Author's Note

Trying something different this chapter!

The text will be a little easier to read for our light mode brethren.

To put it simply, only the first line from a character will be coloured.

Example:

(Original)

"I like Cake," Said Celestia, "And Not helping Twilight protect Equestria from world ending events!"

"I really wish you would though..." The words released from Twilights lips beneath her breath, followed by an exasperated sigh.

Celestia's ears perked up, noticing her student's objection and smiling, "NEVER!"

"Why am I here?" Twilight let out, "Just to suffer?"

(New Version)

"I like Cake," Said Celestia, "And Not helping Twilight protect Equestria from world ending events!"

"I really wish you would though..." The words released from Twilights lips beneath her breath, followed by an exasperated sigh.

Celestia's ears perked up, noticing her student's objection and smiling, "NEVER!"

"Why am I here?" Twilight let out, "Just to suffer?"

EXTRA:

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Chapter 11: Linguistics and Gifts

{DAY 31}

I stop for a moment, before looking over to Spike's face and squinting slightly

“So what's with the Lizard?” There was a small awkward silence as I asked the question before I heard a slightly aggravated voice respond.

”For your information, I'm a dragon, not a lizard.” I raise an eyebrow and smile a bit.

“Huh, really? Where I'm from, Dragons are considered mythological creatures, with some cultures treating them as deities… To think the first dragon I see is so…” Twilight seemed a bit interested by my comment, before Spike spoke up.

”T-that's just ‘cuz I’m still growing!” I snicker a bit at Spike's response, as Twilight simply smiles at him.

It's been a few hours of the both of us chatting. Spike hadn't really been all that included, having zoned out a quarterway through our conversation. And I don't blame him. To most people what we're talking about is quite mundane. Keyword most. You couldn't even imagine how much Twilight’s eyes sparkled when I said that the markings on my body are in fact scars. She had known of them, and only ever had drawings from her textbooks, never having seen the real deal. Also the concepts of tattoos don’t exist here. Makes sense when you have fur though, but I won't be able to get any new ones for a while sadly…

Honestly, I kinda wanted to chat with Twilight a bit more but she apparently forgot that she was supposed to be overseeing an event of some kind.

She called it the “Summer Sun Celebration”.

Apparently it's being held here in Canterlot, so that'll be fun.

I think it's time to upgrade my status a bit now…

I have three skill points. I ended up not needing to get Silver Tongue for the meeting. The plan was to get it if things went out of hand, but thankfully they didn't so I saved some.

Now, I didn't really have to worry about the Mental Match between a Royal Scholar, so my focus was currently on something else.

The computer.

Now, initially I had trouble deciding if I should actually promise a computer or not, but there is something more with it. After all, in a world like this, a machine capable of advanced mathematics would be more novel than anything else, which is why I'm not just aiming for one of those old punch-card Binary computers, but something a bit more advanced.

Not a modern day computer, no, trying to go from the medieval times to the 21st century in a single month is a bit too much… at least for normal people.

What I'm going for was the absolutely Ancient level of Windows 95. Whilst slow, it was capable of organizing, storing and finding information at speeds many times that of a human.

Now, this may seem like just as impossible of a task, however, there is one thing you shouldn't forget.

That is, of course, the fact that I'm practically cheating.

I was promised the full support of the kingdom, so I expect the full support of the kingdom. That means materials aren't a problem. Crafting isn't a problem. The only thing that's needed are blueprints…

For things like wire, I already have a few ideas of how to make them. Simply put, one month may have been too much time.

That isn't even beginning to mention the biggest cheat of all…

THE SYSTEM!

I think it's about time I invest my skill points. Not on new skills, but rather in upgrading skills.

First skill to be upgraded is-

[Craftsmanship: Allows the user to speed up the creation of all items and structures by 300%. All items you've previously made have a 100% success rate of being crafted]

Nice!

Next is…

[Mark Territory: Select two small areas as your “Territory”. Animals with territorial instinct such as wolves, will avoid entering this area. You will always know where your territory is. 200% Crafting Speed in Territory]

And my third skill point is going into, you guessed it, the bank. You never know when you have a new skill you need Urgently.

Now, the grade for both Mark Territory and Craftsmanship are a thousand times better than what i was hoping for! With Craftsmanship, i just wanted to speed up the creation of more tedious and repetitive tasks, but now I've got a speed increase for everything! And Mark Territory was a bit of a gamble, I wanted to increase my territory size so I can place a territory here in the Castle so I can find a way back to my room whenever but the crafting boost is INCREDIBLY welcome!

