After Dominik left Xiaofang, she went to bed for a few hours, and eventually got up and started training. She seemed fine again. After playing with the elementals for a while, and after he was sure Xiaofang was fine, he went to see Fran after she’d finished practicing her magic.

  “I think I’ll need to learn some new languages, and I was hoping you could try letting me in,” said Dominik. “I’m not sure if I can learn them through such means of course, but I thought you would have the strongest spirit to endure it Fran.”

  She thought of this for a moment. “You mean, you want to try learning new languages directly through our spiritual link? We could try it, but if there’s something required on my end, I’m not sure what to do.” said Fran.

  “It’s alright, we’ll figure it out if it’s possible, just lie down on your bed and I’ll try it. I’ll be careful of course, but tell me if anything hurts. It should be similar to sharing thoughts, just on a massive scale.” he replied.

  Soon Fran layed down, with all of her clothes on this time, and Dominik sat in a chair near her, then moved his consciousness to his main body.

  He focused on the connection and tried looking through her soul and memories. Looking for knowledge, skill, languages. Eventually, after minutes or hours, and with Fran’s assistance trying to help him, he found it. One was of her native language, dark elven, the spoken and written form, the meanings, pieces of memories from learning it. Near this deep trove of knowledge, of pure information, were others, other languages all filed away in their respective sphere of knowledge, though connecting to one another. Dominik went through all of the knowledge of dark elven, and then, when Fran didn’t seem to be resisting, he went through her knowledge of high elven as well. As he was finishing, however, taking in all of the knowledge of this language, he felt her mind and spirit straining against him, though she didn’t say anything.

  He pulled away from her now that he had hopefully learned two new languages. Then he returned to his body, and looked upon Fran. She was laying there, breathing heavily, sweating slightly, but she seemed fine otherwise.

  “How was it?” he asked.

  “It was fine mostly, but toward the end I started feeling a sort of strain. All my knowledge of these languages, and even some of my memories were passing by so quickly, some of them were almost imperceptible. It became exhausting eventually. Did you learn the languages yourself?”

  “I think I did, let’s try speaking your language for the rest of the day to test it.” said Dominik in dark elven.

  “You speak it perfectly Dominik, I’m glad it worked. Alright, let’s focus on teaching you some magic then, we’ll get practice with both in today.” said Fran as she sat up and approached Dominik.

  “I think you should have an aptitude with fire magic Dominik. I have a mastery of the basics in that element, so I can teach you.”

  After they’d made it to the sixth floor and begun the basics, Dominik began learning strange new words similar to high elven. “This sounds very different from the invocation language humans use, is there a difference in power?” he asked her.

  Fran smiled slightly, glad to have her centuries of knowledge being used. “Well, I’m sure they didn’t teach you everything about the history of invocation languages when you only had a decade to study, but many races have their own invocation language based on an ancient language.”

  She continued. “Some people believe it’s based on an ancient elven language, others believe it’s based on a language of the ancient gods, who brought it to our world. Regardless of its origin, various races, such as humans and elves, have their own invocation language derived from the original. It’s believed high elven is derived more directly from it than dark elven for example. But all invocation languages share similarities.”

  “But why have separate invocation languages? Why would anyone bother making another version of the language?” asked Dominik.

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  “Well.” said Fran. “There’s the possibility that as races separated and formed their own more mundane languages, and as magi forgot the original invocation language, or changed it to suit their whims, that they unintentionally changed it over the course of eons. Though some of it was likely intentional. You see, certain races on average, and certain people within those races, seem to get more power out of certain languages and specific words of invocation. Even when using the same amount of mana, and the same theory, and when performed at the same skill level.”

  “Of course.” continued Fran. “Once you reach true mastery of a spell, or even a sphere of magic, you can use invocationless casting. As you do with most of your healing and support magic. Invocation languages are simply the words closest to giving verbal form to the spirit, and in doing so, it helps magi enact their will into the physical world, in a more meaningful form as spells. It’s how we use magic, at least when we’re still learning.”

  “When you truly learn a form of magic, you can simply will it with your soul, and cast it with your thought and willpower, not even needing to think of the words. And there is no invocation language stronger than that form of casting.”

  Dominik asked. “So the original invocation language was just whatever was closest to the spiritual expression of whatever ancient civilization or god that created it?”

  “Exactly.” said Fran. “So even if a language isn’t perfectly suited to you, it’s essentially just a set of tools to help you manifest your spiritual power as spells to affect the material, or spiritual world. For a kind of magic you struggle to master, learning invocation languages, or at least words, that help you get more power out of it would be helpful. And it’s possible that languages and specific words that mesh with the expression of your spirit better would help you learn to master it more quickly, but ultimately it’s just to help you on the path of pure mastery, at which point you won’t need the language, or any language for the spells themselves.”

  “At that point, you can start using magic in ways that don’t even fit the confines of spells, spoken spells of course, because you no longer need to shape it with words, it no longer needs to fit within the confines of any given language, or any words therein, it’s shaped purely by your willpower. Whatever you can think of, and whatever you have the power to do with it, you can. That’s real magic.” said Fran, breathlessly.

  Their conversation continued, they spoke of ancient civilizations and languages. Then they continued on with the lessons in fire magic. When their practice was over some few hours later, Fran spoke again.

  “You know Dominik, after I’ve had a day to rest, you could try getting the invocation languages out of me, at least high elven and dark elven invocation languages, they’re only slightly different really. They might be buried a bit deeper, or in some other place, but I’m sure you can find them. I’ll still help show you the spells in our training, but being able to skip the invocation learning process would speed up your training.”

  “I’ll try learning it, once you’ve had a bit of time to rest. We should get something to eat now though.”

  Fran agreed and they went up to the dining hall, the old one where the other freed slaves tended to eat. Dominik had already told the troglodytes to start cooking, and tried sending a message to his new guest, but felt the lack of a connection. It felt strange having people without a contract in the dungeon, but he decided he should try to learn telepathic magic as well. Perhaps he’d ask Fran tomorrow. For now he sent a troglodyte to get her and bring her to the dining hall.

  “You don’t mind if I bring our new guest to the table do you? I think it would be good for her to socialize with you for a bit. You don’t mind if she sees you, do you?”

  “Of course not, you told me she doesn’t really intend on leaving the dungeon, and she’s unlikely to tell anyone in any dark elven kingdom or territory, so I don’t care. Do you think she’d want to learn some kind of magic too?” asked Fran.

  “Well, I believe she uses mantras, a type of invocation used repeatedly to reinforce light spells, like a sort of support or sometimes healing magic. She might have more of an aptitude for that kind of magic. But she fights in hand to hand combat, so learning some offensive magic would be useful to her, and it should be possible for her to learn some kind of elemental magic with her amount of mana, and her basic ability in using magic.”

  Soon she came to the table and sat in a corner at the table, and not long after that they all began eating. Xiaofang didn’t say much, and mostly just gave polite replies when asked questions. Fran had asked if she wanted to try learning some sort of elemental or arcane spells, but Xiaofan didn’t seem very interested. Perhaps because she was surprised to see Fran for the first time. Perhaps to be introduced to the woman who had impaled her and trapped her in ice. Or perhaps she just wasn’t very talkative, or very interested in learning any new sorts of magic and such.

  In any case, Fran was very talkative, lost in magic, the thing she was most passionate about, and in its history and practice.