Arthur was in awe.
“I’m too old for this kind of surprise, but I gladly accept it”.
Aster nodded and Kail left the room, a guard from the Ghale family told Arthur that the last confirmed attendant just arrived so it was time for the party to start, even if it was his birthday as the host, he had to be present to greet all the representants of the families and forces that came today.
Arthur guided Aster and the girls to the main courtyard of the mansion where all the people were already accommodating on their seats, of course there were some free spots left at the right side of Arthur were normally the great elder Aria as his daughter and some other important people like the first elder would sit.
Aria did take her seat next to her father but when the first elder was about to sit, he felt his body going rigid, he turned his head and saw the kid that sent flying the guards on the main hall last time, still he tried to ignore Aster but then he heard Arthur saying.
“First elder, please take one of the free seats at my left side”.
The first elder felt angry, the patriarch was taking the side of some outsider, traditionally the right side was reserved for the most important members of the family while the left side was for the honored guests, he might have not minded if it was the seat right next to Arthur but the old man Sebastian was occupying it so he was going to take the second seat at the left which he considered a humiliation to his status.
He wanted to explode but remembering what happened last time he calmed down before trying a different approach
“Patriarch… according to out tradition only the most important members of the family can sit on the right side, normally I wouldn’t pay too much attention to it but this is a formal ceremony so…”.
Before he could finish speaking Aster interrupted him.
“There is no need to worry about that, I will have a public “family” bond with Aria in a couple of minutes after all”.
The first elder felt his blood pressure rising but he didn’t have any other option but to swallow his complains while Aster sat next to Aria and he could only sit on the left side since Lilia and Alice took the other two free seats on the right side.
The first elder felt humiliated so he directed a poisonous gaze at Aster while thinking, “just wait brat, the Rein family might have almost retreated from this place but they sent a new elder of the stellar constellation realm, let’s see you acting all high and mighty in front of him later humph”.
Now that everyone had an assigned seat, Arthur stood up and used spirit energy to amplify his voice.
“I Arthur Ghale, humbly greet the distinguished people that had decided to pay a visit to my Ghale clan despite the recent chaotic situation we are in!!!”, he said while stealing some gazes at Aster.
The first act of the party was that each representative presented their gifts for the host, this was a way to also present their families or forces to the other attendants, normally the one starting should be the Wolfstein family representative but since the incident with the “golden reaper” Isaac basically washed his hands of anything related to Ghaleria.
Surprisingly Wieland Kraft was attending the party as the representant of the Kraft family, and since he was the “strongest” cultivator present all the other guests tacitly accorded that he had the right to be the first one to speak.
So, the old man stood up to present his gift.
“The Kraft family wishes the Ghale patriarch a long and prosperous life, I hope this little present is to your liking”, said the old man before a member from the Kraft family took some steps ahead and presented a little chest with some crystal bottles containing liquids from various colors.
Of course, Wieland explained the contents of the bottles so everyone could understand their value.
“This is a set of spirit elixirs with multiple purposes that are effective for anyone below the star axys realm, from healing to detoxifying and improving the absorption of spirit energy, the details of each elixir are written in the label of each bottle”.
A guard from the Ghale family accepted the gift in Arthur’s representation before placing it on top of a platform besides the table where the members of the Ghale family were sitting.
Arthur stood up.
“My Ghale family appreciates senior Wieland’s consideration”.
The rest of the guests took their turns to present their gifts, unlike what Aster had imagined Egil didn’t spoke when it was the turn for the Asher family to speak, instead it was Eric who did it.
“Eric Asher wishes the Ghale patriarch a long and interesting life hahaha, please accept this bottle of monkey wine along with a toast from my Asher family”.
Egil felt a headache coming his way while the members of the other families laughed, the young master of the Asher family was known for being quite “festive” so everyone expected more or less something like this to happen.
Even Arthur couldn’t help but laugh, he rose his cup and accepted Eric’s toast.
