Chapter 10

"Master Lucas even, if we sell this pizza at the current market we have right now, there are only a few people who can afford to buy this from us. A normal citizen of ours would find this food too expensive for them to eat. I even doubt if we could earn money from selling this." Sandra said as she looks at me with scrutiny.

"I'm aware of that Sandra, so you have nothing to worry about. All of this is set to happen in the far future but for now, I want you to buy 2 sacks of beans." I said to her with a wicked smile on my lips.

"What are you gonna need it for?" She asks puzzledly.

"I read in an old book that those beans we've seen earlier are one of the most important and cheapest ingredients used in a lot of dishes in old times and I want to try if we could recreate it with the help of Gaspar."

"Is that what you told me earlier regarding the use of those beans?"

"Yes, In order for us to have a bright future we need to strengthen our agriculture sector. Which is one of the most important pillars of our city. Once it happens Florentine city would regain its vitality and one key chain of this change, is by having a sustainable and affordable meal that anyone can enjoy. And to do that, we need to lower the cost of basic goods, such as foods, and that's the reason why I want to start in agriculture." I said to her firmly as she looked at me with awe.

"Master Lucas you're amazing, it's like you already have a plan for everything, your knowledge never fails to amaze me sometimes." Sandra said.

"Knowledge is  a great power and weapon if it was used properly, that's why I always read books." I said with pretense.

"By the way, Gaspar, Please cook a lot of pizza today I want everyone in the house to have a taste of it."

"I'm sure everyone would enjoy this pizza that you made Master Lucas." Sandra said as she takes another bite of the over-bloated pizza.

"That's good, since you already know the recipe I'll leave everything to you, okay." I said to Gaspar as I make my way back to my room.

I just read some books in my room while waiting for dinner to arrive.

I started to think about the necessary plan that I need to implement in order to ensure my safety and comfort while living in this medieval age.

But I can only make some little changes at a time.

Since I never know what kind of impact would it bring if I do it too fast. If I become too popular I'll definitely attract unwanted attention from possible enemies so I need to be careful in planning everything.

If I don't have enough power to safeguard my interest, then enemies would surely appear once they see that Beaufort's house is flourishing.

I alone would not be enough to face all of them, especially the unknown. If I want to change the whole world, I will need many people to help me implement it— my train of thought was cut off by the sudden knock on my doors as James calls me in for dinner.

I didn't even notice the time as I was busy thinking about the prospect of my bright future.

~sigh~

It would be better if I just focused on the present as the future is dictated by the present decision.

When I got into the dining hall, I saw that my father is already waiting for me.

"Lucas, I heard from Michael that you went outside the city." My father ask while he was fixing his crumpled clothing.

"Yes father, I just want to know the real situation of our territory and to see it with my own eyes. Because I believe that in order for me to become a great lord in the future, I should first be aware of the condition of not just our territory, but also to people who live in it." I said sincerely.

"I'm proud to know that at a such young age, you are already interested in knowing how to have an effective governance for our territory. It also takes great courage and responsibility to become a lord. Such weakness must be controlled for enemies would use that against you." Father said in a serious voice as he looked at me in the eye.

"There is just one thing that you must always remember Lucas, without our people, we are nothing. Nobility won't exist as there are no people to rule and support us. So I think it's fair that we gave them the proper treatment they deserve for their continuous support of our family." He added.

"But you must also keep these words from coming out of your mouth, especially in front of other nobles. They would not feel happy with our principles as most of the nobility are now blinded by their power, and control people as a toy, they used fear as a way to control them and imposed all their demands." He said as he warns me of the possible danger.

"Don't worry father I know what you mean." I immediately said.

"I just want to make you safe, and I'm glad to know that you have a clear insight into what is good for our family. Oh! I almost forgot Gaspar told me that you also prepare a new food for us to try tonight." Father suddenly said as he changed our topic.

"Yes, I call it pizza. It's a new dish, that I found from one of the old books that we got and I believe that this pizza would have an important part in our city." I explained to him as Gaspar and the other servants come in with a tray of dishes, as they serve pizza to my father's plate which he quickly gave a taste, and in just a matter of minutes, the pizza was wiped out from our table.

"This pizza, did you really find its recipe among those old books?" Father asked as he looked at me full of intrigue.

"Yes father, I found it in an old book and one of the main recipes for pizza is this fruit, that only grows in a few places. It's a rare crop, and at the same time, it doesn't have good taste. That's why it was not popular to people and isn't known to many." as I presented to him a whole tomato fruit.

"I just find it incredible that this recipe isn't popular. Even the capital doesn't have this dish." muttered by him in a low voice.

"It's just normal father, the recipe for this pizza came from an old kingdom where there are only a few of this fruit called watersack."

"I just feel ashamed and disappointed at the same time, that I overlook this matter. I didn't expect that such a gem is hidden in those old tomes of books." Father said with a regretful tone while staring at his empty plate.

"It's alright father what's important is we can now enjoy this food. We can even eat it every day since it won't cause us that much. The only problem we have is that we only have a limited supply of this fruit." I said with a disappointed tone as I pointed my fingers toward the watersack on the table.

