Bai settled into his seat. It was close to the middle of the section, but not quite exactly the middle. It was a good spot to see from, but not a place he would be noticed.
He was old, far older than anyone in Mazehold would believe, and he knew better than to be noticed. The Blade might be subordinate to the man who once commanded Bai’s creation, but he was no longer that man. The Blade would see Bai as a threat, not an ally.
“Now listen up, Called and Professionals! Welco to the Arena!”
Bai smiled. That was how the fights always started, with the Arena’s Caller completely ignoring people without Spheres. Most were children, of course, but children were not unusual at the Arena. It was a common destination for youth in their late teens or early twenties, even if they chose to wait for a Profession.
Younger children were fairly common, as well. Many parents thought the children needed to see what they could eventually learn if they were Called. Others thought the children needed to see what they would have to face if they took a Calling. The children rarely took away the lessons the parents intended.
“For today’s opening fight, we have a new team on their debut fight! Please welco the Flying Stars!”
Bai watched as the youngsters he t a few days earlier walked onto the field one at a ti as the Arena Caller gave their titles. The blond elf with the unusually concentrated mana system was the Feathered Serpent, the wolf-girl was the Doom Owl, and the fox-girl was the War Crow. The brown-haired human was the Dawn Herald and the apparently human man with purple-black hair and a manaform that looked just as strange as the elf’s despite his outward appearance was the Wise Guardian.
Bai didn’t understand the naming convention yet; if anyone should be called a dawn herald, it was the blond elf. He grinned a little wider; that ant they’d nad themselves based on what they could do, rather than what they looked like. It was always fun to watch groups that thought a little more.
“This young second upgrade team is facing off against an entire flight of skyeagles! They will et them in the skyeagles’ territory: the sky!”
Bai grinned as the audience noise increased noticeably. The announcer didn’t have to explain why that was a big deal; everyone knew it was. While almost all teams had soone who could fly, less than half of all Called at the third upgrade could fly on their own. That ant that a team that could all fly at the second upgrade was sothing special; it usually ant a team that was assembled specifically for the Arena.
The audience didn’t know what Bai knew: they weren’t a team assembled for the Arena. That ant they wouldn’t have the polish yet, but it also ant they were sothing a little special. Either they were specifically a flying team, probably built around a particular Challenge sowhere, or they had soone who could help anyone who couldn’t fly into the air. Bai’s guess was that they had a mage with a flight spell. Those were generally not very good, because they kept the flight under the control of the mage and ant that he or she was busy managing movent, but sotis it worked out well.
It required a skilled movent mage. Having that at the second upgrade was unlikely but possible. It would certainly explain Sebas ko’Orthlinn’s interest; the Registry Master paid a lot of attention to specialists like that.
Bai tapped his lips in thought. Who would it be? He could usually guess, but there was more than one likely mage in the group. He could dismiss both Jaycen and Amy; their manaforms were solidified in a way that didn’t allow much flexibility. If they were movent specialists, that was all they did. It was possible, but he doubted it; Jaycen had a sword and Amy had a bow.
The problem was that all of the others were possible. If Xin’ri was a mage, she’d be the type that had extrely defined spells that always worked exactly the sa way. That could work very well for a mont specialist. Dav was almost the opposite; his manaform was almost fluid, so any spellcasting he had would be similar. It would be different every ti, exactly what he needed then.
Sophia was the wild card; she almost looked like she had two different manaforms that were twisted together. Both of them looked like a traditional spellcaster, but they could just as easily belong to soone with a flexible Signature. She was the only one of the three openly carrying a weapon, as well, though it seed entirely likely that it was a backup weapon rather than a primary weapon, unlike Jaycen’s.
Bai grinned again. He liked guessing gas, especially ones where he’d know the answer soon.
The Arena Caller commanded the fight to begin as the closed gate set high in the wall across from the Flying Stars opened. A blue-feathered skyeagle was the first out, followed by a red-feathered skyeagle, then another blue and a violet-feathered one. Two more blues and a green completed the flight of seven skyeagles. That surprised Bai; he’d expected five, one per challenger. Sending more than that ant the Blade either wanted them dead or she wanted them famous; Bai could never tell.
Most likely, the answer was famous. Famous gladiators were worth betting on, which made her more aurichalc. Seven also wasn’t enough to guarantee death if they could take out five. If any of those skyeagles turned out to be third upgrade, Bai would have to change his mind, but he didn’t think they were. None of them were prismatic or unusually sized; alternate colors weren’t that unusual at the second upgrade.
