Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

At the same time, Pauline felt like she understood this boy even less than before she had met him 10 days ago.

Both her mother and best friend, Celestina and Allina, had warned her not to engage with Lucas with any kind of preconceptions, and she had really tried her best to do that, telling herself to treat him like a completely foreign entity she had never encountered before.

Now, however, Pauline was seriously beginning to wonder if her mother’s First Disciple was even from the same world as she was.

Things Lucas thought of as normal were completely beyond her comprehension, which begged the question, what would things Lucas thought of as ’special’ be like?

Pauline wasn’t sure whether she should be looking forward to, or be frightened for the future day when Lucas showed her something he considered ’extraordinary’.

Honestly, after seeing the innovations Lucas had introduced to the forge, Pauline could have stopped her investigation, returned to her office with the boy, and got started on their original task of organizing the internation trade conference proposal, but she ultimately decided to press on with the tour.

There were a few things the Great Elder was interested in seeing, and a few items from the budget she wanted some clarification on, but honestly, at this point, it was basically pure curiosity that was driving Pauline’s decisions. It was slightly unprofessional of her, but she just couldn’t help herself.

A few minutes later, Lucas and Braxton led Pauline to a newly built section of the forge where several large cylindrical tanks were being fussed over by 10 or so other smiths.

"Are these all boilers?" Pauline muttered as she swept her eyes over the objects in front of her, already somewhat familiar with this piece of technology as she had seen them before at the bathhouses.

"Yes," Lucas replied, his tone a bit flatter now that it was before.

"According to the budget you submitted, work on these boilers is actually taking up a huge amount of time, money, manpower, and resources," Pauline mused aloud.

"En, that’s right," Lucas nodded again, though it was clear there was some frustration slipping into his tone.

Pauline was intrigued, so she asked the obvious question, "But... why? Why are these things so important?"

As far as she knew, the only use for these boilers was to heat water, and they did so quite well already. So, what reason did Lucas and Braxton have to manufacture so many different models of what was essentially a stove and pot?

What’s more, the blacksmiths who were gathered here weren’t just low-level apprentices and trainees, but rather some of the most senior and experienced masters in the Balfour Family’s employ.

Seemingly understanding the Great Elder’s confusion, Braxton provided her with a brief answer, "We’re trying to increase their capacity, efficiency, and reliability. As for why..."

Braxton turned to his frowning little partner in crime, silently asking him to explain.

Pauline also noticed this, so she glanced over at Luas as well, only to find him staring fixedly at one of the boilers, his brow furrowed as if he was deep in thought.

It took a few seconds for Lucas to come back to his senses, at which point he let out a sigh and replied, "I think it’s better if we just show you, Great Elder."

"Alright..."

"But before that," Lucas cut in, "We should finish the rest of the public tour."

Those words immediately caught Pauline’s attention.

Today, she had been promised a full disclosure of all the projects Lucas was working on, but those projects were also separated into two different categories.

Public works, and classified works.

The work on the boilers was a public project, but Lucas seemed to be implying their ultimate purpose was classified.

How a device meant to boil water was related to some top-secret, sensitive plan, Pauline couldn’t even begin to fathom, but for now, she was willing to let Lucas take the lead.

"Very well, then," Pauline fixed her expression and motioned for her guide to continue.

.....

For the next few hours, Lucas took Pauline Balfour to a variety of places both inside the Manor, and outside in the city.

The pair visited an experimental farm and greenhouse, where Lucas was trying out different forms of crop rotations while also attempting to grow imbi fruit trees.

The idea of crop rotation was already a thing in the Rockwell Kingdom, but it wasn’t a standardized process and often involved a lot of leaving land to fallow, Lucas aimed to change that and was running tests outside Misty City while Kaden, his shy burly friend, was doing something similar over in Yarrel.

As for the imbi trees, Lucas was hoping to one day replace animal fats in his soap production with the oil these fruits produced as the initial tests had gone quite well. Imbi oil seemed to be quite similar to the olive oil of the other universe, so this actually made sense.

Lucas also took Pauline to see a sawmill equipped with new giant rotating blades powered by next generation waterwheels, all things possible thanks to the lathes in the Balfour Family forge.

Seeing the once difficult to handle and difficult to process logs being rapidly stripped of bark then cut into planks was quite the sight for the Great Elder.

Small workshops where new brick firing techniques were being tested and where things like the other universe’s porcelain, cement, rubber and a bunch of other useful items were attempting to be replicated were just a few of the public projects Lucas was loosely overseeing.

Of course, the giant soap factory was also a major highlight, with dozens of workers using giant pots and machines to produce thousands of bars of soap every day.

Lucas even brought the noble and refined Great Elder to an experimental waste treatment facility where they were looking into better ways to filter both fresh and waste water, as well as turn the refuse into fertilizer.

It was... smelly.

Interesting, for sure.

But mostly smelly.