Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

After the sumo matches ended with Lucas and the Rockwell Kingdom’s victory, before any further tensions or arguments could arise, dinner was served.

For the more sophisticated guests, they had 3 choices for their main course, barbeque steak grilled to order, pan-seared fish with a crispy herb-crusted skin, or smoked marinated fowl that had been slow-cooking since last night.

Unlimited amounts of freshly-baked bread from Princess Bakery and a variety of salads and grilled vegetables made up the sides.

None of these dishes featured any ingredients below Mortal Grade Tier 2, and a number of the meats actually came from either Fourth or even Fifth Order Beasts.

Lucas had considered introducing a number of pasta dishes to the menu, but having yet to find an equivalent for tomatoes, another critical ingredient he lamented the absence of as it meant no tomato sauce or ketchup, he decided against it for now.

That said, Lucas did include a few special items for the ’less’ sophisticated guests.

Colloquially known as the ’kid’s menu’, the chief offerings were the always popular smash-style hamburger and karaage-style fried chicken.

Both of these were obviously only approximates of the other universe’s dishes, but in this instance, close was good enough.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, many of the adults also sampled items off the kid’s menu, with no small number of the Spirit Realm Cultivators ordering 2 or even 3 different main courses, taking advantage of their significantly higher fuel requirements and faster metabolisms to enjoy all the new and delicious foods.

As one might have expected, many inquiries were made into the origins of these dishes and about acquiring their recipes; however, unlike with various other novelties which had appeared tonight, this time the guests received very direct answers.

With the exception of a few secrets, like yeasted bread, fermented soda, and anything related to Maple Sugar, Lucas had told everyone he taught they were free to share recipes and cooking methods with anyone who asked.

The reason for this was simple, Lucas wanted to quickly spread a higher standard of food culture as far and as wide as possible. There were numerous recipes and ideas for tasty dishes in his inherited memories, but like with french-fries and ketchup, if he didn’t have the ingredients, he couldn’t replicate them.

On the other hand, there were lots of ingredients in the Rockwell Kingdom, and the world of Servist in general, that Lucas didn’t know about, so he figured that the more people thinking about food like him and trying to innovate in this field, the better.

That way, hopefully, when he began traveling around, he would be able to eat many different foods he had never seen or heard of before.

Of course, the much more practical reason Lucas told everyone not to bother hiding how most of these dishes were made was because anyone with any cooking experience would easily be able to figure this out on their own.

In other words, trying to hide the recipe was pointless to begin with.

Take the smash burgers for instance. Every ingredient involved was obvious to anyone who laid eyes on it, and with them being cooked nearby in a massive open air BBQ area, it wasn’t like the preparation method was being hidden either.

Sure, how to make a fluffy bun was kept secret by Christina, and the recipe for mayonnaise was something Lucas wasn’t going to disclose anytime soon, but even without those two things, any observant guest at tonight’s banquet would be able to make their own hamburger without much difficulty, or at least tell a chef about it and have them do the work to re-create the dish.

Lucas’ philosophy regarding food was fairly simple, keep a few key items and methods a secret, but release everything else to the public and see what comes of it.

In line with this thinking, everyone involved in the creation of dessert suddenly became very tight-lipped.

A few months ago, after numerous attempts to create a truly high-pressure steam engine, all of which ended in some kind of explosion, Lucas, Braxton, and Marco had realized they were being too ambitious and decided to scale-back their expectations a bit.

Their new plan was to build up experience using lower-pressure steam engines while further refining their manufacturing tools and techniques. This would also allow them to start putting a few smaller prototypes out into the world to get more data on their durability and reliability.

The forge was the first place the new steam engine prototypes went in, and for rough applications like powering automatic hammers, they worked just fine. When it came to trying to power the lathes, drills, or saws, however, the excess vibrations and lack of control systems made them practically useless.

This didn’t discourage Project Revolution’s development team, though, it only reinforced the idea that they had really been too focused on increasing the power of their original steam engines rather than improving their quality.

Many days, many experiments, and many re-designs later, the first truly useful low-pressure steam engine emerged from The Lab, one that featured several innovations like primitive pressure gauges, pressure regulators, and a kind of adjustable gearbox attached to the flywheel, allowing for different speed settings and torque values to be achieved without having to dramatically vary the internal pressure.

This small engine wouldn’t be propelling a ship anytime soon, and it was still a long way from being a true production model, but if it was just about powering some small pieces of equipment in the main forge, it was more than enough to run tests with.

For now.

When Christina saw this new steam engine at work, despite it being very loud and finicky to operation, she still felt it would be useful in her newly opened bread factory for mixing large quantities of ingredients and roughly kneading dough, so she made a formal request to her Senior Brother to have one built for her.

Lucas was intrigued by the idea, as was Marco, whose new goal in life seemed to be spreading the glory of the steam engine to all corners of the world, so they agreed to have another prototype made.

They tried to give it to her for free, saying it was all part of the experimental process, but Christina insisted on paying for it, saying that business affairs and private ones needed to be kept separate.

Funnily enough, it was Lucas who taught her that particular principle in the first place.

And that was how the very first commercial sale of a steam engine on the Blue Sky Continent occurred.

Now, what does any of that have to do with the dessert for Christina’s 16th birthday banquet?

A lot, actually.