Leisure Day (First Update)

The purpose of animal courtship was reproduction. Male red-capped manakins showed females dance moves like the moonwalk; bowerbirds decorated their nests with fruit; frilled lizards displayed their brightly colored, scale-covered throat fans; even Australian peacock spiders stretched out their long legs and danced. Male dance flies offered females a gleaming grain of sand as a gift, while penguins, constrained by their environment, chose smooth, beautiful pebbles. All of it was about displaying their strengths or using gifts to please females. At its core, the behavior of many other animals was no different from the romance between men and women in modern human society.

In the distant past, hunting was the best way for a male to demonstrate his strength and intelligence. Only the strongest and cleverest men could return from the pitch-black forests. Who knew how many fathers had eagerly told those callow young men eyeing their beautiful daughters, "Oh! Dear John, if you want to win my daughter's heart, then bring back the pelt of the most terrifying wolf! There can't be a single scratch on it—that's premium fur! No lice or fleas, and no nuts squirrels have hidden away. Those lazy fat bastards have forgotten where they hid their own property."

Remember this well, or I'll marry her off to the miller!

Then, one fool after another died in the forest beneath the expectant gazes of young maidens, or was hanged by the lord.

The difference between the past and the present, between lower creatures and humans, lay only in the gifts and methods of display. After evolving for so many years, humanity still followed the behavioral logic embedded in its genes, and Salomon was no exception. In the eyes of the Arcanist, who had received both classical and modern educations, stockings, perfume, gold, and animal pelts were