Mark

"Oh, I didn't expect that there would be such requirements."

"Well, this isn't well known after all.

But this solves another problem perfectly too. And that is that to marry someone from the royal family one has to have a title of at least count. Usually, if a commoner want's to marry someone from a royal family, we would give him some tasks, which would enable him to become a count, before the marriage. So strictly speaking you having married Lara before has been against the law. Before your reset, this wasn't a problem since from what she told me, you had the strength to be entitled to an honorable archduke title. But since your strength vanished after the reset you would have lost this title too.

Instead, because you are a family head you are entitled to get bestowed the title of duke, so the problem is gone too after you have been bestowed this title."

Ivan looked at the man in surprise. He didn't know much about the nobles but he had heard that duke was a high rank. This once again enforced the importance of a family head.

Seeing that Ivan kept his calm, Joseph nodded in satisfaction. He didn't know if the young man in front of him truly understood what it meant to be a duke, thinking of his history, most likely not, but it still made him satisfied that he kept his calm.

"How much do you know about the aristocracy?", he then asked.

to this question, Ivan could only helplessly shake his head. He had never really concerned himself with anything other than getting stronger and the matters of the alliance. "I don't really know anything."

"Just as I expected. Anyways, it shouldn't really be that important to you, since you seem to have the goal of entering the upper realms. But there are still some things you have to take note of. It would be good if you read some of the books about our aristocracy you can find online.", he then named a few books, that would give him a good overview.

"But what I would recommend is that you let Lara take care of these things. After all, she is experienced in these things."

Ivan agreed. As long as Lara would be willing to do this, he would be happy. He didn't have any real interest in this. The things he wanted to focus on were pill refining and getting stronger.

They talked a bit more about how Ivan was doing because Joseph wanted to learn more about this son in law.

After they had finished their conversation the maid, Susan, brought him back to the entrance and he went home.

When Ivan entered the living room he was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar woman playing with his daughter. Seeing them have fun, he didn't interrupt them, but instead silently went to his room, to change his clothes. He didn't know when, but shortly after he had started to live in the villa, a full set of clothes had appeared in his wardrobe. Although he didn't want to use his wife's money, except if it was for their daughter. Since these clothes were already there he saw no reason not to wear them. Besides that, he had taken to his wife's routine of wearing comfortable clothes while being at home.

After taking a short shower and changing into a set of comfortable clothes, he went downstairs.

This time his daughter looked up by chance and saw him. Since there was a pause in their game, she stood up and ran towards him, while calling out, "Daddy!"

He whirled her around and then hold her on his arms, something she loved. He then looked at the blond woman still sitting on the couch, "Hey darling. Aren't you going to introduce us?"

Jane nodded enthusiastically, "Of course, Daddy this is aunt Tanya. Aunt Tanya this is my daddy."

Ivan offered his hand for a handshake and after greeting her while shaking hands, he too sat down. The two of them then carefully looked at each other up and down. His gaze only scanned her but then focused on her abnormal eyes. They were like those of a normal human, but the iris was completely yellow. No, saying yellow didn't do it justice. It was like looking at a ball of yellow flames. There even seemed to be some movement, like they really were made out of flames.

Tanya too carefully looked at this man, that had become her best friends husband, and would most likely be hers too. He was quite handsome but in a way that wouldn't overwhelm people. But what really surprised her was his reaction to her. Unlike most men that saw her for the first time, he didn't show any signs of desire. Something that gave her a very favorable impression.

Those that didn't know her well, though she liked this kind of gazes because of the way she dressed but the truth was that she disliked them. The only reason she wore these clothes was that she liked them and had decided to give a shit of the opinions of others. Thus him not focusing on her appearance gave him a few plus points in her book.

Him focusing on her eyes didn't surprise her and it didn't annoy her either. The irises of the eyes of the Sun family were just too unique. As such when she felt his gaze focused on them she just smiled and asked, "What do you think? They look cool right?"

Ivan unconsciously nodded. He was focused on understanding how they could seem so alive.

"Hah, from all the Uradel families ours has the best signature.", she then proudly said, earning confused looks from both Jane and Ivan.

Seeing their confused looks she readily explained, "Uradel are these noble families that have a long history, during which their bloodline hasn't declined but instead gathered strength. All of the royal families and most of these of the higher nobles belong to this category. After refining their bloodlines for so long, the members with a high enough bloodline purity then show some outer signs. Generally, it is just a mark, simial to a tattoo, but for my Sun family, it is these irises."

"Then what are my mothers and mine?", Jane asked curiously. She hadn't seen any such mark on her body and neither on her mothers.

Hearing the question, Tanya looked confused. "You haven't seen them?"

At this time the door to Lara's office opened and her voice answered the question, "No, she hasn't."

Tanya turned towards Lara and asked, "How could this be? I know that you have the mount mark on your shoulder, so how can she not have seen it?"

This time it was Janes turn to be confused, "Mommy doesn't have any mark." They had bathed together so she was sure about it. Her mother's skin was white and completely smooth without even the slightest blemish.

Tanya questioningly looked at her best friend. "What happened? To my knowledge, there is no way to hide these marks."

Instead of answering, Lara came down and stood before her before pulling down her shirt, as to show her her shoulder blade, which really wasn't free of any mark.

"What? How could that be? I'm sure you had one before."

Ivan could see his wife smiling mischievous, something he hadn't seen before, and something he found adorable.

"See, mommy doesn't have any mark.", Jane said in a righteous tone. If it was someone else this might have made Tanya angry, but coming from this cute girl she only found it adorable.

"Come on, tell me how this happened.", Tanya asked again.

Instead of answering her just focused and slowly an image appeared on her shoulder. It was the mark Tanya had talked about. But instead of just the mountain she had seen before and that she had expected, there was now an additional dragon sitting on top of the dragon. But while it was sitting on top of the mountain, it didn't seem to dominate it but instead seemed to harmonize with it. Even more shocking was that the process of the image appearing looked similar to it closing its wings.

"What the?", Tanya exclaimed in shock. Jane too looked shocked. "Mommy, why have you never shown it to me? It is beautiful."

She felt some connection to the image and her own shoulder too burned up. She pulled on her shirt and glanced at her won shoulder. She wasn't able to fully see it, but she could see the top of the image appearing on her own shoulder.

"Mommy, look I got one too.", she happily exclaimed, while turning around, to show off the image that had just appeared.

"How could this be? How could you hide the mark? And how the hell did your image change??", Tanya got worked up. Each question was asked louder than the one before.