Aurum followed her to the second floor and what looked like her office. It was small and meticulously decorated with many exotic plants, with some talismans from the Temple around them, probably to protect against the miasma.

On the wall was a painting of what looked like either her Father or Mother, 'I always have problems discerning the gender of djinns.'

To Aurum, because they were androgynous, they all looked like younger teen boys. Their genders rarely discerned themselves, so he feared that when he would talk to a djinn noble, he wouldn't know what to use: Mr or Mrs, but this was a topic for another time.

She sat down and laid the plaque on the side of her desk where he would sit, "Please sit down Aurum. I would like to know more what you desire."

He raised an eyebrow as her word choice was quite weird, but he shrugged inwardly since she was of a different race and probably relatively fresh here, as also seen by her thick accent.

Aurum sat down, and she visibly remembered something as she asked him politely, "Do you want any river?"

Aurum chuckled slightly, "Hehe, you probably mean refreshments? No, but thank you very much. I am only here for business..." He tilted his head, "...excuse me, but what was your name again?"

She blushed, "My sorries..." She straightened herself, becoming more confident, "...my name is Lila Laleiva Merida Irida."

The bombardment of names initially surprised Aurum till he quickly remembered that the naming sense of djinns was quite different to beast-kin. While beast-kin were pretty simple in their approach to having one name, and maybe if someone was wealthy, they would have a second one, while nobility would have additionally a middle name of their Father or Mother to signal that they were a true noble.

Djinns, though, would take the first name of their ancestors and add it to their name, becoming their full name. The higher they were hierarchical in their society, the more names they had. The only thing he could remember from his culture classes was that they also had a similar structure to beast-kin, but he had already forgotten the finer details. So, he would simply call her by her first name.

He also decided not to ask where she came from since djinns were in a permanent state of war with each other, and the last thing he wanted was for her to talk in broken beast-kin dialect about how her sub-race was much superior to others.

He smiled at her, "Nice to meet you, Lila. Can we start talking business?"

Lila returned the smile, "Of course, you wanted to create an account, is that good?"

He nodded, "A main account with around a dozen pivot accounts and about a hundred sub-accounts. I also need a lot more placeholder accounts. Everything will run on the name of my Master, Alexander K. Leonandra."

She pulled out a parchment and started writing, "I mean no transgression, but the Lord should then..."

He interrupted her while chuckling, "Hehe, he is the son of the Lord and Lady. You should learn learn your local names."

She blushed slightly, "Excuse me, I have only been here for a month, so I didn't brush up on the provincial rulers, my sorries."

He waved his hand in dismissal, "No worries. For being a month here, your beast-kin dialect is great, and not knowing everything is fine."

She nodded and returned her seller smile, but this time it was a little more honest, "Thank you very much, Aurum. As I said, even if your Master is a noble of the household of the Lord and Lady, you will have to pay quite a lot of fees, even with the steal we give."

He shrugged, "How much is it?"

She shook her head, "First, I need to know how much you want to deposit in general. There are certain fees for the amount..." She looked at him again and visibly analyzed him, "...however, I don't want to come over as brusque, but it starts at 10,000 average silver coins deposit. Do you have that much?"

After hearing her say that, he pulled out a spatial pouch. It could hold an enormous amount of coins and even had a safety feature as it would only open with an energy signature and a code, like a collar. It was a present from the Cold-Snout household to Alexander, which the Lady immediately took away out of safety concerns and gave to Aurum after Alexander had pestered her for hours.

Aurum had this and half a dozen other spatial pouches, which were with Maurice. This was where all their gold was. The crates on the carriage had only false gold coins, which were, in truth, copper ones. It was a little safety measure against thieves and robbers.

Aurum entered the code as he followed a specific pattern and put his energy into it, "This will be no problem. I have, at the moment, only 100,000 average gold coins with me. However, it should increase to more than a million in the next months."

