Translator: AnubisTL
Nearly a month's time had slipped away like a slippery fish in the silent bustle of preparations, until today—a day when the sun shone exceptionally bright and the sky was washed clean.
Burning Steel Citadel, Fourth Floor.
After finishing his daily exercises, the red-iron dragon lay sprawled upon a dazzling "treasure bed" piled high with countless gold coins, gems, and magical items. His dragon tail swept back and forth through the hoard, creating a clinking and clanking sound as gold and jade collided.
In the end, the tip of his tail managed to curl around only a measly twenty-some magic gems.
The number was pitifully small, forming a stark contrast with his massive body.
The Frontierlands had no gem mines.
Relying solely on the gems plundered from various tribes and those obtained through trade, Garos's consumption had far outstripped his income. He was now running low.
He wanted to eat a few, but because there were so few gems left, he simply couldn't bring himself to open his mouth.
Just as he was struggling against his own instincts, a gentle tap resonated through his bloodline.
Solgorn's voice immediately echoed in his mind: "Gordon is requesting communication. He says the Crystal Princess has once again expressed her desire to speak with us."
Time slipped away, ever since the first time Gordon, the Iron Dragon, had revealed the existence of the Ignis Dragon Clan to Crystal Princess Eileen.
In the days that followed, the Crystal Princess found it increasingly difficult to maintain her royal composure. Her inner urgency burned like a furnace under mounting pressure, driving her to formally request Gordon to contact the powerful dragon clan in the Sierre Wilderness twice more in quick succession, attempting to advance their cooperation.
Yet, Garos had brushed off both of these hopeful overtures with various perfunctory excuses.
He was patient, steadily controlling the pace of the negotiations, allowing the invisible chisel of time to slowly wear down the opposition's psychological defenses. Compared to dragonkind, most other races lacked such patience.
However, when the third request from the Crystal Princess arrived, a glimmer of deep thought crossed the eyes of Garos, who lay resting in the depths of the Burning Steel Citadel. He tilted his massive head slightly to the side, considered for a moment, and then reached a decision.
The time has finally come.
He decided it was time to begin a truly deep and decisive dialogue with the Princess of Lothurn, who controlled vast resources.
Immediately, through Gordon acting as his proxy and the bloodline link, Garos initiated a formal conversation with the Crystal Princess.
"Good day, esteemed and powerful Sky-Rending Wing."
The Crystal Princess's words were clear and carried a deliberately adjusted solemnity, fitting for communication with dragonkind. She began with a standard greeting, her etiquette impeccable.
She knew the nature of the dragon race.
Whether it was the red dragon bloodline, fiery and strength-worshipping by nature, or the iron dragons with their unyielding temperaments, they all generally preferred efficient, pragmatic, and direct communication. They loathed the long-winded, tedious, and hypocritically courteous pleasantries and formal protocols common among human nobles and the royal family.
Thus, Eileen decisively discarded the complex etiquette she had cultivated for years in the royal court, choosing a communication style that would best suit the dragons' tastes.
She got straight to the point. "I wonder, powerful Sky-Rending Wing, what your thoughts are at this moment regarding my proposal for a mutually beneficial partnership between our two parties?"
Garos did not answer the question immediately.
He asked, "Before we delve deeper into our cooperation, Princess Eileen, I need to clarify one crucial point—who exactly will be establishing this partnership with me and the Ignis Dragon Clan I represent? Will it be the entire Lothurn Royal Court, or merely... a princess named Eileen?"
A brief silence fell over the other side.
Evidently, the Crystal Princess was rapidly weighing the most appropriate response.
Ultimately, Eileen chose to be candid.
She made no attempt to bluff or inflate her standing by invoking the grand name of the Lothurn Royal Court. Instead, she adopted a pragmatic and clear stance, defining her position with precision: "The answer you seek is—merely a princess named Eileen."
This honesty was not a sign of weakness.
Almost the instant her words fell, she followed up with a promise of significant weight, as if placing a heavy chip on the negotiation table.
"However," she declared, "I solemnly pledge upon my honor and bloodline."
"The sincerity and specific leverage I can offer," she continued, "will be of such value and weight that they will undoubtedly tempt you."
Garos nodded slightly.
"Princess Eileen, I appreciate your blunt candor. It is far more valuable than any flowery rhetoric."
"Then, let us discuss the specific terms."
"Tell me clearly and without ambiguity: what specific types and quantities of payment can you offer the Ignis Dragon Clan? And what exactly do you want us, the predators of the Wildlands, to do for you?"
