into a natural sanctuary that supported exceptional spiritual growth.

"Have you visited the village before?" Xiaolong asked as they followed a well-maintained path along a winding stream.

"Once, during my junior disciple days," Ming Lian replied. "It's considered an ideal location for meditative work—easy to forget distractions in the midst of all this natural beauty."

The scenery indeed invited contemplation. Every vista appeared designed to highlight natural aesthetics, from carefully tended flowering trees to artfully arranged stone formations that seemed both ancient and deliberate.

"How have you been adjusting to your new insights?" she asked, noting the easy confidence with which he navigated the unfamiliar landscape.

"It's... strange. I keep reaching for old habits, old ways of thinking. But then I stop myself, remember what we've been discussing." He glanced at her, a faint smile playing across his features. "And I try again. Try to engage with the world on my terms, not just react to others' expectations."

"A worthwhile shift."

"I'll be more confident once that shift feels natural. Right now it's still deliberate, like I'm forcing myself to write with an unfamiliar brush."

"Writing improves with practice."

"True enough."

Their conversation lapsed into appreciative silence, both content to let the surrounding beauty speak for itself. The afternoon sun filtered through gently swaying branches, dappling the ground with shifting light patterns that whispered of unseen rhythms beneath the visible world.

"What do you think might be responsible for the contamination?" Xiaolong asked as the village came into view ahead. "Rogue cultivators testing new techniques? A rival sect making trouble?"

"Hard to say. Something methodical though, given how the corruption seems to be spreading." Ming Lian's gaze swept across the tidy houses and well-ordered fields that characterized the village's layout. "Could be testing defenses, or weakening local development capacity before a larger move."

"Or something more insidious?"

He acknowledged the possibility with a nod. "Exactly the sorts of questions we're here to answer."

Flowing Creek Village announced itself through absence rather than presence. No children splashed in the streams that wound between houses. No elderly cultivators sat beside the sacred spring performing their afternoon rituals. Even the village dogs seemed subdued, lying in patches of shade with the resigned patience of creatures waiting for better days.

An elder woman emerged from the largest building—a community hall whose roof tiles displayed the same attention to detail found throughout the village. The deep wrinkles lining her face seemed to deepen further as she greeted them.

"Cultivators from the Azure Waters Sect?" she asked, her voice carrying a note of cautious optimism.

"I am Ming Lian, and this is my associate Xiaolong," Ming Lian said, offering the formal bow appropriate for greeting village leadership. "Elder Wei dispatched us to examine the water corruption affecting your spring."

"Finally. We've lost three weeks of cultivation progress, and two of our promising juniors have developed meridian instabilities from attempting their usual practice." She gestured toward the village center. "The spring is this way. Though I warn you, the water looks normal enough. It's only when you try to use it for spiritual work that the wrongness becomes apparent."

They followed her through streets that should have bustled with afternoon activity but instead felt abandoned. People peered from windows and doorways, their faces shadowed with concern and weariness.

"Have there been health impacts beyond disrupted cultivation?" Xiaolong asked, noticing a young man sitting uneasily on a doorstep, his complexion sickly.

"Some cultivators have reported nausea and fatigue, along with that unsettling sense of spiritual cloudiness. Nothing life-threatening yet, but it adds up." The village elder's voice tightened. "Makes it hard to keep up basic tasks, let alone make any real spiritual headway."

The sacred spring occupied a natural depression at the village's heart, surrounded by carefully placed stones that formed meditation seats. Water bubbled from an underground source with the sort of pure clarity that would normally invite immediate appreciation—or even reverential awe, under different circumstances.

But the normally restorative atmosphere felt... tarnished. A subtle wrongness seemed to emanate from the spring's apparently pristine water, like music played in the correct key but wrong tempo.

Ming Lian approached the spring's edge, his steps slow and deliberate. He extended his spiritual sense toward the water, his expression darkening as he processed what he detected.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing toward one of the meditation seats.

The elder woman nodded. "Please. Though I should warn you that prolonged contact with the corrupted water causes headaches and spiritual disorientation."

"I'll be careful."

Ming Lian settled onto the worn stone, adopting a meditative posture. Closing his eyes, he extended his hands above the water's surface, palms down. His fingers flexed minutely, tracing the invisible currents that defined the water's metaphysical properties.

Xiaolong watched intently, noticing the deepening crease between his eyebrows and the hint of frown pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Several minutes passed in focused silence before Ming Lian opened his eyes, revelation and disgust warring across his features.

"This isn't natural corruption. Someone has deliberately inverted the spring's spiritual properties. The water still contains energy, but it flows backward through cultivation channels—disrupting rather than supporting spiritual circulation."

"Inverted how?" Xiaolong asked.

"Water naturally nurtures and sustains. It follows paths of least resistance, seeks harmony with its environment, supports growth through patient accumulation." Ming Lian's hands moved in subtle gestures. "This water has been... perverted. Forced to resist instead of flow, to drain instead of nourish, to create discord instead of harmony."

The elder woman's face paled. "But who would do such a thing? And why?"

