Chương 414: (407) 6.21. Speaking in Tongues

Once Shuvo had been handed off to Linda and instructed to follow her instructions, or more accurately the instructions of one of the new Diplomats Vin had yet to actually meet who could speak his language, Vin took a still slumbering Reginald back to their apartment. By this point the rat had slept half the day away, and Vin shook his head as he opened their door.

He would have grown concerned by now if Reginald hadn't occasionally popped his head out of his pocket every hour or so, taking a bleary look around before going back to sleep.

"There you guys are!" Scule said, glancing up from where he was conducting an experiment with some colorful beakers on the central table.

"Before you say anything, Lumel isn't here. I know not to mess around with anything that could potentially irritate her skin. In fact, Witherson is going to add a small basement onto our apartment so that I can conduct my more dangerous experiments down there."

"Good to know, thank you for taking the precaution," Vin said, gently scooping Reginald from his pocket and placing the rat on one of the comfy chairs.

"Is Lumel with Fria, then?"

"Yep, they started her dream journey yesterday," Scule nodded, wiping his hands clean as he turned to face him.

"It's going to be a weird few weeks. I've gotten used to seeing Fria every night in my dreams. And I know that sounds sappy, but I'm being quite literal."

"I can imagine," Vin chuckled.

"By the way, I'm glad I ran into you. Any chance I could borrow the charm Malzar gave you that lets you understand other languages? I'm planning to actually learn the spell with the hopes of creating artifacts with it."

"How long do you need it for? Other than you guys I can't exactly talk to anyone on this fragment without it," Scule said, pulling off his brooch and tossing it to him.

"I guess there are your Foreign Branch members, but most of those guys are squares."

"Maybe a day or two? I've never really looked all too closely at the runic formation for this magic," Vin admitted.

"With Polyglot in my back pocket and Malzar surprising you with the charm, there was never really a need. I thought about going and borrowing Lumel's bracelet during her dream journey, but something about the way Warlocks and Witches construct their charms make the runic formations easier to figure out. It's related to how the charms aren't fully permanent and the runic formation is ever so slowly wearing away, but I can't quite explain it."

"No worries. I guess I'll just focus on poison crafting until you finish up," Scule shrugged, going right back to his experiments.

"Take your time." Thanking him one more time, Vin retreated to his bedroom, spotting a note Lumel had left behind for him. Just as Scule had said, she wanted to let him know she was diving straight into her dream journey like they talked about. Seeing as she didn't have his divine boon and couldn't be woken up early in the event she was needed, she wanted to get it done sooner than later so that she wouldn't risk missing the battle for wave seven.

Taking a seat on his bed, Vin held Scule's charm in his lap as he slipped into Introspection. With the skill sitting at level 20, getting in and out of the black void that was his mana pool was as simple as breathing. It was a shame that the skill didn't seem to have another evolution, and after what happened with Manacraft, he was not at all ready to see if he could shove another skill point into the skill and bring it to level 21.

Reaching out to the brooch, Vin brought up the charm's runic formation and strolled around it, scratching at the back of his head as he examined what he had to work with. There was a distinct lack of affinity tag with the spell, which meant it was one of the rare, pure magic spells, such as Sense Magic or Concealment. Curiously enough, the spell's structure actually reminded him quite a lot of Replenishing Breath. The more Vin looked at it, the more he understood how it was supposed to work.

Just like how Replenishing Breath layered a coating of mana within the lungs to create air and allow someone to breathe, Comprehend Languages layered an extra fine layer of mana within the brain, allowing one to understand other languages. In fact, Vin was startled to discover that the spell's magic was largely just tapping into what unlocking Manacraft was doing for him naturally.

It was similar to how he could now largely understand the gist of what Reginald was saying as the rat squeaked, solely because all language was simply mana communicating with itself in different forms. All the spell really did was fine tune that natural phenomena a bit.

"That's freaky," he muttered, wondering how someone had come up with the idea of harnessing such a fundamental nature of mana itself in such a simple spell. Regardless of how it had come about, the important thing was Vin had a strong understanding of the spell and had similar runic formations already well understood that he could use to help recreate this one. Without wasting any more time, he got to work.

With Lumel away on her dream journey and Scule waiting to get his brooch back, Vin didn't really see the need to set any sort of timer for himself. It had been some time since he last had the chance to learn a spell from an artifact, or a charm in this case, and Vin happily went through the motions.

Copying a runic formation from a living spell was much more interesting than creating one from a drawing of the formation, as he had to reveal one small portion at a time and not trigger any sort of backlash from the charm as he worked. While he wouldn't think Comprehend Languages would really have all that nasty of a backlash, the spell did involve layering mana into the brain, so Vin worked much more carefully than he normally would.

Even if his divine boon would save him from lobotomizing himself, he didn't want to tempt fate. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. After what felt simultaneously like an entire week spent within Introspection, while somehow also feeling like only a few hours, Vin opened his eyes, smiling down at his new notifications. New spell learned! Tier 2 Spell (Comprehend Languages). 10, 000 exp gained.

