Sword Flash said to him, "Tell me everything you want so that I can think about them together."
Quartz put some serious thought into thinking about the goals of this job before shaking his head and saying, "No. That's it."
Sword Flash asked, "Are you sure? If you have more requests, don't be shy to make them."
Quartz smiled and said, "I'm happy to see that you're open to transacting with our civilization, but I really don't have anything more to ask for. But rest assured, I'll make sure to ask my superiors for other requests that they might have."
Then he said, "I should go now to ask them."
He was about to shut the leystone down for the third time, and for the third time, Sword Flash stopped him.
This time, Sword Flash asked him, "Tell me, how old are you? Tell me about yourself. Let me get to know who I have the honor of negotiating with. Surely there has to be something special about you that made the gem kings and gem emperors pick you to negotiate with me."
What Sword Flash said stroked Quartz's ego and stoked his pride, so he didn't need his superior's instructions to try and accommodate the invader's request as much as possible for him to answer Sword Flash's questions. He was more than willing to tute his own horn to whoever was interested in hearing it.
So Quartz said with pride, "My father lived to a ripe old age of 312 cycles before he died and birthed me. He was only a gem soldier, but I have become a gem noble and one of the best gem nobles around. I achieved this in only 258 cycles, so I have surpassed my father in both power, talent, and potential."
What Quartz has accomplished is very impressive for a gem person, but Sword Flash didn't care. However, Sword Flash couldn't show that he didn't care about Quartz's achievement, or his goal would be forced to fail. So Sword Flash forced himself to look impressed.
He also spoke as if he was really impressed, saying, "Wow. That's impressive. How did you manage that?"
Quartz replied without missing a beat while Sword Flash nodded and acted appropriately impressed. This provided the push to allow their conversation to continue for several minutes.
To the bystanders on both sides of the leystones, it looked as if the two of them had become pals. They were so carefree with one another that one would think they were friends uniting after a long time apart.
But after Sword Flash got what he wanted, he decided to stop indulging Quartz. He said meaningfully to Quartz, "We shall meet again."
Then he cut off the connection between them. This made the leystone transparent again. The face of the gem person on it had disappeared.
Thunder Drake asked him quickly and full of anticipation, "Did you get it?"
Sword Flash didn't reply by speaking. He only nodded his head. This gesture was good enough for Thunder Drake and Lady Evergreen. The two of them broke into wide smiles.
Thunder Drake looked at Evergreen and said, "It seems we will be eating well soon."
Lady Evergreen said with a smile, "I think it is appropriate that I congratulate all of us on a job well done and wish us well on the feast that is about to come."
Her words made the other two laugh boisterously. They were really in a good mood.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the connection, Quartz was still surprised by the sudden development. He didn't expect the person he was talking to so well to suddenly cut off the connection between them.
So he asked himself, "Was that a mistake? Did an accident interfere with the connection?"
He didn't want to believe that the severing of the connection was intentional at all. So he tried to reestablish a connection with Sword Flash.
He quickly found the frequency of the large leystone in Aries, and his request for a connection went to it. But the request was never accepted, so the connection was not reestablished. This outcome further confused him.
While he was trying to understand what was going on, the nobles who were assigned to him approached him to ask what had happened.
There were two other gem nobles who were to serve as his partners and a gem king who was his immediate superior, overseeing the project. The three of them surrounded him and bombarded him with questions.
"What happened?"
"What did you do?"
"What did they say?
"Could it have been a mistake?"
"Or did you offend them with something you said?"
In reply, all Quartz could say was, "I don't know. Everything was going well. Then he said he would see me again. Then the connection was severed."
The gem king said, "No matter. Let's inform the gem emperors about what happened. Let them make the decision."
The others agreed, so they began another round of trying to seek a connection. But this time, the call was to the gem emperors who were far away in their homeworld.
When the connection was accepted and established, there were 6 giant beings on the other side waiting and looking at them. The attention of so many powerful people made Quartz and his co-workers quake in fear.
Quartz was already on his knees before the connection was established, so all of the shaking of his body didn't lead to him falling off his feet, face-first into the ground or backwards onto his rump, in fear.
The support of the earth beneath his knees gave him the support he needed to report what had happened. He recounted his conversation with Sword Flash word for word while also describing Sword Flash's behavior and expressions.
One of the things he mentioned was how Sword Flash's appearance was similar to them. He said that Sword Flash's face was very rigid and that his body looked as hard as stone as if was made of earth.