Lila looked at him dumbfounded. She turned to the open pouch, and he could see how she activated a skill, probably one, to count the coins. She turned her head back to Aurum and asked again, "I am sorry, my beast-kin dialect is not so good. Did you say your deposits could go up to a million?"

He wanted to nod but stopped himself, "Rather multiple millions, I would say. Is there a problem with this?"

After what he said, she stood up, "Please forgive me, Aurum, I need to get the director."

She went outside, and Aurum already knew she would need a director to approve every sum over 1,000 small gold coins to be deposited. He could've gone directly to him, but this would have been much more annoying as probably nobody would believe him, and showing this much gold in the open would make him an excellent target for elements who scouted the bank frequently for people like him. Afterward, they would sell the information to a broker, and he would become a target. So, he just followed the procedure as if he didn't know what to do.

After a few minutes, she returned with what looked like a bear-kin in a suit he would regard as expensive as a year's pay. He was over 2.1m (~7ft) tall, and the moment he came into her tiny office, he immediately smiled, "Black feathered swan-kin, accountant and from the Leonandra household. Let me guess, Salyna's son?"

Aurum smiled back and stood up, shaking his hand, "Yes, my name is Aurum. Nice to meet you, director."

His smile widened, and he took his hand while tapping his shoulder, "Call me Nathan, boy. I am not one for etiquette when it comes to friends..." He turned towards the nervous fire-djinn behind him, "...you need to learn the regional Lords and their personnel. Regarding localities, it doesn't mean jack-shit if you know which tea the Count likes to drink."

Lila bowed down, "I am sorry! I didn't know..."

Nathan let go of Aurum and grabbed her head with his enormous hand while she became visibly nervous. However, he only ruffled her hair briefly, "Calm down, kiddo, this is Moorgrel, and we like to be more casual around here, got it?"

Looking back at him, she was visibly flustered and tried to fix her hair quickly, "Yes, director!"

He shook his head and sighed, "Well, will you look at that..." He turned to Aurum and gestured to sit down, which he did while Nathan walked over to the other side and grabbed an enormous chair from the side of the office, "...you see, her old man wanted her to learn more about all the different territories in Mal-Gil, but for some reason, he sent her to Moorgrel first, where she would get the most shocked by the culture, haha!"

Nathan sat down and gestured toward Lila to sit beside him, which she did, while he continued, "You see, her old man is a director in some small locality, but she showed twice his talent. So, he did everything in his power to get her the best education n' stuff, but what worth is it when she can't even adapt properly?"

Aurum put one leg over the other and shrugged, "Beats me. My Mother sent me to central Mal-Gil, but in the end, I am back and probably as shocked as her, hehe."

Nathan looked to the sides for a parchment till he found one, "Well, let's talk coin. I don't have all day time for Salyna's brat..." He smirked at him, "...nothing against you."

Aurum waved his hand in dismissal, "I am fine with it. I need a main account, multiple pivot accounts, and many more subaccounts, and some of them should be placeholders like I already said to her."

Nathan nodded while writing down, "Uhu, who do you serve now? Ms. Lorient or Ms. Sarah?"

He smiled, "Mr. Alexander."

Nathan raised an eyebrow, "What? The archmage puppy..." He turned toward the Lila, "...Mr. Alexander is the fourth child of the Leonandra household and has apparently a knack for magic, which is very unusual for beast-kin, besides dragon-kin, thus the nickname."

Lila nodded and wrote down everything he said. It looked to Aurum as if she was thrown into the cold water because she showed no banking experience, 'What a nice dad. He could've at least let her work in their charities.'

Usually, even if the Golden Feather Bank existed all around the continent, most banks were used by the local people like merchants, artisans, etc. To build up a good reputation, they would do charity events like giving food to the poor or giving seminars about banking to the cygnets of more wealthy people. They wanted to be seen by everyone as a positive factor.

Aurum nodded, "Pretty much. He has many servants, and paying them cash is annoying, to say the least."

