John looked at his list of skills, thinking about which ones could be used to create some kind of sound illusion to speak with.

He wasn't willing to give up one of his precious slots just to speak but if he could make do with something he already had, he would. None of his skills had obvious pathways to creating a sound illusion. It was times like these that he envied the weaker species of this planet for the variety and freedom that their system provided. He had heard that there was no limit to the number of skills a person could have here, but from what he had witnessed they were also not very powerful abilities.

Even his [Devastation] alone outperformed the strongest beings he'd seen in actual fights. Unless there were other more powerful beings hiding away somewhere, the pinnacle of power this planet had to offer was barely capable of destroying mountains. A pathetic showing, but then he wasn't one for fighting anyway, not anymore.

Perhaps the variety it provided would lead to a more rewarding life in the end. Variety was after all the purpose of taking [Runic Inscribing]. Being able to draw into the air was fun, but he learned early after taking it that if he wasn't careful it could have disastrous consequences.

[Devastation] he might be able to replace but it felt wrong to him to give up so much power just for a skill to talk. Maybe one would be available that would be powerful and also let him talk, as [Runic Inscribing] did for his writing. But it wasn't worth the risk.

[Storage] was necessary if he didn't want to haul millions of bags around with him everywhere he went. [Spacial Mastery] was the only reason he felt comfortable traveling as he did. And [Immortality] was a standard skill for anybody who wasn't arrogant.

Perhaps it was similar to his belief with [Identify]. If you don't waste a slot on [Immortality] then who can kill you anyway? Other people who also did that, he reminded himself. At least without [Identify] the worst that would happen is he would suffer a bit of pain for a while.

So none of his skills were replaceable, he decided. He would either make do with what he had, or figure out some way to make people less uncomfortable with telepathy. [Devastation], [Immortality], and [Storage] were off the table as options. None of them would allow him to speak.

[Runic Inscribing] might be able to, if he could figure out a rune that would allow him to somehow produce sound on demand. If he had to draw runes to produce sound anyway it would probably be easier to just draw words. Maybe he can create a rune that automatically speaks the words he writes so people who have trouble reading can still understand what he's writing. Using [Runic Inscribing] so freely like that is a bit dangerous though. It would be pretty simple if he needed to, but he wanted to avoid using it more than necessary.

[Spacial Mastery], then. He thought about how it could be used to create speech. First off, what was speech, anyway? Speech is just sound waves in a specific pattern that are recognized as words. Could [Spacial Mastery] create sound waves, somehow? John focused on a small space in the air in front of him, wondering how he could create specific patterns of sound waves by shaking the air. That was all sound did anyway, so if he could shake the space it occupied in the specific patterns it would mimic speech, he guessed. He began to vibrate the air in front of him, creating a wind that flipped over a few of the pages in the book he had.

John wondered why that was. He was vibrating the air back and forth but it wasn't creating anything audible despite creating enough wind to flip over some pages. What was the difference between wind and sound anyway? Both were just moving the air around, would wind not be considered sound but not words?

It wasn't something John had ever thought of before, not something he ever needed to think of. And he doubted it would be something he would figure out quickly. He decided to shelve the practice for now, he was missing something important, a fundamental piece of how sound worked. Maybe he could find some skills that create sound and study them, or perhaps a book on the study of sound.

He got up and went outside, looking at the front of his shop. His orange glowing door with the black text floating in front of it greeting him. The stone walls with large 'windows' filling up the rest of his building. Something he wanted to fix at a later time, maybe he would replace the stone with the clean white stone he saw in the busier district. Or maybe some nice wood to match his current wooden furniture. Or maybe you want it to be different, for contrast. Contrast was good, he thought.

Something new, something different. Something interesting. He wanted to put a book on the front of his door, but an issue he faced was that his magic didn't allow him to just draw anything he wanted. He had to draw letters, at least in some language. And to create a book out of a bunch of letters using a skill that turns those letters into some magical effects wasn't something he could do on the fly. He needed to practice and put together something that would be safe. He tapped on his door twice, locking it and focused on a particular section of space that he often spent his time at.

Blackness surrounded him, a handful of stars far off in the distance struggling to reach the depths of space John had. He hadn't been here for a while, and took a moment to appreciate the serenity of it all.

Peace, with nothing to bother him but himself. It got lonely if he stayed here for too long but it was a relaxing space, and he liked being able to come here whenever he wanted. He should make time for it more often, though he thinks that every time he comes here and never does. The familiar black writing materialized in space as he wrote a series of letters from various languages, forming them into the shape of an open book.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As he wrote down the final letter, the book began to glow, more than it already was. John cursed to himself. He had been so close, if he just used a different 'L' shaped letter from another language, perhaps he would've got it first try. He teleported a ways back from the expanding book, watching to see what it would do.

The book continued to expand, reaching a few hundred kilometers wide before the next moment it had shrank in on itself. A pulse of magic could be felt all the way back where John was, and then an explosion of pink and blue filled the vast expanse of space for as far as John could see. It took a couple of hours for the gas to dissipate, and John enjoyed the sight. A rune he would remember, and maybe something to test the destructive powers of. If it were harmless, it could be fun. Especially if he could manage to shrink the effect down to something more manageable. He redrew the rune again, but this time changing out the final letter for a different, similar shaped letter in a language from a planet he had visited a while back. The rune did nothing this time, the magic in it remaining dormant.

