Unmotivated Deity

During the months between when jien had added the training on how to control the Vine Guard and his birthday Jien had made several advances both in terms of knowledge and his three added fields of study. His use of wind spells had become far more refined due to the constant pressure of his spars with his mentors. He had even gone as far as to attempt tri-casting using mana pathways, sigils and speaking a spell at the same time on a few occasions leading to rather spectacular results.

In terms of his studies on taming plants he had hit a dead end. This dead end was not related to the original issue with the use of blood as a conduit, nor was it a lack of knowledge. Between Jien and Mark they had enough knowledge to figure out how to remodel the various spells to try and adapt to plant life as opposed to animal life. The wall that they couldn't seem to bypass was the difference in 'souls' if one had to put a word to it. Human and beasts had a type of spirituality that was more active and driven, while those of plants were far simpler and simply driven by growth. If one couldn't reconcile then communication through the bond created would be useless. This ultimately led Jien to give up on this field of research, at least for now. He still held some hope that if he got a chance to steal the knowledge from the other races he may be able to approach the topic once more.

Lastly Jien seemed to excel at the use of the mana strings and the puppeteering methodology. At first he stumbled in getting the hang of it, his control being more refined than many but still lacking to a practiced hand. His fingers were also not trained in a way that they would be as dexterous as needed for such a practice. To remedy the issue with his fingers Runa walked him through a number of exercises specifically for the fingers, stating that this would also be good practice for the art of casting through sigils. With plenty of practice he had come a long distance in this field, leading to improvement in casting during spars as well as better control of the vine guard.

Through all of these efforts his attempts to control the vine guard had improved drastically as a whole. When releasing it he would then bind it with mana strings and reinforce the movements he wanted with wind magic. The combination of the two would force the plant as he wanted. However, that was not all that the combination was good for. Jien found it easier to control the direction of his blade when using mana strings even without unsealing the plant. That along with the use of such tactics to draw secondary weapons led to yet another change in the fencing style, this one receiving Emily's seal of approval easily.

Now that Jien's tenth birthday was right around the corner things were becoming more active around the manner. The tenth birthday was the debut of the children of nobles to those of other families. Many chose to hold off on such a debut until the annual ball that the royal family put on for such families. Earl however, was of the mind that though such an event may be important to building relationships with others of the same age group a family should not ignore the opportunity to do so with the neighboring nobles on the day of the tenth birthday.

Like this the preparations for the celebration had begun. The manor and grounds were cleaned meticulously, food and drink were ordered in bulk and Jien was forced away from his training and studying to prepare as well. This was his birthday and his first true interaction with several of the neighboring noble children from cities and towns nearby.

Though one would think that the children of nobles would interact more commonly when they were neighbors, the truth was that this was often not the case. All families were first and foremost focused on training their children in preparation for the academy. None of them wished to hear that their child had passed away because they had been careless in preparing them for what was to come. Much like how Jien was trained daily with little to no time for true rest, the other noble children were often the same.

However, now he would be meeting with them, interacting with them and hopefully creating bonds with them. To prepare for this not only was Jien brought back through the majority of his etiquette training once more, he was also taught a number of dances. He had of course been trained to dance since he was young, mostly with Runa's assistance. However, now he was being trained on many of the newest dance steps from the recent years to ensure that he was as up to date as he could be. His father had even hired a dance teacher from the capital of the Elitrix Empire to ensure that he was truly up to date.

Runa on the other hand was tasked with getting Jien prepared in terms of wardrobe for the occasion. She took this duty very seriously and had hired a number of merchants including Arnold Monsell and his daughter Lizbeth to acquire many different options in terms of clothing. Though Jien would have been happy with wearing almost anything from his current wardrobe he couldn't escape Runa's clutches when it came to trying out, what seemed to him, to be an endless supply of different clothing.

Lizbeth was more than happy to support Runa in her attempts to find several clothing choices for Jien's debut. There would be a few known separations in the event, the first being the greeting and a small sparring session among the noble children. This was similar to the event in which Earl had watched his wife beat the other noble child to a pulp. After this would be formal dinner with all of the neighboring noble families and then lastly would be a formal dance where all those in attendance would have a chance to dance and talk in a less formal environment.

For this event it meant that Jien would need at least three different outfits, something that many nobles would find normal but Jien found as an annoyance at best. Of course the other noble children would also have different outfits to keep up with the traditions of such an event. All this to say that as the event drew closer Jien had grown more and more tired of the entirety of the event, wanting to hide in his room and return to his books.