With these words, Garos had essentially signaled his preliminary willingness to cooperate.
The key to whether a true partnership could be forged now lay in whether the Crystal Princess's offered payment was sufficiently enticing, and whether her requested task fell within the dragon pack's acceptable risk threshold.
The Crystal Princess, ever sharp-witted, seized upon the positive signal in Garos's words.
After a brief moment of deliberation, she replied, "Gems, gold coins, magical metals... all the treasures that dragonkind are naturally drawn to and hoard—I have them all."
To prove she wasn't making empty promises, she began to list the types and quantities of resources she could provide with great sincerity and detail.
For example, she mentioned various magical gems, primarily crystals of different colors containing different elemental energies; rare and expensive magical metals such as adamantine, mithril, and ironmarrow; and the most straightforward of all—gold and silver.
As for the actions she hoped the dragon pack would undertake, her demands sounded quite simple and direct.
She wanted the powerful Ignis Dragon Clan to strike and subjugate specific targets for her in the Sierre Wilderness.
—The Duchy of Abel's outposts in the wilderness, as well as those of any other nation that might one day oppose the Kingdom of Lothurn.
"As long as the reward is sufficient, I can lead the dragon pack to attack the outposts under the duchy's command," Garos said, then changed his tone. "However, which specific outpost to attack will ultimately depend on my judgment. As for those more powerful kingdom factions, I will not consider provoking them for now."
At this stage, the kingdoms had not yet intervened directly. They were merely observing the situation from the sidelines, manipulating events from the shadows.
Attacking a kingdom's base under such circumstances could invite disaster, with the risks far outweighing the rewards. However, once war broke out between the kingdoms, he could reconsider striking the outposts under their control.
"I completely understand your concerns," the Crystal Princess said.
The Crystal Princess said, "Then, as you wish, our current cooperation will be limited to the level of the duchy."
She did not foolishly press for reasons, nor did she stubbornly try to convince Garos to change his stance. Instead, she simply asked in an exploratory tone, "Have we reached a consensus on our cooperation?"
Garos did not immediately agree.
"A dragon will never commit to a bloody battle for a vague, empty promise. I need to see tangible benefits that I can grasp in my claws."
He stated, "Produce one unit of high-purity solidified black oil crystals—prove your sincerity to me."
Only powers at the kingdom level or above, relying on their vast and solid alchemy industrial systems with deep technological foundations, had the ability to steadily manufacture the black oil crystals, which were considered industrial treasures.
They were typically packaged into a standard unit of a fixed weight of ten pounds.
Their purity levels were strictly divided by the Federation into ten progressive tiers, with each level of improvement representing a leap in energy output efficiency and stability.
Only crystals reaching the fifth grade or higher were officially recognized as high-purity.
Such crystals served as the indispensable core power source for Legendary-tier Alchemical Golems. Their production process was exceedingly tedious and complex, demanding a level of equipment precision and artificer skill that bordered on the pathological. Furthermore, they held irreplaceable strategic importance in military applications—such as War Golems and Floating Fortresses—and high-end magical research, including space-stabilizing portals and the maintenance of colossal barriers.
Even a single unit of the lowest-grade black oil crystal, the least pure of all, possessed a value that would make an equivalent volume of magic gems pale in comparison. It was a true rarity, practically priceless and utterly unavailable on the open market.
More critically, these strategic materials were subject to the Federation's highest level of control. Every single unit's movement and every transaction were meticulously recorded and placed under the most stringent scrutiny of the Kingdom Security Department.
Attempting to purchase them through conventional markets? That was as difficult as ascending to the heavens. This was a problem that could not be solved by gold coins alone.
On the other end of the line, the Crystal Princess fell into a brief silence.
After a moment, she finally replied, "High-purity black oil crystals are subject to the strictest scrutiny. Every single unit's movement is tracked. I cannot directly provide the amount you're asking for."
"However," she continued, "I can give you ten units of Grade 1 purity black oil crystals and one unit of Grade 2 purity. This is the absolute limit of what I can produce in a single transaction."
Hearing this, Garos's eyes lit up.
This already exceeded his expectations. Clearly, the princess's wealth was far deeper than he had imagined.
"I accept your generous offer. Our partnership is now official," the red-iron dragon declared. "Once the black oil crystals are successfully delivered, the Ignis Dragon Clan will light up the skies of the Sierre Wilderness with a grand and blazing 'fireworks' display. Consider it a first meeting gift to our new ally, a token of our sincerity."
(End of the Chapter)
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