The next three days went quickly. They completely dominated the first battle, a fight against some mobile rosebushes that could throw their thorns. They were easy to burn, and Xin'ri was able to catch them on fire straight through their Shield.

They didn't burn well until the Shield was gone, but once they were actually on fire, they had no way to put themselves out. They could have simple moved high enough the bushes couldn't reach them and waited them out, but that would have been far too boring; instead, Sophia had Cliff summon the fire-variant dragon Echo to flashily cover them in fire. Dav and Jax closed in on the bushes and cut them apart while the monsters focused on the fire instead of their attackers.

They got some cheers, but it was nothing like the first battle. Their monetary reward wasn't as good, either, but Jax Xin'ri were pleased with it anyway. It was decent for a "bad matchup" like creatures that couldn't fly and were vulnerable to a very common element against a group that could fly and had that element. The fact that the rosebushes could throw thorns was only worth so much, and no one really seemed to feel like it was an exciting fight. From what they were told later, the flaming Flying Serpent was the best part of the fight, simply for the spectacle.

They received exactly one Wisp for the fight, which was what Jax expected. When Ci'an heard that, she started yelling at Jax. Sophia didn't catch it all, but she did catch enough to know that Ci'an believed that "fewer wisps than your upgrade" meant that the Guide was telling you that it was time to move to harder challenges.

Jax did not agree. As far as he was concerned, the small number of Wisps simply meant that it would take a while to reach the next upgrade; that was normal. It wasn't like Wisps were the limit anyway; the usual problem was creating a Grand Talent. It wouldn't be recognized until you pushed your level up to twelve, but most people who got there got stuck. A lot of people even ended up choosing to sunder or alter their Spheres instead, to try to find something that they could more easily turn into a Great Talent.

"I'm more worried about being boring," Dav interjected during a quiet moment in the argument. "An occasional easy victory like that is fine, but people don't go to watch easy matches, they go to watch exciting ones. If we don't come up with some way to make them interesting, either the Arena will or we'll only get filler fights. I don't think that'll get us where we want to be. Any of us."

That made both Jax and Ci'an stop and take another look at Dav. Sophia grinned, then hid her mouth with her hand. It was always fun when Dav spoke up; he didn't do it often, but when he did, it was worth listening to. This time, he'd clearly been thinking about it for a while.

"Then what do you think we should do?" Jax's words were fine, but his tone was icy.

Dav ignored the tone as he answered the question. "Make it spicy. Make a show of it somehow. We can put one person forward at each event, have them show off, so that people don't know what to expect because we could showcase anyone. Or we can take on limitations, like the fight against the skyeagles where we all had to fly even though we're not all very good at it. We can announce those or make people figure them out. Anything that makes it a little different each time so that people don't know what to expect. That should keep their interest."

Jax stared at Dav for a long moment, then began to nod. Sophia was pretty sure he grudgingly liked the idea. She was also certain that part of the reason Dav didn't give specific ideas on what they could limit was so that everyone could come up with their own ideas. That would give them more options and also make it everyone's idea instead of just Dav's.

"That might solve my problem, too," Ci'an added unexpectedly. "I'm not sure. The Guide likes challenges, but it also rewards the good use of resources. I'm not sure which way it will go on us limiting ourselves; is that a bad choice or is it just a bigger challenge?"

Sophia had no idea what the answer to that was. She wanted to believe that making a deliberate choice to take on a harder challenge would count, but she was pretty sure that the Guide didn't actually care about people. There was a good chance it was insane, too, though she couldn't really tell the difference between those two.

They spent the next few hours coming up with options. Some of them were obviously silly, like shouting out fake Ability names as they used Abilities. Jax didn't like it because it gave too much away, while Ci'an didn't like it because it wasn't really that interesting. Most of the crowd wouldn't be able to hear them anyway.

Other restrictions were more promising. "Must be flying" was the one they'd already used, but it went on the list anyway. "May not fly or jump" was the second item on the list. Limiting themselves to only attacking in melee or only from a distance were next, along with limiting the elements they used. Dav suggested a fight where they didn't use any Abilities at all; it made the list, but only if their opponent was easy enough for them to succeed. Requiring weapons and disallowing them were suggested and created an argument about the difference between that and melee or ranged, which Ci'an easily won by mentioning her bow.

It was the most fun Sophia had had for weeks.

The brainstorming session eventually turned into a planning session to figure out what they needed to buy or make for the different options to work. Somehow, they ended up down at Alley Sweetfire's the next morning, repeating much of the planning session.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Alley was offended when he realized just how many Attunement slots they had empty. Xin'ri was the only one who had what he considered a reasonable loadout, and even then it was a reasonable setup for someone who wasn't an Item specialist. Sophia was glad she wasn't in Jax's shoes, at least; when Alley found out that "Jaycen" had an Item Anchor and still had only four Attuned items, he was horrified.

