Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

Why did this process work? No one was really sure.

Even after extensive discussions with the expert in this field, the Alchemists, Lucas was unable to determined exactly what was happening.

If he had to venture a guess, he suspected that the higher heat and pressure somehow allowed the sugar molecules to condense more quickly, or for the unwanted water to be removed more rapidly, resulting in less World Qi being lost, but he had no way of knowing if that was even remotely correct.

Not that it really mattered.

What did matter was that while this process took quite a bit longer, required specialized equipment and workers, verry careful monitoring, and resulted in a somewhat deeper, richer flavour in the final product that some found less appealing, it was all worth it if they could obtain 100% Mid Tier 3 sugar.

Although Royal Ancestor Ariana hadn’t been able to give an exact price for the different qualities of maple sugar they had shown her, the former queen had estimated around 30 Gold per kg for the Low-Rank Tier 3 product, while the Mid-Rank sugar could probably be sold for 50 Gold per kg, a 67% increase in value.

In other words, a 2 or 3 Gold Coin increase in production cost was totally worth it for a 20 Gold Coin increase in price.

Considering the experimental nature of this project, Victoria’s goal for the next 2 months was to install 400,000 taps on 100,000 fully mature red lych trees, and another 60,000 taps on 10,000 fully mature star lych trees.

If her estimates were correct, this would allow for the collection of roughly 20 million litres of red lych sap, and 4 million litres of star lych sap.

That translated to 450 tons of red lych sugar, and 100 tons of star lych sugar.

At the prices quoted by former queen Ariana, that totaled nearly 12 million Gold Coins worth of sugar.

With such massive profits just waiting to be had, it was no wonder Lucas, Victoria, and all the other leaders of this project were willing to shell out 200 Gold in wages a day while spending over a million Gold to rapidly build up the new settlements.

.....

Of course, things never went exactly according to plan, especially when that plan was massive in scale and completely untested in practice.

There were numerous construction setbacks due to all kinds of issues like supply shortages, illnesses, injuries, unexpected terrain challenges, breakdowns at the mills, washouts on the roads, and so on and so forth.

By the time April arrived, only one of the new villages even looked remotely like a village, the other 3 were still very much work camps with a small smattering of finished buildings.

As for Maple Town, the layout was coming along, and the central areas seemed to be taking shape, but any objective observer would say it was less than 15% of it was actually completed.

Having dealt with all kinds of headaches and problems this past month, Victoria and Laura were both feeling quite exhausted, as were many of the workers who they had hired. Even the core members of Lucas’ Urban Development Team were reaching their limits, with Dean Shaw repeatedly bringing complaints to his bosses.

Dean was a strikingly handsome middle-aged man who had a lifetime of experience in all aspects of construction. He had been a stone mason, carpenter, site foreman, and even tried his hand at textile manufacturing and blacksmithing.

Unfortunately, his perfectionist personality and inability to hold his tongue when his superiors made unreasonable demands or committed mistakes had left him jobless and without a single Copper to his name. That said, he hadn’t just given up.

Despite having been forced into the Eastern River District of Herald City, Dean had carved out a place in the slums and had been highly respected there as both a leader and someone who could fix just about anything that went wrong with someone’s house.

Needless to say, during the explosion crisis, Dean had caught Sasha’s eye as someone competent amongst the local wastes and she recruited him to help her set up the temporary shelter for Redwood Town’s evacuees in Herald City.

Later, Lucas had met Dean and taken a liking to the man, eventually hiring him directly to work for him.

Dean was 52 and a Seventh Step Core Formation Practitioner, which was neither good nor bad considering his background and circumstances, but his mind remained sharp and he was surprisingly open to new ideas, allowing him to soak up the new knowledge Lucas fed him like a sponge.

Having stable employment and an actually intelligent boss with seemingly bottomless pockets was also nice.

In any event, Lucas had eventually put Dean in charge of his Urban Development Team and assigned him all the most difficult and important construction tasks, something the middle-aged man grumbled about out-loud, but always with a fierce grin on his face like he was looking forward to the challenge.

So far, Dean had not disappointed Lucas, but it seemed like he had finally run into a situation he wasn’t capable of overcoming.

"I’m telling you, it’s just not possible!" Dean shouted as he smacked his palms against the desk, "In order to accommodate all of Boss Lucas’ requirements, we need to clear almost twice as much land as normal. There’s no way we can get that done in the amount of time we have left!"

"I know, I know!" Victoria shouted back before taking a deep breath, unfurling a newly drawn map, and pointing to a few specific spots, "Focus your efforts on the eastern district, where the industrial sector is supposed to be located. Then concentrate on the central commercial and western housing districts. Leave work on the northern and southern areas for now."

Nodding, Dean accepted the modifications to the plan and turned to leave; however, he paused briefly, turned back, and opened his mouth to speak.

Before he could get a word out, Victoria waved him off, "Go. I’ll explain the delay to Lucas. Just try to make this the last time."

Frowning deeply, Dean also let out a tired sigh and nodded, "No promises, but I’ll try."