Now, collectively thats a six times crafting speed boost for EVERYTHING! And a 12 times boost if i make it from myself befause of survivalism! As long as it's built within my territory…

Which I soon placed here in my guest room.

Even though I'm cheating, it's still going to be one hell of a time crunch. Most of it is material science after all.

I looked outside the window and… yeah it's almost turning night now.

I guess I can relax now-

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

Huh? Who's that?

I walked my way to the door and open It up for the second time today.

Standing outside was a unicorn mare of shorter, more stout stature, a little chubby, but in a cute way. With a well groomed, almost flesh-like light pink coat with a short chalky bone mane. She seemed to be on the older side, perhaps around the same age as Strawberry Sundae, still holding that unique motherly nature in her voice as she spoke. The saddlebag strapped to her bag held a variety of different books as well as a single scroll of parchment.

”Hello, I am Berry Bourbon, your new Ponish…” She initially was looking a little up, where a regular Pony's face might be, but it took a while for her to register that she wasn't teaching a regular pony. Or a pony at all, ”...T-tutor.”

She seemed to trip over her words in a rather cute manner, as I simply smiled and made way for her to enter. It may be a bit dark, but there's no time like the present when it comes to learning!

The first thing I noticed was her Cutie Mark. A collection of red berries filling up an empty glass… Her name is bourbon so liquor? Oh my god, THEY'VE GOT BOOZE!?

I don't know why I thought they wouldn't, but for once I'm thankful for being brought here.

Wait, aren't Cutie Marks supposed to be related to your job? Why would someone whose Mark, what I'm assuming at least, is related to alcohol tutoring me into writing Ponish?

She seemed to spot my confusion and quickly gathered her courage to speak.

“Y-you see, my family owns a Winery, but my Older Sister had inherited it, so I decided to go a different path…” She seemed like she was preparing for some sort of questioning due to her vague answer but I didn't really mind. When it comes to teaching me, anypony works, whether their Cutie Mark helps or not.

”Well, you probably know this already, but my name is Victor De La Cruz, but you all can just call me Victor, there's no need for formalities,” She nods in understanding and smiles slightly, a little less tense now.

”Well, now that we're done with the introductions, it's time to begin with the lesson,” She says as she floats the scroll out of her saddle bag and out in front of me.

Inscribed in ink was a variety of symbols I had recognized from before. The Ponish script.

I furrow my brows as I stare.

The first thing I noticed was the resemblance to both Sanskrit and Korean Hangul writing systems.

It was quite beautiful, Composed of straight lines and circles, almost sci-fi in nature.

At the moment, it was quite utterly incomprehensible. But not for long, as I began to mentally categorize the script. Initially I had noticed around 16 different symbols that had included circles, and 22 symbols that didn't.

Isn't this supposed to be a modified English text? I mean it should be considering the language but it's not even close…

If it was truly English then it would've had the same number of letters, but this has 38…

But this is interesting, the script seems to have two repeating parts. A top part and a bottom part. These two seem to be part of a set group of possibilities with 5 total top parts and 7 bottom parts…

C'mon these have to mean something…!

”I feel like today we should try working on memorizing all of the alphabet before we begin with writing,” She says, with an obvious amount of experience, yet there was a motherly tone behind it. She seemed to have gotten a bit more comfortable, her tone less guarded.

“Yeah, sure…” I mentally wave her away a bit as I continue to focus on the letters.

”...If you're trying to learn it by yourself, you should know that it's near impossible-” I interrupted her, pointing to three different letters with the same bottom piece but different top pieces, before speaking.

“Hey, what are these ones?” She seems a bit surprised before rolling her eyes and answering with a more annoyed tone.

”Thats, B, D and E,” I immediately begin to write that down, before stopping and realizing I don't have a pen.

I look over to her, but she simply let out a sigh, almost as if saying “I should've expected this”, before handing me a quill from her bag.

I immediately flip the scroll over and write down all the notes I had made mentally whilst looking over the paper.

Those three letters I picked had the same bottom and therefore sounded the same…

Is it perhaps pronunciation? If that's the case then this makes sense!

These 16 symbols with circles are for the 16 different vowel pronunciations within English, and the rest would be the consonants.

If what I'm thinking is correct then this is an absolutely ingenious way of writing…

You see, the top segment is probably the place of articulation, where to put your tongue, and the bottom part is the manner of articulation, how to use your tongue…

I begin listing out everything.

