Aleister looked at her and then back at the book again, this time with a newfound understanding and appreciation for it.

“So now you’re interested in it,” Syn said, teasing him.

“Well, knowing who a spellbook used to belong to, is clearly important. And now, you're basically killing two birds with one stone, because now I know that you know how you use arcane magic. And thus, who else better to teach me the spells from a spellbook than the one that wrote them!”

Syn smiled as she wandered over and sat down in her chair. “It’s not your fault, but I’m afraid you have a couple of misconceptions.”

“Hm?”

“I can teach you how to read what I have written down, but I can’t teach you how to understand them,” she explained. “The best I can do, is show you the spell in action, but just because you can read it and see how it should look like once you cast it, doesn’t mean you will be able to understand it.”

“Actually, I think I do understand what you mean.”

“No, you don’t.” Syn bluntly said, rolling her eyes. “It will become apparent very soon what I truly mean.”

Aleister shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Here.” Syn reached across the table and dropped the books she picked up on top of her old spellbook.

In confusion he asked, “Why are you giving me these spellbooks now?”

“Who said that they were spellbooks?”

“No one, but I just assumed they were spellbooks since that was what we were discussing,” Aleister said, scratching his head, now even more confused than just moments before.

Syn seemed to decide against explaining and said, “Just open them.”

Aleister nodded and grabbed the top book before pushing the rest of the stack aside. The book he grabbed was in a much better state than Syn’s spellbook, but just as heavy. The brown leather binding was crisp and clean, as if it were untouched before now. On the front, a strange golden symbol of a circle within a square within a triangle within an even larger circle was embroidered in the center. On the spine of the book, there appeared to be a name in the same golden flakes, but in a language he couldn’t read. And on the back, an entire paragraph of text.

“I recall seeing this language before,” Aleister said as he examined the text racking his brain, trying to remember from where.

Syn nodded, seemingly not surprised. “It’s written in Gnymish.”

“Gnymish, huh? Sounds familiar.”

“It should. After all, it is the language of scholars, and more specially the gnomes.”

“Gnomes, huh?”

“Please stop repeating everything I say,” Syn said, resting the side of her face in her hand. “It was endearing at first, but now its just getting on my nerves.”

Aleister let out a slight chuckle as he scratched his head. “Sorry, sorry. Its not on purpose.”

Syn didn’t respond, and instead just stared at him, making him feel slightly unnerved. Confused, he didn’t move an inch. She broke the silence as she said, “You know, you actually remind me of a gnome.”

“Uh.” Aleister opened his mouth, but didn’t quite know how to respond. “Thanks...I think?”

“It wasn’t an insult,” she said in confirmation. “But, it does remind me of something that you should probably know.”

“Hm? What would that be?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you later.”

Aleister looked at her in disbelief. “Then, why even bring it up?”

“So I can remember to tell you later.”

Shaking his head, Aleister sighed and returned to the book in front of him. Now knowing that it was written in Gynmish didn’t really do him any good for now since he couldn’t read it, but that didn’t stop him from opening it up to observe its contents.

Skipping past the first couple of pages, which were full of text, he stumbled across a page with detailed and complicated drawings of what appeared to be various plants and herbs. Flipping through, he soon found a page of what he believed was a recipe of some sort. This was because on one page, it detailed numerical values of the names of different ingredients that looked familiar, and on the next, it showed various bowls, vials, beakers, other instruments, along with fire, ice and other objects that he couldn’t recognize.

He raised his head up and asked, “This is a book about alchemy, correct?”

“Yup,” Syn answered.

“What do I need a book of alchemy for?”

She looked at him, completely baffled that he would ask such a question. “To learn alchemy.”

Aleister placed his hand on his forehead before he asked, “Ok, great. But, why do I need to learn alchemy?”

Shaking her head in disappointment, Syn said, “It’s like everything I just said went in one ear, and other the other. Fine, let me put it in a way that you will understand.” She stood up and walked over next to him. “Arcane magic, is magic that is created by using your own understanding the laws of the world. Now, what else requires you to understand the laws of the world?”

Understanding where she was going with her point, Aleister said, “Alchemy.”

“Correct, but, its not just alchemy that you need to learn.” She grabbed the other books and started placing them down. “Mathematics, physics, history, all different subjects and interests of the world.”

“Damn, I need to master all of this just to learn arcane magic?”

“Just to learn? No,” Syn said, correcting him. “Of course you don’t need to become an expert in every subject just to learn arcane magic. However, you need to study to the level where you can make the connection between the material world. However, you will eventually need to become an expert, and eventually master these subjects to not stay stuck at the same level forever.”