Lemme om Apox had thought this through: she would become the young god's guardian.

After all, a she understood that Ferrudion was a being that could not only level a city or two but possibly their whole world. Receiving an idea of his strength had been the most horrifying experience of her life.

She had known that she would die. During her time as a pahipiti, she had seen many of her men murdered. Now, all of them were gone. Still, that was nothing remarkable. It was not uncommon for a pahipiti ship to overestimate their strength, attack to big a target, and get wiped out.

They weren't saints. They became pahipiti with the understanding that it would require killing and that they would end up being killed themselves. After all, this was a harsh world.

Nonetheless, the knowledge that there existed a singular, immature being that could annihilate everything she had ever known had somewhat changed her perspective:

She had decided to spend the rest of her life protecting this world. And that meant attempting to aid and guide this being until his hopefully more reasonable parents showed up.

The woman had always had a ‘If the only way to avoid the ridiculous gambling debts my drunkard brother left me with is to join a bunch of desperados robbing and ransoming seafaring merchants, then I'll need to try’ attitude, so she tried.

And surprisingly, she succeeded.

“Then you be my guardian. Remember, you are only the guardian of the mortal called Pelou Dean.”

“I will keep that in the forefront of my mind.”

“Good. Will I need anything else?”

“There are different ways to enter the academy. You could get a ho!apeyneymme from one of the schools, but then that school could dictate your lesson plan and…”

“Explain the word first.”

“Yes. It means that you won't need to give the academy any tepeyte.”

Realizing she had just used another word Ferrudion did not know to explain the first one, she added,

“Tepeyte is something you can exchange for other things. Every region has its own form of tepeyte. In the Palevine Empire, most tepeyte is made of valuable metals.”

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“Like irons?”

“Iron is not used but gold is.”

Ferrudion frowned.

‘Are irons too rare here?’

Seeing his frown, Lemme om Apox added,

“You do not know the words for the other metals and they are difficult to describe. But you could ask Kalou Saha to show you.”

“Kalou Saha has this tipitou (money)?”

“I am certain.”

Ferrudion had quickly located Kalou Saha's soul, it was in the nice room where he had first met the man.

With Lemme om Apox in tow, he happily skipped over there. Skipping was a new way of walking Kalou Dan had shown him. It was not bad.

Now familiar enough with the mortals' entryways to operate them, Ferrudion quickly opened the door and skipped into the office.

Since this was not the first time he had done this, the mortals surrounding Kalou Saha quickly scattered.

“Pelou Dean-agam, how can I help you?”

“Show me money!”

The man threw Lemme om Apox a glance.

“We were talking about the requirements for entering the academy,” she volunteered.

“Of course, we will give our savior's academy tou!a-money.”

Ferrudion frowned.

“I only asked to be shown money. I want to know what metals are used.”

The man fumbled with the many layers of fabric covering his body before pulling out a round thing.

It was pulled together at the top, and the man loosened it before upending it onto the table.

“This is the money used by the Palestine Empire.”

Ferrudion touched the pieces one by one while expecting them with his senses.

There were five kinds of metal disks on the table. Kalou Saha pointed at them one by one:

“This is a shipatou (silver coin). It is called Loupa in Pakpak.”

“Roupa,” Lemme om Apox corrected the man's pronunciation.

“This one is a mix of gold and silver, about half of each, we call it lepatou,” Kalou Saha said and looked at Lemme om Apox while pointing at an electrum coin.

“Kreppa in Pakpak. It is worth ten silver coins.”

Ferrudion touched the coin. It was indeed about half silver and half gold, though there was a significant amount of impurities mixed in.

‘The silver coin was impure as well and there is not a hint of managy coming from either of them.’

They introduced the gold coin to him, and despite being worth a hundred silver, it, too, held neither managy nor any kind of spiritual energy.

The last two coins, however, were different. They both held magic.

“This is a moon coin. It is worth fifty gold coins.”

The coin was made out of managy-rich silver. Well, rich by mortal standards. It could not compare to any of the silvers in his father's collection.

The managy in it had been spun into the ugliest construct Ferrudion had ever seen. It was complicated but not complex, and, more importantly, seemed to serve absolutely no purpose. The magic's shape made it impossible for the managy to do anything.

‘It would take me at least half an hour to unmake this mess of a construct. I knew mortals were bad at magic, but this is…’

Unfortunately, the next coin was even worse.

The sun coin, made out of managy-rich gold, held about ten times the managy of a moon coin. Unsurprisingly, it was worth five hundred regular gold coins. What did surprise Ferrudion, however, was that it's magic looked even uglier than the moon coin's.

‘Bruh, it takes talent to make something so worthless. That construct is useless. No part of it makes any sense.’

To compare what Ferrudion was looking at to something purely material, it was as if someone had taken carefully spun yarn, frayed it, bunched it up, given it to a goat to chew for a few hours, and then set that mess in glue. Disgusting!

“I intend to meet the person who made these.”