If dragons had a list of phrases they never expected to hear in their multi-millennia existences, "please use your soup spoon, not your rice utensil" would rank somewhere between "your hoard looks rather small today" and "have you considered a career in sheep herding."

  Yet here was Xiaolong, ancient prismatic dragon of the highest order, being gently corrected on her table manners by a fourteen-year-old outer disciple whose job apparently involved preventing cultivation guests from committing dining faux pas.

  "Honored guest," the girl whispered with the mortified determination of someone performing an unpleasant but necessary duty, "the water chestnut soup is traditionally consumed with the rounded spoon, not the pronged implement."

  Xiaolong stared at the array of utensils surrounding her breakfast setting as though they were complex ritual artifacts designed specifically to humiliate cosmic entities. In her defense, human dining implements had multiplied exponentially since she last paid attention.

  Back then, a simple knife and perhaps a crude spoon had sufficed for even imperial banquets. Now, it seemed humans had developed specialized tools for every conceivable food interaction, as though eating were a surgical procedure requiring precise instrumentation.

  "My mistake," she replied with all the dignity she could muster, which was considerably less than her usual mountain-crushing presence. "Different... regional customs."

  The morning meal in the Azure Waters Sect's main dining pavilion had begun innocently enough. Li Feng had collected her from the guest chambers with a formal greeting that carried a hint of genuine warmth, explaining that breakfast was considered a more casual affair than evening meals, with fewer protocol requirements.

  "A chance to observe sect life in its natural rhythm," he had suggested.

  What he had failed to mention was that "casual" by Azure Waters standards still involved at least seventeen different unspoken rules about everything from seating arrangements to the precise angle at which one held one's teacup.

  Dragons, who typically consumed their rare meals by simply unhinging their jaws and swallowing whatever unfortunate creature had annoyed them that century, were woefully unprepared for such culinary complexity.

  The morning gathering was indeed less formally structured than the previous evening's meal. Disciples sat in loose groupings based more on friendship than strict hierarchy, though Xiaolong noted that senior members still gravitated toward the center while outer disciples populated the periphery through some unspoken social magnetism.

  Li Feng had guided her to a table where several familiar faces from the previous evening were already gathered—including Ming Lian, who greeted them with a cheerful wave and what appeared to be half a steamed bun protruding from his mouth.

  "Our visitor survives her first night in the misty compound!" he declared after hastily swallowing. "Did the sprites visit you? They love tormenting guests with whispers about secret sect rituals that don't actually exist."

  "Ming Lian," admonished a serene voice that Xiaolong recognized as belonging to Disciple Yue from the previous evening, "please refrain from perpetuating that ridiculous rumor. The sprites are merely a childish explanation for the natural spiritual resonance in the guest quarters."

  "Spoken like someone who's clearly in league with the sprites," Ming Lian stage-whispered to Xiaolong with exaggerated conspiracy.

  It was at this point that the breakfast service began, and with it, Xiaolong's descent into dining etiquette hell.

  First came the tea ceremony—apparently a daily ritual that everyone else performed with the unconscious ease of decades of practice.

  Water was poured, leaves measured, steeping times observed with meticulousness that would impress imperial chronologists.

  Xiaolong found herself mimicking Li Feng's movements with careful attention, only to discover that female disciples followed a slightly different protocol involving an additional circular flourish when lifting the cup.

  This deviation was helpfully pointed out by the same fourteen-year-old who would later become Xiaolong's utensil nemesis.

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  "Disciple Meihua serves as our hospitality guide for visitors," Li Feng explained, his expression betraying not a hint of amusement at Xiaolong's predicament. His spiritual essence, however, rippled with barely suppressed mirth that she could detect with her heightened perception. "Her attention to protocol is... thorough."

  "Elder Brother Li is too kind," Meihua replied with a formality that seemed almost comical coming from someone who barely reached Xiaolong's shoulder. "Proper observation of sect customs honors both host and guest."

  Xiaolong, who had once reduced an immortal phoenix to tears by simply arching a single scaled eyebrow in its direction, found herself oddly intimidated by this tiny human's absolute certainty regarding proper teacup rotation direction.

