Early next morning as the sun was rising, Reed pinched his brows as he considered his options for his future.
Now that some time had passed, he had relaxed his guard to some extent, having confirmed that his life was in no immediate danger, allowing him to ponder about his future actions.
He was thinking about what his approach should be to the players.
So far, he only knew about the three who had unknowingly given him a valuable asset.
If there were more in this city, they kept themselves hid, indicating that they were more or less a threat.
He deliberated for a few minutes before switching his attention.
The lack of visible players was paving a road for his thoughts to wander.
He put his fingers together as he stared at the floor in contemplation.
'It's not right. There are supposed to be about a million humans, and considering that they spawned somewhat evenly across all of the locations, there would be at least a few hundred at every point.'
'Not to mention, that there are most likely other races besides humans who are in this game as well.'
Reed recalled what Record had told him about the starting area, and the final tests.
'One out of millions... And, 'Creatures'.'
He thought about the possible other races and what they might be, before coming back to the distribution problem.
'No matter how you put it, there should be more than just the four of us here. That means that there are two possibilities.'
"One."
'By sheer coincidence, only 4 of us are in this city, with maybe 2 or 3 more that I just haven't encountered. Or the more fantasy-like option two.'
"Multiple worlds."
He clicked his tongue.
'For something that can rip out a million people from their world and bring them to another, spreading them out across multiple worlds would not be a big problem.'
He exhaled through his teeth.
"That complicates things."
'If it's true, my search efforts may be entirely useless until I can go to different worlds.'
'I hope it's just a coincidence.'
...
Mordhal did not teach Reed anything new, he just told him to increase his speed in casting spells, so that's what he did, just repeatedly cast spells, wait for his mana to recover, and repeat.
While, he was doing this, Reed noticed that Mordhal was... Very strong, physically.
He seemed to be training some kind of martial art.
However, his strikes were leaving deep dents in the trees, and sometimes when he applied some force, the ground would have shallow pits in it.
Reed mentally compared his feats to whose that he had seen, and came to the conclusion that Mordhal, was striking with at least 10 to 12 times the force of a former world champion of his original world.
That comparison was drawn because Reed had struck those trees as well, and noted their toughness.
Reed did not comment on it, and continued his own training.
The day passed quickly, having a goal made it easy for Reed to designate tasks to himself, and there was quite a bit of knowledge to be had in the library.
It was both interesting, and useful at the same time, so Reed had no complaints, and actually enjoyed his reading time.
The next day, Mordhal decided to teach him two more spells.
"For most people, there are only three types of damaging, those are bashing, slashing, and piercing."
Mordhal held up three fingers, then made a fist, before them out again.
"But for mages, there are three more, continuous, exploding and binding."
"Wind for slashing, fire for exploding, lightning for piercing, earth for bashing, ice for binding, and water for a bit of all."
"I have taught you the basic spells of ice, earth, fire, and wind, today I'll teach you the basic spells of water and lightning."
"Are you ready?"
Mordhal looked up at Reed from his seated position.
"What about the mana bolt spell?"
Reed asked, Mordhal had spoken about it before.
He blinked, before letting out a sound in recognition.
"Ah! That! I did tell you about it didn't I?"
He brought his hand up and massaged his chin.
"Hmm... Nah, you can learn it on your own."
He shrugged and got up.
"I'm sure you will have no problem learning it by yourself."
"So, time to teach you the most useless basic spell, 'Water ball'."
"It's the most useless because it just creates a ball of water, but a good starting point for learning water magic."
"Most mages use it to clean or put our fires."
"Anyway, the incantation for water creation is..."
And so, Reed added two more spells to his arsenal.
The same evening, Reed came across a book on magical runes, which excited him to no end.
He sat down and looked through a few of the pages, his grin increasing with each page.
'Yes! Yes! YES!!!'
He closed the book and committed the cover to memory.
'This is exactly what I wanted for a fantasy world!'
However, it was time for him to leave, so he put it back in it's original place, hoped that a sudden disaster didn't strike, and left.
After speed casting training in the morning, Mordhal stopped Reed.
"My students will be arriving today, meet me at the guild at 7 to introduce yourself to them."
Reed let out a hum in acknowledgement.
"How many are they?"
Mordhal paused for a few seconds.
"Seven. There are seven of them."
He turned to leave, then stopped after a few steps and turned back.
"By the way, there will be one with blue hair, don't call him short."
Reed raised an eyebrow at this titbit of information.
"Sensitive about his height?"
"Very, especially since his family is known for being tall."
Reed nodded, and Mordhal left.