"I've heard a little about it," Mr. Saunders replied.
Grace held up the pearl and told him, "This was taken straight from the spine of that Infernal Drake—it's a Fireheart Pearl! Since this is your trade, I bet you know exactly what it is."
The Fireheart Pearl is a top-tier material for forging fire-type magical items.
Strictly speaking, it's actually even more valuable than Supreme Mythril.
"Fireheart Pearl! Th-this... this is actually a Fireheart Pearl!" Mr. Saunders was so excited he could hardly contain himself.
What kind of day is this?
He was seeing both a Fireheart Pearl and Supreme Mythril at the same time!
"A legendary treasure is about to be born!" one of his assistants exclaimed, equally thrilled.
Grace smiled, then pulled out a pile of Fireheart Pearls and said, "I have twelve Fireheart Pearls here. You'll use ten to forge my sword, and I'll give you two as payment for your work. Is that enough?"
"Enough! More than enough!" Mr. Saunders agreed eagerly, reaching out to take the pearls.
With a sweep of her sleeve, Grace took all the Fireheart Pearls back and said, "But... Supreme Mythril is hard to come by, and these Fireheart Pearls are even rarer—true treasures you might not see in a hundred years. I can't just hand them over so casually, right?"
Mr. Saunders raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that, miss? Whoever opens the stone gets to forge it, that's the rule of our Spirit Tools Guild. Even if you take the Mythril away today, no other shop would dare touch it!"
"You've misunderstood, Mr. Saunders," Grace replied with a smile. "I have no intention of taking it to another shop."
"Then what do you mean, miss?"
"Honestly, your shop is the grandest on this street, so I'm guessing you're the most skilled too. But just in case—just in case—something goes wrong and you damage these two treasures of mine, what then?"
"Impossible!" Mr. Saunders declared. "I can guarantee it—Lucky Star has the best blacksmiths in all of Blue Moon Kingdom. There's nothing to worry about!"
"I want to sign a contract with you," Grace said directly. "If you mess up, you have to compensate me."
"That's really not necessary, is it? There's no way we'd mess up! You can relax!" Mr. Saunders looked at her like she was being unreasonable.
"It's perfectly normal to sign a contract when forging such valuable spirit tools," Grace said calmly. "Mr. Saunders, are you trying to take advantage of my age and assume I don't know any better?"
"Haha, no, no..." Mr. Saunders laughed awkwardly.
"So, are you signing, or not?" Grace raised an eyebrow at him.
It's actually pretty common to sign a contract when forging spirit tools with rare materials.
Mr. Saunders really did just want to take advantage of her youth and inexperience.
Now that he saw Grace wasn't so easily fooled, he nodded and said, "Alright! We'll sign!"
"Great. But how exactly are we signing? If you really mess up and ruin my materials, even if you paid me back with a whole chunk of Supreme Mythril and ten Fireheart Pearls, you probably couldn't afford it, right?" Grace asked.
"Then what do you suggest, miss?"
"Here's my idea: write in the contract that if you mess up, both of your shops, all your blacksmiths, workers, cash, silver reserves, and even you yourself—all of it compensates me," Grace said.
"What? That's—"
"All that stuff wouldn't even cover a fraction of my losses!" Grace interrupted him.
She wasn't exaggerating.
Mr. Saunders swallowed the rest of his words.
The failure rate for forging spirit tools is actually very low.
For the master craftsmen, it's basically a one hundred percent success rate.
After thinking for a moment, Mr. Saunders nodded, "Alright! Let's do it!"