Chapter 496: Tina’s 16th Birthday – Challenge
Talia, Landon, and the 4 young Initiates were quickly seated at the head table and it didn’t take them long to start integrating into the festive atmosphere, mostly thanks to the Darr Kingdom’s Crown Princess being an excellent conversationalist and the two Rockwell Kingdom Queens taking the initiative to welcome them.
As such, it wasn’t long before Talia and Cynthia were laughing and chatting together like old friends, discussing small anecdotes from their respective kingdoms, complaining about the stuffy atmosphere in their respective royal courts, and even sharing embarrassing stories about their children, something that both Landon and Christina were feeling quite awkward about.
However, they were the exception, not the norm.
The youths from the Darr Kingdom, for instance, were having a much more difficult time.
Their group was also quickly seated, and a standard round of appetizers and drinks was swiftly served to them by the staff dedicated to waiting upon the head tables, but despite the food and beverages being delicious, the atmosphere around them remained tense.
The youngsters from both the Rockwell and Darr Kingdom sides felt this couldn’t be helped and simply tried to ignore it, but that only made things worse as conversations died out, eyes were averted, and wariness continued to rise.
What Celestina was up to, Lucas had no idea, but since she was gone, he figured it was his duty as her First Disciple to step in and alleviate this awkwardness. On top of that, the young boy really didn’t want his Junior Sister’s 16th birthday to be marred by such unpleasantness.
Unfortunately, while Lucas had a great many talents, making merry and livening up parties weren’t among them.
Fortunately, Lucas knew someone who happened to specialize in just that.
Grabbing Eris, Lucas stood up from the head table where they had been sitting next to Christina and dragged her over to the table where the Darr Kingdom Juniors were sitting.
Arriving seconds later, the boy smiled widely and got the ball rolling, "Hi! I’m Lucas, and this is my Junior Sister Eris; mind if we join you?"
This was a bit of a silly question, seeing how they were the hosts of this banquet, but Lucas felt it necessary to ask anyways.
The Juniors from the Darr Kingdom all exchanged glances, unsure how they were supposed to respond for a time, but eventually, one girl, who seemed to be the representative of the group, nodded, "Please."
Taking their seats, the first thing Lucas did was ask who everyone was.
"My name is Zara Trant, of the Trant Count Family," the leader girl went first.
Zara was tall, with short black hair, green eyes, and a light tan. She was also clearly a cultivation genius with Third Step Sea Establishment strength at only 22 years old.
The others also introduced themselves one-by-one, each of them coming from an impressive background and posing substantial Innate Talent.
If it had been solely up to Lucas, the conversation might have died again once the introductions were finished, but Eris had a knack for keeping people talking, so without any prompting at all, in her usual energetic, innocent way, she jumped in and asked, "I’ve never been out of the Rockwell Kingdom! Actually, I haven’t been to many places in the Rockwell Kingdom either, but still... Tell me about your guys’ home!"
The genuine curiosity and enthusiasm Eris showed caught the other side by surprise. Since they arrived, they had been subjected to a mix of hostility and indifference, so suddenly being hit with so much positivity threw them for a loop.
Once again, it was Zara who stepped up and replied, "There’s not much to say, really. Most of the south is like here, maybe a bit hotter, but that’s about it."
"What about the north, then?" Eris tilted her head and asked.
Pursing her lips, Zara muttered somewhat sullenly, "The north is all desert, a harsh place filled with sand and beasts not suitable for humans to live in long-term."
"Hee... have you ever been there? Maybe to go hunting or something?" Eris continued to press in a way that flowed out naturally.
In response, Zara kept replying, with the others at the table occasionally adding their voices to the discussion.
Brynn, Audrey, and even Danika, seeing Lucas and Eris already engaging with these foreign youths, also wandered over soon after, followed shortly by Timothy, Scott, and even Jake Jenny and Jessie.
Before any of them knew it, a real conversation had started up, and the atmosphere had relaxed somewhat.
Timothy and Zara, who were similar in age and strength, seemed to be discussing their respective military services, talking about how hard training was or how terrible the food was, while most of the girls from both kingdoms were focusing in on Eris and Christina’s new dresses.
The younger boys were also engaged in some light-hearted conversation about weapons, food, and fighting.
It was surprisingly harmonious, and only grew more so when Christina and Landon managed to escape from the adult’s table, where they had become the butt of their parents’ jokes, to join them.
Everything seemed to be going well, better than Lucas had expected for a bunch of prideful children from opposing nations, but he should have known things wouldn’t go so smoothly.
Once the air became less tense, the range of topics being discussed naturally broadened, and inevitably, feats of strength began coming up.
Things like what kind of beasts they had slain while hunting, how far they had travelled into the wilderness while adventuring, how many opponents they had defeated, what their record when sparring with their elders was, and so on and so forth.
One thing led to another, and while they had seemingly been intentionally avoiding the topic for some time now, someone eventually couldn’t help bringing up the subject of who the strongest among them was.
This, of course, led to a ’spirited’ debate between the youths of the two kingdoms, a bout of grandstanding as both sides tried to push their own opinion, then an argument with increasingly raised voices, and ultimately a formal challenge to a duel being issued...