The lessons went simple for the first day.

Magic existed and was usually referred to as ‘an alternate form of physics’ by fellow science users. He would likely be able to learn many forms of magic depending on his biology, assuming he was willing to put decades worth of effort into getting a bachelors in arcane study or something.

In addition they went over the basics. Errifin was an elf. Elves are more magically oriented, and had innate blessings which assisted their learning abilities. They had a Goddess who ruled over them directly.

Mark was a human. A previously unknown species with unknown abilities and an unknown god.

That unknown god had destroyed the people who abducted him, meaning it was fairly dangerous.

For their next lesson the elf pushed all of the small blocks into one large pile.

“This pile is all humans. All on one planet, in one solar system, in one singular universe.” Then she took one block. “This block is you.”

She placed the block a foot and a half away from the big pile.

“How many blocks are in this pile?” she asked, gesturing to the chaotic mound to Mark’s left.

Mark paused and began counting, one, two, five…

Then seemingly of their own volition the blocks began moving, shifting, exchanging places. Mark looked down as one of the blocks he was counting vanished.

He looked up accusingly at his teacher.

“Yes, I made it impossible. This is a metaphor.” she tapped the pile. “This is an uncountable chaotic mess. This singular piece here is you.”

She handed Mark the piece.

“Where is your block?”

“In my hand.” Mark replied.

“You know where this block is because it is separate from the herd, easily identifiable just like the single black block in this pile right here.” She tapped the pile again. “Some blocks stand out because they are different. Some blocks stand out because they are over here when they should be right here in this pile. Our hope is that because you stand out you will receive a powerful and more obvious blessing from your god, something that we can identify properly so that we can begin proper diplomatic relations and properly integrate any migrants.”

“I see. So I do have magic!” Mark was now reinvested in the conversation. “So what powers does stuff like this usually give? Flying? Healing magic? Laser vision?”

“We have no idea, that is why we will be testing you for everything we can think of… With your permission of course.”

Mark nodded, “Okay so what do we test for first?”

“First, you will need to rest. Since we have had difficulties detecting anything anomalous with you it has been decided that you may be ‘recharging’ your abilities and so you might need more time.” She answered. “For now just continue familiarizing yourself with your new home and tell any of the staff if you want anything at all.”

He felt like he should have expected that answer, clearly right after he found out he had chosen one powers he was told he needed to wait to see what they are.

But obviously he wasn’t going to go against the wizard-cleric-psychic elf.

“Okay, so I should just go lay down or something?”

The elf just smiled, “Whatever helps you relax. We will need to start weakening the calming effects on you soon too, so if you begin to feel excessively stressed feel free to retreat to your room as needed.”

“I… Thank you.” Mark nodded, suddenly being kidnapped and then surrounded by screams and gore wasn’t exactly pleasant but they were doing a fair bit of magical play to keep him from going crazy.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Plus, this wasn’t a permanent kidnapping like in most stories. He would find out how to get home soon and then he could even meet his friends again.

He left the room and went back into the mansion halls, turning left to make it back to somewhere he could identify.

Mark could go and… Lay in his room or get something to eat.

They lacked proper entertainment currently, they needed to translate games, books and other media for him to be able to use it.

So, food it was. He turned to the kitchens again. Surely there was some kind of snack that could take up his time.

It was sometimes referred to as bored eating.

Mark navigated his way back to the kitchen and ran into the giant red lizard- dragonoid person.

His friend, he was sure, who had been abducted from their people just like him.

Their name was Zirrilit or something, he had some issues with the obviously foreign pronunciation.

“Greetings Mark!” The dragonoid put a knifelike claw forward, when Mark grasped the claw he felt them pull hard enough to nearly dislocate his shoulder.

They didn’t quite have handshakes down yet.

“How have you been, Zirrilit?”

“Uh…” The dragonoid paused to think. “The food here’s kind of good, and I can eat whenever I want. Also nothing’s trying to murder me anymore! I think it’s good overall. Very good even! How are you?”

Mark nodded, he had forgotten that ‘how are you’ was an actual question here and not a greeting.

“I am also glad I am not being murdered.” Mark decided. “I am looking for food too. I can’t find anything else to do.”

