Presents (1)

On his ninth birthday Jien was required to complete a lighter version of his training routine. This was more for the sake of continuing to build the habit of proper training management than to actual push him. It was a day mostly meant to celebrate and nobody wanted to make it a day that got lost in the perpetual loop of training.

When he completed, what would now be considered a light workout at this stage Jien washed up and dressed in some of his semi-formal clothes. Any celebration would just be had with the members of his household (namely his father and Runa) as well as his mentors. Throughout his few years of life, though Jien had gotten to know a few of those within his territory he had never been the most social. In fact, he didn't even know much of his extended family, a topic that his father never seemed interested in sharing much about.

Beyond this most nobles made it a point that their children would meet at the age of ten formally unless the involved families had deep ties and had arranged a marriage or something similar. This was a tradition created so that various families could train their heirs and heiresses before having them meet. This meant that there would still be about a year before Jien would be introduced to the children of the neighboring nobles.

While Lord Losler was not truly in conflict with any neighboring nobles it appeared, at least to Jien, that he was not exactly chummy with them either. He had never seen his father try and reach out to the other noble families, nor could he remember any of them visiting Afrem City. That being said he may have just not been aware, especially since he kept to himself most of the time prior to his introduction to Mark Blood.

Once Jien was dressed and ready for the day, he headed down to the dining room for what was now lunchtime. He had been informed the day before that he would be having lunch with Lord Losler as well today, hence the lighter workout. He arrived not long after departing his room to see Emily Bujrim, Mark Blood, Earl and Runa all sitting around the table. This was not usual and though Jien raised an eyebrow at his father he didn't make any comment while taking a seat.

Usually only his father would sit at the table with him. Though Runa could be considered family, in terms of the Losler estate she was more or less considered to be a handmaiden, at least until she would help Jien with the management of the household if he chose to become the Lord of Afrem. It was by far unusual for a staff member to sit at the table for a meal. It was also strange for the two instructors to be seated at the same table as the lord that hired them, and yet all three were seated at the table calmly and elegantly.

Lord Losler was wearing one of his usual suits, royal blue in color, a white button-down dress shirt, opened at the collar, choosing a slightly less formal look today compared to his usual. Runa had replaced her usual blue maid outfit with a simple yet elegant light green dress that had no particular decorations. Mark Blood, as opposed to wearing an outfit to work out in wore an opened collared white dress shirt and a pair of simple dark slacks while Emily wore an elegant red dress that featured the pattern of roses that matched well with the guard of her rapier and its thorny rose motif. 

Once Jien sat at the table Lord Losler seemed to notice his son's raised eyebrow and chuckled lightly. "It's your birthday. Runa and I are your family while Emily and Mark are your mentors. Would it be proper etiquette for us all not to celebrate? You will only be nine once and next year you will be meeting the other noble children, meaning that your celebration will be much more formal. Let's enjoy this occasion."

With that Earl clapped his hands and several of the staff of the household came out with lunch. The food itself was nothing too fancy as this was just lunch. Dinner was slated to be a meal that would be filled with Jien's preferred foods. That being said, Lord Losler did not intend to make his son wait for his birthday gifts. It was after they finished eating their lunch and were served tea that Earl started things off by standing from his seat and walking over to Jien with a simple wooden box with a hinged lid. The box itself was only about the length and width of an average piece of paper and was not even a hand's width high.

When Earl handed the box to Jien he gave his son a slight nod to open it. Jien didn't hesitate, opening the box to show a satchel bag made of what appeared to be black scaled leather. At first Jien didn't quite know what to make of this gift, however, after paying close attention he noted that the flap of the satchel was lined with about five pebble sized bluish crystals. He immediately was able to guess what the satchel was, a spacial storage bag, and what appeared to be a fairly large one at that.

One wouldn't be able to tell the size of a spacial storage bag or device by the actual size of the bag but by the number and size of the mana crystals used to power it. One would need to know that these bags or similar devices were not common at all and that they were prohibitively expensive due to the rarity of mana crystals as a whole. Jien was a bit dumbfounded, not having the words to even ask his father how or why he had been gifted such a thing.

Seeing Jien's wide open mouth Earl almost broke into an open laugh. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like something like this is outside my means, and it is something that will be important to you in the future. Nobody can expect you to be able to carry everything that you can think you might need at all times. Not to mention that we all know that you will always try and carry a number of books with you." To this Jien could only close his mouth and stand up to give his father a hug and thank him. This bag would be very helpful going forward, he just needed to think of what all he needed to carry and understand the amount of space he had to work with.