Chapter 668: No Rest For The Weary

It was only after several more hours of sketching, scratching his head, ripping paper out and crumpling it up, then starting all over again that Lucas finally decided to give up, drag himself back to his room, and collapse on his bed.

His ’important work’ was still half-finished, at best, but his mind too exhausted to keep going.

Lucas, of course, knew he should have gone to bed sooner, but as usual, he got absorbed in his work and completely lost track of time.

The young boy was beginning to think he would never get of this bad habit of his, but for the moment, all he cared about was getting some rest.

Unfortunately, despite it being the dead of winter, the morning sun had other plans.

3 hours later, thanks to it being a beautiful day with not a single cloud in the sky, Lucas was awoken from his slumber by the gentle morning rays shining in through the window.

Groaning in protest, the boy did his best to resist, pulling his sheets up over his head to shield himself and attempting to fall back asleep, an endeavour he actually succeeded in... for about half-an-hour before there was a knock at his door and Eris burst in.

Together with a loudly yipping Yuki, the young red-head called out, "Morning, Lucas! Time to get up!"

"Yip yip yip!"

"Unnggh..." Lucas grumbled, throwing the comforter off as he peered through bleary eyes as the offending duo who were both smiling widely at him.

It took the boy a moment, but eventually he summoned the willpower to ask, "What are you doing here so early, Big Sis?"

Eris was notoriously bad with mornings and impossibly difficult to wake up, often sleeping in and then rushing around in a panic as she scrambled to get ready. So, if she was already up and energetic, there had to be a very good reason.

Sure enough, Eris tilted her head in confusion as she replied, "Hm? Weren’t you the one who asked me to wake you up first thing in the morning so we could all train together with all the other kids?"

Right, I did say something stupid like that, Lucas quickly recalled, kicking himself with regret as he did so.

Of course, if he had just gone to sleep last night like everyone else instead of staying up working...

In any case, why had Lucas requested this early-morning wakeup call on what should have been a holiday?

Simple, to get some interaction with the members of the Balfour Family’s younger generation he hadn’t met yet.

Calling the Balfour Family huge was an understatement.

Celestina alone had over 50 Direct Descendants while some of her siblings had more than three times that many.

That said, the only living member of the family older than Celestina was Lord Franklin, her reclusive uncle who had, unsurprisingly, not come to attend the New Years Banquet in Martin.

Apparently, his exact response when Celestina had gone to ask him to join them was, "No."

That was it.

Essentially, the members of the Balfour Family were all descendants of Celestina’s generation and the generation above her.

There was quite a bit of strange overlap, with some of Celestina’s uncles and aunts actually being much younger than her, but that was actually a fairly common occurrence in powerful cultivation families where individuals could live extremely long lives, marry multiple partners, and have children who were hundreds of years apart in age.

All this was to say that, currently, there were several hundred members of the Balfour Family’s younger generation gathered in Martin, and as Celestina’s First Disciple, Lucas felt obligated to meet and greet as many of them as possible.

Duty, responsibility, and the urge to sleep clashed for a moment, but in the end, Lucas dragging himself out of bed, shooed-out Eris and Yuki so he could get changed, then joined them as they headed to the main training hall.

.....

The morning passed by in a dizzying flurry of introductions and joint training exercises, some of which Lucas simply participated in, others he somehow found himself leading.

Why, you might ask?

Because Lucas was an excellent teacher, especially when it came to the very youngest of the kids.

Eris and Christina also showed excellent skill in this regard, which was hardly surprising seeing how both of them were geniuses in their own right when it came to all things physical.

Even Yuki joined in, though she was mostly just having fun and playing, chasing around the younger kids, or being chased by them in a seemingly endless game of tag.

Needless to say, by the time breakfast was served, Lucas, his Junior Sister Disciples, and the little fox kit had made quite a few new friends amongst the younger generation.

There were some older boys from the Balfour Family giving Lucas side-eye because they were envious of how close he was to Tina.

There were also boys who didn’t belong to the Balfour Family who were annoyed that Eris only seemed to have eyes for him.

However, none of them acted openly hostile, probably realizing that they never had a chance from the start.

The fact that Lucas had brought gifts for all of them also helped.

While all of them enjoyed getting together for the New Years celebration, there was one thing that all of the kids hated, dressing up.

Knowing this, and hoping to make the best possible first impression, Lucas had a couple hundred suits and dresses from Vision made just for this occasion.

Since these outfits were for children and youths, the overwhelming majority of whom were in the Body Tempering and Vein Opening Realms, there was no need to use fancy materials or expensive fabrics.

Nor was there a need to make each piece unique.

As such, it had actually been fairly easy to prepare this rather excessive order then have it shipped to Martin from Misty City a few days in advance so it would be waiting there for Lucas when they arrived.

Any ill feelings the older boys had basically evaporated after Lucas freed them from the stiff, ugly, uncomfortable clothes their parents had been planning on stuffing them into, sometimes in a literal sense.

As for all the young ladies...

Let’s just say that Christina and Eris had their hands full keeping them from swarming Lucas and showering him with hugs and kisses.

And so, the afternoon, like the morning, passed by in a flurry of activity.