Jin's "academy"—if you could call a lopsided tent and some burnt stones an academy—had somehow become the most popular place in the village.
By "popular," of course, he meant the go-to spot for confused villagers, nosy children, and the occasional goat who mistook magic diagrams for edible herbs. Still, something was growing here—something more structured than straw huts and more advanced than pitchfork diplomacy.
It was, in Jin's own words, "rough around the edges but dangerously educational."
But magic alone wasn't enough. If Jin wanted to communicate his ideas properly—or, more importantly, not accidentally declare someone's house a mana battery by yelling the wrong thing—he needed to speak their language.
Which was proving to be harder than outrunning a sky-serpent.
The villagers spoke with a throaty cadence, thick with guttural consonants and the kind of vowel flow that sounded like a waterfall of growls. Jin started a personal dictionary in the dirt behind the academy tent:
Zhaat'mor = star-fall (apparently also used for "strange outsider" and "he who frightens goats")
Valthuun = god-snake / guardian / DO NOT MOCK IN PUBLIC
Lak'ren = circleSh'mat = burn / explode / make go boom (used frequently in response to Jin)
He began swapping words with the villagers in exchange for lessons. He'd teach them how to inscribe a rune using a carefully aligned triangle-spiral pattern for a light flicker, and they'd teach him to say "I want three potatoes" without accidentally asking for someone's grandmother.
Even the old woman with the raccoon-bone stick got involved. She would whack him lightly every time he mispronounced a syllable.
"Luh! Not lah. Luh!" WHACK.
"Okay, okay! That's my kidney again, please aim higher!"
Eventually, Jin got the hang of a few key phrases:
"This shape is safe."
"Run away now."
"Don't put that on the fire, it's volatile."
"No, really, stop petting that rune."
As for his magical curriculum, it had evolved from casual doodling on stones to full-blown workshops.
Each lesson began the same way: Jin would draw a basic shape in the dirt—triangle, circle, or hexagon—and explain the emotional feeling of each rune. Not in words they didn't understand, but in demonstration.
Triangle? He clapped once—sharp, focused energy—and made a spark leap from his palm.
Circle? A slow, humming chant and the campfire would grow a gentle halo around its edges.
Hexagon? A field that wobbled slightly, then pushed a pebble with invisible force.
He started assigning names to spells in their shared lingo:
Sh'mat-Lak'ren: light ring
Zha'rek-Tun: air push
Lak'ren-Vul: shield curve
Villagers began copying his sigils on clay plates and testing them in the fields. A boy made a rune to repel birds. A grandmother crafted a heat circle to dry clothes faster. A baker used an enhanced oven glyph and accidentally turned a loaf of bread into something resembling volcanic glass.
Jin called that one "The Crumbocalypse."
The point was—this was working. They were learning. He was learning.
Some of them even started making improvements.
One farmer, the same guy who'd previously caught a tomato on fire trying to summon wind, discovered that spacing symbols farther apart created a delayed effect. Jin was stunned—and ecstatic. His "academy" had sparked not just knowledge, but experimentation.
Meanwhile, Jin's grasp of the language grew daily, helped immensely by his unofficial translator: the teen girl who'd first spotted his crystal. Her name, as Jin finally understood, was Nira.
Nira was smart, curious, and terrifyingly observant. She corrected Jin's mispronunciations by mimicking him and laughing until he fixed them. She also had an uncanny knack for copying any rune he drew—sometimes better than he did.
One afternoon, as they sat sketching on a flat stone near the well, she tapped his chest.
"You... core," she said carefully. "Inside."
Jin nodded. "Yeah. Geometry heart."
She made a confused face. "Geo...meh...?"
He tried sketching a dodecahedron. She stared. Then sketched a cube within a cube.
"Close enough," he said. "Let's upgrade your title. You're now Assistant Professor Nira."
She beamed.
Together, they wrote their first shared sentence in hybrid runes—half language, half sigil. It read: Shape gives power. Power shares shape.
Jin couldn't help but grin.
This wasn't just survival anymore. This was discovery. Collaboration. Foundation.
And somewhere out there, that serpent in the sky was still watching.
But now, Jin thought with a smirk, he had a team.