“Hey, you mind giving me that?” I ask, not looking over and pointing over to the book in her saddlebag. She floated it over to me and into my open palm as I opened it up to a random page and began to decode it using the letters I already knew and context clues. This gave me more letters, letting me decode more, giving more context clues… and it wasn't long before I finished writing out my cheat sheet.

“That was easy,” I say, holding out my arm, the book in my hand as she just stares with her mouth agape.

”D-did you just…” I wave her off a bit, “I mean, I know you're a Scholar, but I didn't expect…”

“Oh chill out a bit, I'm a fluent vocal speaker and your language is incredibly intuitive with its shapes literally telling me what the letter is, it would’ve been weirder if I couldn't translate this fast,” That was much faster than expected… mostly because of the Ponish’s nature but even then it would take me a good bit of time to figure this out normally…

Oh yeah, I have Genius. 300% Learning Speed FTW!

It seems I found out why she expected me to try, and fail, in decoding this myself. She spoke of me as a Scholar, so perhaps she thought that I was just being stuck up and not letting some random pony teach me.

“Either way, I still haven't memorized it, that'll take me the rest of this week,” I predicted, but with genius it'll probably take a third of the time.

My initial prediction of learning everything in a week didn't take Genius into account. I am a bit of a genius, even without the system. Whilst that may sound conceited, it's accurate.

Now what to do with the downtime…?

Well, I should probably first get my down time…

{DAY 34}

It's the third day I've spent at the royal palace.

Memorizing the Ponish script wasn't hard, all I had to do was replace some words mentally. I couldn't read fluently yet, but it was fast enough to be done mentally. I spent most of my time reading texts and learning more about this world as a whole.

The world, which I now know is called Equis, is devised into two distinct supercontinents. Each being approximately the size of Pangea.

The land where I was residing in currently was also, frustratingly, called “Equis” and the other is only known by one name. “The Distant Lands”

There aren't any records of The Distant Lands, and everypony who I try to question about it simply doesn't care all that much about it. It's like asking a medieval person what's on the moon. The only answer you'd get is “Rocks”. Bad example but you get the point right?

The Distant Lands is a place rid of Harmony, where thousands of species live. Because of the nature of there being little Harmony, they haven't been able to establish kingdoms over there. And unlike Europe and America, Equestria simply can't conquer The Distant Lands because every single species there is outright monstrous. Or so I've heard.

It's said that a single creature from the Distant Lands is powerful enough to take on the average ponish military platoon with ease…

Most of my reading was done on the geography of Equis (The World) in order to understand it better. Because of my slow reading speed, during this time I was only able to get halfway through a single book…

The old me would have finished it in a single sitting. An all nighter sure, but still a single sitting. If only they wrote in English, then I'd be practically unstoppable.

I did get something quite important out of this though, that being level ups. And not just one, not just two…

BUT THREE WHOLE LEVEL UPS!

[Level Up! 3 —> 6]

Because I didn't really have a need to increase my Endurance, considering the fact that I've already surpassed the need for strenuous activities with my soon-to-be Royal Scholar position, so the Stat points are better spent somewhere else.

Though I do feel a little off from leaving my home alone for so long…

Whatever, focus on the here and the now. Stat points…

Intelligence? Four entire Stat points in it seems great, especially considering the fact I'm going to be a Scholar but…

Hmm, it doesn't seem right. Okay, I'll go for a safe option. Increasing my lowest Stat.

[Reflex 11 —> 15]

Beautiful.

I also have three more skill points. I'll be saving those for later though, never know when you may need new Skills.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

I walk over and look down, preparing to perhaps meet Twilight again, or maybe Bourbon decided to come over for some tea. She's meant to be teaching me, but there isn't really much she CAN teach me so she usually heads over as an excuse to skip out on other duties.

A bit naughty of her but I'm not one to snitch.

Instead, the figure I saw was tall mate.

Tall, white, with a mane of different flowing greens, purples and blues. A bit on the rounder side but it was cute so I'm not complaining.

Yes, you know who it is. Everypony's favourite Spanish speaking Alicorn, Celestia herself.

Wonderful.

”Good Morning, Victor De La Cruz,” She spoke with a serene smile on her face, her tone open and consistent, ”I do hope everything has been good these past few days.”

“Well, this place is over a thousand times better where I used to live, and it makes quite a nice temporary residence,” I say, mulling over my words as I speak, “However… no nevermind.”

She raises a brow and questioned what I was going to say, walking into the room, “Oh? Really? You can be comfortable with me, Victor, I don't bite.”

I let out a small chuckle, trying not to make it sound too forced as I brush over the subject, “Well, anyhow, what would a prestigious figure such as yourself be doing here?”

