Contrary to Ewan's ominous words, there was no violence the next two days Dryth spent learning from him. There was certainly a lot of frustration, but no injuries or brushes with death. Ewan was a good teacher, if an exacting one who wasn't a fan of some of what Dryth had learned over the last few years. Apparently the generic education that the kingdom prepared for future mages was limited and refused to dive into details that Ewan thought were important. After taking Dryth through a mentally draining review of everything he'd learned about magic, cards, and how the world worked on the first day Dryth's new teacher had pronounced him "inadequate" and had whipped up a curriculum to bring him to a level that matched Ewan's expectations.

  None of it was focused on Dryth's prismatic text and the potential issues he faced because of it, and when he asked about it Ewan had shut him down, telling him there was no point in discussing something detailed and nuanced when Dryth didn't have the basics down. Dryth felt that he had the basics down decently if not quite well and felt incredibly vindicated when they started getting into the lessons Ewan had prepared. There was nothing basic about what Ewan was teaching him. All of it consisted of high level topics that Dryth's previous teachers had all told their students would be covered once they were licensed by the association.

  The first lesson he received was focused on cards, specifically how people got them. For most people, there were three ways to get cards that weren't a Soul Card. The first and most common was from other beings. You could trade with other people, commit theft, kill someone and take them, basically any action that could be taken that would get you someone else's possessions, whether they were cards or not, would work. That was assuming, of course that the card or cards in questions weren't already in someone's deck. When Ewan had asked about it Dryth had answered that cards placed in someone's deck couldn't be stolen and when they died those cards were lost, either returned to the universe to be recycled or gone forever, depending on what you believed in.

  That perfect textbook answer that Dryth had gotten right on so many tests was met with a sneer from Ewan.

  "Of course that's your answer. Well, that's what the Association wants you to think," He said with another sneer. "It's entirely possible to steal cards out of someones deck." He informed Dryth, his sneer dropping away as he resumed teaching in a serious voice. "It requires cards to do, there's no way to physically access someone's soul space or deck with their hands, but it's possible. And while it's true that most of the time all of someone's cards in their deck vanish when they die, there's always a chance one or more cards will be dropped on death. How do you think it works with monsters?"

  "I..." Dryth trailed off. Part of the general knowledge baked into him from his years of studying was that the monsters out in the world also had Soul Cards, which could drop when they died. Especially powerful monsters might have more cards beyond their Soul Card, which made them wanted targets by many powerful hunters and nobles.

  "There's a much smaller chance that a sapient drops one or more of their cards than a monster that isn't sapient does," Ewan continued, "But there's still a chance. Not that there are any sapient monsters, being sapient precludes being a monster. Oh, and of course a sapient will never drop their Soul Card, no matter the species, unlike monsters, since the Soul Cards of monsters are just enhanced versions of other cards that give the monster some sort of ability or enhances something about them, unlike the Soul Cards of sapients that grant Classes or other higher level traits."

  "Why would the kingdom not teach us that?" Dryth asked slowly, still feeling a little shocked at the revelation.

  "Because they don't want people killing each other for cards, or going in a direction that might let them get the kind of thieving cards that can target decks. If you don't know about it, you can't try it, is their thought process as far as I know." He shrugged languidly, "Of course, people can still find out by killing someone for some other reason and then finding out they dropped a card or two and there's nothing the nobles of the Association can do to stop people from getting powerful theft cards, so really what they're doing is limiting those kinds of crimes to smaller populations of criminals, not eliminating them." He shrugged again, "Not really either of our problems You need to know about this so you can learn to protect your deck in the future and so you know to check the body if you ever kill someone."

  Dryth made a face. "Why would I kill anyone?"

  "Life happens." Was the short answer he got in reply. "Now, what's the second way of getting cards?"

  "Manifestation."

  "Good. What is it?"

  "If someone performs an action successfully enough times, there's a chance the world, or the gods, or existence, or your own effort, no one really knows for sure the mechanism, will grant you a card of or related to that action. For example, if you run a lot you might get a 'running' or 'sprinting' card, or something that gives you more stamina to run longer."

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  "A fine answer. How many times do you have to successfully complete a task or action to get a card?"

  "No one knows."

  Ewan raised his brows at Dryth, "Really?"

  "As far as I know it's completely random from person to person and action to action. One person might get a card for something almost immediately and another person might take years to get one, while the same first person might do something different and never get a card for it." Dryth told him confidently.

  "Good! That's a much better answer. And you're correct, there appears to be no direct correlation between time spent or number of times completing a task and getting a card related to it. What is the third way of getting cards?"