Nathan nodded, "Fine by me. How much do you want to deposit? While I can give you a good discount, I can't really go against the rules, you know? She said you had 100,000 average silver coins?"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Aurum shook his head and pointed to the pouch, still lying on the table, "100,000 average gold coins now, and later on, I will have multiple millions."

Nathan stopped writing and looked at him more sternly, "Listen, joker, this is not a charity here. When you really deposit so much, you will get a good deal, but the moment you don't reach the amount, I will need to charge you normally without the discount."

Aurum frowned, "Nathan, I am here not for fun, so just deposit the initial sum and give me the correct discount."

Nathan straightened up and looked thoughtfully at him, "Are you serious?"

Aurum nodded while leaning back. He already expected that nobody would believe him. Even he could barely believe it, but he had a massive amount of gold without any end in sight. When Alexander would finish the mana ink, which was already practically finalized, the gold they would receive would quickly go to the millions.

In the last weeks, he has already begun to have problems thinking more in terms of copper or silver when it comes to accounting. With such giant sums at his disposal, most costs he tried to calculate felt more like rounding errors.

Nathan's voice sounded severe, "Does the coin come from illegal activities that are against the local or imperial law?..." He turned toward Lila, "...we need to ask this so we are not liable the moment the imperial intelligence finds out that it comes from sources which are against the law. He will also need to sign a contract for this, but no mana contract. We don't do it here."

Lila nodded solemnly and wrote everything down. Aurum looked at him, "Nope, everything is legal."

"From what? You said Mr. Alexander was your Master, and you want him to make the main owner of the accounts, right?"

Aurum nodded and pointed at the plaque at the table, "Yes, and it is a secret, obviously."

He nodded and wrote down while talking to Lila, "If they don't want to disclose the source of their assets, it's fine since we will have their signature that it isn't illegal so that we are on the safe side..." He looked at him and was back at writing, "...usually we would also ask if they want to pay taxes through us as service, but the Moorgrelian Knightages under the Count are a bit special in this case, more than other nobles, and we don't do it, so you know."

Aurum raised an eyebrow, "You really are trying to sell everything you can, huh?"

Nathan shrugged, "What can I say? Till now, I didn't learn how to conjure gold out of nothing with magic, haha..." He was done writing and gave it to Aurum, "...It looks like this, boy. If you truly speak the truth, you need to pay ~10,000 small gold coins per year, with all the deductions for us to hold from 100k to 10 million large gold coins, and with it, you can open thousands of accounts. This should do it, right?"

Aurum shook his head, "I get that you want to sell me on the basic stuff, but I need the..." He tapped his chin slightly, "...Gold Package? Can't remember the name, but I need the thing with which we can deal outside our territory fluidly, and by territory, I mean outside Mal-Gil."

This part was mainly for building supply chains to import the alchemical ingredients much more smoothly. At this moment, his Mother was in charge of it, but he knew that she would at most do so for another year, and if he had nothing to show after that, she would probably kick him out of Alexander's business ventures.

Alexander probably wouldn't care, but Aurum did. There was no practicality but pride. Getting kicked out as a head accountant of his Master's business dealings would be shameful.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, "Are you sure it's nothing illegal? You know I must report it to the Count if someone opens such an account in his territory."

Aurum nodded and became a little irritated, "Yes, for the last time, this is nothing illegal, and it doesn't matter if the Count knows about this since it is in the name of my Master, the son of the Lord and Lady."

Nathan looked at him sternly but sighed in the end, "Fine with me. I just wanted to make sure that Salyna would not come over..." He started to mumble under his breath, "...the last thing I need is some crazy swan-kin screaming at me for hours, wanting my head."

Aurum smirked at him, "Don't worry about such things. So, how much?"

"10,000 small gold coins bi-annualy, but..."

Aurum interrupted him while pushing the pouch toward Nathan, "It needs to be paid for two years in advance. Take 50,000, and I want your insurance, which you sell to the higher nobles."