Colorful light filled the arena floor, starting at Sophia’s shoulders and extending backwards until she had not only a huge set of feathered wings but a tail as well. She hopped in place, then seed to float upwards. That was an impressive flight Ability, whatever it was, clearly highly maneuverable. The visual spectacle was a bonus for the Arena, as well. The only strange thing was that there was no sign of the “serpent” part of her title.
Amy seed to shimr and shrink into a small, nearly invisible owl. She flew around Sophia, making certain that she could be seen against the backdrop of her teammate’s brilliant plumage. Bai nodded to himself; that wasn’t too much of a surprise. She was called the Doom Owl, and this was clearly the reason.
Bai flicked his gaze down just in ti to see Jax bound into the air on threads of light that trailed behind him as he rose. It was a very different kind of flight; instead of simply floating upwards or flying like a bird, he sprang upwards, then had to run in place to move or gain height, almost like the light that trailed behind him was an ever-dissolving solid platform. It was one of the least effective thods of flight Bai had ever seen, but it did seem to work.
Dav grabbed Xin’ri around the waist, but it was Xin’ri that lifted them into the air. A pair of wings seed to spring out of her back and flap, but they didn’t look right to Bai. He swapped to looking purely at the mana and it was even more obvious: the wings were a visual illusion. Bai wasn’t sure which of the five Flying Stars was the illusionist, but they were trying to conceal the fact that Xin’ri’s flight was nearly invisible. It seed to be coming from her outer vest, rather than directly from an Ability.
Bai glanced at the others to check for illusions and didn’t find any, but he did find that the strings that Jax ran on emanated from his boots. That made two different item-based flight thods. While that was possible, the Item Anchor was unusual. It was more likely that one of the two items was bought; most likely, it was Xin’ri’s, since hers didn’t have the obvious influence of an Anchor or Signature.
His attention was drawn back to Dav as the man let Xin’ri go, pulled a sword out of nowhere, then leapt towards one of the skyeagles. His movent pushed Xin’ri away a little, so it was clearly a jump, but it shouldn’t have worked the way it did; instead of a slight movent followed by falling to the ground, he shot towards the skyeagle like an arrow shot from a bow. It seed to freeze in place for just long enough that his sword was able to cleanly slice through its neck.
An afterimage in streaks of black, purple, and silver remained for a long mont where Dav had been as he shot through the air. Bai nodded silently to himself while the rest of the Arena’s crowd scread in triumph; that was a well-chosen stunt. Dav was clearly the least flightworthy of the group during the takeoff, so they gave him a platform to show off with the first kill. It was also likely the easiest they’d get.
Brightly gleaming feathers swirled out from Sophia. Bai expected an attack aid at one of the skyeagles; razored feathers was fairly common in flying creatures. The green skyeagle looked like a razorplu skyeagle, in fact, so he more than half expected that she would target it to be spectacular, but that wasn’t what happened. The feathers simply floated where she left them as she flew through the air above the Arena.
The skyeagles reacted to the Flying Stars’ intrusion on their territory with loud screeches that grew louder as they noticed the falling blue skyeagle. The purple one was the first to react. Bright light spread across its wings, then shot towards the killer in their midst with a loud CRACK.
Bai doubted most of the crowd saw what happened next; the lightning was too bright for ordinary vision. All they would see was that Dav ca through it with no sign of injury. Bai, however, saw it all. He saw the lightning shoot towards Dav as a group of feathers changed direction, directly towards the attack. The lightning seed to change course towards the feathers, as well. It hit the feathers and forked imdiately, separated from Dav by at least ten feet, probably more.
All the lightning accomplished was turning the feathers to ash which fell from the sky, clearly no longer under Sophia’s control.
The smile on Bai’s face widened. She either had so impressive protection Abilities or she’d reacted the mont lightning started to spread across the purple bird. He was betting on the second. Either way, she had a powerful area-control Ability, possibly even a small Domain. A Domain at the second upgrade was exactly the sort of thing that would attract Arryn’s attention, with his obsession with the Maze. He knew how important a Domain was inside, the sa way Bai did.
Bai glanced around the Arena. The crowd was split; about two-thirds stared intently at the sky, while more of the rest were placing mid-fight bets. So people swore that was the best thod. Bai chose to rely on what he’d seen; the only bet he’d made was actually about the betting itself: he’d bet that there would be an unusually high number of bets for a new team, even a new opening team. He’d placed the bet that it would be quite a bit higher than normal, which gave him very nice odds. They wouldn’t have gotten the attention they had if they were useless.
So far, it looked like his bet was going to pay off. Bai hoped it continued; there was still quite a bit of the fight left.
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