The man was very short, around the same height as Lorkan. He had a big white beard and a rosey warm button nose. He was wearing a dark red tunic and leather shoes.
"W-what can I do for you?" The fae was in shock that any of the eldrasie race could figure out how to open that door.
"Worry not." Pulling out his card and gave it to the small man.
"My name is Drakai. Lorkan gave me that card and told me about this place. I need books containing general knowledge and maybe even advanced if you have it." The little man seemed to come back to reality after those words.
"Dear me, my apologies, young one. I was so surprised for a second that I forgot my manners."
Bowing down, the little man performed a swish with his hand. "My name is otto. Nice to make your acquaintance. No, I have what you are looking for but do you have a payment?"
"I don't even know what money looks like, much less know anything about the way it works. One of the many reasons I'm looking for books." Otto looked at the young eldrasie.
"I see. Well, in that case, the things in your pocket will do just fine. But as a sign of goodwill, I will tell you about money real quick."
Turning around and walking behind a long oak table, he beckoned drakai over to sit in front of the table. Looking around, the place was rather small but well furnished. The walls had many paintings full of stories. Pulling coins out of nowhere, otto began to speak.
"This is a copper if you have one of these, you can go to an inn and get a small meal, the coin that comes after that is a bronze coin a single bronze is worth five copper, next is a silver coin worth 20 bronze coins an average worker makes about seven silver in a given year. After silver comes the gold. A gold coin is worth 20 silver. The last most common type of coin is the jade coin worth 20 gold. Now, this is a tungsten coin. This is often used to consolidate wealth, so it doesn't take up room. A single tungsten coin is worth 100 jade coins. Only the truly rich have many of these coins."
Processing what he just learned and commenting it to memory. He looked at otto.
"Thank you for the lesson." Looking pleased, the old man got down from the chair, "follow me" Drakai just nodded and started to fallow excitement written all over his face. They finally got in front of a door. They had been walking through many halls for about 20 minutes now, and drakai was starting to get a little paranoid.
"Here we are, little one." opening a door, he walked into a massive room filled to the brim with books. Waving his hand, it started to glow and send out tendrils of light green color.
"Ah, there we are." A couple of books came off the shelves and started to float down through the air. Handing the books to drakai. Drakai looked through a couple of books and was highly pleased.
[Magic Beasts And Where They Reside]
[A Guide To The Races And Peoples Of Jakraa]
[The Basic Geography Of Jakraa]
Looking up from his stupor, the young eldrasie was very happy everything that he wanted to learn was right in his hand. Looking sheepish, he looked at otto.
"How much for all of these?" Scratching his beard and whispering numbers under his breath, he looked at drakai. "Two out of the eight tiny crystals in your pocket shall do."
Looking surprised that he knew the exact amount, drakai pulled two crystals out of his pocket. "How did he know how many I had? Wait, how did he know that I have them in the first place?"
"Very good." Holding the Magic crystal up to the light, the little man was appraising it. "You know these are worth more than you know and also less than you thought." And with that, otto snapped his fingers, and drakai found himself back in his room.
*Bang-Bang-Bang* "Young master, your teacher is waiting for you in the courtyard. Hurry up."
"Okay-Okay." beyond tired, he dragged himself out of the door after putting on a new tunic. The whole night had passed, it felt like time moved differently in the little man's book shop.
Dragging himself out into the courtyard, he saw jack waiting for him. He used his breath to warm his hands up. And made his way to his teacher.
"Hello, little one, you ready to sweat buckets?" Seeing the state his student was in, he tossed the young eldrasie a vial filled with purple liquid.
"Drink this, then I'll let you swing that sword around a little bit, then hand-to-hand combat is up after." Jack looked at his pupil. "Come," Jack said while waving for drakai to attack him. Then drakai rushed in and did basic overhand swing.
Jack sidestepped as if it was the easiest thing he had ever done, and he placed his foot on drakai chest and pushed him down to the ground.
"He is way above me in every aspect." Drakai realized this was not so much a test of if he could hit jack but a test of his endurance. This sparring session would probably last for quite a while. Continuing his charge after he got back, he started to swing his sword at jack over and over. Jack had a slight smile on his face and would just doge any of them in complete perfection.
"Is that all you got, boy?"Jack asked with a smirk. "After all that training ou are still so weak?"
Drakai knew his teacher was trying to goad him into anger, but he didn't care. He got angry. He wanted to prove himself. It was the eldrasie way, after all.
His eyes started to light up even more fiercely as his swings became more precise and faster. Using his entire body to fuel the strikes, they kept becoming quicker and faster. Rotating on his feet, he did a horizontal swipe at his teacher. Not moving this time, jack stood in place. Drakai panicked and tried to stop his blade from hitting his teacher, he failed, and it slammed into Jack's waist where it stopped completely, and a few cracks could be seen on the blade.
"Control is more important than strength, for if you have great strength but no control, the people around you will suffer because of it. Master yourself before you master the blade you swing. It's not your body that makes you strong but your mind. Yes, we are hot-blooded creatures, but we still need to dedicate ourselves to self-mastery, understand?"
"Yes, sir, it won't happen again." Feeling extremely embarrassed because of his blunder, he shook his head. "what if it wasn't him but someone else that wasn't as strong? I could accidentally kill someone. Realizing his mistake, the more he thought about it, the worse his mode became. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw Jack's smile.
"This is why you are being trained, learning the basics in this month. Nobody thought you were going to do everything without failure. Hell, your dad thought you would be way worse than you have been. Plus, it's been two days, so don't sweat it." Sighing in acceptance, drakai picked up his cracked sword and got back into position.
"No, we are done today. I taught the lesson I wanted you to actually learn. We can work on vibration and impact control another time. Practice those steps and swings until they feel as normal as taking a piss. But focus on the steps and techniques of hand-to-hand combat right now.
****
The days passed quickly for drakai. Day in day out, he practiced his swings and steadily got better and better. With the help of lorkan, he started to learn the basics of the planet jakraa, and he was beyond shocked by the size. It was massive. Many places have yet to be touched by man, and that exited drakai, the number of possibilities was endless. He wanted to leave as soon as possible, but there was still much to learn, and he wasn't going to leave unprepared.
A whole two weeks had passed since drakai learned his lesson regarding self-control. Right now, he could be seen swinging a sword with cracks in it. Sweat is dripping from his brow and onto the cold frozen ground underneath.
"Speed up. I have plenty of vials. You need to get all of the training that you can in, we only have two more weeks, and they will be dedicated to hand-to-hand combat instead of swordplay. To be completely honest, you shouldn't even be practicing the sword right now, but since you like it so much, I'll give you a pass."
Nodding, the young eldrasie's eyes began to glow brighter and brighter. "Yes, sir." Speeding up, his veins began to bulge against his skin, and his heart started beating faster. Pushing his body to the maximum, he started sweating even quicker.
In the two weeks that he had been training, his baby fat had left, leaving slight muscle definition but nowhere near an eldrasie man, much less a human man. After he was done practicing and was beyond tired at that point, instead of drinking a vial of Regeneration, he decided just to fall asleep.
After all, it's much easier to fall asleep when you are dead tired.