“I only came to drop off a gift, something that will make your transition into living within Equestria more… manageable,” She floated a small string necklace towards me, a strange rune inscribed into its black gemstone surface, completely unlike the Ponish script… I took it and felt…

Heat.

It was really hot. Scalding even. But it didn't really hurt, just a bit mildly uncomfortable.

“Thanks… what is it?” I say, putting it around my neck.

“It's a necklace,” She says with a smile, obviously a bit, before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes.

The gem rapidly heated up, it burned and hurt. Really hurt.

I quickly moved my hand to its string to get it off my chest, but it was practically glued there. I was unable to move it no matter how much power I used.

“FUCK!” I let out a curse as I burnt the palms of my hand trying to rip it off. Thankfully, it slowly cooled down back to its original heat as a horrible stinging sensation rang out across my chest.

I was finally able to rip it off of my as I heaved, Celestia doing the same. I tried to withhold myself but I let out a glare at her.

“What was that…” My voice was low and seeping with distrust as I took a small step back, prepared to book it out the window if anything were to happen.

“...I apologize for the heat, but it was simply a necessity in order for the magic within it to work,” She explained calmly, her voice edging a hint of genuine grief, “However I assure you that it would not bring you any permanent harm.”

I sigh and look over at the necklace in the palm of my hand. It was ice cold to the touch, freezing a bit of the air around it.

“And what was the magic within it…?” She gestured for me to put it on as I did, before she came forward and tapped it twice on my chest.

The necklace heated up yet again, and I was preparing to rip it off before my vision was obscured by a small tornado of golden flames. They were lukewarm, not hurting in the slightest as the necklace was manageably the same temperature.

It only lasted a fraction of a second but I suddenly felt something strange. The centre of my gravity being shifted in an obscure manner. I immediately landed straight on my ass. It didn't feel like that bad of a landing though, as if I was cushioned. However I did feel an awkward pain, as if I landed on my ankle wrong, but closer to the end of my spine.

I saw Celestia wince at it, before letting out a breath she had been holding.

I looked over to my hands, only to see… Nothing?

my left hand was flat and thick. I knew what it was, I had seen it quite a few times in this world.

A hoof.

I slowly raise myself and look into the nearby full length mirror in the corner, a strange sight meeting me.

With large golden eyes… I recognised them, yet they had a sort of uncanny valley effect. They were mine.

Those eyes wandered around to view my entire figure, mentally zooming out a bit.

My coat was a light shade of brown, like my original skin colour, with a mane of black curly strands. It was undeniably me.

Yet so… different?

I was an Earth Pony (Something I had learned in a book), with no horn or wings but a nice muscular figure. I was tall for a pony, reaching up to around Celestia's chin at my highest point. On my rear, a cutie mark of a pair of wings. It was the exact same as the tattoo on my back with no real color, purely an outline.

The most interest factor however was the large deep gash in my right hoof, the same one I lost my finger on. There was an entire segment lost in a jagged fashion.

I could see what was causing my discomfort, I was currently sitting awkwardly on my tail. It took a while before I stood up a bit with shaky legs, fighting the urge to get off all fours.

“This is…” Celestia smiled at her handiwork before speaking.

“It's a transformation spell written onto a rune. Whenever you tap it twice, it will take the magic out of the Mana Crystal it's inscribed on and transform you into a pony,” She spoke with a sly smile, "This would usually be impossible, with the thaumaturgical systems within your body fighting against the transformation, however due to your particular biology, the magic is acting as it would on an inanimate object.”

So to magic, I'm not alive, huh?

Interesting…

And scary. If Celestia could do this, who's to say that some random evil unicorn couldn't use transformation magic to scramble my brain to bits.

“So this is what you meant by ‘making the transition more manageable’?” I ask as she smiles.

“Whilst I do apologize for the sudden gift, it will help lessen the criticism from other ponies about your position. Knowledge of your true race has been kept confidential, the only ponies who would know are the ones you've seen directly,” I guess she's good at keeping things a secret. How nice.

Whilst this certainly wasn't what I expected, it was surely helpful. I'm assuming the reason why she needed to give it to me directly was to make sure that both the secret didn't get out, and to apply the magic correctly.

“Now, how would you like to join me for breakfast, Victor De La Cruz,” At the mention of food I mentally gag my stomach out of my throat.

“I would love to, your Majesty, however…” Wait, is denying this the correct choice? What if she finds it offensive? I need to let it down gently, “However I don't seem to be hungry-”

A loud growl comes from my belly as I suddenly begin to flush a bit redder.

Shit.