Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

Long before they reached the end of their little back-and-forth, Pauline had been staring at Lucas with clear disapproval, and the boy knew it. He also understood why she was giving him this kind of dirty look.

In Misty City, depleted Spirit Crystals took about 2 years to fully recharge. This solar collector setup he had devised was able to shave about a month worth of time off of that, a net efficiency gain of around 4%.

4% wasn’t big, but it also wasn’t small. If he had been able to enhance the re-charge rate of an unlimited number of Spirit Crystals with the current setup, it would definitely be worth the massive initial investment.

The issue, however, was the limitations of this setup. If only 40 depleted Spirit Crystals could be more quickly replenished with World Qi like this, that translated to the Balfour Family ’earning’ an additional 0.8 Spirit Crystals Unit Equivalents (SCU) a year.

Investing 50,000 Gold, which was roughly equivalent to 4,500 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals, for a return of 0.8 SCU a year clearly wasn’t worth it.

”This is just a proof of concept,” Lucas interrupted Pauline’s thought process, ”the whole point of this experiment was to confirm if my theory that sunlight carries World Qi was correct.”

”I suppose congratulations are in order, then,” Pauline said in a half-joking, half-serious tone.

Lucas had succeeded in his aim, apparently, but what the practical application of that was, Pauline still couldn’t see.

Lucas, however, remained upbeat, ”Now, all we need to do is find a way to drastically lower the cost of manufacturing mirrors.”

”Haha, yes, that would solve the problem, I suppose,” Pauline laughed, thinking Lucas was also making a joke, but when she realized the young boy wasn’t laughing along with her, it caused her to pause.

Staring at the grinning boy before her, Pauline hesitantly asked, ”You know a cheap, easy way to make high-quality glass?”

”Sort of,” Lucas’ shrugged, ”I have a basic idea of the principles of glassmaking, and about how to form it into large flat sheets to make mirrors with, but turning that into an actual product will likely require a lot of experimentation. If I could poac... er... attract some glassmakers already familiar with the process, that would surely speed things up, but that probably won’t be possible for a little while.”

Really?! Is there anything this boy doesn’t know how to do!? Pauline was thoroughly taken aback.

At the same time, she was even more confused than ever.

No one in the entire Rockwell Kingdom knew how to make transparent glass. In fact, even in the Large-Sized Nations nearby, only a select few knew the secrets of glassmaking, and they all guarded knowledge of the process zealously, even going so far as to kill to protect it!

After all, glass was an extraordinarily expensive and profitable product, one that anyone would want to keep all to themselves so they could maximize their gains for as long as possible.

There was practically no way for anyone outside of the established industry to know how to make glass, yet not only was Lucas saying he could make glass, he was saying he could mass-produce it for cheap!

Had it not been for all the other astonishing, nigh-impossible things Lucas had already accomplished already, Pauline would have directly called him a liar.

”How...” Pauline began, before catching herself and stopping, taking a deep breath in, then exhaling slowly, ”No, never mind. The how isn’t important, for now.”

Obviously, Lucas had a secret, a massive, world-altering secret, and had they been completely unrelated, given her personality and position, Pauline would have stopped at nothing to extract that secret as well as all the incredible knowledge contained within his head.

However, Lucas was her mother’s First Disciple, which, for all-intents-and-purposes, made him her brother.

Pauline didn’t have a habit of harming her own family.

”Thank you for not asking,” Lucas, who knew what Pauline was about to say, bowed politely.

Seeing this, Pauline smiled lightly and patted his head. He may be overly mature for his age, and possess otherworldly knowledge, but she could tell that Lucas was a good, kind, and caring boy who wanted nothing but the best for the Balfour Family, a pursuit she too had dedicated her life to.

Was she still curious?

Hell yes she was curious! Who wouldn’t be?

But Pauline figured that all she had to do was continue supporting this eccentric little brother of hers, and once she had earned his trust, he would tell her just how he knew what he knew.

The Great Elder didn’t doubt it would be frustrating, expensive, and possibly even dangerous supporting Lucas like this, but if her lifetime of dealing with war, politics, economics, and life in general had taught Pauline anything, it was that the greatest opportunities were found amidst adversity.

Besides, Lucas had more than proven his value already, and he was inextricably tied to her family now, so supporting him was really just supporting herself and the Balfour Family at large.

Composing herself, Pauline decided to ask a different question instead, ”What is your ultimate plan for this setup? Just how far do you plan on taking it?”

”Hmm...” Lucas paused to consider his answer.

If he was being completely honest, his end goal was actually stated right in the name of the project, not that anyone from the Rockwell Kingdom, or the world of Servist for that matter, would understand that.

Similar to what the humans of the other universe had done, Lucas wanted to build a Dyson Swarm around this system’s sun, only this Dyson Swarm wouldn’t just generate electricity, but would also collect a nearly unlimited supply of World Qi.

This would be a monumental challenge, one that would first require Lucas to rise to the very top of this world, gaining enough power, wealth, and influence that he could direct policy on a global scale.

It was a daunting task, and the technological advancements that would be necessary in order to make this dream a reality were quite intimidating, but Lucas believed that as long as he didn’t die along the way, he would eventually be able to accomplish this.

That said, it was probably a better idea to give Pauline a slightly simpler, more realistic goal, ”In the near-term, I’d like to build a similar solar collection array capable of increasing the World Qi density of a 30,000-square-metres area by 10-fold. I think that would be a reasonable starting point.”