However, even though the palace official spoke until his mouth turned dry, Lorne remained as still as a mountain.
After Rosen finished speaking, Lorne still shook his head violently.
"Rosen, you're not being honest. You're basically asking me to jump into a pit of flames.
"Is the Ministry of Education really the place for me? That place does things that offend people every day. Although they are in charge of demoting or promoting all the official titles, the problem is that this is not a good job for me.
"If you want to promote an official, that person will only take it as his own achievements and will not think highly of the Ministry of Education. But if you demote someone, then you will be seen as a bully. In this way, you won't be able to get any benefits. Instead, you'll just slowly attract a lot of bad blood between people.
"Over the years, then I'll just become the enemy of countless people and become a thorn in the side of others. Do you think I'll be able to live well doing something like this?"
Rosen could not help but scratch his head. Being the Ministry of Education was not as terrifying as it sounded!
It was clearly a department with such high authority, but it seemed to just look like a huge fire pit. However, the problem now was that there were countless officials who wanted to enter the Ministry of Education, and unfortunately, Lorne was not one of them.
Rosen felt dejected from Lorne's point of view. Before he could refute, Lorne continued.
"Plus, I'm pretty sure that some of these people would use connections to get a promotion in the Ministry of Education. Moreover, are there no major official accidents in the jurisdiction that the Ministry of Education have been responsible for? Looking at the past few years, tell me, when hasn't there been corruption when it comes to political matters?
"It's only been a few years since the era of the former king to the current king. Should we go and ask how many corrupt officials and nobles have been reported in the king's city? I reckon that if you use a piece of paper to write all the names of the corrupted people, the amount of paper needed would be enough to remake a tree.
"Based on the current assessment system of the Ministry of Education, if you promote ten people, I reckon that six of them will have problems.
"Knowing all this, do you still wish for me to go to the Ministry of Education? What if I make a mistake when it comes to assessing someone that is worthy of a certain title? I reckon that making a mistake like this won't sit well with me at all. The other officials would have to wait until the world turns cold and desolate of human beings before I make a proper decision.
...
Rosen initially thought that Lorne was deliberately finding reasons to criticize his position because he did not like the Ministry of Education.
However, after listening to his point of view, he could not help but fall into silence.
Lorne was telling the truth.
Since the former king, Bidas, descended to the throne, it had only been two years since the Lolan Empire was unified by Kyle.
However, there were still countless corrupt officials and nobles in the world. They could not be easily distinguished nor easily removed, even if you were to remove them, more will just appear.
This was also the most troublesome part for the Ministry of Education.
In order to prevent this phenomenon, Rosen had worked very hard. However, the effect was minimal, truthfully speaking, it was little to no effect at all.
Although supervising the corrupt officials and nobles in the world was mainly the responsibility of other departments. However, once the nobles were investigated and had no problems, they would get promoted into an important position. Then, a large number of corrupt scandals erupted.
The Ministry of Education would also have to take the highest responsibility in this as it would be considered a random promotion without prior investigation.
These few years, there were quite a number of cases where the Ministry of Education had been punished by King Kyle because of the many issues it brought upon when promoting officials. Even Rosen, a duke who was the head of the Ministry of Education, had been reprimanded several times. Not to mention the Marquis officials, the Earl officials, and other low-ranking officials, who had received frequent blows.
There were many people who had been implicated and removed from office because they had wrongly assessed a person. Therefore, Rosen really wanted to completely solve this long-standing problem. In this way, the efficiency of the Ministry of Education would be greatly improved, and they would not be repeatedly reprimanded for promoting the wrong person.
Therefore, Rosen stopped trying to convince Lorne to join the Ministry of Education knowing how much of a mess it actually was. He was now more eager to know how to completely eradicate this long-standing problem. Even if he could not eradicate it, just by reducing this occurrence would be a major gain for him.
Therefore, Rosen calmed down and put his hand onto Lorne's shoulder.