Nathan, till now, ignored the pouch mostly but now looked at it more intensely; his eyes started to lighten up as he likely used a skill. After another short moment, he was done and looked at Aurum, but this time with a big smile, "Boy, you really want to go all out, huh? You know you will be the third one at this branch with the all-around package? Are you really sure?"

He nodded, "I am. We will have a lot of stuff to do in the future, so I need the most now before I run into some weird bottlenecks."

The director looked at him more sternly, "So, you can't say what it is, but seeing that you came prepared means that you know that your business will take off, huh?"

Aurum smiled at him, "It already did."

Nathan leaned forward, "How about this? Do you need some investors?"

Aurum shook his head, "Not gonna happen, and my Master listens to me, so don't even force me to tell him what you want."

Being a servant to someone influential had many perks and some negatives. One of the negatives was that he was actually forced to bring back to Alexander serious-sounding proposals from others, even if it was to the detriment of the business.

Nobles occasionally accepted them even if their retainers strongly advised against it, so he hoped Nathan wouldn't offer something. Aurum had no idea how Alexander would react to something like this, as he was too unpredictable.

Nathan sighed and leaned back, "Fine..." He turned to Lila, "...remember his face and name. Today, he will be one of the branch's most important customers. Got it?"

She nodded vigorously, and he turned back to Aurum while pointing with a thumb at her. "You want her as a direct assistant?"

He shrugged, "Fine with me. I don't have anything against djinns."

She corrected him, "Fire-djinns. Aurum, I don't like being confused..." Her tone suddenly became more degrading while she raised her lip slightly in disgust, "...with those others."

The topic came slightly up, which he wanted to avoid at all costs. He understood that beast-kins weren't the only ones with problems between their sub-races. That they were united in the first place was more of a necessity than by choice, as otherwise, they probably couldn't build an empire in the first place.

However, it was also done mainly by force by the crown, and as his time at the boarding school showed, many were against it. Almost all noble youth had a significant slant toward the separation or even exclusion of certain beast-kin subraces that they saw as lesser. They were also mostly part of households that were much more loyal to the higher nobles than the crown, at least at his school, which was in central Mal-Gil.

Djinns were similar but much less united. Some saw their specific subrace as superior to others and did what certain factions in Mal-Gil worked toward. He didn't know much about their inner politics, and to most beast-kin, all djinns were the same. They differed in their funny skin colors and weird smells, that's it.

Aurum nodded as an apology, "I apologize. As a beast-kin, I lack cultural sensitivity for your race."

Lila nodded back with a genuine smile and also apologized, "Excuse if I came over as rude. I always forget that I am not in my territory and that such things are mostly incognito here."

Fortunately, Nathan interrupted both of them before the strange chat could go on, "Haha! Who cares? We are talking gold, my little cubs! Whatever race one has, we don't care!"

Everyone smiled as if they were on one wavelength. It was business, and race never mattered for such things.

Aurum turned toward the director, "So, let's get it done. I have not all day time."

...

Hours later, Late Evening

Aurum trotted out of the bank, all exhausted. Ultimately, he paid five percent for the fees and deposited eighty percent of the gold he had at hand. Then, he needed to manage around two to three dozen contracts and appointed himself as a temporary owner and co-owner until Alexander registered personally.

If Alexander wants to take out anything, he must first undergo some procedure. One of those was that he would need a Bank Identification Card. The BIC would be imprinted with his mana, a drop of blood and energy. However, there were ways for him to get access with only his blood and mana since he had no energy. Even with only his mana, it was possible and mostly foolproof, as every kind of energy, regardless if mana, [Aura], [Defense], or [Essence], had a unique property, depending on the person.

There were ways to identify one through it perfectly, and it was usually also used by slavers in other territories to find runaways. The energy imprints were individual from person to person. He had no idea how it worked and only knew that it worked.

