John sat in his chair, thinking about his options. He would accept that learning to speak was a higher priority than he at first thought, but it was still a topic that couldn't be resolved in a day. Perhaps he could isolate himself and focus only on mimicking speech for a few weeks or months, come up with something passable.

But that wasn't his goal here, he wanted to learn of the people, of the things they did and the struggles they had. He already spent some time alone until just earlier that day, to go and dump another unknown quantity of time was unproductive. It would ruin him. He needed to learn to speak, but he needed to be around people at the same time.

So instead, John decided to go for a walk down the street, wandering aimlessly as he paid attention to all the people around, with close attention on how they were speaking. One thing John noticed was that the muscles were vibrating far faster than he had when he first tried. The vibrations of the muscles themselves also weren't producing any wind, or force themselves. At least not much, they were just there to restrict the air being pushed out by the lungs.

The air seemed to almost build up then squeeze through in a single forceful push before the muscles retracted again, and the whole cycle repeated. It was a careful, precise system where the muscles had to be blocking the air but only by enough that the air would break through almost instantly, hundreds of times per second in some cases. The muscles were pulled taught when people were excited, their voice reaching higher, the muscles vibrating more intensely. These blasts of air were then sent through the mouth where they would be shaped into sounds that were recognized as speech.

The process in the mouth was confusing, though. John could see what was happening, could see the position of the tongues and the lips, the cheeks, and jawbone. He could see it all but he couldn't figure out a pattern. Something was happening there that took the regular puffs and converted it to speech, but it wasn't obvious.

The creation of sound was, however. He could clearly see what he had done wrong, and he wished he only paid closer attention at another point, creating a sound may not have been as complicated as he thought. On his walk he had planned to maybe stop by a store and buy some windows, but an excitement grew within him. The possibility of speech, as inefficient as it was, consumed his focus. It wasn't about being efficient or proper, about meeting some expectations by others. It was a challenge he set out to solve, and he could see progress being made.

The familiar stone walls surrounded John as he vanished from the street, teleporting back to his building. He focused on a section of space in front of him, working to mimic the muscles he saw while walking around. He built up walls to keep the air in, and added a couple of flaps in space that would get pushed aside as he forced air through them.

Then he started to compress the air into it, and the flaps he created began to vibrate as the air broke through them. At first very slowly, as he was unsure how much to press. The air pushed through in bursts, puffs of air almost unnoticeable coming out the other side. He pushed more and more air through it, watching as the vibrations got more intense, opening and closing about a hundred times every second. The sound audible at this point, a low hum resounding through his store.

John almost screamed in excitement, were it not for the fact that he couldn't scream at all. He jumped around, dancing through his store amazed at his progress. It was so simple, he realized. All he had to do was look at what was happening and recreate it. He was so upset at himself for not trying it earlier, too proud of himself to stoop to these creatures' level. To recognize them as being superior in some way.

And yet, they were. They could speak so easily, so naturally. For him it was a conscious effort, something he had to try and create. And even still all he had was a buzz, a hum. He could produce noise, not speech. And yet, he was proud, ecstatic even. If somebody knew morse code, he could communicate with sound. He supposed he could have done that already by tapping on the floor or his desk, but now he can produce the sound with his magic. It could be simplified, he knew. But he wasn't sure how, and also wasn't sure it was necessary. If this worked, then why would he push it more?

He created his spacial voice box once more, but this time he made another section in front of the flaps, something to capture that buzz and shape it into a sound. He worked to create something that mimicked the inside of a human mouth. The specifics of how the mouth made speech was lost on him, but the actual shape of the mouth was not. An entire mouth was created in front of the voice box, all invisible to the naked eye, he opened the mouth and pushed air through the voice box. It almost sounded like an 'o' sound, maybe an 'a' sound. But it was a voice, a letter, maybe. He would have to watch people speak more and remember the specifics of how their mouths were shaped to make the sounds, but he was close. He could feel it, he had something that would work if he just spent some time fiddling with it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

John sat down at his desk again, manipulating his space mouth and trying to make various sounds with it. He felt confident on producing the vowels but the consonants provided issue. Some in particular he just couldn't create at all no matter what he tried, the vibrations from his voice box just seeming to never quite create a 'p' sound no matter what he did, among others.