"That's what we're here to discover." Ming Lian rose from the meditation seat. "Can you show me the other affected water sources? I need to examine the corruption pattern across multiple sites."

They spent the next several hours visiting streams, wells, and smaller springs throughout the village territory. At each location, Ming Lian performed the same careful analysis, building a mental map of how the corruption spread and where it concentrated most strongly.

Xiaolong observed his working method with growing respect. Where she would have simply identified the corruption and eliminated it through overwhelming force, Ming Lian was constructing a detailed understanding of the technique's underlying principles. Every observation fed into larger patterns, every measurement refined his theoretical model.

By late afternoon, they had examined seven corrupted water sources. Ming Lian sketched preliminary conclusions on a makeshift map.

"Look at this distribution." He pointed to marks indicating corruption intensity. "The sacred spring shows the strongest inversion, but these tributary streams show progressively weaker effects the farther they get from the main source. It's not random contamination—someone positioned themselves at the spring and used it as an anchor point to corrupt the entire local water network."

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"Positioned themselves when?"

"Based on the corruption's penetration depth, I'd estimate three to four weeks ago. Which matches the timeline for when villagers first reported problems." Ming Lian's finger traced lines connecting the various water sources. "But here's what concerns me more—this pattern isn't designed to poison the water permanently. It's designed to maintain active corruption that requires ongoing spiritual input."

"Meaning whoever did this is still nearby, feeding energy into the technique?"

"Or returning periodically to reinforce it. The corruption is too stable to be remnant effects from a single application." Ming Lian looked up from his map, worry clouding his features. "This is deliberate, sustained interference. Someone is maintaining this corruption as preparation for something larger."

Xiaolong's dragon senses extended outward, seeking any trace of hostile spiritual pressure in the surrounding landscape. "Can you track the energy source?"

"Possibly. The inversion technique creates a spiritual signature—like water flowing uphill leaves traces that show its unnatural movement." Ming Lian's eyes narrowed in concentration. "If I can follow those traces backward to their origin point..."

His focus deepened, spiritual pressure extending in widening circles as he searched for the thread that would lead them to whoever was responsible. Xiaolong remained alert for threats, ready to deflect any interference while he worked.

"There." Ming Lian's eyes snapped open. "Northwest, about two li from the village boundary. There's a knot in the spiritual flow. A place where the natural water currents are being actively manipulated."

"Show me."

They departed the village as evening shadows lengthened, following Ming Lian's spiritual sense toward the disturbance he had detected. The elder woman offered armed villagers as escort, but Ming Lian declined.

"We move faster and more discreetly without company. But thank you for the generous offer."

"Then good hunting, and may you eliminate this blight swiftly."

The terrain grew rougher as they left cultivated areas behind, paths becoming game trails that wound through increasingly dense vegetation. Xiaolong noted signs of recent passage—disturbed undergrowth, broken branches at shoulder height, the faint residue of cultivation techniques that didn't match Azure Waters methods.

"We're close," Ming Lian murmured, his hand moving instinctively toward his sword. "The spiritual disturbance is just ahead, beyond that ridge."

They approached with caution befitting infiltration rather than confrontation, using natural cover to mask their advance. When they crested the ridge, a clearing spread out below—manicured grasses ringed by ancient willows, roots drinking thirstily from the streams that met in the depression's heart.

And at the pool's edge, four figures in unfamiliar robes sat cross-legged in meditation, surrounded by pulsing arrays of spiritual runescript that drew energy from the earth and channeled it toward a central focus point where corrupted water circulated in defiance of natural law.

But it was the technique they employed that made Xiaolong's dragon nature flare with instinctive hostility. The movements were recognizably derived from Azure Waters principles, but inverted and corrupted until they became parodies of the original forms. Water that should have flowed was being forced backward, energy that should have nurtured was being twisted toward harm.

"Black Dao," Ming Lian whispered, revulsion sharpening his voice. "They're using perverted versions of our own techniques to corrupt the regional water network."

"The enemy hiding within." Xiaolong's eyes narrowed. "Elder Wei underestimated the threat."

"We're dealing with a splinter faction—rogue cultivators and banished former sect members combining Forbidden Arts with our own teachings. They've been gathering secretly for decades, stealing our techniques and polluting them into abominations like this."

"Why?"

Ming Lian's expression darkened. "To poison our reputation. Destroy the goodwill we've spent centuries building if they can't rule here themselves."

"Villainous."

"Not strong enough to conquer, but vindictive enough to destroy."

One of the cultivators below looked up suddenly, his spiritual sense apparently detecting their observation.

"Visitors." He called to his companions with casual amusement. "And from the Azure Waters Sect, judging by their spiritual signatures. How convenient."

The four cultivators abandoned their formation work, rising smoothly with weapons drawn. Their spiritual pressure flared brightly, each radiating at least Middle Foundation stage power.

"You're a long way from your compound," the apparent leader said, sneering. "Here to investigate the strange malady afflicting your villages?"

"You can come down and introduce yourselves properly," another man continued, his voice carrying mock courtesy. "Or we can continue this conversation at a distance. Either approach works for us."

Ming Lian glanced at Xiaolong. Rapid calculation flickered across his features as he weighed tactical options.