"Lorne, let's not talk about joining the Ministry of Education for the time being. I'm just curious about the way the Ministry of Education assesses their officials. What do you think they should do to improve?
"As a businessman, I'm often exploited by those officials. I really want the Ministry of Education to improve the assessment system and eliminate the large number of corrupt officials and nobles."
Rosen casually found an excuse and threw the problem to Lorne. Since Lorne could tell that there were internal flaws, he should have thought about a solution too. After all, such an outstanding talent and a great sage of the empire would have easily thought of a solution when encountered with a problem.
Lorne glanced at Rosen and could not help but complain, "I say old man, it's useless for you to ask questions like these. Even if you know how to fix it, what can you do? Do you think you'll be able to write this all down and submit it to the Ministry of Education?"
Rosen's eyes rolled.
"Of course I don't have the ability to do these kinds of things. I just really want to know if it's possible. We businessmen are always curious about all kinds of things after all."
After Rosen spoke, Lorne slammed his fist on the table in excitement.
"Then you're asking the right person. If you ask someone else, they definitely won't understand the issue at hand. I'm afraid that even the civil and military officials in the palace would all be confused by what I'm going to say next. Look, the current head of the Ministry of Education, Van Hatton Rosen, can be said to have a high position and power. He can also be considered to be an extremely intelligent man.
"But when it comes to dealing with this problem, I don't think he has any good ideas. From what I see, he's actually not the best person suited for being the head of the Ministry of Education. Unless he invites me to take his position, there's nothing he can do."
Rosen, who sat next to Lorne listened as he went on and on about the Ministry of Education. As time passed, Rosen could not help but try to contain the constant twitching of his facial muscles.
Kid, isn't it a little rude to talk about me like that… in front of me? Am I really as useless as you think I am?' Rosen thought to himself.
However, Lorne did not care about Rosen's twitching expression and just continued talking.
"Okay, I won't go any further than that and just focus on the best method of the assessment now."
When Lorne went back to the issue at hand, Rosen immediately focused all his attention and stared intently at Lorne. He was afraid that he would miss a sentence or two because of a momentary lapse in concentration. That would be his loss after all.
Rosen was annoyed that he could not expose his identity right then and there. Otherwise, he would have taken out a pen and paper and written Lorne's words verbatim.
"There are four important points in this assessment method.
"Firstly, the method of the assessment. For noble officials who have been in the office for a long time, their performance based on the past three years should be taken into account.
"There are nine grades, from top to bottom. The nobles who've been investigated for corruption for more than three years in a row should be given the most severe punishment.
"The nobles who have been assessed well for three years in a row should be given the best reward."
After hearing this, Rosen hurriedly nodded in agreement. At the same time, he repeated Lorne's words in his mind so that he would not forget about it.
This strategy was actually implemented in Lolan's official assessment, but it was not as detailed as this.
"Secondly, those who fail the assessment must be severely punished. The methods used by the previous officials were too weak and easy to dodge, this gave those corrupt nobles a sense of confidence knowing that they could avoid it.
"Let me give you an example of how they should implement the new method.
"Once a person fails the assessment, he will then be evaluated for three consecutive years. He should be stripped of his official position and title of nobility. He will be a citizen for the rest of his life and will no longer be a noble. "
"Anyone who is an immediate family to him will be demoted by one rank, except for the important officials in the palace. His descendants will not be allowed to have a noble title within three generations either.
"Now this? This can be considered a severe punishment. If that's the case, those who want to become corrupted will be more hesitant in doing so, won't they?"
...
"Woah!"
Hearing this suggestion, Rosen felt a chill run down his spine. It was indeed a rather severe punishment. Although it had not reached the level of beheading, that was only because it was part of the assessment stage.
Even so, because of the assessment for three consecutive years, one would not be able to become a noble again for the rest of their life. Furthermore, even their descendants would lose the opportunity to become a noble, and their immediate family members would be demoted by one rank.
Once this gets implemented, no one would dare misbehave in court ever again!