Fortunately, he also knew what he was doing. Instead of just telling Jax to fix it, he spent the next hour talking through "Jaycen's" current equipment and powerset so that he could determine what Jaycen needed. He wouldn't be able to make anything before their fight the following evening, but he was able to give them a list of things they should gather.

Naturally, it included a number of things that were too expensive for them to buy. That would change if they managed to get a few more fights that were as rewarding as the first one, but for now they were going to have to make do without most of what Sweetfire wanted to make for them.

The fight that evening started with a huge surprise: when they were announced, the announcer added that they were sponsored by Sweetfire. He made it sound like a huge revelation, and the audience seemed to react as if it were important. Sophia was confused, but all Jax had time to explain was that it meant Sweetfire had promised the Arena that he'd support them.

The fight itself was against a horde of first upgrade undead. They were just fodder monsters, really, and would have been easy to kill if they'd used their full Abilities. As they'd discussed earlier, though, they didn't. This was a good fight for one of the options they'd discussed.

They were going to limit themselves to weapons for attacks. Infusing a weapon, like Jax's light-sword or Dav's Call or Ci'an's arrows, was fine; using an Ability to damage their enemies in any other way was not acceptable, even if it came from a weapon like Jax's light beam.

Xin'ri allowed herself to use magic, but the magic she used was to slow down and break up the horde; turning the arena floor to quicksand or raising winds high enough to make the monsters slip and fall without actually hurting them.

Sophia pulled out the spear she rarely ever used and infused it with True Death. Technically, she infused the feathers Xin'ri had attached to the spear, but it worked out to be the same thing. It shouldn't have been surprising, but it worked extremely well on the undead, cutting them into pieces with relatively little effort even though the spear was only first upgrade like the monsters. When she realized how good it was, she did the same for the feathers on the swords Jax and Dav used.

The Ability was nowhere in her list; while she'd once had the ability to infuse a knife, that disappeared with her new Plumed Domain Sphere. She hadn't realized until she tried it in one of the Hollows they faced on their way to the second upgrade, but it wasn't just Collected knowledge she could share; it was everything, as long as a Plume was there for her to use as a focus.

She was pretty sure the culprit was Magic Attuned Aura. It was very nonspecific, but it sort of made sense that if she could influence the magic in an area, she could attune a weapon with one of her Abilities. In this case, the Ability was Death's Embrace; it was perfect against undead.

Magic Attuned Aura

Your aura resonates with the power of magic. Your plumes can weakly affect magic within your aura in any way you choose.

Death's Embrace

There are those that walk the line between life and death. Many are difficult to harm, yet you know the way to bring them to the sweet embrace of death as easily as the living.

Xin'ri had suggested that Embody Element might also be involved, but Sophia wasn't certain about that. When she used Spread Plumes, it made sense; she was the plumes then, and it called out manifesting Abilities through Plumes. When she was herself, though, it was harder to be sure. It was true that whether she was using Plumed Domain or not didn't seem to matter to the plumes attached to weapons and armor.

Embody Element

Manifest your element physically. Exact effects depend on the element embodied.

Spread Plumes, Anchor Ability

Enhance your feathers with mana to take charge of your Domain. Feathers can attack or be commanded to cast spells or use Abilities. Spread Plumes are required for many other Plumed Domain Abilities.

Whatever it was, it was useful. Jax had even suggested it was a direction to look for a Grand Talent. Sophia was less certain of that; it already did what she could think of. What was there to develop?

Sophia had the spare attention to listen to the announcer talk while they fought. He seemed to almost come unglued when he realized that they were going to fight on the ground. Xin'ri was the only one who took to the air. It was surprisingly useful to have someone who could call out exactly what the horde was doing. It also made it very obvious that the announcer was also watching from above when she called out things seconds before the announcer commented on them.

The fact that they were able to simply slice through the horde of undead seemed shocking to the announcer; he kept talking about how durable they were, as if they were as hard to kill as second upgrade monsters. Sophia filed away the fact that the announcer recommended lightning of all things, but she doubted she'd ever use that knowledge; according to the announcer, they couldn't be using lightning weapons because they were making it look too easy!

When they finished, Sophia knew she'd had a workout, but she couldn't say that it was a particularly hard fight. It was really more like a really good spar than a real fight; the undead fell the first time she hit them in their body or head, even if it was not somewhere that would have been a killing blow on a human.

The announcer never stopped his commentary; more importantly, the crowd noise made it obvious that they enjoyed the spectacle. Their pay the next morning reflected that, as did the actual compliment Jax relayed to the rest of the team that they'd "kept things lively."

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