Neutral spells weren't only unique in that they didn't have affinities, they were also strange in that it seemed as though at least some of them didn't have the usual building blocks that all other smaller spells seemed to. The spell contained within the charm didn't have any tier-0 or tier-1 spells it was built off of, it in itself was just a fully contained, tier-2 spell.

Even if it was built around something that mana was inherently trying to do, Vin was still impressed with the fact that Malzar was capable of creating this charm in the first place. For an infernal who claimed he didn't even want to be a Warlock, he was honestly pretty skillful. As soon as Vin stood up and felt the strain in his back, he winced, realizing he must have been within Introspection for longer than he'd expected.

Learning a new tier-2 spell would normally take him a full day or two of study, but there were enough variables surrounding this latest one that he had no idea how long it would have taken him. He'd tried to take his time, and the spell didn't have any building blocks to focus on, which would have drawn the process out. On the other hand, he was learning from a charm rather than an artifact and he had similar runic formations he already understood, which should have sped up the process.

Deciding there was no point in trying to figure it out himself, he walked out into the common room, casting Create Water and wetting his parched throat with his own spell.

"Oh hey, finished already?" Shia asked, glancing up from where she was lounging in one of the comfy chairs. She had a thick tome in hand titled 'The Study and Practice of Astral Projection' of all things, and a snoozing Reginald lounging in her lap.

"Yeah… I got the spell," he admitted, giving her a strange look.

"Uh, Shia… what exactly are you reading? Better question, assuming that book came from Earth, how much of it is even still intact?" Not knowing that the Gods were limiting any of Earth's more sophisticated technological information from coming over with them to Edregon, each wave of Earthers brought with them a fresh batch of textbooks to ensure they were prepared to rebuild society from the ground up.

At this point, Terra's library most likely contained information on practically every subject from bee keeping to basket weaving, even if some of it had been redacted by the Gods and their divine erasers.

"Practically all of it," she snorted, turning the page as she kept reading.

"And to answer your question, I'm trying to get a better understanding of how my master has been reaching out to communicate with us over here on Edregon from an entire universe away. I did a solid amount of research within the floating library as well, but I figured checking out what your people thought about the subject wasn't a bad idea either. Much less practical information, but lots of interesting theories being thrown around."

"Well, Earth is completely free of magic. Nobody there was actually astrally projecting themselves like your master has been," Vin pointed out, recalling that Shia had in fact asked the librarian where she could find books on the subject.

"You don't seriously think you can do what he's doing in reverse, right? Isn't he using a tier- 7 spell?"

"I'd never even dream of thinking I could do what my master is capable of," Shia said, shaking her head as she kept reading.

"But offering some assistance? That much might be within my power. He mentioned how if I could find or create some sort of steady anchor here on Edregon for him to link to, something actually woven into the fabric of reality, he'd be able to stay for longer. While getting to see him at all is wonderful, I'd also like to be able to chat with him for more than a single minute at a time per dungeon. Hence the added research.

My hope is that with Lumel's help as a dimensional mage, we might be able to come up with something to extend the length of time my master has when he next projects himself over here."

"Make sense. Well, let me know if there's anything I can do to help," Vin said, before remembering what he'd just been doing.

"Actually, how long was I out? Feels like at least a solid day or two."

"Closer to two and a half, actually," Shia said, turning another page. Vin had a feeling she was using her Split Focus passive to both hold a full conversation with him while continuing to read without issue, and he once again grew jealous of the interesting ability.

"It's almost dinner time. Scule asked me to tell you to leave the brooch on the table. He's in the basement right now, and the 'do not enter if you value your eyeballs' sign is currently flipped."

"Wait, we have a basement? Scule only just told me about the idea a few days ago!"

"Terra has teams of crafters in their first prestige now," Shia chuckled.

"Not to mention a few Stone Mages of their own. They were in and out of here in only a few hours while you were working on your spell." Vin could only shake his head, shocked that he'd worked through someone putting an entire basement and lab into their apartment. Doing as Scule requested and placing the charm down, Vin took a look outside and noted how dark it was. If it really had been two and a half days, that would mean the mess hall was currently serving dinner, and he was beyond famished.

"Guess I'll go get a bite before starting on phase two of my current project," he said, checking his pack and confirming he still had a few gemstones from the last time he'd tried working on artifact creation. He wasn't sure if these tiny ones would be large enough for a tier-2 spell, but he'd figure that out soon enough.

"Want to come with?"

"I did read through lunch…" Shia muttered, closing her book and carefully moving Reginald up and into her spot as she got up.

"Though if I'm coming, we're hitting up one of the actual restaurants. The mess hall is fine, but one of the Big Three has a real thing for meat-heavy dishes, and you need to expand your horizons a bit."

"You know," Vin said, shaking his head as the two of them headed out into town.

"... I think you might be the first person to ever utter those words to me."