Kayn was now a bit over 12 years old. During the last few years of training, he had managed to evolve to the second stage and made some small progress towards the third.
Lydia noted that he expelled more of the grey-black substance when he ranked up, and took a sample to study. Kayn didn't let her know, but he also felt extreme pain before it came out of him. Even he wasn't sure what was happening, not to mention the stink.
His core also appeared similar but with small differences. The whole of his sphere became darker, but the dark black clouds swirling his core added another color cloud, white. Now there were white and black clouds swirling around his pitch-black core.
He also had just recently obtained what he dubbed a rank 3 mind. Luckily, since he was somewhat familiar with the process, he was ready this time and kept his body at its peak as well as had plenty of rest beforehand. He only fell asleep for day this time.
His body also grew a lot in this period, he wasn't sure if it was due to his core evolving faster than normal people or not, but he was already 1.7m (5'5") tall with a fairly athletic looking build.
Clementine was just about to turn 16 years old, so Zerana and Ezekiel were working around the clock to prepare a worthy celebration for their daughter. Since Kayn was older, he now had more control over his mana and was able to hide his natural aura, or at least weaken it drastically, his attendance at the party was required.
Most of those who would be attending were powerful figures from the Carnet Empire or Clementine's friends from the academy. There would be a few who could sense his aura, but they would mostly assume he just formed or was close to forming a core as the normal process involved the body naturally drawing in mana from the environment. Though, he was determined to be able to completely hide his presence in time.
Clementine arrived back from the academy a day before the celebration and instead of helping to set everything up, she wanted to challenge Kayn to various activities and games.
Unfortunately for her, Kayn was a step above her in mind, body, and core so she had trouble even keeping up with him most of the time. She was even defeated in her strong suit, strategy board games. Kayn lost the first few times since he wasn't accustomed to the rules, but he quickly adapted.
In order to ensure her mood didn't turn sour before her party though, Kayn would sneakily lose the different challenges without his sister's notice of him losing on purpose, which was a lot harder than he thought it would be.
He also decided to give her an extra gift away from his parents. He provided her with a book of fire and dark spells that he had personally formulated in the last year. The spells even went up to the tier 3 classification as far as mana involved was concerned, but could probably output near or at tier 4.
Clementine almost cried when she looked through the book. Most mages wouldn't share their personal spells with others, even family, but Kayn had. He cherished his sister too much and wanted to give her any advantage he could going forward.
Of course, he wouldn't share with anyone else though and all of his personal notebooks, or what he liked to classify as grimoires, were written in English. This way even if he lost one of them, no one could read it anyway.
The day of the celebration arrived and Kayn was becoming increasingly nervous. A coming of age meant that the individual was of marrying age and many females were often proposed to at their party. Kayn could only hope that his sister would be smart and continue focusing on her studies rather than worrying about marriage this soon.
Unknown to Kayn, Clementine had no interest in a relationship at this point, especially a random marriage proposal. Kayn had also unknowingly sparked her competitive side the day before, so she wanted to focus on being able to beat her brother.
Their parents were also not interested in arranging a marriage for either child. They had met and formed their relationship based upon love, so they wanted their children to experience the same if they could.
…
The guests began to arrive and it was Kayn's job to receive them and escort them to the ballroom. Normally this would be done by a butler, but neither Zerana nor Ezekiel wanted to have people serving them. They preferred to take care of their house on their own as it would also prevent others from discovering their background.
Some of the guests who had shown up were disappointed that a child was receiving them, but they didn't complain because he used proper etiquette while escorting them to the ballroom. Kayn even made some of Clementine's friends blush since he inherited both of his parents' good looks and would offer them his arm while he escorted them to the ballroom.
The unfortunate part of this for Kayn was that he was 12 now. Hormones had started being released and most of the girls arriving at the party were 16 and 17, so they had already been through a lot of development.
