I was relaxing in my office thinking about the successful business deal I finished up an hour ago when I got a Teleroad message. “Hmm, Jeremiah?” How unusual of him to call me outside the appointed timeslots. I accepted the Teleroad ring. “Hello Jeremiah, you''re talking to Barusu Onyxbeard.”


    “You don''t have to keep saying that boss, I know who I''m connecting this Teleroad to!”


    “You might be right but the CEO of Yttroz industries needs to be formal at all times.”


    “Right, Jeremiah Odell speaking here. As you know I went to Boshi town to buy some ores and minerals. Well, I met a kid, and he''s selling over 580 000 carats of the highest-purity rubies. They seem to be of similar grade or even higher than the brilliant sunset we dealt with 10 years ago.” My cigar dropped out of my mouth. If fell on my beard and started to smoke.


    “Hot, hot, hot!” I said while killing the embers that started appearing in my beard.


    “Boss? Are you ok?”


    “I’m fine! I might''ve misheard did you say over 580 000 carats? How is that possible?”


    “Well, I don''t know I got a good look at it and I even inspected it''s not heat treated and it''s in a perfect state and according to this kiddo, it weighs about 117 kg which seems accurate as far as I can tell. I''ve never seen anything like this before! I''m calling to confirm if we want to buy this.”


    “Of course, we will!” I shouted a bit too excited. The processing and selling of the Brilliant sunset ruby greatly kickstarted our industry. Without it, we would still be a poor mediocre company. But now we''re the biggest dealer in anything earth and construction related on the continent. Buying this amount of ruby will set us back a bit financially but only in the short term. As I remembered the procedures and impact it had on our small company back then 10 years ago, I could say it was worth it. “So how much did you say you''d buy it for?” I asked Jeremiah trying to keep down my excitement.


    “Uhh, I tried to get it for cheap but this kid seemed to notice that whatever I suggested wasn''t anywhere near the price it''s worth and, to be honest, I have no idea what its true value is, I''m not a dwarf like you boss, so really, I have no clue. The kid suggested 1200 gold per carat and I agreed. It’s 15 crystals that all are about the same size and the total sum that would need to be paid to the kiddo is 704.2 million gold.” I sank into my chair. Even for a big company like us, that was a lot.


    “Listen here Jeremiah, that is a lot of money but you have no idea how cheap that is if what you say is true. Any ruby exceeding 30 carats is exceedingly rare or even impossible to find anywhere. If he has 15 crystals that together are over 580 000 carats that means every crystal is way over 38 000 carats it would be safe to say those things are priceless and even if there was a price attached even all our assets wouldn''t be able to pay for it.”


    “Oh, the kiddo said he''s a blacksmith and he''s going to use the funds to gather valuable and exotic material for his blacksmithing.” This triggered the dwarf inside of me.


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    “Listen here Jeremiah, we will pay this kid, if what he said is true, we might have just met one of the greatest upcoming blacksmiths. I remember that Philip is the only blacksmith in Boshi town, I''ve worked with him before, he''s a skilled blacksmith but just like most blacksmiths, their work gets bottlenecked by the costs of the materials that they need. If this kid is his son or apprentice, we can expect great work from him. Did you secure a way to contact him?”


    “Yes, boss I gave him my card.”


    “Good.”


    “You always had a soft spot for blacksmiths boss.”


    ” Ugh, shut up Jeremiah.”


    “You’re not worried about giving a kid an insane amount of gold like that boss? or wonder where he got all of that?” I lit another cigar.


    “Hmm not really, the area around Boshi town is quite a weird place. It is close to the border but our war-loving neighbors never bothered to invade it. Yes, there are the Umbra and the Lucidus mountain ranges but it''s not just that. There have been tales of weird monsters and phenomena happening there. The area is rich in resources but anyone that doesn''t live there doesn''t seem to be able to find anything there or return alive. It is quite weird. And that might not be the whole story, besides the mountains and strange monsters and phenomena, there might be something else there. I can''t see that those would stop a war-loving nation from invading via those mountain ranges. You might go and send a team to find the location where he might have found the crystals but drop that thought.” I huffed out some smoke and looked at the picture I hung up on my wall 10 years ago. It shows me completing the transaction of the Brilliant Sunset ruby. The true start of our company. “You probably won''t find anything there, that is how that place works, everything only ever works out for the inhabitants there and to live there means to be trapped into that seemingly logic-defying barrier. How many miners have gone into those mountains to just mine some iron ore and either didn''t return or couldn''t manage to find even 1 iron vein in the iron-filled mountain ranges? Some weird magic we don''t know anything about is probably at play here. I will arrange for the gold and the procedures to be in order. I will make sure that we can pick up those rubies around noon at the latest. I need you to arrange a location where you can do this discreetly with the kid. Leave a good impression on him, who knows what else he might find in those mountains."


    “Alright, Boss. I have a question though, what is the state of the order Leefa Seorwynn placed?” I rubbed my head.


    “That woman is such a pain; she might be the successor of the sword saint title and have a lot of gold because of that but that doesn''t mean she can just randomly decide to buy half a ton of various rare metals and minerals and expect us to deliver it on the same day! She will have to wait just like all our other customers.”


    “But what if she attacks us like last time boss?”


    “After that incident, I kept in contact with her mentor. He might be busy running his school but he said that even as a principal he still has time to deal with her if she stirs up trouble.” I went through some documents and looked at the order Leefa placed earlier today. “I don''t understand how such a calm man could mentor such a crazy woman like that”.


    “I guess the saying: you got to be a bit crazy to be a genius, holds true.” I puffed another cloud of smoke. I didn''t agree with what Jeremiah just said but I didn''t want to shift the focus of our conversation to arguing about that.


    “Anyways, she has to wait, if she wants an express delivery she has to pay extra!” After I said that Jeremy started talking about some minor issues but I tuned out a bit. After I said something about the express delivery, I got an idea. I said “uh huh” and “ok” to whatever Jeremiah was talking about and closed the Teleroad. I instantly sent a Teleroad request to a well-known jeweler connected to our company. I would need to bounce this idea off of him. The Teleroad request got accepted and I got connected to my childhood friend Sulador Rubybeard. “It has been a long time since we spoke good ol’ Sulador! I’m calling you because I have an idea and a favor to ask.”