“Oooh,” Zirrilit nodded. “You are bored! Wanna go to the gym? I just found out about it yesterday! They have machines that magically make your muscles bigger.”

Magically make your muscles bigger?

That sounded interesting, so he decided to put his lazing around and snacking on hold for a moment.

Then he followed the giant armored red figure to a new area in the mansion that he previously didn’t know existed.

It was a gym, a magical gym even.

But not magical in the way he thought it would be.

It resembled a normal human gym, he had been to those even if he didn’t go as often as he should have. He could point out where you performed bench presses, squats and even more exact machines for very specific muscle groups.

Where it differed was the weights, for a bench press you had a bench to lie down on, the bar, the parts that held the bar in place. Then on top of all that you had a selection of weights you could place onto the bar.

This gym had no weights, instead each bench had a small screen and dial beside it where you could input how much weight you wanted to lift.

Then the bar would suddenly weigh exactly that much.

That was the magical part. There was no potion to give him giant arms or a spell that would make him twice as strong.

“Look Mark! You can just get stronger by just picking up this metal over and over! It’s like those games where you do the thing again and again until you punch through dragons!”

Zirrilit apparently thought that a proper gym was magic and had become infatuated with the concept of working out.

“Where did you live before this Zirri?” Mark was puzzled by this level of culture shock.

“A cave, with my tribe.” They nodded, “yup, you can’t have big structures like this in my homeland. They would get blowed up by wyverns.”

“Oh.” Mark supposed that was more culture shock for him than Zirrilit was having with the gym.

He scratched his cheek, “So what’s it like living on a-” Mark paused searching for the term. “-a Deathworld?”

“Well…” Zirrilit didn’t have much to compare it to. “Sometimes monsters suddenly start… Existing somewhere with no warning and they try to eat everything alive that’s around them. There’s wyverns, rock drakes, biters… Mostly wyverns.”

“Wow… That sounds awful.” Mark didn’t have a concept of what any of those were, but felt like he should express sympathy anyway.

If it was anything like being kidnapped by interdimensional slavers it probably was awful, but in all honesty he was fuzzy about all of the alleged murdering that happened around him.

He had been under the effects of some form of mental attack after all.

Zirrilit nodded solemnly, his sympathy was clearly not backed by real life experiences but that just made her next line all the more clear.

“Humans might not have a good concept of this, since you can summon giant monsters to eat entire armies and all, but generally my species needs to do anything it can to make sure we can survive against our environment-” They started poking their claws together, “-I just wanted to ask, could I join your harem please?”

Mark’s mind flashed between a lack of understanding and a shocked confusion.

“No.” He managed, almost choking on his saliva.

“Oh,” It- she looked dejected and scuffed at the ground slightly. “I get it, sorry I know I’m probably not as strong as most of the people who would ask. Can I at least be a servant or something? Please?”

“I- no-” Mark stammered, “I don’t have a harem, and I’m not interested in one right now. And I don’t need servants.”

Zirrilit whined slightly, an animalistic sound from the throat. “I get it… Sorry for asking… I am clearly too weak to be a partner to someone who can summon angels.”

The giant reptile person somehow managed to appear dejected to the human standing across from her.

“What? You aren’t weak.” Mark stammered slightly, they looked so sad and he didn’t want to hurt their feelings. “I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.”

He was magically calmed and had his mind artificially enhanced to be more adaptable, thus he did not see them as a biological horror that exceeded anything evolution could create.

So this was just an upset person and a very awkward confession from someone he met a couple days ago.

She raised her head to look at him again and smiled, “Really? I’m not weak? But those raiders beat me up easily and you beat them without even doing anything.”

“You realize you’re a few feet taller than me right?” Mark sighed, “and I think they said you were strong enough to lift a car.”

“I could throw a car!” Zirrilit beamed, “So… are you doing anything later?”

Mark quickly searched his mind for any excuse.

“Oh yeah sorry, the elf teacher lady said that she’s going to need me to do a bunch of tests later so it will probably be awhile.” Mark stretched, “anyway they said I need to go rest now so I have to leave. Sorry, see you later.”

With that Mark backed out of the conversation and took off down the hall.