"We should—" he began, then stopped himself. The moment of self-awareness was visible as he recognized his instinctive impulse to defer the decision to her authority. "We should approach carefully. They're expecting confrontation, which means they're confident in their ability to handle Azure Waters disciples."

"Your assessment of their capabilities?"

"Advanced enough to maintain complex corruption techniques over weeks. Coordinated enough to respond to threats without panic. Dangerous, but not insurmountable if we're smart about engagement." Ming Lian's hand settled on his sword. "I'll handle negotiations. If it comes to combat, I'll need you to trust that I can manage my own fight."

"Acknowledged."

"I mean it. No jumping in to rescue me unless there's no other option. I have to test these boundaries for myself if I'm going to improve."

Xiaolong hesitated, then gave a nod. "Understood."

They descended the ridge together, approaching the waiting cultivators at a pace calculated to convey confidence without arrogance. At Ming Lian's gesture, they stopped about fifteen paces from the Black Dao formation.

"I am Ming Lian. Elder Disciple of the Azure Waters Sect," he announced, voice firm. "And you are?"

The lead cultivator laughed. "Introductions? How formal. Very well then. I am Tan Minzhi, and these are my brothers in advancement, Chen Rui, Song Lin, and Zhao Shen."

"Who are you pledged to?" Xiaolong asked, her own voice flat and intimidating.

"Interesting spiritual pressure you carry... Almost like lightning but not quite. Are you a guest disciple from the Lightning Serpent Clan, perhaps?"

"We're asking the questions, not you."

Tan Minzhi's smile widened. "So impatient. We don't recognize your authority here, little disciples. Perhaps if Elder Wei graced us with his presence, we might offer some deference."

Ming Lian's right hand rested casually on his sword's hilt, his posture balanced and his manner deceptively relaxed. "Your actions here disrupt natural harmony. Cease your techniques and withdraw."

"Such conviction for someone so young. Did they tell you stories at the compound about the dangers of the Black Dao? Paint us as terrible boogeymen lurking in the shadows?"

"No stories necessary when evidence surrounds us," Ming Lian countered. "Whatever grudges or grievances brought you here, you're interfering with innocents who have done you no harm."

Chen Rui, standing to Tan Minzhi's left, snorted derisively. "Spare us the noble rhetoric. We're all cultivators here—we seek power as our natural right. These villagers should feel honored that their meager lives provide foundations for our advancement."

"That's not how our sect operates. It's not how harmony works."

"Harmony, harmony, the endless song." Song Lin's hand moved in a sweeping gesture that echoed his mocking chant. "Protect the people, safeguard their development. Blah blah blah. Spoken like one who was never told he could advance no further."

The statement struck with unexpected force, the words sharp despite their deceptively casual delivery. Xiaolong sensed Ming Lian's pulse quickening, his spiritual pressure coiling defensively around his core.

"So that's it," Ming Lian said after a moment. "Banishment for reaching the limits of your talent. Rather than accept that reality, you've chosen bitterness and blame."

Anger flickered across several of the Black Dao cultivators' faces. Zhao Shen took a half-step forward, hands tightening into fists.

"You understand nothing, boy," he spat. "Nothing of the humiliation, the frustration at being denied your birthright. To be cast aside like broken tools while those with luck surpass those with merit!"

"Was our sect leadership too compassionate in letting you live?" Ming Lian's voice held cold calm as he met Zhao Shen's glare. "Perhaps the old punishments for practicing Forbidden Arts should have been enforced more... stringently."

"You arrogant whelp!" Tan Minzhi's spiritual pressure flared, revealing cultivation at the peak of River Current Realm—equivalent to Ming Lian's official level but without years of deliberate self-limitation. "We should make an example of you for your sect's elders. Perhaps they'll reconsider their weak-willed leniency."

Ming Lian's right hand tightened minutely on his sword. "I wouldn't advise it."

The atmosphere shifted from tense standoff to imminent violence. Spiritual energies swirled restlessly around the Black Dao cultivators, eager for release after long weeks of patient technique work. Whatever restraint they had shown during corruption activities was quickly evaporating before the promise of direct conflict.

Xiaolong braced herself, monitoring Ming Lian's demeanor and spiritual flow for signs she should intervene. But he exuded calm control, his pressure balanced and steady despite the rising hostilities. Whatever turbulence Tan Minzhi's barbs created had not penetrated Ming Lian's focus.

But for Ming Lian to face four opponents of at least River Current power... Her protective instincts rankled at the risk. Only her promise and trust in Ming Lian's assessment kept her from calling down heavenly judgment upon these enemies of his sect.

"We can still resolve this peacefully," Ming Lian said, a final appeal to mutual benefit. "Withdraw from this region, cease your destructive acts, and rejoin the normal flow of society."

"Your words carry ignorance, not wisdom," Tan Minzhi said, his voice low and venomous. "You speak of harmony with those who lack the talent or ambition to strive beyond their stations. But we who see the true power structures of this world understand there are no limits for those willing to challenge them." A vicious smile twisted his features as spiritual energy surged around him. "And now, little disciple, we have a challenge for you."