There were three men and a woman in the small group of desert folks that Alex had found in the marketplace. He strode up to them, checking on them as he walked.
One of the three men was an older man with gray hair, while the other two seemed to be in their early 40s. The woman was in her early 30s.
All of them wore white linen clothes, a colorful sash around their waist where they hung their storage bag from, and a large hat to hide their face from the sun. Their skin was way darker than any of the tribespeople that Alex had seen up to now.
They had a few pieces of equipment before them such as shovels, axes, and knives, all made of metal but none that seemed worth buying. Alex could tell that they were very low-quality items, but then again, he had been used to some entirely different grades of quality to begin with.
“Greetings, friends. I have some curiosities I was hoping to get answered. Would you mind if we had a short chat?”
The four people turned to look at him. Alex was perhaps the first person they had seen in the city who covered so much of his body that only his eyes were visible.
The old man openly frowned. “If you are not here to purchase, keep moving,” he said in the true language.
Alex paused for a moment. “I’m sorry, but there is no customer here just yet. I wouldn’t mind if just one of you gives me a short moment to answer some questions. I just want to learn more about the desert.”
“Learn about the desert?” one of the other two men said. “What makes you think we will say anything about the desert?”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Is there a reason for you to hide it?” he asked. “I just wanted to learn where I could acquire some sunhearts.”
The older man couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you ask a chef to tell you their recipes too?”
“Do you use a recipe to make sunhearts?” Alex asked. “The one I saw didn’t look like it had an human involvement in its creation.”
The old man paused. “Can you just leave us alone? You should know better than to ask these questions by now.”
“Should I?” Alex asked. “My apologies if I’m lacking some common sense here. I am not from around this place. I only heard about the desert and sunheart some time ago, so I came to this city in order to find out more. None of the others who I asked knew how to come by a sunheart at all.”
The woman to the side tilted her head, considering. “You genuinely do not know?” she asked.
“Know what? How sunhearts are found? No.”
“Not that,” she said. “That people from the desert will give you absolutely no answer at all.”
Alex stood there for a moment, trying to take in what she said. “So… you won’t answer my questions?” he asked.
“Unlikely. We do not share our secrets so easily after all,” she said.
“So you do share it; you just need an incentive. Is that it?” Alex asked. “Maybe I can help you with that.”
The old man laughed. “What can you do for us, young man? Bring some leather? Some grains?”
Alex looked down at their wares. “Can I assume that you have cookware back at your place made of metal?” he asked.
“Yes. What about it?”
Alex smiled. “If you have ones that are round and symmetrical, I can make some pills for you. I am a great Alchemist.”
All four of them stared at him for a long while before the old man spoke up. “What’s an alchemist?”
Alex narrowed his eyes. “You know what an alchemist is, don’t you? Someone who makes pills out of herbs and other items.”
They shook their heads. “Never heard of such a thing.”
Alex paused for a moment. Had he assumed something wrong? He quickly sensed the four people again and confirmed that they were in fact cultivators. Each one of them was in the True realms, which would have been impossible without an actual cultivation technique.
“So you can cultivate, but you don’t know what Alchemy is?” he asked. “What do you do if someone gets ill and needs treatment?”
“We use medicinal pastes on them, of course,” the old man said, his tone making it sound like that should have been obvious.
“I… see. Then, I can make pastes too. Would you help me if I gave you some pastes?” he asked. He had assumed Alchemy would be the bigger deal here, but in its absence, he would have to make do with pastes.
The old man was taken aback. “You can make pastes?” he asked.
“Yes. Could you answer my questions in exchange for some pastes?”
“Father, wait,” the woman quickly said. “How do we know he can make pastes or not?”
Alex brought out his storage bag and pulled out a bunch of ceramic jars full of pastes, which he had prepared for a while now. There were nearly ten different jars, each with a different type of paste.
“This one here is for burns. This one for healing. This one gets rid of most normal poisons. This one performs extremely well on muscle and joint aches. This can cure headaches in a flash. This one here can toughen your skin up for a day or two.”
As Alex explained what the jars of pastes did, the four people before him could only watch in awe. Alex noticed their surprise but did not stop.
Once he was done explaining each paste, the old man seemed to want to say something, but his daughter spoke up again.
“Wait, we need to be certain he is telling the truth. We can’t take his word for it, Father.”
“Of course,” Alex said. “Here, this is the one that toughens up your skin. Why don’t you apply a bit of it to your arm and test it?”
