All his squirming, mumbling and finally yelling out unintelligible words got the attention of his fellow rider. “Fellow” might have been a strong word. Perhaps “captor” was more appropriate. Either way, the commotion that Aarav was creating did not go unnoticed. The big man reached into the saddlebag and withdrew the see-through jar of Boss Copycat Slime.

“;.yh.[hpkpyl;gfl” Aarav honestly had no idea what he was saying but assumed he was asking himself what Aarav was and what he was so agitated about.

I don’t like tight spaces, dumb idiot! Aarav wanted to yell at the man but didn’t know enough Darfan to do that. As he listened to the man speak, though, it felt like he could make out patterns in his speech, something just at the tip of his tongue that he just could not capture in his mind with the proper context. It felt like e should understand the words, but somehow they just slightly eluded him.

The man kept talking while looking at Aarav. A minute later, he cocked his head like he was waiting for a response. Aarav had no idea what the fat man wanted from him, but he needed to keep this idiot talking; otherwise, this knife’s edge that he was on was going to deteriorate, and he would fall on the wrong side of this.

He kept listening, “You..ohwi kbfb3;pk ’pojpj;…try…qwidu cjkHBjhkc oijowehiou [;.[‘I’ijb.” You, try? The words echoed in his mind. I guess my understanding is getting better? Could he earn a Talent for this? Language learning? Understanding these people and others in this world would be much easier once he spoke the language, and even three months to learn a language in this superhuman world seemed like a long time at a rate of one per cent per day. If you had dedicated your time, it would have been possible to learn a new language faster than that. Maybe some extra effort would be rewarded here if being in this world had taught Aarav anything. It was that hard work was rewarded, and sloppy work gave sloppy results. Case and point his ridiculous capture at the hand of idiots.

I just need to keep this one talking. Maybe get some of the others in the mix. The nice thing was that coming out of the saddlebags and back on the saddle had also reduced most of his phobia concerns. Now there was the just fear of heights to deal with. But that one wasn’t nearly as back as the small spaces one. Pick your battles, Aarav, pick your battles.

“Hey, hey! You!” a slimy tentacle from within the jar pointed at the big dark man flying to their left. The jar was still sealed up, so he couldn’t hear, but the gesture was unmistakable. Point one at me, and you have four pointing back at you unless you’re a Boss Copycat Slime without hands. Still, the man responded by closing the distance gradually to engage the old one in a conversation. Three guesses who they're discussing. Or what I suppose, they must be discussing me a ‘what’ instead of a ’who’...

The addition of a second person speaking what was most likely to be Darfan was simultaneously more confusing and also more paint for the canvas. It allowed Aarav to piece together more of those phantom intangible pieces into a more cohesive whole; a lot of incomprehensible made a comprehensible? Is that a word? Yes, yes, of course, it is! This is no time to be second-guessing myself. Discoveries are to be made!

Aarav could feel it even more strongly than before, that feeling of something just over the horizon. It seemed like it was just on the tip of his tongue and yet halfway across this unknown universe. Yet Aarav had never been one to give up easily, doggedly pursuing his unachievable, impossible goal into an early grave. Perseverance and dedication were words that might have been attributed to him in a different world and a different, more privileged life. Instead, he was given words like obsessive and relentless and compulsive for his troubles. That was the life he had had then.

The Way Forward is…Forward buzzed and gave its usual sage and simultaneously useless platitude. Aarav dropped his spiralling trail of thoughts and moved again to understand what these people were saying. As he continued to focus and examine the movements of his mouth and arms, he began to paint that canvas from blank, starting with the lighter shades and moving to darker. Primary colours bled into each other to form a tapestry in what Aarav sought meaning and understanding. Something tingled in the back of his mind, and the languages that he had known from before swirled in his head and onto that tapestry as well. Everything he knew of languages consolidated in mesmerising detail and abstract excellence.

You have gained the Skill Language Learning Level 1! Gain experience for being a talker. Each time you hear someone speaking a language, you have a chance to gain a bonus understanding and insight into that language, the dialects and the subtle nuances it contains. In addition, each level of this Skill will give you a bonus of 0.1% language knowledge when learning new languages, and each 10% milestone of learning a new language will give bonus experience to this Skill. Bonus experience is 1,000 Experience per language, you know.

Bonus 10,000 Exp for reaching 10% in English, Earth Language

…

Bonus 10,000 Exp for reaching 100% in English, Earth Language

Bonus 10,000 Exp for reaching 10% in Gujarati, Earth Language

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Bonus 10,000 Exp for reaching 100% in Gujarati, Earth Language

Bonus 10,000 Exp for reaching 10% in French, Earth Language

Bonus 10,000 Exp for reaching 20% in French, Earth Language

…

There were so many! The messages just kept coming, and with it, the increase in understanding of languages exponentially grew, feeding off each other in a never-ending cycle of knowledge. Of course, it did end eventually, but it left him a little dazed. The amount of language-based information flooding into him was like a vast river pouring all of its content into his brain all at once. The sheer amount was mind-bending, and not only that, but his Skill quickly became the highest level Skill he had. Shooting past Level ten, then level twenty-five and then surprisingly, Level forty-five seemed to be the next milestone level, not fifty.

Congratulations on reaching Level 10! Your Skill Language Learning has improved to Express Language Learning! Your bonus per level has increased from 0.1% to 0.2%. Continued to push the envelope of understanding languages for understanding a language is to understand a people, and to understand a people is to understand their souls.

Congratulations on reaching Level 25! Your Skill Express Language Learning has improved to Cultural Language Learning! Your bonus per level has increased from 0.2% to 0.3%. You will now also inherently understand a peoples’ culture as you understand their language, idiosyncrasies and other useful insights into their lives. You can also read any language that you learn.

Congratulations on reaching Level 45! Your Skill Cultural Language Learning has improved to Language Aficionado! Your bonus per level has increased from 0.3% to 0.4%. Now language learning is not just something you are good at. You will be able to teach others languages as well at a faster rate. Your students’ language learning capabilities will be based on the student, but you can expedite this process by allowing them to learn faster. You can also now write any language that you learn.

Wow, okay, that was insane! Within the space of a few minutes, I was completely overloaded to the point where I could understand a significant amount of all the languages I had already learned. So that means that what those people are saying I should understand better? Aarav focused again on the people in front of him from his vantage point.

“Master Haemish, was that thing calling me over?” the big man said sceptically. Aarav gasped, not believing his luck, not his Skill at acquiring such a massively powerful Skill. With this Skill, he would never have any language barriers again, ever! Incredible! Luck, you did your thing, and I love it!

The man, whoever he was, had just started speaking, and so even though Aarav couldn’t hear him directly now that he understood the language somewhat, his lip reading could give him the information he needed that he then could translate. Excellent, Aarav thought as he settled in to listen, watch their lips move.

“Rion, don’t get overly qeriibklvj about what this cahbrjwhrb is daying.” That’s probably saying. “If this thing can provide us with fvkvjblk. Then that will be akjjhcbe.” The big man that Aarav thought had been called Haemish nodded with enthusiasm and encouragement. Or he could just be getting jostled by the ride. Either way, the man seemed satisfied to leave the conversation at that and the other- Was he called Rion? -seemed to feel the same and left.