At first, he thought that he would have to bring Alexander somehow over so he would get his access. However, fortunately, Lila said that she would come for a visit with some other workers and do it herself. He also didn't fear one bit that she would fuck them over since it was a reputable bank, and if they did try something like this, it would result in losing their heads and the destruction of not only one branch. The guard households were, in this aspect, brutal in their retaliation.

However, for now, Aurum got an account, which was practically on the same level as the owner's but temporary. Once he switched with Alexander, he would become the owner, while Aurum would become the co-owner.

It was a bureaucratic mess, 'I don't know how I will do the fucking books with the mess going on.'

While going through everything, he remembered that he needed to try to figure out how he would choose what was to be taxed and not. While they had a flat tax rate, they also exempted charities from paying taxes as they were considered highly beneficial.

However, when one normally paid taxes, one part would go to the Leonandra household, which he could ignore, and another part would need to go to the Count, and this was where the problem would start.

Aurum talked a lot with Alexander, and he ultimately decided to do like the puppy said and put first a shit-ton of gold into the orphanages and other facilities which they wanted to sponsor, much more than they needed, only to determine afterward how much they indeed required to avoid wasting time.

Yet, how could he explain this to the Count if he got questioned why he sponsored, for example, an orphanage with three times the gold they actually need? Such behavior was highly suspicious, 'I am so fucked. I totally forgot about this.'

Aurum threw it to the back of his head, as he would later think about this topic as he was too tired for it now. Instead, he touched his pouch as he walked to the carriage, thinking about the multiple mana artifacts he got, with which he could now write the banknotes that were attuned to his energy.

Now, he would need to learn how to write with the expensive feather and on the special parchment they used for banknotes. He could write down any sum he wanted with his energy, and the feather would imprint it into the parchment. Afterward, he would stamp it, which was also a mana item attuned to him.

It was so secure that he was baffled. Usually, he learned how it was at high-end banks, but the Golden Feather was in another league. Yet, it could also be that he got the most expensive mana items as he was among the few highest-paying customers.

He luckily remembered to tell Lila when she would come to the estate to bring many more banknotes and mana items with her. He would need to register Melina, Maurice, and Ocilia, too, as they would need to issue banknotes to who was under them or would be in the future.

Regardless of the mess, he also got something else that surprised him: Banknotes made out of the paper they made, and they were much better than what his Mother used.

At first, he thought that Green fucked them over and sold them not to the Temple branches but to the bank. Yet, he quickly dismissed the thought as she wouldn't be so dumb to do something like that for a little bit more gold, 'I need to talk to her later and tell her that some asshole resold it to a bank.'

He arrived at the carriage and went inside only to see Maurice sleeping while a pouch peeked out from the side of him with part of their gold inside, 'Yeah, safer place for our other gold, my ass.'

Aurum ignored him as he was dead tired and plopped on the seat. He knocked a couple of times at the carriage walls, "Wintersleep Hotel, " and the carriage started to move after some minutes.

He would immediately go to sleep when he arrived since his old colleagues would visit him tomorrow. He knew of two who would surely work for him as they were commoners, but he wasn't so sure about the other ones as they were nobility and from central Mal-Gil.

However, he wouldn't compromise on anything. He wrote in his letters what he would pay, which could be negotiated, and that there would be a harsh mana contract, which was non-negotiable. So, everyone who would arrive would already know.

Yet, there was some fun exchange as they were shocked to know that he was from Moorgrel and even a retainer inside a guard household, 'Hehe, should give me the protection, should they try to fuck with me.'

He feared that they would try and extort him. This was why he mentioned it in the first place. Only those truly interested would visit him, and he was already giddy about it. He was so close to starting what he had dreamed about for years. He would not only change the lives of a couple of people, but he was about to change the system and help those who needed it the most. He smiled and felt like a cygnet again who was about to see the Lord and Lady for the first time, 'So close.'