'Damn hormonal body and brain. I'm glad I got reincarnated basically reset hormone-wise, since it saved me from awkwardness when I was born. I also didn't stare at places I shouldn't on my Mom, Lydia, or other older females. But now that hormones are flowing again and I'm at the age of puberty it's hard not to glance at the older women. Luckily, I have a rank 3 mind as well so resisting the temptation to stare should be easy.'
While Kayn was struggling internally, his outward appearance didn't show it. All that was seen was a young gentleman who had perfect manners and performed his job without any problems. This caused the young women to think even more highly of Kayn since he wasn't like the guys their age that did nothing but stare at them like animals in heat.
Once Kayn had received and escorted everyone on the invited list, he stayed in the ballroom, grabbed a glass of punch and stood at the edge. He was there for his sister, not to mingle about, nor had he ever really enjoyed parties in his past life, and he still didn't.
With a pile of gifts in one corner of the room and a small orchestra in a second, Kayn found himself in a corner near the outdoor balcony entrance. Just before he could turn and walk out on the balcony, the music stopped, and he turned to see his father give him a mischievous smirk.
'Let's see how my over-achieving son deals with this father's excellent next move.' Ezekiel laughed to himself as he thought about his plan. Ezekiel approached the middle of the ballroom and raised his voice so everyone could hear him.
"Welcome everyone! To my precious Clementine's coming-of-age celebration. Now that everyone has had the chance to mingle and get some food and drinks in their system, I believe it would be a good time for the first dance. So please clear the center of the room for a proper dance floor.
"Now, I know I'm about to disappoint some of you young men, but instead of having my daughter choose from her suitors for her first dance, Kayn, her brother, will perform the first dance with her."
Clementine stood still for a long minute without looking away from her father's smirk, but she quickly noticed Kayn approaching her. She knew that Kayn hadn't been taught to dance yet since dance lessons weren't typically taught until the 15th year of life. She could only hope that Kayn was able to follow her lead.
Zerana was also horrified since she hadn't taught Kayn how to dance yet. She didn't want anything to go wrong on her daughter's celebration. If Kayn fumbled around during the dance, Clementine would be embarrassed and ashamed in front of both her friends and powerful, influential individuals.
Before she could interfere at all, Kayn had arrived in from of Clementine and extended his right hand while performing a slight bow and his left behind his back, "My lady, would you do me the honor of allowing me your first dance?" Kayn asked with a charming smile on his face.
Even though she was surprised with Kayn, Clementine still gracefully took his hand and allowed him to lead her to the middle of the dance floor.
After Kayn placed his right arm around Clementine's middle back underneath her shoulder blade, her arm went over his to hold onto his upper arm/shoulder area. They placed their other hands together and the orchestra began to play a song that was similar to a waltz back on Earth.
Kayn led Clementine around the dance floor while performing different spins and turns ending the dance with Clementine in a dip pose. After lifting Clementine back up to a standing position, Kayn wrapped his arms around his sister in a tight hug, "Happy birthday, Clem."
Kayn had a charming smile on his face as he backed away and bowed, causing the other young women in the room to blush and Clementine to wonder what other tricks her brother had up his sleeve as he seemed to be good at everything.
After everyone finished clapping and cheering for the two siblings, other couples arrived on the dance floor while the orchestra once again played ballroom music.
Clementine went off to the side to get a drink and talk with her friends while Kayn stepped back into his corner that he dubbed this his "safe zone" because people weren't bothering him there. However, he was soon joined by Zerana who beaming with joy and had a huge smile on her lips, but according to her eyes she was just as confused as she was happy.
"Son, who taught you how to dance like that? Because I surely didn't and I haven't seen you practice it with your father or Lydia." Giving Kayn a questioning look Zerana stated her confusion out loud.
"I read books and practiced alone in my room in order to get the hang of it. I expected father to try and pull something, so aside from my personal studies I have been practicing for the last year at night." Kayn replied while giving his mom the same charming smile he just gave his sister.
'Luckily, I remembered my lessons from my last life when I had taken a classical dance class, otherwise, this could have ended really bad.' Is what was Kayn was actually thinking. He hadn't studied dancing even a bit in this life and had to pull his knowledge out of the darkest corners of his mind.