Clean water flowing over smooth stones. Rich soil along the edges of the bank. There's very little mold, mildew or fungus to release spores that would catch anyone unawares. Despite the picturesque view there are no flowers present, but you can smell them. A light sweetness to the air. Or maybe it's coming from the water. This brook doesn't seem simple.
The rot in the area can't get a foothold because of the purity of the local essence. An aberration in the local area sensitive to such things, but strong enough to destroy them, makes sure of it. Aberration? A mutation, perhaps. An unusual development that's more of a benefit than a detriment to some, and a pest and plague unto itself to others.
A moon fish. A pale koi, all shimmering white, with pale silver eyes. Not much to look at, really. There are many moon fish, and this one is quite weak considering how rarely it can cycle its chosen element, making its presence a greater wonder. It swims in a shallow brook, never touching the bottom unless it wants to with more space to move in than a casual inspection would suggest, seemingly nothing more than light refracting off the surface of the water.
The real treasure is the brook. It starts and stops quite rapidly. One might think it's fed by a spring, and then dips into a reservoir, but it's merely a doorway.
Silver Gong Opening Heaven's Gates is a great sage who lives in the woods. He doesn't need much, doesn't want much, and, when he craves hunan contact or conversation, he wanders through the woods looking for creatures that have been affected by his presence. The moon fish is too weak to be seen as a treasure for any but the lowest of households, but it might make some peasant family happy. He'll do a few readings, following the energy currents to things great and terrible, snipping these buds early and pruning the weeds before they can take root.
He looks over to count the cages, old curse traps he'd attempted to create so that the curses could be displayed and interacted with, but limiting escape. The idea was novel, his execution absolute garbage, so at best they can be used for capturing the aberrations that spawn.
Or he can eat the moon fish. He's in no hurry, and, while it is low quality, it's still a delicacy. If another one spawns he'll sell it to a restaurant maybe. That seems more practical. Or he'll just sit in his usual corner and sell whatever to whoever comes along. Sometimes he gives the weak treasures away as gifts if someone seems interesting enough. He tells himself he's merely investing in talented peoples, but, if he's bored enough to go through the woods and still wander into town, he's just happy that someone distracted him if only for a moment.
His fist closes, pointer and middle finger extending into a sword form. A flick of his fingers as he focuses his will, an inscribed sacred clay pot flies out from a pile of discarded and dusty junk he'd forgotten about in the corner. Ah, that's something else he can take care of. A bit of house keeping, how did he let things get to this point? A twist of his wrist and the pot rises to eye level, slowly spinning and rotating as he inspects the vessel, the energy flow, the inscriptions, the overall suitability of using the medicine pot, an alchemist's cauldron, to cook the moon fish. Like he's going to cook a treasure, even a trash treasure, on regular dishes with regular flames? Ptui!
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Another effort of will and the pot is engulfed in a purifying blaze, the man, both hands up, fingers into sword points, flicks his wrists, rolls his arms, goes through various forms to purify the pot inside and out. It wouldn't do to have some old dust or discarded medicine ruining the meat. Once that's finished he heads to his front doorstep, looking out on the vast ocean he'd hidden in some backwoods. There aren't as many lights as before, indicating the creatures they were coming from have either died off or managed to escape. Pity. He's not hurting for essence here, he's past that stage, but it was nice to pretend to have the heavens outside his front door.
A brief flicker above him, a thin strip of sunlight filtering down from the brook that had come into being when he'd set his workshop down, just the top of the space finding a shallow spot in the woods above. He'd meant to fix that but couldn't be bothered. There! A glint of white that doesn't disappear and reappear. He stabs out with his hand in a sword form, the fish thrashes violently for a moment, but it's already hooked. He clenches his fist the fist flying towards him, reeled in, and he snatches it from the air, grunting in satisfaction at how fat it has gotten with no effort on his part.
Back inside he guts the fish, tossing its guts into a preservation pot for cooking later. When he goes to set the pot off to the side he notices that he has quite a few "for later" pots gathering dust. Maybe he should sell these in town. Mystery pots. He certainly doesn't remember what's inside them.
In the alchemy pot goes the fish, scales, fins, head and all. The scales should come off during the cooking, he can collect them after and put them in a pot. They can be used for simple jewellery or cycled for moon essence. He doesn't care. Just another pot to sell in town. Yes, that idea is sounding better and better. He hums to himself as he tries to decide if he feels like walking through the woods for treasures or just selling the pots. He's leaning more and more towards a quick stroll through town versus hunting and sitting for days on end.
"Pots win," he nods to himself, leaving his contemplation to see that the alchemy pot, which he had heated up with his will, inner fire and the inscriptions both in and on it, has grown dark. "That's not good," he says, getting up and hesitating. "How long was I thinking?"
When he opens the pot there's nothing but coal and ash.
"Apparently quite a while," he coughs, a reflex more than a necessity, as he fans the smoke away. "Even the scales are burnt away. Tch! Ah, well. I guess it can't be helped."
He heads back to the door to toss the mess into the lake for anything that might be interested in it. It's not a waste, so much as a mild disappointment, and an even milder inconvenience. A quick blast of fire to sterilize the pot, nothing's growing in there, then he tosses it back into the corner. He'll work on cleaning it later. Didn't he get a book from the young man last time? It's one of those books, the poor boy having better luck with stories than even money can buy in the red houses, but the old man can't blame him. Hopefully this is one of the good stories with lots of high quality ink drawings.
He chuckles as he heads back inside, ignoring the piles of discarded projects and the substantial to-do list he'd created and discarded in search of a dirty book.
"At least with that fish gone my damn mushrooms should grow back!" he grouses. He'd been meaning to get rid of it in order to go back with experiment on making a mushroom wine, but then he'd put it off for some reason. "No matter. Now... Where's that book?"