He told Cassius to handle the official records.

"Draft all the official tax forms for the Emperor." Adrian ordered. "Since we technically collect zero taxes, I just need the paperwork to look totally legitimate and formal. Prepare the documents showing zero taxable revenue, so I don’t have to send him a single gold coin."

"Just give me a few hours, my lord." Cassius stood up, grabbing his ledgers. "I will have the documents ready for your seal."

Once Cassius left, Adrian leaned back in his heavy leather chair.

He had just managed to escape the emperor’s trap. Though, paying taxes wouldn’t really affect him much since he could always just sell some mana crystals to make a lot of money. He just didn’t want to lose to the emperor’s schemes.

’I’m not gonna get used by the one I already used to get a lot of stuff.’ he thought with a smirk.

Now that all the important political and economic issues were handled, it was time to focus on the most important thing on his schedule.

It was Aria’s birthday.

Adrian just stared at the blank table in total silence. A heavy knot of guilt twisted right in his gut.

Because he completely missed her special day last year. It happened just one month after he woke up in this world, right in the middle of his attempts to establish Oresfall. He didn’t even remember it or consider thinking about it.

Because back on Earth, Adrian never really celebrated his own birthday. He also didn’t have a close group of friends to throw parties with. So he literally just never thought about anyone’s birthday and it had turned into a deeply ingrained habit.

But a few months ago, he realized he had skipped Aria’s special day. It made him feel both sad and angry with himself.

He was absolutely not going to miss it this time.

Aria was currently five years old. She was going to turn six in exactly two weeks.

’I need to plan the absolute best birthday for her.’ Adrian thought determinedly. ’It does not have to be a massive event, but I will make it grand. I gotta make up for missing last year so I’ll put even the high nobles to shame with how nice I’ll make it.’

He grabbed his quill and started writing invitation letters.

He wrote personal invitations to all nobles. Once again, he didn’t use courier pidgeons and instead, called for a few of his fastest scouts. And the best ones were basically the assassins so he handed them a bag of gold, and told them to use the magical communication hubs in the neighboring territories to deliver the messages instantly.

There were also separate letters for Silas and Draven amongst them along with invitations.

He was going to throw a private party for the nobles and well known people. And those nobles were going to learn that his Aria was the absolute cutest girl in the entire empire.

’Now I just need to find the best dress money can buy.’ Adrian thought.

But he immediately found a problem. He had absolutely zero experience with buying clothes for females, and he didn’t know a single thing about noble fashion in this world. Even in the past when he bought clothes for Aria, it was always her doing the choosing.

He needed expert opinions and this time, he couldn’t really ask for Aria’s opinion since he wanted it to be a secret.

He was fairly close to Claire. But she was a full time knight who practically always wore different kinds of armor. He caught her in a formal gown exactly one time.

But Serena Ashford on the other hand?

Being a Duke’s daughter meant she knew everything about high society rules and expensive fabrics. Adrian could easily tell just from the elegant, perfectly tailored dresses she wore around the mansion.

’Why just ask one person when I can drag both of them along?’ Adrian thought. After all, Claire had great fashion sense even though she almost never wore dresses and he could tell that just from the dress she wore for Alexander’s son’s coming of age ceremony.

Meanwhile, out on the training grounds.

Serena sat quietly on a wooden bench at the far edge of the dirt fields.

This was her favorite spot. In a weird way, the noisy, chaotic training ground was actually much more peaceful for her than the mansion. The main house was almost always dead silent, except for the occasional servant walking by and that heavy silence actually gave her a lot of anxiety.

Back at the Royal Magic Academy, she was completely used to the constant, chaotic background noise of students yelling, and people chatting. So sitting near the barracks, listening to the soldiers grunt and clash swords, actually helped her brain relax.

She could focus on her reading while the background noise gave her a weird sense of peace.

She had the massive, book Adrian had given her resting on her lap and she was almost at the final pages. But a slightly thinner, smaller book sat right beside her on the bench.

The afternoon sun went lower and Serena lost the fight against sleep. Her head tilted to the side and she fell fast asleep while the giant book stayed wide open on her lap.

Claire stood a few feet away.

She casually watched the soldiers train until she noticed the snoozing noble. And then she spotted a second, much smaller book sitting on the wood right next to the girl.

So curiosity completely took over.

Claire walked over quietly. She took a seat next to the sleeping girl and picked up the thin journal.

She had seen her writing things on this book occationally for more than a month and she really just wanted to know what was in there. It wasn’t a good thing, but that wasn’t in her mind right now.

She slowly opened it and started reading thorough the first page which had a lot of text on it.