But he would figure it out, in time. It was high on his priority list now, to pay close attention to the way people spoke with him when they came in. But he needed a break, the constant excitement was doing nothing for his progress. He would figure it out in time, but for now he wanted windows. John thought about watching the people in town as he walked down to the store, but there was something exciting about figuring out the rest of the puzzle from the customers that came in his store. Something felt rewarding about having each customer maybe be the final key to the puzzle. So he ignored them, making his way down to the furniture store he frequented.

It was a different person working today, an older lady with short gray hair and a brown dress. She greeted John as soon as he walked in, "Hello, I've been told of you. I'd prefer if you kept the telepathy to a minimum please, it's rather painful for me."

John nodded his head, not wanting to annoy the poor lady, and gestured to the windows nearby.

"You're shopping for windows?" The lady asked. John nodded his head. "Well, typically the windows are made to order. Glass is expensive and we don't just keep it lying around. Do you know the dimensions of what you need filled? It would be best if we could come see what you need, even, if that's alright?"

John nodded his head, and thought about teleporting her to the store, but remembered the distaste the parents of the child had to being suddenly teleported. The lady already seemed averse to some of his powers, it wouldn't do to subject her to teleportation without consent either. 'Teleportation?' he wrote.

"I can not teleport no, but these old bones will make the walk anyway." She said, walking to the door.

John shook his head and pointed at himself and then her.

"Oh, are you asking if you can teleport the both of us, perhaps?" She asked, receiving a nod from John in return. "Well sure, as long as it's still in town and you don't have one of those weird teleports with ill side effects."

John teleported the both of them to the inside of his shop, the lady looking around when they arrived. "Rather convenient that, isn't it? Why do you walk around when you could just arrive wherever you want immediately?" The lady questioned, looking at John.

'Boring' John wrote.

"I understand, there's something that just feels right about doing things the hard way sometimes. Even if magic can make it easier. It would sure be nice to have it available when I want it though, if I weren't so old I might think about a new class. I suppose these are where you want your windows?" She said, pointing towards the empty holes in his walls. John nodded.

It was always interesting, John though, to know these humans could just take another class at will. John was never given an option in the first place, apparently he already had the "best" class and shouldn't be upset about it. But he always disagreed on what "best" really meant, sure they might have the most powerful skills but that was just one definition.

He wondered what would happen if a human were to live as long as he had, accumulating achievements and power, patiently biding their time as they continued increasing the power of their classes. Would they ever reach his power? Or even exceed it? He never had the opportunity to grow, from a numbers perspective anyway. He reminded himself that his recent progress on creating speech showed that there was more to skills than meets the eye.

"Well, these are pretty big windows so it will cost you a pretty penny. But I've heard that you don't seem bothered by the cost of things anyway. This is our selection of frames and glass, though if you want something more specialized you can always speak with our manager." The lady said, pulling out some small samples of glass and various materials that would frame it. Wood and stone frames mostly, of varying colours and textures. Paired with glass of different translucency and colours, some perfectly clear and almost invisible on his desk, while others almost impossible to see through.

John thought about what the final building might look like, what material it might be made out of. He rather liked the white stone that was used in the more expensive districts and thought he might go with that. Or perhaps a lighter wood to match his lights. Regardless, a darker frame made more sense and he picked out a darker stone. Slate, the lady called it. For the glass, John wanted it to be clear that glass was present, but not disturb the visibility inside, so he picked a clear glass with mild imperfections littered throughout it.

"Sure thing, John, I assume? We can have this delivered here by next week. It will cost you fifty gold pieces right now, plus another ten for labour that you can pay after it has been installed." The lady said, putting away her display of window components.

John summoned sixty gold coins, the cost not mattering enough to him to worry about paying them later.

"All upfront then, I see they were right about you. Thank you very much John, I hope you enjoy your window. And uhh, if it's not too much to ask could I get a lift back to the furniture store?"

John nodded and teleported her back to her store. He looked at his windows, imagining the windows he selected filling them up. He quite liked the image, he thought, and was excited for next week when he could see them for real.