John returned to his bookstore and drew the book into his door, making it clear that this store sold books, even if you couldn't read. He wondered why that was necessary now, actually. If somebody couldn't read, why would they be buying a book? Oh well, at least he discovered a new rune and maybe some more people would be coming in wanting to learn to read.

He unlocked the door, and sat down at his desk again. He thought about how he could fix up the outside of his shop, would it be something as simple as transmuting the material? Or would he have to tear it down and rebuild it. He didn't want to draw over all of it, that would be far too tedious, he was happy the book only took a few hours.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening, his third customer since opening the shop wandering in. This was another girl, dressed in lavish clothes, frills and bows covering her blue dress. Her blond hair tied back with a red bow with gold stitching. A butler followed her in, his suit pristine and untouched by the dust that was surely raised as they walked here. Magic to keep themselves clean, he supposed. The girl glared at the butler as he entered.

"Ma'am, I can't leave you alone. It's already too much that we are here in this shop." the butler said, smiling at her.

She continued glaring, "I'm your boss and I'm telling you to leave me alone in here. You can wait outside, I'll take the blame if anything happens okay?"

The butler sighed and left, standing outside. The girl looked at John and gasped, her eyes going wide. "What are you?" she nearly screamed at him.

'A Librarian' John wrote into the air in front of him.

"No no, I mean like what are you? You're not human are you?" she said, rushing up to the desk and staring at him.

'I can't say' he wrote. A moment after, he wrote 'Book?'

This girl was his least favourite type of person. He thought about simply removing her from the store but she seemed important and the recourse wouldn't be worth it. He liked this bookstore and wanted to keep it, at least for now. Maybe one day he would throw the disrespect back in their face and say what he wants but for now he needed to be civil. She was a customer, she would buy a book and John would get an interesting story out of it.

"Oh, yes." she said, her voice excited before she continued on in a whisper. "I'm looking for romantic stories if you have them."

John waved his hand, filling the nearest bookshelf with what she was asking for. He directed her to it and she ran off to it, almost skipping along as she did.

He watched her as she looked through the books one by one. Dozens of them, her excitement wearing off and turning to disappointment.

The door opened once more as the butler poked his head in. "Ma'am, are you still alright in here?" he asked.

The girl screamed at him, slamming the book she was holding onto the bookshelf, "I SAID WAIT OUTSIDE!"

The butler closed the door, sighing once more.

The girl approached John again, looking a bit more nervous this time. "Umm.. are there any romances with umm.. two girls instead? Maybe with pictures, even..." she whispered to him, barely audible to his ears.

She wanted gay romance, he realized. He had misjudged her, putting only heterosexual romances on the bookshelf. He waved his hand again, replacing all of the books with gay romance instead.

She ran back to the bookshelf, blushing but giddy with excitement once more. He wondered about the need of all the other bookshelves if every time customers ask for something he just moves them to the closest bookshelf anyway. He had thought he would have more people in at once but if it's just one at a time maybe there's a better way to do it. A thought for another time, he supposed.

John watched as she picked through the books again, this time her excitement not wearing off. She had put three books aside by the time she went through all of them. She placed the three books in front of her and looked at them once more. She spent a few minutes deliberating over her decision and then put two of them back. She took the one book up to John's desk, "So I just tell you an interesting story and I get it for free? Are you sure I can't just pay? I have lots of money." The girl asked.

John shook his head, writing 'Story' in the air.

"Okay, umm. So I was at a tea party one day, right? And it was just the five of us girls sitting around the table talking about boys and stuff. And I kinda realized that I just don't care about boys, I guess? They all seemed so excited about marrying this boy or that boy and how cute he is or how nice he is. But all I could think about was how beautiful Angelica was and how much I wanted to kiss her. But I don't know if I can marry a girl, that's kinda weird right?" The girl asked. John just shook his head. "Oh. Maybe it isn't. I don't know any girls who have married girls though. Everybody always seems to marry boys and they all seem so happy with it. But I just don't like it. Um.. is that enough for the book?"

John nodded his head at her, pleased with her tale. She took the book and thought about something for a moment. "Do you have a bag for it? I don't want anybody to see it, I guess." John shook his head, but summoned a thin metal wire. He wrote some words onto the wire and then bent it into a ring and handed it to her.

"What's this?" she asked. John took the ring and tapped it on the book, the book getting sucked into the ring and then gave it back to her. She put the ring on and the metal sunk into her finger, disappearing. She watched with eyes wide and asked John what he was again. He shook his head and teleported her outside to her butler. A final moment of pleasure for him.

He didn't think her story was that interesting, she can love who she wants and there's nothing of note to it. But to her, this was the most interesting thing she could think to share. And that was always something John enjoyed. That disconnect. To think that in her social group, being gay was something to be concerned about. Or perhaps not, with how the butler smiled as he watched the girl tell her story. John thought about putting up a barrier to give the girl the privacy she wanted, but she never asked for it. And the butler seemed to play along with it despite being able to see just as well as if he were inside. He was glad he didn't kick her out initially. Something about those two just made him hopeful.