Seeing their son struggle to come up with an explanation for his answer, Anna and Drake exchanged a glance before the latter spoke up, "It's alright, Lucas. Take your time."
Knitting his brow, Lucas went over everything in his head, trying to find a way to describe just what it was he wanted to do. Eventually, the young boy decided that trying to talk about the distant future was pointless and instead chose to illustrate his short-term goals, "For now, I want Redwood Town to become a place where no one goes hungry ever again, and no one dies for any reason other than reaching the end of their natural lifespan."
"Eliminating hunger and disease is your goal 'for now'?" Anna asked with a slight twitch on her face.
"En," Lucas, missing the sign of disbelief on his parents' faces, nodded, "That would be a good start. There's a lot more I want to achieve after that, but I need to start small."
"You call that 'starting small'?" Drake gawked for a moment before bursting into laughter, "Bahaha!"
Pursing his lips, Lucas pouted slightly, "What's wrong with what I said?"
Ruffling his son's hair, Drake shook his head and said, "I'm not laughing at you, son. I just find it incredible that what you think of as a starting point is the ultimate aspiration for many Kings and Emperors."
Blushing slightly, Lucas lowered his head and began kicking at something invisible with his feet, "Those Kings and Emperors just didn't dream big enough."
"Heh," Anna chuckled before patting Lucas on the head, "If that's what you want to do, then your father and I will do everything we can to help you."
Brightening up, Lucas lifted his head and smiled widely, "Thanks, Mom, Dad!"
"Good," Drake nodded encouragingly, before turning slightly sheepish, "Just don't expect too much, there's only so much your mother and I are capable of."
It wasn't normal for a parent to admit to their 10-year-old child that there were limits on what they could do, but Drake and Anna had no such qualms with Lucas. The boy already earned more money than the two of them put together, so what more did they have to be embarrassed about?
To the two adults' surprise, however, Lucas shook his head and declared, "There's only so much any one person can do. To build the future I want to see will take many, many people working together for a long, long time. That's why I said I wanted to start by first improving everyone's lives."
Anna and Drake were slightly taken aback at first, but they soon nodded in agreement. Building a better world wasn't the work of one person, or even a small group of people, it was the work of nations. As for who or what Lucas would become in the future, they decided to leave that particular problem to their future selves.
…..
A couple days after the Rising Sun Merchant Guild caravan left Redwood Town, an unusual autumn chill blew through. It wasn't cold enough to cause snow or damage the crops, but it did unsettle the townsfolk quite a bit. As such, many construction projects and other lower priority tasks were set aside as everyone began heading out into the fields to quickly complete the fall harvest.
Charles and Sasha, as the Town Lord and Lady, were responsible for coordinating the overall situation, with the Baron foraying into town every day to organize and distribute the field work while Sasha handled the storage and book-keeping side of things.
Even kids as young as 7 were roped into this collective effort, which naturally included Lucas.
Given the early cold snap, Lucas had initially thought about sending his workers out to the Great Western Forest's edge to begin putting up collection buckets for lych tree sap.
Over the last 6 months or so, the young boy had managed to amass some 4,000 wooden buckets and special metal spouts from around town and through trade with Steward Warren. He had also had his father forge him a number of custom hand-drills specifically designed to bore holes in the hard wood of the lych trees.
Lucas hadn't originally been planning on harvesting sugar for another couple of months, but if the weather was going to cooperate, he didn't mind starting early.
However, after seeing all the adults around him scrambling to reap the wheat and grain, Lucas realized he had gotten his priorities wrong and quickly began pulling together his own employees to help out at the various farms around town.
Cutting wheat with a sickle in the middle of one of the eastern fields, Lucas stood up to wipe the sweat from his brow and unconsciously swept his gaze around. As far as he could see, there were rows upon rows of people from Redwood Town, young and old, all using similar tools to cut the stalks one handful at a time.
Compared to the massive, floating harvesters in his inherited memories that could cut, bundle, and process entire fields like this one in minutes, this purely manual approach seemed painfully slow and inefficient.
Of course, Lucas knew that trying to build such a machine was completely impossible for Redwood Town, or even for the Rockwell Kingdom; however, there were still many improvements which could be made with their current level of technology.
I've gotten too far ahead of myself, Lucas couldn't help thinking. He had been so focused on soap and sugar, trying to improve hygiene and develop some successful businesses, that he had neglected something far more critical.
Although cultivation allowed ordinary humans to achieve phenomenal strength, to split mountains and flip seas, the Rockwell Kingdom was still primarily a feudal, agrarian society.
In fact, as far as Lucas knew, the entire Blue Sky Continent wasn't much better in terms of development.
Things might be different in the large kingdoms and the Empire to a certain extent, but Lucas doubted it even reached the most basic level of industrialization.
Perhaps it's cultivation itself that has caused a kind of stagnation in innovation, Lucas mused to himself, and the more he thought about it, the more it seemed possible.
People of this world tended to think of cultivation as the solution to everything.
Want to harvest more crops? Hire labourers with stronger cultivation.
Want to defeat an enemy nation? Boost your own soldiers' cultivation.
Want to become a king? Raise your own cultivation until no one can challenge you.
Even when it came to manufacturing stronger walls, forging better swords, or concocting more potent medicines, people's thought process always gravitated towards using materials infused with more World Qi.
