Chapter 505: They’ve Found A Way
"I heard..." one of the youngest members of the group, a boy who was just 14 years old and hadn’t spoken once yet, tried to say something then stopped.
"Hm?" Talia turned to the boy, instantly causing him to freeze up and turn to Zara for help.
"Speak your mind, Dane," Zara, the leader of the younger generation encouraged, thinking it was a good sign this normally shy boy was willing to even participate in the conversation.
"Well..." Dane still hesitated, but eventually he worked up the courage to say what he knew, "I heard that all the delicious food we ate were also Lucas’ inventions. Oh, and Princess Christina’s as well."
Thinking back on the feast they had just eaten, many of the younger Darr Kingdom talents felt themselves salivating.
As some of the most promising geniuses of the younger generation, and with all of them hailing from powerful noble families, these youths had all eaten extremely well their entire lives despite the relatively poor agricultural conditions in their homeland.
They also knew that while the Rockwell Kingdom indeed had a better living environment and richer farmland, the difference amongst the upper-class was basically non-existent.
All the stories about the enemy nation having endless amounts of delicious food were just propaganda for the masses.
It wasn’t a lie to say life was a bit better for the average commoner in the Rockwell Kingdom, and that they had access to slightly more and slight better quality food, but it was nothing like the tales used to stir up resentment among the peasants to get them to support the idea of invading and conquering their long-standing rival to the west; at least, that’s what they had all thought until today.
The meal they had been treated to tonight was so luxurious, so extravagant, and so mouth-wateringly exquisite that even they were starting to wonder if the stories about how plentiful life was in the Rockwell Kingdom had some truth to them.
Some of that could probably be written off as it being Princess Christina’s 16th birthday celebration, and some of it could be explained by the Balfour Family being one the wealthiest and most powerful in the Rockwell Kingdom, but the standard of tonight’s banquet had been so high that it bordered on absurd.
Seeing the somewhat dazed expressions on basically everyone else’s face in the carriage, Talia sighed and shook her head, not that she could really blame them.
That feast had, without a doubt, been the best meal she had eaten in her 108 years of life.
If Talia had desired so, she could have eaten nothing but Spirit Grade food and drink tonight, but she was glad she hadn’t limited herself and had sampled every item on the menu, something she was thanking her Low-Rank Martial Adept cultivation for right now.
Just remembering that juicy, delicious hamburger that was covered in tangy sauce and served on pillowy soft bread, Talia couldn’t help laughing to herself and thinking, I should have the chefs in the palace try to replicate them for father to try, it’ll probably become his new favourite food.
Shaking off the rather amusing thought of her bear-like father sitting at the dinner table, devouring one hamburger after another, Talia clapped her hands loudly, "Alright, that’s enough day-dreaming."
Snapping out of the daze they were in, everyone in the carriage showed a look of shame, thoroughly embarrassed that they had been so easily ’conquered’ by the food of their enemy.
"Mother," Landon suddenly recalled something unusual and had to ask, "Why did you fight so hard to get that extra piece of cake? As far as I can remember, you’ve never been a fan of sweet desserts."
"Oh, that," Talia nodded before grinning, "Well, there are exceptions to everything."
Gawking slightly, Landon couldn’t quite believe his ears.
Had his noble mother, the Crown Princess of the Darr Kingdom, their chief strategist, head of their intelligence gathering organization, and the largest sugar merchant in the entire nation really fought a verbal war with a dozen Initiate-Realm Cultivators just to get one last slice of cake?
Seeing a dumbfounded look on her son’s face that she had never seen before, Talia burst into laughter, "Oh Landon, you may think you’re good at hiding your thoughts well, but you still have a lot to learn."
Slumping slightly, Landon rubbed his forehead and sighed, "So, there was a reason you were so adamant about that cake piece?"
"En," Talia nodded, her face suddenly turning incredibly solemn, "I think the Rockwell Kingdom has found a way to produce its own sugar."
The youths and young Spirit Initiates in the carriage together with Crown Princess Talia may have been mostly focused on their own personal cultivation and martial strength, but they weren’t completely ignorant of the situation in their country.
The Darr Kingdom had one, and only one major export, sugar.
The sale of sugar to foreign nations was, without a doubt, the biggest and most important source of revenue for their kingdom and contributed a massive amount of money each year to the government in the form of direct sales and levied taxes.
It was for these reasons, and several others, that when Talia Darr suggested that the Rockwell Kingdom had discovered some way to produce sugar, the reaction was both loud and immediate.
"What!?"
"Impossible!"
"How could that be?!"
"Are you certain, Your Highness!?"
The mere possibility that their greatest rival and enemy may have found a way to harm their kingdom’s most critical economic lifeline was on par with finding out the Rockwell Kingdom had secretly doubled the size and strength of its army and stationed all of those troops on their border.
Seeing everyone around her lose their composure, her son included, Talia was not happy and didn’t hesitate to release her Cultivation Aura to suppress the ruckus, "Hmph! Panicking at the first hint of trouble, disgraceful!"
The carriage fell silent again, as the others lowered their heads in embarrassment.
After restoring order to the group, Talia continued in a light, but serious tone, "It was just a faint suspicion at first, but after those two pieces of cake, I became fairly certain the Rockwell Kingdom has their own source of sugar now."
"Could it be that they imported it from somewhere else?" Landon suggested, having calmed down enough to begin thinking rationally again, "Our Darr Kingdom is hardly the only producer of sugar on the continent."
Many others in the carriage nodded vigorously at the prince’s hypothesis, seemingly eager to agree with it.
"I considered that, and it’s indeed a possibility, but I’d say it’s less likely," Talia shook her head.
"Why so, Your Highness?" One of the Spirit Initiates asked.
Turning to the young man, Talia asked directly, "What Grade was that ice-cream cake?"