Now that he could understand some, if not most of the words spoken except for particularly long or complex expressions, he was a little more sure that these people did not mean to kill him outright. They would have done so already if that were their goal. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen after they got to this destination, wherever it was. That meant he had time to make his escape!

Who says you can’t go from zero to hero in ten seconds? Are there any other languages I know? Clearly, the more languages he could work on, the better. That way, he could keep getting boosts to his capability. He did know one phrase in Dutch but even saying it made him feel a little embarrassed, something he had learned from back in the day. A friend in some of the foster care homes he had lived in….” Melk asteblieft…” Aarav said it quietly. Thank god no one would understand it, but it was the only phrase in Dutch Aarav knew. Aarav was a little mortified as to what people would think if they heard a grown man asking for. Well, anyway. It was done, and the benefits were reaped.

Language Mastery: Dutch, you have 1% mastery. Keep using it every day to master it.

Bonus 12,000 Exp for reaching 10% in Dutch, Earth Language

Bonus 12,000 Exp for reaching 20% in Dutch, Earth Language

Bonus 12,000 Exp for reaching 30% in Dutch, Earth Language

Congratulations on reaching Level 70! Your Skill Language Aficionado has improved to Language Connoisseur! Your bonus per level has increased from 0.4% to 0.5%. You are clearly well on your way to becoming a master of languages. You may be in a situation where the moment you speak a word of a language, understanding and inspiration flood you. You have almost perfected this ability to understand languages. Keep pushing forward.

Aarav racked his brain for any other languages he might know of. Even a single word would be enough. But right now, trapped here, he was feeling blocked. He could see that he was a few per centage points away from having another language breakthrough. That owl program was finally paying off. He just needed to keep going with it, and he would be able to acceptably speak any language almost instantly. He was already almost there.

Of course! Anime! He had watched some when he got a chance. How could he have forgotten? He hadn’t spoken a word of Japanese yet! “Konichiwa.” It was again mumbled, though he was struggling to contain his excitement of this situation. There was no point in alerting these people in front of him that he could understand what they were saying. That was an advantage that he needed to keep closely guarded; also, he didn’t fully understand everything they were saying yet anyway. That was about to change, though!

Language Mastery: Japanese, you have 1% mastery. Keep using it every day to master it.

Bonus 13,000 Exp for reaching 10% in Japanese, Earth Language

Bonus 13,000 Exp for reaching 20% in Japanese, Earth Language

Bonus 13,000 Exp for reaching 30% in Japanese, Earth Language

Bonus 13,000 Exp for reaching 40% in Japanese, Earth Language

Language Connoisseur has increased to Level 85!

That’s what I am talking about! Now I can understand them. It took a while, and who knew there would be this fantastic cheat code built in that would help me know languages. This is way more fun than just learning all languages instantly from the beginning. This feels more earned!

From zero to eighty-five in the space of five minutes was quite overwhelming, luckily he was not made paralytic by the process of magical language learning, but it was going to take him a few minutes to adjust to the massive amount of new information. His new Skill level automatically taught him over forty per cent of any new language. Not only that, but it also would boost his overall language learning capability. The rest of the linguistics he would need to learn through effort and work, but that was still an impressive amount of system assistance. No complaints here!

A few minutes later, the new knowledge had sunk in a lot better, and he was feeling more accustomed to it. Who knew that knowing so many Earth Languages would help with these ones here? He would keep pushing the boundaries and make sure he didn’t lose the languages. After all, the Skill didn’t say that he couldn’t lose the knowledge if he didn’t keep constantly using it. 

He took a look at the part of his status that had to do with languages. This was going to be the easiest one to get to Level one hundred, it was odd that it was level forty-five that was the following change in Skill, and then the next one was at seventy, not seventy-five. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised, it seemed like random levels, but it was clear now that those were the first four. All Skills appeared to follow the same pattern. He had just been lucky to know so many languages to be able to take advantage of this capability. Somehow he thought one hundred was the next time the Skill would ‘evolve’. He wasn’t sure why. There was no rational reason for thinking that when the rest had not happened where he was expecting them.

Things in the languages department were definitely shaping up nicely. Would he be a master of languages soon? Yes, I think I will; thank you!

All of this deliberation had clouded Aarav’s mind making him lose focus on the men in front of him. Refocusing, the Slime saw that they were still talking, Rion and Haemish, different names and potentially another sign that he had come to another world? He hadn’t heard names like that before. But just because he hadn’t heard them before didn’t mean that didn’t exist in the old world. People could have all kinds of names. Also, it’s probably not as much of a sign as the system notifications and stats I keep getting, he thought with amusement.

“…once we get to Cbierefh, you mean?” Rion was concentrating on the older man who Aarav now knew to be called Haemish.

“Yes, that’s right. I am just thinking what we could-” damn it! Turn back around. I can’t read your lips if you turn away from me! “..thinking about the experiments we can try…” and again… “…seen anything like this….” Aarav gave up trying to understand the full speech this old fart was spewing and tried to make sense of what he was hearing. After the burst of language knowledge, he had gained an understanding what these captors of his were saying was a piece of cake. Also, he could focus more easily on eating through the bottom of the jar with his claustrophobia not taking over his splintered mind.

The fifteen minutes that it had taken for them to catch him before he plummeted to his death and then held him and put him into this jar before taking off had bought them up to “cruising altitude”. Keeping level instead of climbing allows a little more leeway for moving around without being in danger of falling. The jar was firmly wedged between Haemish’s thighs so was now not in any danger of shifting; however, while rising, it had been a little rough the man had needed to make several minor adjustments while riding. The feeling of falling while trapped, Aarav was happy to note, did not make you any less nauseous whether you were a person or a Slime.

Being subjected to this type of slow torture was not his idea of fun. Obviously, these people could not know his history and past life and Aarav wasn’t an idiot. Every time in those stories where the main character was reborn, and they decided to tell someone. It inevitably ended in death or in some kind of disaster and a lot of experimentation. Scientists were nothing if not curious. It’s fine. Once I get out of this see-through cage, I am out of here! I have a forest to run after all!

Aarav thought about talking to the man and discarded the idea about fifty times over the next hour. It was so tempting to just start spouting intellectual drivel and see what the man would make of an intellectual talking Slime, that would be the day, but prudence won out. It didn’t make sense to show all his cards before necessary. The windfall in Language Connoisseur made the task something trivial now, so it was a much more real possibility than when he first thought to do it, hence the greater temptation to speak up.