The man's eyes shifted around multiple times before he thought of something. "Is my alchemist lying to me?" he asked.
"No," Alex said. "I'm just asking if you are sure that you're putting your daughter's life in the hands of the right alchemist or not."
"Is there a chance he's lying?" he asked.
"Yes, there is a chance," Alex said. "But… as I said, there could also be a chance that he isn't lying if the pill he is making has a strong ingredient with vital Yang energy in it."
"There are none," the man said without stopping.
"Hmm?" Alex looked at the man curiously.
"There is no strong Yang energy in the list of ingredients for the pill that young man is making," the man said. "I had thought the Flameborn Nightsbane might be what was needed, but… if what you're saying about the ingredient is true then… was he lying to me?"
The man's eyes burned with instant fury as he wanted to go back and kill the alchemist that had suggested he come here and help him find that ingredient.
"Maybe he wasn't lying," Alex said. "Maybe there is something different that is wrong with your daughter. Do you know what?"
"I don't," the man said. "I don't know what happened to my daughter at all. My wife won't tell me. She just says that she is dealing with it while not telling me what it is that she is even doing."
"She spends days in her sect letting our daughter remain in a coma forever. So, I got too fed up with her crap and stole my daughter away from her to heal her."
"I had no idea what is wrong with her, so I took her to the few alchemists I knew, but they didn't know either. That was when I met this young alchemist, who said he could make a pill for me that will most certainly cure her."
"I took the chances and came here with him," the man said. "Oh god! I have been duped, haven't I? He lied to me, just to get here."
"Get a hold of yourself," Alex said. "I might be wrong here. We still don't know. I'm just telling you what I know."
"But… there is no strong Yang ingredient as you said," the man said.
"May I know the recipe?" Alex asked.
The man shook his head. "Even if he was lying for his own gain, I cannot in my right mind give you a recipe that belongs to someone else.
Alex shrugged. It was wrong of him to ask in the first place.
"Maybe the alchemist just saw something that was wrong with your daughter's condition that you don't know. As you mentioned, you aren't aware of what happened to her, correct?" he asked.
The man shook his head.
"You're right," the man said. "I'll confront him when I get to him. For now, let us find the plant just in case."
They returned to searching for the plant but even after going through the 3rd field, they found nothing.
Then, they moved on to the 2nd field, and 3 hours later onto the first.
Alex looked around fully alert at all times, not only to find the plant but also for any suspicious activity. Although the chances of that were getting lower the more he was understanding the situation.
There were still parts of the story that the man told that didn't make sense to him, but he didn't ask him about it.
After searching through the 1st field as well Alex couldn't find the plant at all.
"Let's move on to 5th," he said.
5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th.
It took Alex way too many hours to get through the fields, and even after going through all, he couldn't find it at all.
They were both stumped at the lack of the plant and couldn't help but feel dejected. The man especially started feeling bad at the thought that his daughter may not be healed at all.
"There's still the last field," Alex reminded him and the both of them walked toward that field.
After crossing the toll bridge, they were on the final poisonous field, which was the last chance for Alex to find the plant. Alex walked around the field for an hour or so when the man suddenly spoke.
"There!" he pointed at something.
Alex wondered if the plant had been found by the man, but that was not the case. Instead, he had found a young man walking around the field, focused on the various plants that were around him.
"That's the alchemist I came with," he said before walking toward him.
Alex paused for a moment and quickly followed as well, walking next to the man as they went over to where the young alchemist was.
The young alchemist was a man that looked no older than 25 years old if he were a mortal. He had a cultivation base in the late Saint Foundation realm and wore a dull green robe.
His short hair had a single braid of long hair that hung along the side of his head, tied together at the end by something made up of gold.
He turned around at the noise and saw the man.
"Senior! Did you find it?" he asked excitedly when he noticed that he had come with someone else.
However, the man wasn't listening. He walked straight to the young man and grabbed him by the collars of his robe as he shouted at him.
"Did you lie to me?" he asked in a voice that made the young man's face fall with fear. "Did you lie to me?"
"Wh-what?" the young man was absolutely terrified. "What about you talking about?"
"Flameborn Nightsbane! This man says that it is not something that can cure problems with Yin Qi, and the pill you suggested does not have any Yang Qi to fight Yin Qi at all," the man shouted.
The people in the sky were already alerted that something was happening and were ready to float down. They could not let a conflict fester in the fields unless a fight broke out that destroyed the precious plants nearby.
The young man pushed against the man. "That's not true," he said. "I didn't lie. How the hell would he know if it can or not? I showed you the ingredient list, I told you it can do it."
"But it has nothing to fight Yin Qi," the man shouted.
Alex's spiritual sense spread toward the men in the sky and he told them to stay out of it for now. He brought out something when they looked toward him, and when they saw it, they immediately stopped, hovering over the group just in case.
The man turned toward Alex right after he put away the Dragon Medallion. "You weren't lying, were you?" he asked.
"Of course not," Alex said as he moved forward. "And let go of that alchemist. You still don't know if he's lying or not either. I know you are worried about your daughter, but don't get too emotional right now."
The man finally loosened his fists and took a deep breath to calm himself. He then looked at Alex and asked, "You seem to know a lot more about alchemy than I do. Can you tell me if he is lying or not?"
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel