Learning Faery Speak

"You're right! That is pretty weird… But I guess even the priestess isn't invincible."

"Even if the priestess isn't invincible, she's a million times wiser than any of us, so it's best we just listen and follow her lead."

"That's true… Anyways, who wants to make a bet about whether this human can learn our language or not?"

"Count me in!"

Quickly, the faeries seemed to fall back to their playful ways, no longer interested in talking about the mystery behind Minos, instead more interested in their bet.

"You shouldn't bet against me, you'll always lose." Minos suddenly spoke in a hum, causing the faeries to nearly fall from the sky.

"I must be going crazy!? Did that human really just speak?" Exclaimed the faery that had just betted against Minos learning the language.

"You aren't crazy, just foolish." Minos laughed.

"By heavens, it's true! Quick, call the priestess, she has to know about this!"

"Hey Mister human, how did you learn our language so quickly?" One faery asked.

"Some people are just geniuses, and I'm one of them." Minos explained.

"But your physique is so bad, it's even worse than a mortal physique!" The faery kept asking.

"There's more than just one way to be a genius." Minos said, pointing to his head.

Hearing Minos's response, the faeries couldn't help but keep asking him questions, curious about all things related to humans.

Not expecting an interrogation session, Minos was caught off guard by the onslaught of questions, but fortunately the priestess arrived just in time to save him.

"Leave the poor human alone, he doesn't have time to entertain your silly questions." She said, causing all the faeries to immediately go quiet.

It seemed the priestess had quite a bit of prestige among the faeries, and it only took a single demand for them all to fall in line.

With the cave once more being reduced to silence, Minos couldn't help but look at the priestess faery with some intrigue, curious about this being that seemed capable of peering into the future.

"To think you'd learn faery speak so fast, you must be a special human. It's making more sense why my powers didn't work on you…"

"You can see the future?" Minos couldn't help but ask, despite knowing the question may be a bit inappropriate.

Fortunately, the faery priestess didn't seem offended by Minos's prodding of her powers, and answered.

"See the future, not quite, but see highs and lows, yes."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I can tell if someone's future will be good or bad, though that isn't to say I can actually 'see' the future. The future is still a complete mystery to me." The priestess said honestly, seemingly seeing no reason to hide the truth of her powers.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Minos asked, feeling that the priestess was being a bit too honest with him.

"Because I need your help, consider this a sign of my sincerity." The priestess answered.

"Help? With that strange formation? I'm sorry to tell you that it is far beyond my current abilities." Minos said, returning the honesty.

"I expected as much, but we faeries are a long lived species, so we can afford to wait."

"That's fine, but I still have no clue where to even study about formations of such a caliber. I'm afraid information of that level is beyond the Alephora Continent."

"I know that much, but it just so happens that I also know where to acquire such information." The priestess said, causing Minos's eyebrow to slightly raise in intrigue.

"If that's the case, then naturally I have no reason to refuse, but let me make it clear that I make no guarantees, after all you should be well aware of just how complicated that formation is." Minos replied.

"Then we have a deal. Take this, it's a map that should guide you to where you need to go, of course it's also pretty old, so you'll likely have to put two and two together to make sense of it." The priestess said, handing the small map to Minos.

Taking the map, Minos gave it a quick glance in an attempt to connect it to the map of the Alephora Continent he had in his head, but he got nothing.

It was clear it would take quite a bit of work before he could figure out where exactly this map pointed.

Speaking about maps, Minos still had that map from nearly a decade ago, back when he stripped it off that Lukalu person's corpse.

This may be a good opportunity to give that map a second look as well, and hopefully solve both of them together.

Of course that was all a future discussion, so after tucking the map away, Minos continued speaking to the priestess, finally asking her the one question he had on his mind from the start.

"What exactly is that formation anyways?"

"It's a Grand Teleportation Formation, one connected to another planet, a far more prosperous and powerful planet than this one." The priestess said, already determined to treat Minos as a partner and not lie to him.

"Another planet? Is this formation really that powerful?" Minos asked with shock, never having expected that the formation path was so powerful that it was capable of such a thing.

"Of course, not to mention a Grand Teleportation Formation, there is an even stronger Universal Teleportation Formation, but that is beyond both our levels."

"But wait, if this teleportation formation is connected to such a powerful planet, you must have originally come from there. Why are you here?"

"That's a long story, but to keep it short, we were never expected to stay here for long, but unfortunately the formation was destroyed during a conflict, and we've been trapped here since." The priestess said before continuing.

"None of us have actually ever seen that planet either, this is all just information our ancestors have passed down to us from ages ago, but despite that, our dream to return has never faded…"

"So those faeries that actually came from that planet are all gone?" Minos asked.

"Well of course, after all, even though faeries are long lived, we aren't immortal, and heaven only knows exactly how long ago all of that happened."

"I see… Well I'll try to figure this map out, but one more thing, if this formation is ever fixed, is it possible for me to use it as well?"

"To be honest, our energy reserves after all these years are already incredibly low, so we can likely only power the formation to get us through plus one more person." The priestess said, Minos's heart path proving that she was once again telling the truth.

"I see, if that's the case, then I just guess this formation isn't part of my blessings." Naturally not willing to use the formation if it meant abandoning his family.

"Do you have any more questions?" The priestess asked.

"No, I'm satisfied. We'd best be on our way, we've still got plenty of traveling left to do." Minos said.

"Are you heading towards the Aleph Empire?" The priestess suddenly asked.

"Exactly."

"Then you're in luck. While our Grand Teleportation Formation is busted, our Minor Teleportation Formation still works fine, and we happen to have one set up between here and the Aleph Empire."

"Great!" Minos said ecstatically, happy to save the years worth of travel.

"Of course, while the Minor Teleportation Formation works, the resources required to power it are still incredible, you're going to have to pay for them yourself."

"Naturally, how much do I owe you?" Minos asked.

"Hmm, let me think… About 10,000 Nux Stones for all three of you." The priestess said, causing Minos's jaw to nearly separate from his mouth.

This was 10,000 Nux Stones, not 10,000 Nux Crystals. If one was to speak in Nux Crystals, then Minos would owe a whopping 1,000,000 Nux Crystals.

"From your appearance, I can tell you can't quite pay. It's alright, just consider it money owed." The priestess said.

"Thank you, I'll make sure to pay you back as soon as possible." Minos said, forcefully pushing his jaw back into place.

Giggling, the priestess led Minos and the confused Tinka and Rinka towards the Minor Teleportation Formation.

"Dad, why were you and that faery humming together? Were you speaking to her!" Rinka asked with glimmer eyes, also wanting to learn how to speak to the faeries.

"Yeah, we were talking about the faery world, where the mountains are made of ice cream and the roads are paved in chocolate." Minos said seriously.

"No way! The faery world sounds awesome, I want to go!" Rinka said excitedly, not doubting her dads words for even a second.

"Seriously, what were you two talking about?" Tinka asked with a laugh, amused by the naivety of her daughter.

"It was nothing important, what is important however is this formation we're about to use."

"Formation?" Tinka asked, looking down at the strange inscribed floor that they had walked into the center of.

"Teleportation formation to be exact." Minos smiled, sending the signal to the priestess.