Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"What are you up to?" Irea asked as she went out of the kitchen. Ever since the party returned from its arduous trip to the forest in the north, she spent most of her time turning the animal corpses into storable food. 

"Trying to figure out what we should do right now," Layn replied while staring at yet another picture he drew on the ground. 

"You are still troubled with those plans?" Irea asked as she looked over Layn's shoulder. "Yeah, it's all the same," she sighed before Layn could even say something. 

"I know that it's pointless," Layn nodded his head as he replied. "I might know a lot about many different things, but planning a city?" he asked himself before shaking his head. "No, that's not something I'm capable of doing. Or rather, I can't do it in a way that won't cause troubles down the line," he explained his thoughts with his eyes stuck to the picture below. 

"How about doing something else?" Irea proposed while she straightened her back and looked over at the kitchen's chimney. 'Is she judging the color of the smoke or something?' Layn thought as he got distracted for a moment before the stillness of the moment got him once again. 

"The problem is, there isn't that much else to do," Layn replied as he finally raised his eyes up. He gazed at the several buildings nearby before shaking his head. "All we can do right now is produce the bricks. No matter what we try to build, it's likely to be torn down as soon as the correction to my plans appears," he said, revealing the main reason why he was so down. 

"How about helping me around in the kitchen, then?" Irea proposed while leaning her head over her shoulder. "It's pretty hard to take care of all the animals we managed to bring back," she said while looking to the back at the open doors to the kitchen. 

"Is that the case?" Layn asked while moving his eyes on the girl. "Dang, I didn't really pay too much attention to the spoils at all. How are we looking?" Layn asked as soon as he realized that he missed this crucial detail. 

"In terms of meat, if we use it sparingly, it should last for two or three months," Irea replied after a short moment of calculation. "That is, don't expect to eat steaks or fried meat. A single or double chunk of it in a soup every now and then is all I can promise," she explained her thoughts before biting her lips. "I know this is not the perfect solution, but unless we want to return to fish and gruel in a week, we will need to hold back."

'That's right,' Layn thought. 'We didn't bring a lot, but just enough to make our diet a bit better for a moment,' he realized, forced to accept the reality no matter how bad it would be. 

"I don't even want to think what will happen when people start coming to this place," Irea added after Layn failed to respond in any way or form for a long while. 

"That's the easiest part. Once more people will gather here, we will have to find different jobs for them." Layn informed the girl, using the few bits of knowledge about management he gathered in the academy. "If we force everyone to strictly follow the most essential task, we won't be able to keep them loyal and peaceful," he added before turning his picture into a mess with a few strokes of yet another stick he found. 

Then, he started to carve the ground once again. This time though, instead of planning another outline, he drew a set of seven squares arranged as a side of a pyramid. 

"Wait, I have an idea," Layn said after staring at his own picture for a few moments. "What if we create a hunting guild?" he asked, raising his eyes at the girl behind him. 

"Hunting guild? Like the mercenary one back in the town?" Irea asked as she glanced to the far east where they came from not so long ago. 

"More or less," Layn nodded his head. "The guild would be divided into seven ranks. Starting with two parts out of ten. Each hunter would raise their share of the prey they hunt by one-tenth for each rank they advance." Layn started to explain his idea while adding arrows of varying size to each of the squares in the picture, with all of them pointing outwards.

"Two tenths?" Irea asked before shaking her head and then casting an intense gaze at Layn as if she wasn't sure if she heard correctly. "If we set the tax so high, no one will bother to hunt!" 

"A valid point, but," Layn smiled as he dragged his hand down and slammed it into the ground. "If they won't hunt, they will only be able to buy the meat from those who will sell it. And with the tax set so high..." Layn stopped mid-sentence before raising his eyes on the girl. 

"Rarely anyone would ever sell the meat," Irea finished Layn's words but didn't appear to be convinced. "Still, eight out of ten?" She shook her head. "Even if they can decrease the task by working more, no one will start if the entry will be so damn exploitative!" Irea protested with all her might. 

'Isn't this the first time?' Layn suddenly asked himself. 'Isn't this the first time that she openly opposed me?' Layn was just as surprised as he was happy. He liked the girl a lot and expected a certain degree of loyalty and obedience, but he didn't wish for her to turn into a lifeless puppet. 

'After those moments of doubt she had back near the forest, I would never imagine her to argue with me so quickly!' he thought with joy, happy seeing the girl's growth. 

"You are right," Layn suddenly admitted. "If people will have to risk going to that forest just to advance ranks, no one will bother doing it." He smiled despite apparently going against his own idea. "That's where the standard quests will come into play," he added after a moment when he judged the tension to be high enough.

"Standard quests?" Irea asked, sighing with exhaustion. "Another brilliant idea of yours?" she asked rudely, clearly too tired to mind her manners. 

"For the lowest rank, we will go with the letter 'F,'" Layn announced as he drew the letter in the box at the bottom of the pyramid. "For them, the standard task will be to help around with the gathering of wild herbs on the plains and doing odd-jobs requested by the locals," Layn informed before moving the tip of his stick towards the higher square. 

"For the 'E' rank hunters, their standardized quest will be the construction work. We could occasionally add some more quests for this grade whenever someone requests a thing that an 'F' rank hunter could find troublesome," Layn continued to talk about this topic while Irea just stared wide-eyed at him. 

"Wait, what does construction work has to do with hunting?" she suddenly asked, pointing out the flaw in Layn's plan. 

"Dang, I didn't think about this..." Layn admitted before rubbing his chin. "How about slaves-guild?" he proposed with a small smirk. 

"Are you done wasting my time?" Irea asked in a tired voice, refusing to accept Layn's invitation to a joke. 

'She must be really tired,' Layn thought, unable to find another reason behind the girl's poor mood. 

"I'm sorry. But putting the name of the matter aside, I believe we could organize this place quite well with a place like that." Layn pushed with the topic even if Irea wasn't all that interested in it. 

'After all, she was born to the culture dominant in the current time. While the idea of adventurer's guild is quite obvious, it might not necessarily work with how the world is right now.' Layn thought, visibly deflating as his enthusiasm started to vanish.

"I don't think it's a bad idea per se," Irea said with a hesitant voice. "I'm just worried that putting the tax so high right off the bad would hamper the enthusiasm people would have to join something like that," she explained her own way of thinking. 

"How would you set it yourself, then?" Layn asked, making sure to get rid of all the irony that could possibly hide in his voice. After all, he wasn't trying to put Irea down for opposing him but get her genuine advice. 

"I would have to think about it... But what if this tax only applies to the spoils directly from the forest area?" Irea proposed, raising her eyes at Layn.

Looking into the girl's pupils, Layn could see certain energy in them. An energy that had some hopes at turning Irea's mood nice again. 

"So that everyone willing to join the hunters would have to go through a period of working for the city first?" Layn asked before putting a wicked smile on his face. "Oh baby, I didn't know you could be so heinous!"