At the same time in the capital. At the topmost floor of a high building there was a large office. One side of it consisted of one gigantic window, which went from the ceiling to the floor, allowing one to look down on most of the city. One could even see the imperial palace, or at least the mist above it, that secured it from the view of others.There wasn"t much furniture in this room, consisting of only a large desk as well as a seating area. At the desk there sat a woman in a white suit, In front of her there was a large crystal display, which displayed some doc.u.ments for her to read.
In the seating area, a cute little girl was playing with a small ball of flame. She formed different animals with it. Sadly she wasn"t yet proficient in controlling the flame and as such the animals were barely discernible. Her daddy had thought her how to do it, when she had been bored during a drive. He had said, that since her power was still low, it wouldn"t be dangerous even if she lost control, but until now she never had lost control of the flame. And even though she had spent a lot of time playing like this lately, she still wasn"t tired of it. If only her energy was stronger, than she could play even more. But so, she had to take a break every ten minutes or such.
Just when she felt her energy running out, she heard fist being hammered onto a wooden desk behind her. Turning around she looked questioningly at her mother, who showed one of her rare expressions.
"This f**cker. How dare he. See how I"m going to teach him how to behave.", her mother shouted out. After that she continued cursing, enabling the girl to learn a series of new curses, she hadn"t heard before.
Finally the woman calmed down, only now remembering that her daughter was still in the room. In her anger she had forgotten that she had brought her with her today.
"Sorry, sweetie. It is just this stupid father of you. And remember not to use the curses, you have just heard."
The girl nodded, but even so she hurriedly remembered them. Just in case.
The woman then looked at the ring, that had just appeared on her ring finger, and her temper once again threatened to flare up. The ring had appeared without any warning, together with a system message, surprising her, just when she had finally finished to read the last report.
Her daughter saw her looking at the ring and she asked curiously, "Mommy, how come you wear a ring? Did daddy gift it to you."
At the mention of her nominal husband the woman gnashed her teeth. She had been able to just ignore him and let him play with their daughter, but now that b.a.s.t.a.r.d had done something that lead to her having to wear this ring. And all the bonuses it gave, couldn"t change the fact that she hated it. It reminded her of what had happened back then,
"You could say so. It is something the system gave us."
"Oh, then can I take a look at it?"
"Sure.", the woman let the girl grab her hand. She then looked at her daughter closely studying the simple ring, and a small smile appeared on her lips. Even if she was angry, her daughter was still able to make her smile, which just showed how deep her love for her was.
"So how come, you suddenly got a ring from daddy?"
"I told you the system gave it. But honestly I don"t know. He said he would come over tonight, then we can ask him."
When she heard that her daddy would come over, the little girl was happy and send a beaming smile towards her mother. Her daddy hadn"t told her about it, as he never did. He had said, that it would be more fun if it was a surprise when he came over, but she had guessed, that he just wasn"t sure if he could come over and didn"t want her to feel sad if he wasn"t able to.
Back to the living room where Ivan had just gotten his ring, the others stared at the two rings that had just appeared.
"Why did these rings appear after you signed the contract?", Jenny asked. She too had signed the same contract with Carl, but back then nothing like this had happened.
"It is a symbol of our marriage.", Lin said, "It is just that these rings are weird."
Jenny looked concerned as she grabbed her hand and looked at the ring. But when she tried to use the Inspect Skill on it, she didn"t get any information.
Seeing her like this, warmed Lin"s heart and she hurriedly explained, "It isn"t anything bad. Quite the opposite. It seems to good to be true."
"Really? You are telling the truth and not just trying to rea.s.sure me, right?"
"Of course I am telling the truth. Come let me share the info on it with everyone.", she then did as she said and everyone could see the stats of the ring.
All around everyone sucked in a deep breath, when they saw the stats of the ring.
"What the h.e.l.l? Since when would one get something like this if one marriages? Maybe I should marry too.", Ted exclaimed.
"Nonsense. How could something like this happen normally. There must be something special about this marriage or the person included in it.", his father admonished him.
Ivan too was dumbfounded when he had read the stats. There was only one thing, where he could guess why it appeared on the ring and that was the "Blessing of the Grand Chaos". It should have something to do with his bloodline and t.i.tle. Then going by logic the other blessings too should have the same origin. But as for whose bloodline played a role there he didn"t know.