Upon a brief thank you, the two men found themselves at the fat man’s stall perusing the goods laid out.

”Come take a look, see if there’s anything you fancy!” The fat cultivator’s eyes curved into crescents whenever he smiled.

It was easy to take a liking to him.

“Fair prices guaranteed!”

Caspian did not cast his sights onto the hemlock at first.

He pretended to look around, scanning the merchandise of the stalls next to that one.

There were antlers with stripes that glistened golden.

No one knew what creature they came from.

There were dry, shriveled fingers with pointy nails.

Potted plants bore colorful flowers but with leaves that were completely withered.

Caspian looked at all of them, reaching out to feel them from time to time if he wanted.

The fat man seemed equally uncaring of Caspian’s wandering.

None of these things were of any value, after all.

Caspian hardly gave them a second glance.

Upon putting down a shiv, Caspian moved to pick up the hemlock.

It sank with weight the second he picked it up.

Caspian’s eyes froze slightly.

‘It’s heavier than I expected it to be,’ Caspian thought to himself as he cast the stall owner a glance.

Instantly, Caspian was able to see the flash of panic that briefly overtook the fat man’s features when he picked the hemlock up.

Suspicion arose in Caspian immediately.

Instead of hurrying to inquire about the price, he began to analyze it.

The hemlock looked real and fine at first glance.

The chasm was struck by thunder.

Caspian, having absorbed the Bone of Thunder, knew more about lighting than the average cultivator.

The part of the hemlock that was charred black was caught in a forest fire caused by a lightning strike.

the kind of hemlock Caspian looked

Or so it seemed.

interested in the hemlock, the fat man put

truth… I

that would come

seemed to be thinking on Caspian’s

never mentioned the

that did business for a

let me take another look…” Caspian nodded, bringing the hemlock closer to his

the context of how much Caspian wanted and needed the hemlock, he

Insight, after all, was something

not chance upon the shop

hemlock up, on top of the brief flash of panic he saw on the fat cultivator’s face, made Caspian think

yet again, fingertips running over the calloused wood, Caspian observed the fat

Caspian’s actions, even calling out to other

gaze would

that something

down the hemlock,

well enough, he would have to use his

stronger than that of

sense as he noticed the fat man looked

not long before Caspian realized

was, indeed, something

itself laid in the section that

an opening so thin it was hardly

that the hemlock was stuffed with a piece of refined

was a

was why the hemlock was heavier

loophole, Caspian

held the hemlock up to the stall owner and asked, “How

in his mind to purchase and smiled so brightly his pupils

me, young man! I won’t bamboozle

Five hundred spirit stones.

How’s that?”

Caspian shook his

fat man smiled, “Hemlock grows deep in the forest, it’s hard enough to

like a

you’d know it takes at least two hundred

hundred years, it has to keep from pests

been struck, a devastating fire must follow for

man, that lightning and thunder usually come hand in hand

lot of the time the fires are put out with rain barely after they

coincidences to yield a piece of hemlock that

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