Chapter 127 – 54: Reunion with Benwei_3
“Is there anything I can help with?” Winters asked, “Anything at all.”
“No need, I’m not lacking anything right now, and I don’t have to go to work, I’m good.”
Winters looked into Benwei’s eyes and said with earnest solemnity, “If you hadn’t saved at the docks that day, I would have drowned. I owe you my life. If there’s anything… anything I can do, just say the word, friend.”
Winters emphasized the word “anything” heavily.
Benwei understood what Winters ant; he chuckled and playfully punched Winters’s knee, “Do we even need to talk about repaying favors between us? You just go be a good officer and don’t worry about my trivial matters. Speaking of which, I do have a favor to ask of you.”
“Na it.”
“Is your family’s workshop still running?”
“It is, my uncle is running it now.”
“Can you help secure an apprenticeship spot?” Benwei asked sowhat awkwardly.
“Of course! I’ll vouch for you, my uncle will definitely agree,” Winters declared, patting his chest.
“It’s not for to be an apprentice, I want it for my younger brother,” Benwei hurriedly explained, “He has also graduated from Lu You, and this year finished his studies, but unfortunately, he can’t go to Guidao City. I don’t want him to work at the docks, so if you could secure an apprenticeship for him, that would be perfect.”
Skilled artisans represent the middle-inco class in this society; they earn money through their craft, neither dependent on the weather like farrs nor scorned and criticized like rchants. They are the envy of most manual laborers.
However, becoming an artisan isn’t sothing one can just decide to do. In Vineta, guilds in various trades have since ancient tis monopolized entry qualifications by paying large sums in taxes.
A person who only knows carpentry can’t beco a carpenter; they can at best make furniture for their own ho. Only official mbers of the Carpenters Guild are allowed to publicly sell carpentry products and provide carpentry services to others.
The sa is true for other industries as well.
Through this thod, artisans limit the number of people entering the market, thus avoiding excessive competition. In fact, not only artisans do this, but rchants also carry out the sa practice through comrce guilds.
And to beco an official guild mber, one must first be an apprentice to an official mber, and after a five to seven-year apprenticeship, one can automatically beco an official guild mber with the tools given by their ntor upon completion.
The apprenticeship is extrely tough, as many craftsn have bad tempers, advocate corporal punishnt, and are easily provoked to hit and scold; moreover, apprentices do not get paid. However, this is the necessary path to enter a lucrative industry, and many people are desperate for it.
“Why don’t you join my family’s workshop too? The work at the docks is very hard on the body and can’t be done for a lifeti,” Winters sincerely suggested, considering Benwei’s well-being. Benwei, at nineteen, was the sa age as himself, and it wasn’t too late to start an apprenticeship at that age.
“I’ll pass,” Benwei said with a light smile, “Apprentices don’t earn wages, and I have a whole family to support. It’s enough for my brother to beco an apprentice. I am just worried that the kid can’t handle the hardships of apprenticing.”
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“Don’t worry, I will ask Giovanni to look after your brother,” Winters rembered sothing important to ask, “Right, I wanted to ask you sothing. You were there the day the dock’s pier was blown up, right?”
“I was there.”
“The people who blew up the pier weren’t the n in black robes, but dressed like dockworkers. Do you rember?”
Benwei nodded with a cold smile, “Of course I rember, it was those Montans.”
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