Lyn looked as Reed worked on a small piece of wood using a small knife.
"What are you doing?" She asked, curious about his actions.
"Thinking." A short one-word reply.
"About what?"
"About what I should prioritize."
A small piece of wood fell, cut off from the whole by Reed's slowly moving blade.
"Didn't you say that you had everything that you needed to train on a schedule?"
"I did, but there had been a new development."
"What is it?"
Reed threw a book at her, and she caught it between her palms.
"Hey!" She complained, but Reed did not pay her any attention.
Lyn huffed, then looked down at the book.
"Spell circles..."
She flipped through the book as the wood in Reed's hand started to take form.
"Is this real?"
She looked up from the book, three minutes after she started reading.
"It is. Start learning."
Lyn nodded and started to read through the book.
Reed looked at the featureless horse in his hands.
He crushed the incomplete woodwork and dropped its pieces to the ground.
He looked up at Lyn who was engrossed in her reading and called out to her.
"Lyn."
She looked up and let out a questioning noise.
"Hm?"
Reed mentally organized his words and gave them a structure.
"I will not be training with you today. I have some things to prepare."
Lyn looked at Reed and blinked.
"Okayyyy...?" She drew out her answer, trying to think of reasons for this new development.
"Meet me here tomorrow morning, I will give you some new equipment along with new directions for training."
With those words said, Reed turned and walked away into the trees.
He walked for a few minutes, then he climbed a tree and scanned his surroundings, his eyes glowing blue.
A few seconds later, he tossed a few small metallic objects to the surrounding trees, where they stuck and activated, various symbols on them glowing blue.
If one was spying on him, these objects would make that task very difficult, and they would stop any creature from noticing him.
He looked at them and nodded in satisfaction.
'They are working well.' He felt slightly proud of his work.
He sat down on a high branch.
'It is time.'
He mentally revised the steps needed for his upgrade.
He raised his arm and placed a few small white spheres into his mouth.
His boots disappeared as the soles of his feet met each other and his fingers interlinked.
'Let's go.'
If anyone who could see mana was present here at this instant, they would see almost all the mana inside Reed's body flowing.
A small white glow started to emit from Reed's exposed skin as his being was being upgraded.
The glow grew in intensity as the minutes passed.
Then all of a sudden, the glow's luminosity skyrocketed, and Reed could have been mistaken for a light bulb from a distance.
This brightness lasted for five seconds, then the glow disappeared entirely and Reed let out a deep breath, a translucent white mist leaving his mouth along with the air.
Reed's eyes opened as the screen showing his statistics appeared in his vision to show him his changes.
[Name: Relevant Reed Record] [Tier 4] [Level 1]
[STR: SSS AGI: SS SPI: SSS VIT: S INT: S]
Reed let out a small smile as he looked at the screen.
"I believe congratulations are in order, sir."
Record appeared next to him and spoke.
"Thank you."
Reed's smile grew just a little bit as he looked at the floating ball.
Reed pushed himself into the air as his boots reappeared.
He started to stretch, but the way he bent his body would have a regular person screaming even if they were just observing his actions.
His flexibility would have made him a great contortionist if he decided to pursue that career.
When he was done, he collected his 'Anti-detection' devices and started walking deeper into the forest, away from the city.
He had work to do, and he would hate it if someone accidentally stumbled upon it.
***
Lyn looked with concern at Reed, who seemed a little out of it.
It was the first time she had seen him like this.
"Are you alright?" She asked him in concern. "Did you sleep yesterday?"
'A tier 3 can go without sleep for three days without big problems, and he was fine yesterday...'
"I'm fine, it's just spiritual exhaustion." Reed waved her concerns off.
"If you say so..."
'What did he do? What could have taken so much out of him?'
Lyn was a little shocked at what she was seeing, but Reed did not look at her as he laid out a few items on the table.
"First of all," He held out the ring he had obtained in the first event. "Take this."
Lyn took it as a screen appeared in front of her eyes, showing some of the details about the ring.
"This..." Her eyes widened. "Tier 6?"
"What about it?" Reed seemed nonchalant about giving her such a rare piece of equipment.
Lyn looked at the ring, then slipped it on while thanking him.
"Thank you." She was very thankful for this.
"Don't lose it, it's quite expensive and hard to find."
'Not in the slightest.' he thought internally as he pointed at the armor on the table.
"This," He showed her the updated armor. "is much better than the one you have now, so put that away and use this next time. This also has invisibility and sound-absorbing capabilities."
As Lyn put it away, Reed pointed to the next item, a pair of pistols.
"These are tier 5, and they have a self-destruct program in them, here read this before you use them."
He held out a piece of paper with a labeled sketch of one of the pistols on one side and details on the other.
She took it, and as she gave it a glance Reed gestured to the next item, which was a closed box.
Lyn opened it to see neatly stacked brown bars.
Curious, she activated a system function to see what they were.
[Food bar] [Tier 3]
[Consumable, safe to eat]
[Can feed an ordinary man for a full day]
"These will take care of the increasing mealtime."
Lyn nodded, amazed at this.
'No need for five meals a day now.' She was very grateful for this.
"Thank you." She thanked Reed with a quiet voice.
"No problem, we are partners after all." Reed shrugged her thanks off and opened the next two boxes, showing their contents, which were the same from the outside, small bottles with only one difference, their caps.
"Healing and energy recovery potions, these are healing," He said, pointing to the bottles with an almost imperceptible bulge in the center of their caps. "and these are for energy recovery." He pointed to the bottles with completely flat caps.
"These are emergency use only," Reed spoke as Lyn put them away. "Don't use them unless absolutely necessary."
"Um." Lyn nodded.
"Good, here," Reed had brought out another piece of paper. "This is your new training schedule, read it over and ask any questions you have."
Lyn did as he instructed.
"No questions." She said when she finished reading the schedule.
"Alright then, meet me for dinner at the place opposite the elixir store."
"Got it."
Lyn watched as Reed walked away, then looked back at the sheet of paper in her hands and sighed.
The paper disappeared as a resolute expression appeared on her face.
'Let's start then.'