A weird, multilingual, rune-carving, goat-dodging magical team.
And they were just getting started.
Let me know when you're ready for the next part—maybe the villagers attempt a festival demonstration using their new skills, or Jin finally figures out how to cast something big... intentionally, this time.
yes and as a result the serpent finally speak to jin direcly through its telapthy
Preparations for the "First Annual Don't-Blow-Up-the-Village Magic Festival"—a name Jin insisted upon, though the villagers politely ignored the sarcasm—were well underway.
The villagers decorated the square with colorful woven banners. Young apprentices etched glowing sigils into clay lanterns, making them hover gently above the crowd. Children ran around holding rune-marked sticks that sparked gentle flares when shaken.
Jin stood near the center of the square, surveying the chaos with a sense of… pride? Confusion? Mild terror?
"Yes," he said aloud, "this looks safe enough for a celebration and only mildly resembles a high-risk magical demolition site."
Nira grinned beside him, holding up a disc covered in circular runes. "Show."
Jin blinked. "You finished the floating disc?"
She nodded proudly, dropped the stone at his feet, and chanted the activation word: Lak'ren Vel.
The stone glowed… and levitated. About two feet off the ground, spinning slowly like a plate waiting for divine appetizers.
Jin whooped and slapped her on the back. "That's what I'm talking about! You've got your own orbit now!"
The festival began as the sun dipped low, casting warm amber light across the village. People gathered, cheering as one villager ignited a spinning rune that launched small puffs of sparkling light into the air. Another used a wind charm to play five flutes at once, much to everyone's amusement—and horror when he couldn't stop them.
Jin stepped forward for his finale. He'd been working on it for days: a glyph array incorporating dodecahedral harmonics with a triple-interwoven triangle frame. Theoretically, it would create a brief illusion of anything he visualized.
He called it: Zhaat'len Murah—"vision spark."
He chalked the runes onto a polished stone square, took a deep breath, and focused.
The image he projected?
A geometric dragon made entirely of glowing lines, rising from the stone like a constellation drawn into 3D space.
The crowd gasped. Even the goats paused their chewing.
"Thank you!" Jin said with a theatrical bow. "You've been an educationally unstable audience!"
Then… the wind shifted.
The temperature dropped slightly. The sky darkened, though no clouds loomed overhead.
They all knew the signs.
Everyone turned upward just as Valthuun descended from the heights, slow and silent, wings stretching wide against the stars.
The villagers fell into reverent silence. Even the torches dimmed, like they too bowed to the sky-serpent's presence.
Jin gulped.
He took a step forward… and the serpent's eyes locked on him.
That pressure returned. The deep, thrumming weight in the air.
Then he heard it—not with his ears, but inside his skull.
"You meddle with what sleeps beneath the bones of this world."
Jin's knees nearly buckled. The voice was a symphony and a storm, sharp and echoing inside his head like a gong struck within a canyon.
"You awaken memory where there should be silence."
Jin didn't answer aloud. He could barely breathe. The telepathy didn't just speak to him—it rifled through his thoughts, echoing emotion with sensation.
"The shapes you wield were not made for your kind."
He swallowed. Then why did they answer me?
For a moment, the serpent paused. Not in movement—but in spirit. Like it was processing. Calculating.
"Because the lock was broken long ago… and you are a stray key."
Visions flooded Jin's mind—brief flashes of ancient towers, a war of light and shadow, serpents flying alongside beings of glass and runes. Then silence.
"I did not destroy you when you trespassed because I sensed the Rift's mark upon you. But know this: if you awaken what should not stir, I will not protect you again."
Then, without ceremony, the serpent coiled backward and soared skyward, leaving crackling mist in its wake.
The crowd slowly exhaled.
Jin stood frozen, his heart pounding loud enough to drown out the stars. Nira touched his elbow.
He looked at her, face pale. "He… spoke to me."
She tilted her head. "Speak?"
"Not out loud. Not like us. In my head."
Nira's eyes widened. "Valthuun speak… only to fate-marked."
Jin blinked. "I really need a better fate."
But inside him, the crystal pulsed again—just once.
And this time, Jin understood what it meant.
The serpent had warned him… but hadn't told him to stop.
Only that the next step would lead deeper.