  The meal itself arrived in elegant stages, each presented with a flourish that suggested significance beyond mere nutrition. Steamed rice, fragrant congee, various preserved vegetables, and delicate fish dishes arranged in patterns that resembled cultivation diagrams. Xiaolong observed the other diners with scholarly interest, noting how each used specific implements for specific dishes.

  Dragons, it should be noted, did not typically concern themselves with dining implements beyond perhaps using a claw to dislodge particularly stubborn bits of knight from between their teeth.

  The concept of having different tools for different food items seemed as absurd as having different roars for different types of villages—unnecessarily complicated when one perfectly good village-terrifying roar would suffice for all scenarios.

  Yet here she was, confronting what appeared to be seven different spoons, each with a slightly different bowl shape and handle length, apparently designed for specific soup viscosities.

  "Is something amiss with your congee, honored guest?" Meihua inquired with the polite persistence of someone who had dedicated her short life to ensuring proper porridge appreciation.

  "Nothing at all," Xiaolong assured her, hastily selecting a utensil at random. "The presentation is most... harmonious."

  This seemed to satisfy the young disciple momentarily, though her vigilant gaze remained fixed on Xiaolong's hands as though expecting further tableware transgressions at any moment.

  Ming Lian, observing this exchange with undisguised amusement, leaned closer. "Meihua once spent three days following an exchange disciple from the Northern Peaks Sect to correct his grip angle on soup spoons. The poor man eventually ate with his hands just to see what would happen."

  "And what did happen?" Xiaolong asked, genuinely curious.

  "Three weeks of remedial etiquette training and a formal apology to the ancestral soup ladle displayed in the historical pavilion."

  Xiaolong couldn't tell if he was joking. The alarming part was that, based on her observations of cultivation sect protocols thus far, either possibility seemed equally plausible.

  The meal progressed with Xiaolong navigating the treacherous waters of dining etiquette with increasing confidence, though not without occasional corrections from her vigilant adolescent overseer.

  She had just mastered the apparently crucial distinction between the fish-from-river spoon and the fish-from-lake spoon when a new challenge presented itself in the form of an elderly cultivator approaching their table.

  The surrounding disciples immediately straightened their postures, performing seated half-bows.

  Li Feng leaned closer to Xiaolong. "Elder Liu Qingshui," he murmured. "Head of cultivation resources and one of the sect's most progressive voices."

  Elder Liu moved with the peculiar gait of someone who had spent so many decades practicing water-walking techniques that normal terrestrial locomotion had become an afterthought. Each step seemed to momentarily hover before completing, as though she were perpetually walking across invisible stepping stones.

  "Elder Disciple Li," she greeted, her voice carrying the resonance of deep underwater caverns. "Your timely return pleases the sect. Elder Wei spoke highly of your pilgrimage insights during this morning's council."

  "This disciple is honored by Elder Wei's recognition," Li Feng replied with perfect form, neither claiming the praise nor rejecting it—the cultivation equivalent of verbal gymnastics.

  Elder Liu's gaze shifted to Xiaolong, her eyes displaying that same deep awareness that characterized Elder Wei, though perhaps with a more analytical edge. "And this must be the independent cultivator causing such ripples through our quiet pools."

  The phrasing was neutral, yet something in her tone suggested she found these ripples more intriguing than disruptive.

  Xiaolong began the formal greeting she had practiced, only to realize halfway through that she was still holding the fish-from-river spoon in a grip that Meihua had spent the last ten minutes correcting to a precisely forty-five-degree angle.

  To maintain the proper greeting form would require either dropping the implement (a dining etiquette sin of apparently cosmic proportions, based on Meihua's previous lectures) or completing the greeting with improper hand positioning.

  In the split second of decision, Xiaolong's draconic mind calculated trajectories, social implications, and relative status considerations with the processing power that had orchestrated stellar formations. She smoothly transitioned the spoon to her left hand while executing the greeting with her right, a solution that seemed both elegant and appropriate.

  Until she noticed Meihua's expression of absolute horror.

  "The honored guest has transferred a dining implement from dominant to subordinate hand during formal greeting," the girl whispered, her voice carrying the trembling horror of someone witnessing the collapse of all civilized society. "Such an action traditionally signifies..." her voice dropped further, "...a challenge to superior wisdom."