The most advanced pieces of technology were almost all created by Spirit Professionals, but their mere existence was inseparable from cultivation. After all, only those who had reached the Grand Spirit Realm could be considered true Spirit Professionals capable of creating artifacts and consumables which vastly exceeded the development level of this world.
On the other hand, in the world that Lucas' new memories came from, cultivation didn't seem to exist, so people had to find other ways to overcome these problems, mostly through the promotion of science, technology, and industry.
Lucas didn't think one of these paths was right, while the other was wrong, but rather that they should compliment each other and progress together.
The young boy soon became lost in his own thoughts, a bad habit he had developed after the accident last year, and it wasn't long before someone noticed, "Boss Lucas, are you alright?"
Being called out to snapped Lucas out of his daze and he hurriedly shook his head, "I'm fine."
Raising a brow, Joel, one of Lucas' recent hires, asked with some concern, "Are you sure? You've been standing there for a few minutes now."
It's been that long? Lucas cringed, blushing slightly as he waved his hand, "I'm really alright. I was just thinking about something, that's all."
"Hahaha, en, Boss is always thinking about complicated things," Joel laughed, his carefree personality showing through.
The fact that Lucas was such an easy-going boss probably had something to do with why his workers all felt so relaxed around him. That didn't mean they didn't respect him, of course; quite the opposite, in fact. Working for Lucas was one of the most coveted jobs in Redwood Town now.
Whether it was in the soap workshop or at the bathhouse, the wages were high, the hours were reasonable, and although there were a lot of rules to follow, as long as one didn't make any major mistakes, there were no harsh punishments.
If one did screw up something while working for Lucas, though, the consequences were quite unpleasant.
During the initial construction of the bathhouse, one of the labourers responsible for building the first settlement reservoir had cut corners, resulting in a serious leak. The problem was so bad that in order to fix it, the entire reservoir had to be taken apart and re-built.
When Lucas found out, he was furious and publicly fired the man, then he fined the carpenter in charge for the damage and delays. When the carpenter objected, Lucas fired him and his entire crew as well, saying that there were plenty of others who wanted to work for him and wouldn't produce such low-quality results.
At the time, the old carpenter had been furious, but given Lucas' identity as Drake and Anna's son, and with Sasha and Charles fully supporting the construction of the bathhouse, he eventually had to swallow his anger.
Needless to say, that old carpenter never received orders from Lucas again, and wasn't offered any jobs on the expansions of the bathhouse. Worse, given how popular the bathhouse became, gossip naturally spread, and the original labourer and the old carpenter both saw a dramatic reduction in work being offered to them.
Throughout the entire process, Lucas didn't show even the slightest hint of mercy, insisting that if he was going to pay such generous wages to people, they had to adhere to the standards he set. Anyone who didn't could find other places to work.
Given that basically no one paid more than Lucas did, and everyone in town knew it, no one objected to the boy's tough stance and many even sided with him.
From that day on, Lucas never had any serious troubles with his workers. The young boy might have been easy to get along with, but he also expected nothing less than the best from those under his employee. If they couldn't produce, the boy had proven he could be both decisive and ruthless when he needed to.
No one wanted to lose the opportunity to work for Lucas, even if it was just as a supplier of materials or goods.
After finally convincing Joel that he was really alright, Lucas was about to get back to work when he heard a low rumbling sound coming from afar.
Curious, Lucas jogged out of the wheat field to investigate.
Arriving at the main road leading towards town, Lucas caught sight of a dust-cloud approaching from the east. Narrowing his eyes, the boy could just barely make out what appeared to be a large number of horses, carriages, and covered wagons.
It looked similar to the Rising Sun Merchant Guild's caravan, but it couldn't have been them. Steward Warren had been here just a few days ago, so there was no reason for him to return so quickly.
Lucas was tempted to release his Soul Sense to investigate, but he refrained from doing so as he knew that it could expose him. Instead, he continued staring hard, trying to glean more details from his eyes alone.
Before long, the full scope and scale of the unfamiliar caravan came into Lucas' view, and he couldn't help frowning slightly. This caravan was much larger than any he had ever seen come to Redwood Town before, consisting of at least 25 horse-drawn units along with a sizeable group of escorts.
Even without using his Soul Sense, Lucas regular senses were very sharp and he soon discovered that these guards were all wearing matching armour. They were also making no attempt to conceal their auras so he could tell they were quite strong, all of them at least in the Vein Opening Realm. Lucas also felt about a dozen auras which gave him a similar feeling to his Uncle Charles.
More than 100 Vein Opening Realm guards, led by a dozen Core Formation Realm experts was not a force Redwood Town could afford to take lightly.
By now, many others who were working in the fields had also come out to the roadside to see what was going on. Upon catching sight of the ferocious looking men and women, all riding horses and wearing matching armour, many of the simple townsfolk began to feel nervous.
In fact, if it weren't for him knowing about Senior Farah's true strength, Lucas might also have felt worried right now.
Regardless, the appearance of this group was clearly not normal, so Lucas quickly made a decision and called out, "Joel, I don't think it's necessary, but spread the word not to offend this group of travelers."
Joel, who always had a smile on his face, nodded solemnly in a rare display of seriousness before asking, "What about you, Boss?"
Narrowing his eyes, Lucas replied, "This caravan is moving slowly, but it'll be here soon, so I'm going back to let the Town Lord know what's going on."
Saying so, the boy didn't wait for a response, turning around and sprinting towards the Town Lord's Manor.