That morning, Deț didn’t even bother pretending to be hopeful. The sky was clear. The sun was hot. His shirt stuck to his back before he’d taken five steps into the field. But the ground? Still cracked. Still stubborn. Still refusing to give him a single grain.
“Nothing,” he muttered, jamming the shovel into the soil. “If the king doesn’t get crops this season, I’ll be lucky if I’m just broke and not in prison.”
Still, Deț dug. Because that’s what farmers do when they’ve got nothing else.
Then his shovel struck something solid.
Clunk.
He paused. Hit it again. Not a root. Not a stone. Something hollow.
He knelt down and dug faster, curious despite himself. A few minutes later, his hands pulled up a large clay pot. No lid, no designs. Just a plain, heavy thing sitting right in the middle of his field.
“What in the world…” Deț ran his fingers along the rim. “How did this get here?”
Tired and irritated, he tossed his hoe into the pot and walked to a nearby tree for a break. His legs ached. His pride hurt worse. He leaned back and let the breeze take over.
When he finally stood to head home, he reached into the pot—and froze.
Instead of one hoe, there were hundreds.
Deț stared, wide-eyed. He tipped the pot and watched metal tools spill out like water.
He grabbed a shovel, tossed it in. Waited.
Pop. Pop. Pop. More shovels.
“…It’s magic,” he whispered.
That night, the pot sat in Deț’s kitchen floor while he barely slept. At dawn, he dropped an egg inside. Within minutes, it was overflowing with more eggs than he’d seen in a year. Then he tried bread. Then apples. Then dried fish. Everything multiplied.
No more dead fields. No more begging the skies for rain. Deț loaded up a cart with goods and headed to the kingdom’s market. Each day, he sold something new. Clothes. Vegetables. Salt. Whatever went in came out multiplied.
People started to notice. Other merchants were losing business. Whispers spread. And eventually, they reached the wrong ears.
A soldier followed Deț home one morning, hidden behind a cart.
That day, Deț decided to try a chick. He gently placed one inside the pot and waited. Soon, the yard exploded with peeps and flapping wings. A chick leapt into the pot by accident, and now more poured out. They were everywhere—on the roof, in the water buckets, even on his head.
The soldier couldn’t believe his eyes. He ran straight back to the palace.
By afternoon, Deț stood in front of the king.
“So,” the king said, inspecting the pot. “This is the secret.”
Deț kept his voice calm. “It is powerful, Your Majesty. Please be cautious.”
But the king didn’t listen. He leaned in too far—and with one awkward step, he fell into the pot.
And then there were dozens of kings.
All yelling. All pointing fingers.
“I’m the true king!”
“No—you’re a fake!”
“Guards! Arrest that imposter!”
“Silence! Bow before me!”
The hall turned into a circus.
No one noticed as Deț backed away.
No one stopped him as he grabbed the pot again and slipped out the palace doors.
He walked for hours. Up a hill, past the last stone house in the village, and out to the edge of a high cliff.
The wind was sharp. The pot felt heavier than ever.
Without a word, Deț lifted it and threw it as far as he could.
It shattered into pieces on the rocks below.
The next season, something strange happened. The rains came. The earth softened. Crops sprouted on Deț’s field again, like they’d been waiting for him all along.
And this time, he worked the land with his own hands.
No magic. No shortcuts.
Just soil. Sweat. Time.
And Deț?
He lived better than ever—not because of the pot, but because he finally remembered what real growth takes.
