After walking awhile, Alice stopped at a rough-looking but sturdy house and knocked on the door.
"Mr. Paul, it's Alice Allen. Are you there?" she shouted at the door.
Just at those moments, a commotion was heard inside the house, as if something heavy had fallen and several other things rattled everywhere. Still, soon, the door opened when a great, pleasant-looking man showed himself, with a lot of beard all over his face.
"Miss Alice!" said Paul Cox with a smile as he recognized Alice's face.
She is surprised by the careless face of this good-natured blacksmith.
"Mr. Paul, how are you?" she asked, and Paul invited them in quickly, pouring them tea.
Alice looked at him, "Mr. Paul, it seems that things are not going well for you; what happened?" she asked, a little worried, seeing that Paul didn't talk much.
When she first met him, he was very articulate; how come he changed so much now? Besides, he looked haggard.
He sighed.
"Miss Alice, a lot has happened. After I made your sword, many were interested in my work, and because of that, my smithy became famous. Still, they were demanding that I make weapons I was incapable of with an effectiveness of over 80%, and suddenly, they wanted to force me to compete with the dwarven smiths. In the end, they kicked me out of the smithy and kept it." He replied in frustration.
There was nothing he could do.
His talent for blacksmithing was undeniable. In Gray Allen's words, he is one of the top 5 Blacksmiths in the Five Vampire Kingdoms. But that was all.
His strength is insufficient to fight the great powers, and his smithy is inefficient to please them.
Alice was surprised to hear him say this, "Who did this?" She asked in surprise, and he sighed again.
"The Alliance seems to be getting support from one of the Vampire Clans. That's why I'm thinking of going back to the border regions to make weapons in the army." He answered sincerely.
'The Alliance... Those guys are as strong as a Vampire Clan... It really is a very complicated issue.' Alice thought, and she sighed as well.
She couldn't help him, even if she were a Heiress, because her strength was now deficient.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Paul. I didn't think my request back then would give you such a hard time."
That was all Alice could say sincerely.
Paul shook his head and laughed, "Hahaha, it's okay, Miss Alice. You are always so good to us commoners; it makes me keep hoping for the future of our race, hahaha." He said and then looked at the other two who were watching from the side.
"Who are they?" he asked.
Alice then stood up and introduced them.
"Mr. Paul, this is Matthew Dietrich, he's my friend." She said, and they both shook hands.
"Dietrich? Hahahaha, boy, you've got a good last name there. If only you were 10 million years in the past, you'd have the best status you could ever imagine, hahahaha."
The friendly way this man spoke was pleasant; even Matt liked this, so he smiled.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Paul." He spoke.
"This is Isla, a classmate of Matt's." Alice said, and after a short introduction, Alice sat back down to deal with the main topic.
"The truth is we came here to see if you could make a weapon, Mr. Paul."
"Oh? Will you change your weapon, Miss Alice? Did you get better materials?" He asked in surprise at Alice's words.
But Alice shook her head, "It's not for me, it's for Matt. We got information about a wounded baby dragon and have an approximate location, so we're going to go hunt it down. I think those are the best materials we can get." She replied sincerely.
Paul was surprised to hear this, "A dragon?" he asked in shock.
It was undoubtedly an incredible material. Bones and dragon scales are used to make things of astonishing quality. But they are as hard to come by as a feather from a phoenix.
Even with his remarkable journey, Paul has never been able to use dragon materials to make anything. Be it a weapon or armor, he has never been able to make anything with any dragon materials, which shows how difficult it is to get them.
That's why he immediately became interested in this, and although he planned to turn it down, as he was exhausted from so much trouble, he couldn't find a way to do it.
Every blacksmith dreams of making a weapon out of dragon material at least once, and he is no exception.
Still, he couldn't unquestioningly accept either.
"A weapon made from such a material would be so expensive that it could cost the price of an entire City or even more, Miss Alice. You should know that even Saint Weapons could be made from dragon bones and scales." He replied.
Alice knew this, so she nodded.
"I know that, Mr. Paul. But, right now, we don't have that much money to pay for that, so I was planning to sign some extreme contract in case a Saint Weapon comes out." She replied firmly.
That surprised Paul. He looked at Matt and noticed the look on his face was the same, a calm, determined look, which surprised him.
'These guys are serious.' He thought and smiled, shaking his head shortly after.
"You don't need to go to such extremes. If a Saint Weapon should come out, I only need its bearer to prove to me that he is capable enough to use it. At that point, I will hand it over to him and charge him nothing. Being able to make a Saint Weapon would be the greatest display of my capabilities; no one would dare offend me then; what do I want little ones like you to pay me for then?" he answered sincerely with a big smile.
"Well, go get that dragon. If you can stop by the auction, there's some good stuff being sold, and if you get this, bring it to me when you return. It will help me get caught up with blacksmithing again." He said with a smile and handed them a written paper.
Alice didn't expect him to accept so nicely, but she smiled and thanked him quickly.
After that, the three left in the auction's direction.
"If I'm not wrong, they should be taking the monthly auction; they don't usually sell anything interesting; let's sell some stuff to get some money and get out fast." Said Alice, smiling.
Soon, the three of them entered the auction, and using their status as students of the Vampire Academy, they managed to sell several things.
The weapons Matt and Isla got in the mountains and other saleable things, plus several things Alice had on her to sell that she got from the mission she completed.
So, the three left a few hours after the auction with the new target in mind.
The Turner-V City is one of the Turner Clan Cities.