After acting cute, Xuanling didn't look the least bit embarrassed.
So what if he got by on his looks?
That took skill too!
Too bad it hadn't worked very well.
Was there any shame in earning his keep with a skill?
Not a bit. Xuanling was rather proud of himself.
After leaving the Spirit Feather Tailor Shop, he kept browsing down the little alley beside it.
Shabbily dressed wizards squatted along both sides, their wares spread out on the ground.
Their goods looked as shabby as they did. Some were defective shop stock; others had dubious origins. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say the whole alley sold fakes.
Still, this was Diagon Alley, not Knockturn Alley next door. At worst, the goods were smuggled. They weren't bloodstained.
The prices were genuinely low, but shopping here took a sharp eye. Otherwise, the desperate wizards would talk up a piece of rubbish as a luxury item and fleece you for all you were worth.
As for finding some overlooked treasure and showing off? Dream on.
They sold magical materials here, not ancient relics. Selling the latter was expressly forbidden; if you wanted those, you had to go to Knockturn Alley.
Finding an overlooked bargain in magical materials was a ridiculous idea. Most genuine items on the stalls had been collected by the wizards themselves. They knew better than you what creature they'd cut each piece from.
Only Xuanling knew better than those wizards, because he had the Eye of Insight.
The alley was out of the way, but plenty of people were in its depths.
Xuanling kept feeling eyes on him.
Such was the burden of being handsome, he supposed.
Whistling, he swept the Eye of Insight over the dubious goods one by one.
He ignored the so-called Unicorn horns, dried Fire-Dragon hearts, Acromantula fangs, and the like. Then he stopped at a stall, bent down, and picked up a bottle labeled Dragon Blood.
The price was dirt cheap: just 50 Galleons a pint.
Real Dragon Blood went for 150 Galleons a pint. That price gap was downright suspicious.
Come to think of it, Dragon Blood cost even more than Dragon Liver. How had these wizards settled on that price? If you kept a dragon alive, you could draw its blood for years.
Xuanling crouched before the stall and studied the wizard behind it, his gaze pausing on the man's bandaged arm.
"You shouldn't put this stuff up for sale."
Xuanling tapped the bottle of Dragon Blood.
"It's an obvious fake."
The stallholder lazily raised his eyes. His voice sounded like sandpaper scraping wood.
"You expect the real thing for 50 Galleons a pint? Kid, are you still dreaming?"
He didn't even try to deny it.
Xuanling said nothing. He merely smiled at the bottle the man had called a fake.
The Eye of Insight had revealed its true nature.
[Dragon Blood (mixed with large amounts of impurities)]
It really was Dragon Blood, just adulterated with so much other stuff that its value had plummeted.
But it unquestionably contained Dragon Blood. That made Xuanling suspect the stallholder might have a supply of pure, unadulterated blood too.
And there was something else.
Xuanling focused on the stallholder, and the man's Hunting Level appeared before his eyes.
Hunting Level: 85!
This wizard was on roughly the same level as Professor McGonagall. It was absurd for someone that powerful to be selling fakes. If he wanted genuine goods, getting them would probably be easier than making counterfeits.
"Then let's be straight with each other."
Xuanling spoke up.
"I want to buy Dragon Blood. The real kind. How much would you take for it?"
"Hah."
The stallholder let out a cold snort.
"You? What, are you buying Dragon Blood to play make-believe? If you're not buying, quit getting in my way. Scram."
"That doesn't make sense."
Xuanling scooped a handful of gold coins from his purse. Their gleam drew several heads around.
"What I want Dragon Blood for is none of your business. Just tell me: are you selling or not?"
The stallholder stared at Xuanling for a few moments, then broke into a grin.
"Kid, you've got guts."
He surged to his feet. The sudden movement startled the creature perched on Xuanling's shoulder into flapping its wings, and Xuanling grabbed it before it could fly off.
Only then did Xuanling realize the man had been curled up on the ground all along. His loose robe had hidden his build completely.
Once the man stood straight, Xuanling saw that he was well over two meters tall.
At his current height of barely 1.4 meters, Xuanling had to crane his neck as though looking up at a Giant.
"The goods are somewhere else."
The burly wizard pulled his lips into a grin and swept his bird's-nest hair back, revealing a face covered in burn scars. He looked fierce.
With his own dragon-breath ability, Xuanling recognized something in those burns.
They were scars left by dragon breath.
"Follow me if you've got the nerve."
With that, the man strode off without looking back, abandoning his entire spread of goods.
Xuanling blinked, hurried after him, and asked, "Aren't you taking your stuff?"
"It's all fake anyway. What the hell would I want it for?"
The burly wizard tossed the words over his shoulder, sounding impossibly cool.
As the tall and short figures receded, the other stallholders' eyes flashed with regret. They seemed tempted to do something, but none quite dared. In the end, every gaze fixed on the junk the big man had left behind.
Then they descended like starving hyenas, snatching up the fakes the burly wizard had thrown away and stuffing them onto their own stalls. Some even came to blows over the stuff.
Sure, they couldn't get a bite of the real prize. But fakes were worth money too. If some fool with no eye for quality came along, they could still make an easy profit.
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