The Phoenix [Cultivation, Reincarnation, Tower Climber]

"I'll let you have the first move," says the man opposite me.

It's insulting, but if he's just going to give me that, I'll gladly take it. I step forward and use just a dash of oum to deliver a quick thrust to his chest. He was far too confident, and though he had his sword out in front of him, he didn't actually have his guard up, so his reaction is slow, and the tip of my sword hits him directly over his heart. It doesn't penetrate, the oum shield stopping my sword just a hair's breadth away, and we are immediately blown apart by a powerful but gentle gust of oum as the construct appears between us.

"The Phoenix has won this match through fatal damage!" it says.

The man is stunned, and so is the crowd. I can hear them all murmuring around as they try to understand what just happened.

"I underestimated you," said the man after finally recovering. "A rematch! This time, I won't hold back."

"If you insist," I say with a shrug.

Thankfully, the construct in the arena can handle challenge acceptance, so we don't have to go all the way back to the receptionist, and not 30 seconds later, the rematch begins. A second later, it ends. He manages to just barely deflect my initial thrust, but can't get his sword back up in time to block the followup strike to his neck.

"I wasn't ready!" he says as we are blown backward again.

The crowd starts booing him.

"Get out of the ring!" shouts one person.

The man looks embarrassed and angry, and for a moment, he looks like he wants to attack someone, but thinks better of it and just trudges out of the arena. Almost immediately, someone else jumps down.

"I accept the challenge!"

The new challenger is a female dwarf, cracking both pairs of knuckles with a smile on her face. She has no weapon, so I sheathe my sword and raise my fists. She's Middle 1 star, a level higher than me, and I've never fought a dwarf before, so she poses a bit more of a challenge. Still not a true challenge, but against her, I decide to take things a bit slower and learn a bit more about the people of the Tower.

When the match begins, she rushes toward me, not bothering with the "first move" shenanigans of the first challenger. Her first strike is a punch with her upper left hand as the lower one reaches out to grab at my robes. Since she's a full two feet shorter than me, her punch is aimed straight at my liver, while her grasping hand seems to be going for my belt.

I step back with my right foot to get out of her reach and use the rotation to counter with a left hook aimed at her temple. She blocks this with her upper right arm and uses the lower one to once again try to grasp me.

Her fighting style is very interesting. I'd assume that her win condition is getting her arms around me and holding me down with her lower arms while pummeling me with the upper ones. I've idly thought about what I would do if I had four arms, and I came up with similar strategies. Imagining it in my head and seeing it in person are two different things though.

I step back again, then to the side to avoid the followup attack, before responding with a kick aimed at her torso. She does exactly what I expected her to do, and grabs my leg with her lower arm while bringing her elbow down on it as if to break it. I twist around, slipping my foot from her grasp just before she can land her counter, then dance back a bit further to avoid her again.

Over the next minute, I test a few other things, seeing how she responds to different strikes, and how she adapts to being unable to hit me with her standard moves. By the end of this minute, I've come to the conclusion that her abilities are incredibly one-dimensional.

Her defense is top-notch. Any strike that goes near her arms, she tries to grab, pinning me down so her other arms can get to work, and with how compact she is, hitting anywhere else isn't really viable. Plus, she's very sturdy, so even when she can only block without grabbing, she barely budges.

Her offense leaves much to be desired though. Her standard punch-and-grab combo is a good one, but it's really her only attack. Her legs are too short for kicking to have much effect, and her reach is too short for her to actually hit me. She has more oum than me, but I haven't actually needed any of mine to dodge her attacks yet, and the few times she uses it to burst forward, trying to catch me off-guard, I use a bit of my own and dodge anyway.

It overall makes for a fairly boring match, and the crowd seems to agree, so I decided to end it for them. The next time the dwarf attacks, I grab both the upper and lower left arms, lift her up, and slam her headfirst into the ground.

"The Phoenix has won this match through fatal damage!" announces the construct as we are forced apart.

"Damn," says the woman. "You're good."

I nod in acknowledgement as she bows and heads for the stairs. I take a moment to look up at the crowd around, all of whom are regarding me with newfound interest. The dwarf woman wasn't really a strong fighter, but she was well into Middle 1 star, and she wasn't that weak either. I took my time a bit, but I don't think at any point I ever looked like I wasn't in control. And to most of them, it's clear I wasn't even going all out yet either.

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Handel Axian is frowning at me, and looks a little uncertain. He doesn't make a move to step in yet though, and after a few seconds, my third challenger arrives. This one is yet another new species of the Tower, this time an slender male elf who seems to have just reached Late 1 star.

His fighting style is much less interesting. It reminds me a bit of aikido, trying to be smooth and flowy, using my own momentum against me. He's a better fighter than the dwarf, and orders of magnitude more versatile, so I use him to help warm up my body, ending the match after a minute and a half or so.

"The Phoenix has won this match through fatal damage!" announces the construct.