"But I can try to cultivate this plant and see if we can make profits from the excess supply of it by selling pizza as a façade to strengthen our economy and by investing more in our agriculture."

"That's a good plan you have. You can start with that and I can allocate a few fields of land to cultivate this fruit and see if we could make earnings from it."

"Thank you father for granting my request, expect that I won't disappoint you. Ah! That's right father I also found another way for us to alleviate the food shortage. It might be the answer to our needs. I found that beans are being sold and cultivated in our city."

"Beans, what do you mean by that? How could beans helps us with the food shortage?"

"I also just read it from the same book. That beans are one of the cheapest and most nutritious crops that can be used in a lot of dishes as the main ingredient. It also has a high yield, and only needs a short amount of time to harvest."

"Yeah, I know about those beans in fact that's one of the options we have if our food crisis worsens. The civilians can use beans as alternatives since it's cheap and can fill their stomach."

"I know that father but they only boiled those beans or mix it in a soup that is too unpalatable but I found that there's a lot of things we could do with it, that make it a much better meal that everyone could enjoy."

"We can buy these beans from our local farmers and process them to produce more byproducts that we can sell to the masses. That, in turn, would help us earn money while our local farmer would gain some wealth by providing them a stable market to sell their goods, by doing so, our family's reputation would further rise among the people and their support of us would strengthen." I said with a voice full of excitement.

"How could you even think about that at such a young age? How many nights did you spend to come up with that idea? Don't get me wrong Lucas. I'm not mad or anything but you don't have to do all of this. All your ideas are great but all I want you to do, is rest don't pressure yourself. You're too young to handle all of this, let me take care of this first." He said as he looked at me with concern.

"It doesn't really take me that long to think all of this and rest assured father that I have enough time to rest and take care of myself so please let me handle this father, I can do it I swear." I said to him with certainty.

~sigh~ as he exhales some air from his mouth.

"Okay, fine. But how can you make a profit from all those activities you mention earlier? What are you even gonna do with this beans aside from soup?"

"Eating the same food every day would tire people out and I'm sure that everyone would love to taste something new, especially if it's delicious and cheap, that's why the process of making this beans into tofu is really important for us to master as we can make a lot of delicious dishes out of it."

"I know that you have a lot of amazing ideas but I doubt people would buy your "tofu" you can't just introduce it to them and call it a day, we should show official proof that people would accept it."

"I already have it all planned father, all I need is your help as well as some funds to start this project and built my store." I said to him with a determined voice.

"A store, are you aware that there are no other nobles in this city aside from us, aside from those small businessmen how are you even going to make money from it?" he asks while giving me a dissenting gaze.

"The store is not for the rich. I plan to open it for our people, who only make a small amount of money, everything inside the store would be priced appropriately and I also plan to launch a takeaway meal wherein they can buy cheap but delicious food from us to take it to their home or work." I explained patiently.

"Take away meal?" father asks in return.

"It's a new concept that I thought of, I plan to sell freshly cooked food and they can quickly take it, away from the store upon paying."

"Are you planning to open that store any time soon?"

"Not yet father I still need to prepare a lot of things such as making sure that we would always have a steady supply of ingredients such as the beans and the fruit of watersack to make sure that its price would remain stable no matter what happens in the market and it might take me some time to prepare all of this." I said while thinking about the supply that I would need.

"That's a good idea, Lucas, hopefully, everything would go well as you plan. That would really help us especially now that the kingdom has raised their taxes once again on our city. We're already having some shortage of gold coins this year but if they raise it again next year we would need to sell some of our property." Father revealed to me as he look at the light crystal hanging on the ceiling.

The Kingdom of Turox has suffered due to a war that happens a decade ago and the economy has greatly declined so badly, that nobles need to step up to compensate the soldiers of our kingdom. The tax has risen a lot of times since then, and now almost everything is being taxed.

Our territory needs to pay a yearly tax of 3500 gold coins per year, given that our yearly incomes account for 6000 gold coins. It might sound like there was still a lot of money left once we pay the tax but in reality, it's not, as there are also a lot of expenses to maintain and run this territory.

"For now I will need 50 gold coins to fund all the experiments and projects I plan to start."

"I can spare you that amount of money but in case the kingdom plans to have another tax raise I need to save some of it if your plan succeeds that would be a great development for us."

"I'm aware of that issue father rest assured that I will use the fund appropriately."

Dinner ends with me and father talking about the politics and the latest news we have on the kingdom and the current stand of our status against the other nobles, this is also the day I learn about the precarious situation our family has. It might sound weird to hear this kind of topic between us but the original Lucas is always like this and only talks about formal matters.

I thought of a lot of things that can possibly help us ease our situation, but none of those are applicable to us, the only thing that I could think of is by improving our agriculture.

Agriculture is the only possible way that I could think that can help us restart our economy to develop and create more wealth.

The dinner has passed and I sleep this night dreaming of a brighter future waiting for me.