“It’s a pleasure, I have heard some good rumors about the rare monkey wine from the Asher family so I’m glad that later I will be able to try it myself”.
The same guard took the bottle and place it carefully next to the gift from the Kraft family.
Contrary to everyone’s expectations the Rein family actually had a representative who attended the party and it was none other than one of Kalas Rein sons, although it was the youngest son it was still a big show of respect considering the situation the Rein family went through a couple of days ago.
Kail was thanking all the stars in the firmament that he had now access to the treasure of the Rein family, originally, he did bring a gift for Arthur since he knew about Aster’s relationship with Aria but it was just a middle mysterious rank treasure to show some respect for his boss.
So, when Aster presented Arthur and told him to treat him as if it was his boss, he immediately ordered one of his personal guards to go and bring a better gift with the excuse of “not letting others despise the resources of our Rein family”.
Kail stood up before taking out a large black case from his spatial ring which one of his guards took and opened it to show a black spear.
“Kail Rein wishes the Ghale patriarch a long and wealthy life, I heard you use a spear as your main weapon so I hope you like this present, the “Night Piercer” is a peak mysterious ranked spear”.
At first the other representatives were in shock, sky rank treasures were really rare in the Rodia star cluster so every medium sized force at best had a peak mysterious rank treasure which were not cheap by any means, even the worst would have a price of 100,000 spirit stones, as for the spear presented by Kail the price was about 150,000 spirit stones so it was quite a generous gift.
But then all of the families remembered that the eldest son of Kalas Rein was obsessed with the young miss of the Ghale family so they thought that since Kray couldn’t attend the party he sent this gift for her father as an apology, no one could have imagined that Kail was doing this to win Aster’s favor, well no one except Aster of course.
“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the gift he was planning to give on the first place, but I guess this does will give uncle Arthur more presence on the Ghale family so I recognize it was a good idea”, he thought.
The rest of the guests were members of low and medium ranked forces so their presents were not at the same level of the big four families although there were some interesting things like new kinds of ores or spirit herbs discovered in unexplored planetoids or little secret realms.
Once the presentations finished it was the moment for what everyone was waiting for, the tournament between the younger generation, of course everyone noticed that there were some unknown people sat at the right side of Arthur, they paid special attention to Aster since he was happily speaking with Aria, before when Aster spoke with the first elder, he did it in a low voice so no one paid attention to them earlier.
One of the representatives of a medium sized force decided to speak what was in everyone’s mind.
“Excuse my curiosity, Ghale patriarch but could you please present the little friend sitting beside your daughter?”.
Aster smiled before he stopped Arthur from presenting him, he stood up and directly looked at everyone before saying.
“My surname is Drage and… I’m Aria’s boyfriend”.
…
An uncomfortable silence fell into the whole courtyard until a lot of teenage boys stood from their seats, they all walked until they were in front of their respective forces, surprisingly there was even one from the Kraft family but the first one to say anything was one guy from the Asher family who looked a lot like Eric.
“I can’t accept those words of yours without seeing ho strong you are, I Ebbe Asher from the Asher family ask for a friendly match to this young brother… do you accept?”.
Aster saw Egil’s exasperated expression and he knew that he probably already told the truth to Ebbe and he still asked for a fight which showed him how stubborn was Eric’s older brother.
Aster turned to see Arthur before asking.
“Uncle Arthur you don’t mind a little friendly tournament, do you?”.
Arthur internally sighed, “when have you ever worried about my opinions you brat”, he thought but he still nodded.
“As long as everyone agrees then I don’t see any problem with the young generation learning from each other”.
Wieland saw the youngster in front of him and he nodded.
“The Kraft family agrees”.
Egil shook his head, “this pair of brothers are a headache”, he thought.
“The Asher family agrees”.
Kail of course couldn’t go against Aster’s proposition.
“The Rein family agrees”.
And so, everyone gave some space for all the participants of the improvised tournament that was about to start.