The crowd is in stunned silence for a few seconds before breaking out into raucous applause. Handel Axian looks like he's accidentally swallowed a hamster, and is glancing around, as if looking for a way out. By this time though, the entire crowd is looking toward him to be my next challenger.

While he tries to dodge the peer pressure, I walk over to the referee construct.

"Is it possible to change the rules of the spar?" I ask quietly.

"Of course!" it says.

"Can we remove the shields?"

"Yes."

"Do it then."

I sheathe my sword as I walk back to my position, a few people who were close enough to hear what I said looking at me with curiosity. I realize that what I just did could be misinterpreted as an assassination attempt or something, so I take the sword off my belt and toss it to the side as well. I definitely don't want to kill him or anything, I just think that these shields remove some of the realism from the fight. I can't really get a good feel for my body when it's covered in someone else's oum.

By this time, Handel seems to have accepted his fate, and a few seconds after I set my sword aside, he jumps into the pit.

"I'll admit, I underestimated you," he says. "You are most definitely a genius. However, many geniuses from Ascendant forces could defeat a Late 1 star as an Early 1 star. That does not mean you have the right to take the name of an Ascendant, and it most certainly does not give you the right to look down on me so much that you think you can take me on without a weapon."

"I disabled the shields," I say. "I set my weapon aside assuming you would do the same so as not to cause any permanent injuries."

He grimaces, but the crowd cheers at the prospect of an unshielded fight. He glances around at the people watching, then scowls before tossing his sword to the side as well.

"You're going to regret this," he says. "The Axian clan may specialize in Creator techniques, but we're still an Ascendant force, and we are among the best at melee combat. On top of that, I am the most talented Axian of the past century. Even as skilled as you are, you will not be emerging victorious."

He gets into a defensive stance and begins channeling his oum, and I have to admit that in both quantity and control, he's significantly better than even Jinlan. He also seems to be more even-tempered, which could pose a problem. I could try the same thing I did against Jinlan and throw some oum at him to psyche him out… But that's probably a bad idea. It would raise too many questions. I really shouldn't have even done it in the labyrinth, since Ganyu and Organa were watching.

Besides, if he's not in top condition, that would kind of defeat the purpose of what I'm doing. I'm putting on a demonstration, yes, but I'm also getting re-accustomed to oum combat.

I mirror his defensive stance, and the construct seems to sense our intentions and announces the start of the match. We approach each other carefully, circling around for almost a full minute until someone in the crowd shouts at us to hurry up and Handel makes the first move. He throws a quick jab-straight combo at me, and I slip both of them, then we return to circling.

From that exchange alone, one thing has become very obvious: Handel has very little proper combat experience. Or more accurately, he has very little experience fighting against people more skilled than himself. He's clearly trained for a long time; his form is impeccable, his use of oum was very efficient, and he never dropped his guard… but that's it. He's clearly used to opponents being somewhat scared of him, and he's relying on me to get intimidated and make a mistake. His eyes are full of arrogance, and though he was clearly doubtful earlier, now that we're fighting, he seems to assume that him winning is a foregone conclusion.

I see his body tense as he prepares to deliver a low kick, so I lift my own leg to deliver a pre-emptive counter. Right as his leg leaves the ground, mine hits him in the stomach, knocking him off balance and sending him stumbling back. He regains his stance quickly, but the look in his eyes is different. A bit of desperation is creeping in.

Over the next minute, he throws out a few tentative strikes, all of which are dodged or countered by me. With every failed attack, he loses a bit more composure and wastes more oum, until he finally sends a wild haymaker that I duck under and deliver a solid punch to his liver. I specifically don't use any of my oum for this strike though, minimizing the damage, and he jumps back, looking at me with a hint of fear.

"Is that all?" I ask.

He glances around at the spectators.

"Ignore them," I say. "Your opponent is me."

He looks back at me, still hesitant, then he seems to realize something. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and when he opens them again, some clarity has returned.

"Apologies," he says.

Without another word, his oum begins to flare up again, though this time, it's much more controlled, and it feels much more dangerous. Excellent. He still won't be my match, but with more composure, he should make for some better practice.

He presses forward with semi-calculated aggression, and though he still can't land any hits, he's still stronger and faster than me, and he starts pushing me back. It's still not quite enough though, and it's a bit disappointing, since he's probably among the strongest 1 star opponents I can face.

Let's make this round a bit more interesting then.

As his fist flies toward my face, I close my eyes and dodge to the side, feeling the wind across my face from his missed attack. I keep them closed as I duck under a hook, and then the attacks stop. I wait a few seconds, but he doesn't make another move. I cock my head slightly, eyes still closed.

"Why did you stop?"

"Are you mocking me?"

"Are you letting yourself be mocked?"

He is silent for a moment as the crowd reacts to my statement.

"Don't blame me if you get hurt showing off," he says.

I hear him take another deep breath, and then the attacks begin again.