Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

”Hahaha,” Celestina, who was obviously listening in, burst into laughter when she heard this, as did many of the gathered adults in the room.

Some of them who were closer to the boy even began chiming in, sharing stories like how Lucas and Old Braxton had spent 3 days straight working on the new boiler for the bathhouses.

Somehow, the two eccentrics, one 10 years old, the other approaching 250, had argued incessantly during that time, yelling and screaming at each without holding back at all as they debated the most minute details of the machine, only for their prototype masterpiece to explode the first time they tried testing it.

You would think it would be impossible to blow apart, flood, and burn down a building all at once, but apparently it wasn’t!

Needless to say, after that disaster happened and the many complaints were filed by others against them, Celestina was forced to step in and try to curb the enthusiasm of her First Disciple and her family’s best and only High-Rank Grade 1 Spirit Smith.

Recalling that day, Celestina let out another peal of laughter, though this time tinged with a wry edge.

Rather than being discouraged or even disappointed, the very fact that the boiler exploded and caused so much damage only seemed to increase Lucas and Braxton’s eagerness to continue their experiments, her young Disciple even muttering something about modifying the boiler to create a ’steam engine’, whatever that was.

Lucas certainly did cause trouble, and when he roped others into his pursuits, the trouble only seemed to get bigger, with a few of those gathered in Celestina’s office tonight having aided and abetted the boy in that regard, but none of them was complaining.

If anything, they only had praise for Lucas as, so far, everything he had done had led to significant benefits or improvements to their lives.

Even the members of the younger generation, who had initially been a bit off-put by the idea of a commoner boy from some remote backwater town claiming the most coveted prize in the entire Balfour Family, the position of First Disciple to the Matriarch, had mostly come around and now had nothing but good things to say about Lucas.

Many of them even called Lucas ’Senior Brother’ as a sign of respect, despite most of them being older than him and with higher cultivations.

That didn’t mean the young boy was universally liked. There were still plenty who snickered behind his back or thought poorly of him, even among the Balfour Family, but they were definitely a minority who knew better than to voice their discontent out loud.

In a world where strength was respected above all else, whoever had the biggest fist was right, and while Lucas’ fist was still quite small and weak, the fists of those who stood behind him were plenty big enough to make up for that.

If Lucas was here right now, and could hear what everyone, including his Junior Sisters, were saying about him, he would probably be torn between tears and laughter.

On the one hand, it seemed they all truly cared for and thought well of him.

On the other hand, words like ’crazy’, ’insane’, ’madman’, ’troublemaker’ and other even less flattering descriptors were being tossed around and associated with him rather alarming frequency by a disturbingly large majority of these people.

Of course, this was all done in good fun, and the need for some kind of release of the tension in the room might have contributed to how freely and openly everyone was criticizing and making fun of Lucas, but who told him to be so late to this important meeting?

Since he wasn’t here to defend himself or his actions, Lucas could only blame himself for becoming the butt of everyone’s jokes.

One of the few people who remained silent the whole time was Great Elder Pauline, who due to her seclusion had yet to personally meet Lucas.

When she first returned from the secluded mountain villa where she had gone to achieve her breakthrough, Pauline was stunned to learn that her mother had not just taken a Disciple at long last, but three of them all at once!

She had naturally met Christina before, and had an inkling that her mother was testing the young princess even back then, but as for the other two children, she had never even heard of them until a few hours ago when Celestina suddenly summoned her to Misty City.

Eris was apparently her grandniece from her little brother Elliot, but that didn’t tell Pauline much as she knew Elliot’s youngest daughter Sasha had left home many years ago, essentially severing contact with them.

Still, Eris was family, so Pauline had at least some idea about what her personality, mindset, and preferences would be like.

The true mystery, however, was Lucas, the boy her mother, siblings, nieces, nephews, friends, and colleagues in this very room all couldn’t seem to stop talking about.

Whether they were praising the boy, or disparaging him, Pauline couldn’t quite tell, but it was clear to her that everyone here was very fond of him, and that despite all the seemingly negative stories they were sharing, they had genuine respect for Lucas as well.

This was actually the Great Elder’s first chance to hear about Lucas as a person, or at all for that matter.

In the little time she had on her way from Martin to Misty City, Pauline had wanted to try doing a bit of research on her mother’s First Disciple, but having been in seclusion for almost a year now, cut-off from the outside to avoid any worldly distractions, a lot more than she had ever expected had happened.

Disaster, mass-migration, new industries and technology, kingdom-wide economic reforms, radical changes in the budget and law, the death of a Royal Minister, the presence of an Imperial Envoy, the return and departure of the Royal Ancestor, etc etc...

Despite having Mid-Rank Spirit, Low-Rank Martial, and Low-Rank Soul Adept strength, Pauline found herself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information she needed to absorb just to get herself caught up on current events, leaving her no time to browse the files put together by her subordinates on her mother’s new Disciples.

Now, however, it seemed she would get the chance to meet all 3 of them face-to-face and learn about them first-hand, something Pauline was looking forward to, now even more-so after listening to some of the... interesting anecdotes being passed around the room.