Chapter 651: The Importance of New Years

Although the presence of a constantly brooding Spirit Elite Envoy from the Rising Sun Empire in the capital definitely brought the overall mood down, the New Years Banquet at the royal palace went on as usual.

This was a tradition that had existed since the founding of the Rockwell Kingdom; or rather, it was a tradition that was observed basically across the entire Blue Sky Continent since before the current era began 877 years ago.

It had become such a cultural fixture that a monarch, or even a high-ranking noble not hosting a proper New Years celebration was seen as a sign that their family was either extremely stingy, or on the verge of total collapse.

Even when two or more kingdoms were at war, it was expected that a truce would be observed on New Years Eve so that celebrations giving thanks for the safe passage of another year and to honour the recently fallen could be held.

Anyone who violated such a truce, or worse, chose to start a war on New Years in order to catch their opponent off-guard, was generally condemned by all the surrounding nations as dishonourable, which tended to end poorly for the aggressor.

That was how important the end-of-year celebrations were and why they tended to be biggest, most extravagant, and best attended events of all.

In other words, they were the perfect opportunity to show off and to make important announcements, two things the Rockwell Family was definitely planning to do tonight.

Thankfully, although Imperial Envoy Alexandros Ateo definitely cast a shadow over the celebrations, the man himself had made it well known that he had no interest in attending a ’peasant’s gathering’, and thus chose to remained in his room cultivating, allowing the royal family to host their party without any added pressure.

In fact, if anything, this New Years banquet was actually much livelier than usual for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there was no small amount of tension between the many noble ladies in attendance, as a few of them showed up in unique and stunning new outfits that completely went against the traditional look of the kingdom and the Blue Sky Continent as a whole.

The women who belonged to more conservative or traditional families quietly scoffed at the ’outrageous’ dresses that revealed so much skin and put so much emphasis on one’s figure, though if one looked closely, they could pretty-much see jealousy burning in these ladies’ eyes when they made such comments.

As for the men... they were simpler creatures, really.

The women in old-style formalwear were no doubt quite attractive still, their high cultivations pretty much ensuring that their faces and figures were pleasant to look at, but it was impossible to deny how eye-catching the new-style dresses were.

A bigger fuss might have been made about the warring fashion trends in the kingdom had it not been for what the Rockwell Family showed up wearing.

When First Queen Marianne, Second Queen Natasha, and Third Queen Cynthia entered the grand hall together, each of them wearing a particularly eye-catching new-style dress, even the most conservative of nobles had to admit that they were absolutely stunning.

Needless to say, this was Lucas’ tailor shop, [Vision]’s doing, though one couldn’t put all the blame on the boy as the First and Third Queens had practically forced him to supply them with these new outfits after they saw what Celestina, Eris, and Christina were wearing back on the latter’s 16th birthday.

The royal children who were present for the celebration were also all dolled up, each of them having received a new outfit and a matching set of jewelry as a New Years’ gift from Louise and Christina.

Even King Nathanial and former King Hayden had matching white suits on tonight, the only difference being Nathanial had striking purple highlights to match his eyes, while Hayden’s suit featured blue trim to compliment his softer eyes.

There were a few others in the hall who were wearing new-style formalwear, both men and women, but none of those outfits could compare to what the royals were wearing, which made sense seeing how Lucas had worked together with Isaac and Felicity to personally design and manufacture these pieces.

The young boy had even consulted with Louise extensively to ensure that the dresses and suits were not only the right colours, but also reflected the personalities of their intended wearers.

In other words, these dresses and suits were significantly more elaborate than the slightly more generic outfits those in the general crowd had been able to acquire.

Now, while all the men had their eyes glued to the various royal women, plenty of women were also eyeing the Nathanial, his sons, and even his father.

Given just how stunning the queens looked tonight, none of these women bothered approaching Nathanial as they figured such attempts would be futile, but his unmarried sons and Former King Hayden were quickly swarmed by ladies from both the younger and older generation hoping to make an impression.

Nothing more needed to be said about the princes as most young ladies already dreamed about marrying one of them, but what was really surprising was just how many of them were actually eyeing the bigger fish.

Hayden Rockwell had the looks of a refined middle-aged gentleman combined with the physique of a trained warrior. He was also quite kind and friendly, perhaps a bit too much for a former monarch, but that only made him more attractive to many women.

Despite all that, however, he had been single for many years now after his one and only late wife, Doris, passed away in childbirth nearly four decades ago.

It had been a double tragedy that day as the child, who would have been Nathanial’s baby sister, had been stillborn.

After that unfortunate series of events, Hayden simply didn’t have the heart to take another wife even though many women were eager to marry him and practically all of his ministers were encouraging him to do so.

Back then, Hayden had dismissed these overtures, saying he wished to focus on ruling the kingdom and preparing his heir to assume the throne.

Fortunately, Nathanial was already quite competent and well liked at the time, so the ministers and council members decided to back off a bit and focus their attention on the next generation after the Seventh King.

It also helped that Nathanial was quite the lady’s man and already had a couple children of his own at that point, alleviating the succession worries.