After I arrived at the Inn and had dinner I took a short bath because I was sweaty from the training. At least the bath was not expensive. It only cost 10 copper. Feeling clean and well-fed I fell face down into the small bed and was asleep in seconds.
Waking up next morning I felt really good. My body was brimming with energy and felt really strong. Those level up bonuses are really something else. After waking up fully I put on my cheap clothes and went down to eat breakfast which was bread and some kind of cheese. Nothing special but also not bad.
Thinking about what to do, I decided it was time to learn a bit about this world and especially the city I was now living in. So after getting directions to the library from Gin I made my way towards the city library. It was a massive building out of stone and there were guards standing at the entrance. One of them looked at me and said "To enter the library you need to pay 5 silver." I nodded and handed him the silver and made my way in.
There was a desk in the center of the first room and an old lady sitting behind it. After hearing me she looked up and said "Welcome to the library of Adalas. Are you looking for something specific or just browsing?"
I smiled and said "Hello, I'd like to get some books about the rules and regulations of the city as well as about the general geography of the other cities and kingdoms."
She nodded and said "You can choose a free desk in the room over there to read. I'll bring you the books covering what you want."
I walked into the room she pointed out and choose one desk to sit down. It took her only five minutes to come back with a stack of books in her hand. She put the books on my table and said "These are all the basic books about the things you wanted. You're not allowed to take the books outside and don't write into them. Once you finished just tell me and I'll take the books back."
I thanked her for bringing the books and then started reading. The first book I chose was about the rules and regulation in this city. It's important to know the do's and don'ts of the city your living in after all.
The free city of Adalas was a special city because it didn't belong to any of the empires and countries. It is situated in the middle of the mountains which surrounded the borders of the other empires. There was only one road into the valley from each empire so it was the perfect point for a trade station between nations. Because no empire wanted the other to have sole access to this strategic position it used to be a large battlefield were all empires fought for control.
After centuries of fighting with nobody gaining any advantage, it was decided to build one big city which was not affiliated with any empire. In the beginning, each empire sent a diplomat to rule the city in a council. Over the years more and more people began living in the city until years later the council was chosen from the people living here. The big guilds each chose one person to get onto the ruling council and could only influence their own seat.
The council now had six seats. One for each big guild, Dungeon Diving Guild, Adventurers Guild, Crafting Guilds, Merchants Guild, Mages Guild, and the Priests Guild. The council is responsible for the laws and security inside the city. They do not have a standing army. Should the city be attacked each guild is under obligation to help in defending.
The main rule in the city is no killing, extortion, stealing, and enslavement. You know the basic rules of any somewhat intelligent species. The basic rule is live and let live. In cases of conflict, the council will decide based on circumstances. Any titles, such as nobility or church titles, from outside are not recognized. In the end the safest way to live is to be stronger than your adversaries.
The guilds hold total control over their respective fields. Any problems regarding those specialties have to be resolved by the guilds.
After reading about the city I took a look at the books about the other empires and countries. They were mainly divided by race first. That means that there was a land mainly ruled by humans, beast kin, elves, dwarfs, and demons. There were, of course, many different empires and tribes inside this distinction.
Especially the humans and elves kept to themselves. While the elves did this mainly because they had a longer lifespan than most races and were, therefore, a bit isolationistic. The humans were mostly ruled by a sense of superiority. Many empires of humans are ruled by human supremacy and all other races should be enslaved. That is also the reason why most other races are easy to gather to fight against humans.
Nothing surprising here. Humans have always been and will always be racists.
There was only one time when the other races needed to fight together against humans. Most of the time humans are far to busy fighting each other for small gains.
Again, no surprise there. Like Agent K said "A person is smart, people are dumb." If you think about it, that was one of the few things the entertainment media had right. Damn now I want a black suit and sunglasses. Fuck.
I think that's enough reading for me. Doesn't really matter anyway right? I'm the OP MC anyway so once I got those levels in I'll be able to do whatever I want. With that thought, I told the woman at the entrance that I finished my readings and left the library.