I managed to get it all to work, thank you all for your help.
For anyone who wants a little easier time with doing it and maybe don't want to do an unknown d word search as it can sometimes take a while, the experience is a total of all experience that far (so like hypothetically, if a friend is at level 4, it'd be the experience they needed to get to level 2, to level 3, and to level 4 plus however far they are to level 5) and searching that number also brings it up.
I also don't know if they changed something recently, but I was able to just change the book currencies while in the Magical Creature area the same way you'd change any currency.
but does anyone know if it's possible to change the Zoology level/how to see how much experience you have?