  "Shards."

  Ewan gave him a look and shook his head. "What about shards? I know you're capable of giving me full answers from the beginning, just start with them."

  "Uh, yes sir." Dryth's previous teachers had all wanted shorter answers from each student so they could jump around between students. It would take some time to get used to having one on one lessons. "Shards are pieces of broken cards. Cards can be broken deliberately or by accident, and when they break they leave behind a number of shards, which can be assembled with other shards to create new cards. More powerful cards leave behind more shards, but never enough to create a full card. Shards from certain types of cards can be used to create similar cards and you can generally predict what general kind of card you're going to get if your careful with what you use to make the new card."

  "Good answer. We'll go into shards and the related topics later once we're ready to begin more in-depth lessons on that."

  Every lesson following that first one had similar events mixed in, where Ewan pulled back the curtains of ignorance that the kingdom or the Association left into the lessons they controlled or Dryth was taught something completely new he'd never heard of. While he still didn't think that the kingdom was evil or that they were truly trying to deprive people of knowledge or resources to control them, Dryth was forced to move his estimation of how tightly the kingdom controlled magical knowledge much, much higher. When Dryth had asked Ewan why he was willing to teach Dryth all of these things the kingdom didn't want people knowing he'd brushed him off and said they'd talk about it later.

  When not in lessons, Dryth didn't have much to do, mostly because a vast majority of his time was lessons. He also spent almost all of his time with Ewan. Not because of any desire to be controlling or didn't want Dryth seeing certain things or wandering around, but because of the insanity that was Ewan's home. At some point the older Contractor had made a contract with a powerful fae, one of the conditions of which was that Ewan's home became a twisted maze of magically connected passages and doors for thee years and three days after the contract was struck. There were six months remaining on the contract when Ewan had brought Dryth home, and Dryth had no idea how to navigate. It was easier for both of them if Ewan just escorted Dryth where he wanted to do.

  They ate meals together, some of which were preprepared that Ewan brought out of the kitchen randomly and some cooked by either one of them, they slept in adjoining, but thankfully private, bedrooms, and when Dryth needed a break from almost constant studying Ewan would take him to the library to read or one of the gardens to walk around or relax. It was a bit lonely for Dryth to have only one other person to interact with, but Ewan was an impressive and dedicated teacher, outside the mild insanity that Dryth was now certain of which only really showed up when he accidentally got Ewan talking about a subject that excited him, leading to long winded and erratic rants, who taught things that Dryth was coming to realize he wouldn't be learning from any other mentor. All in all, his new life was fairly positive.

  "Alright, Dryth, it's time for our first practical lesson!" Ewan declared loudly as he threw open the door to the laboratory at the start of Dryth's third day of learning. "I know that all the lectures and book reading have to get boring eventually, so I like to spice things up with some hands-on studies!"

  "What are we going to be doing?" Dryth had learned early on that Ewan was fine with his students being upfront, questioning him, and even being acerbic to him. Dryth did his best to avoid the last one since it never seemed useful, but it was goo to be able to openly question his teacher, unlike when he'd been younger.

  "Well, I think it's time we start trying to address the main issue that comes with your uniqueness. I foresee there being some benefits to it, but the main drawback is the bit about your contracts not ending because anyone that agrees to one with you soulbinds you both together." He spun around on one heel to point at Dryth. "If you were as powerful as I am or had something incredibly valuable to trade, then you might get some takers, but as a inexperienced Contractor with no cards and no access to incredible resources, you're stuck in a tough spot." Ewan turned around, tromped over to the rack holding all kinds of magical materials, and began rooting through the bins and baskets. "Why are Contractor's valuable to the beings that might contract with them?" He called back over his shoulder.

  Dryth took a seat in the chair at his desk after turning it to face Ewan. "Contractor's contracts create a separate way for sapients to gain cards. When a Contractor is contracted to another sapient and cards used by the other have a chance to manifest for the other party. It combines trading cards with working to have them manifest for you, in that someone else is doing the work to cause it to manifest, but they don't lose their copy of the card."

  "Correct!" Ewan turned around holding a piece of chalk. "But you sadly, have no cards with which to entice people to contract with you, and you'd need some insanely desirable cards to get most people to overlook being stuck on the same plane as you for all time and dying if you do. Thus we have to think outside the box!"

  "Which is going to be our hands-on lesson?"

  "Quite right," Ewan replied as he walked over to the section of the floor made of slate.

  "What is that lesson going be exactly?"

  Ewan crouched down and started drawing on the slate with the chalk he'd found. "Why, we're going to be summoning demons, of course!"