Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

"Huh?"

"What?"

Both Lucas and Christina were caught a bit off-guard by this unexpected follow-up.

"A Guild!" Eris repeated herself, this time more confidently, "Mom said that when she and Dad were adventurers, they would often find work at local guilds in the cities they visited."

"A lot of the older kids do odd jobs to help pay for food and clothes, but all of them told me that finding good, safe work is really hard. If we could set up a proper guild that was dedicated to helping them, though, it might help solve the money problem for the orphanages, then they wouldn’t need to... to..."

"To sell as many of the kids," Christina finished the uncomfortable sentence, a look of contemplation filling her face.

Lucas also wore a thoughtful expression as he rapidly weighed this proposal’s feasibility and practicality.

Eris’ Senior Brother and Junior Sister were familiar with the concept of guilds. Adventurer Guilds, similar to the one Eris was proposing, were by far the most common, but there were also Guilds for basically every profession out there.

For example, Lucas had extensive interactions with Misty City’s Blacksmithing Guilds, while Christina had many dealings with the Restaurant Guilds. However, neither of them had thought about starting their own Guild just yet as they hadn’t seen a reason.

Most of Lucas’ projects were tied to the Balfour Family and thus covered under their umbrella of influence, setting up a separate guild would be redundant. Perhaps in the future it would be necessary to create some separation from his Master’s force, but at the moment, Lucas felt it was just a waste of time and effort.

As for Princess Bakery, it was certainly growing quite rapidly with the original staff and location already being unable to meet the demand for Redwood-Style Bread, but Christina would need to open several more stores and sign a large number of exclusive supply contracts before even considering forming her own commercial guild.

As they mulled over Eris’ idea, though, both Lucas and Christina felt that it had merit.

Lucas knew it was more a stop-gap measure than a permanent solution to the problem, but perhaps that was actually better compared to what he had been trying to do.

The young boy had wanted to emulate the system from the other universe, where orphanages were funded entirely by the state, or at least governed by strict state laws. These children didn’t have to work odd-jobs because a certain basic living standard was guaranteed to them, including shelter, clothing, nutrition, and education.

It was, in Lucas’ opinion, an ideal solution, but that was also why it was so difficult to implement!

The time, money, resources, and personnel required to make this a reality was so enormous that it was basically impossible in the short-term.

Realizing the fault in his thinking, Lucas felt like kicking himself, I’ve gotten too used to thinking big and trying to settle things perfectly, rather than just dealing with the immediate issue and making incremental progress.

Christina was also reflecting on her recent thoughts and actions, realizing she had gotten a bit too caught up in building up herself and her new business while somewhat neglecting her responsibilities to the people and kingdom.

Of the three children, Christina felt that, as a princess, she was the one who had the greatest obligation to safeguard and improve the lives of the Rockwell Kingdom’s citizens.

Whether this viewpoint was justified, or even reasonable, was debatable, but for a young girl who believed deeply in acting honourably, learning that her Senior Sister had been thinking harder about how to make the kingdom better than she had was a bit embarrassing, Sure enough, I’m still no match for Sister Eris when it comes to righteousness.

Suffice-it-to-say, Lucas and Christina were proud of Eris and felt humbled by her pure, innocent heart.

"If that’s what you want to do, Big Sister Eris, I will do everything I can to support you," Lucas declared.

"En, me too," Christina concurred, "Whether its financially, or offering safe workplaces for the kids, I believe I can be of help."

"Really? Great!" Eris cheered, smiling happily at having received approval for her plan from her smart little brother and talented big sister.

Eris had honestly been a bit worried she wouldn’t be able to convince Lucas and Christina to help her; after all, she hadn’t really thought the whole guild thing through completely and wasn’t sure if it was an appropriate idea.

"We’ll need to get Master’s permission," Lucas followed up, "Otherwise it will technically be an illegal guild."

"Right," Christina nodded, "Since the target ’workers’ won’t be legal adults, we’ll need to be granted an exception by the Balfour Family and the city administrators in order to operate."

"Funding... shouldn’t be a problem," Lucas muttered, doing some quick calculations in his head and concluding that setting up a small guild wouldn’t be too expensive, at least not compared to the profits he was making from his soap and sugar businesses.

"Um..." Eris cut in, "It might be a bit much to ask, but... would it be possible for the guild to also teach some of the younger kids about cultivation? Becky’s birthday was today, and Director Tilly tried teaching her how to use the Focused Breathing Art, but her explanation was really bad, so I had to do it myself."

"Hm? You guided Becky through her first cultivation session?" Christina was intrigued and asked, "How did it go?"

Pursing her lips, Eris took a second to find the right words before replying, "It was... weird? At first, I was taught to cultivate by Mom, Dad, and Aunt Anna; their lessons were all quite clear and detailed. Then, Lucas and Aunt Farah began teaching me, answering a lot of my questions, making things make more sense. Then it was Master and Grandpa and everyone else... I just took what I learned and summarized it, but everyone at the orphanage seemed really impressed..."

By the time Eris finished speaking, her cheeks had flushed a bit red, clearly embarrassed that she had received so much attention and praise even though all she did was repeat what had been taught to her.

Christina, however, just laughed and shook his head at his naïve Senior Sister, "Of course they were impressed, Eris. You’ve been taught by some of the greatest masters in the entire kingdom, it’s only normal that no one at the orphanage has heard such a clear explanation of cultivation before."

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