"Fine, fine. I do not have a choice in the matter. I'll die if I don't do what you say. Who're you even and under what or who am I fighting for?"

"You'll fight as Asher Burell," the woman said very calmly.

"What?" I laughed in disbelieve, "do you know who carries that name?"

"Yes, I do. You know? I do. Get it? I'm Asher," she made exaggeratedly bowed.

There was a long silence, "...you're Asher Burell?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"You can't be. You're not a member of the beast-folk nor a man."

"It is really so hard to believe that that was me?"

"I give up. I can clearly see that you lost some of your marbles. Why is it that I have to fight?"

"You look like me."

"You mean like him? Asher Burell?"

"If you're not comfortable saying my name in public to me then how about you call me... lemme think, ...Ashe, maybe? It's just one letter off and fits this form more. Alright?"

I nodded.

"The tourney is at midday and that's just a few hours away. So let's think of a strategy. Faye could you come out for a moment," she said into the air.

A small, purple-haired woman appeared out of nowhere, she had a cold expression and touched down on the ground softly.

"What is it?" She said softly but very coldly.

"That's the guy."

"It is."

The two of them disregarded me completely.

"First. I don't think that either his SP or MP is high enough to cast any of the skills I have. How many skills raise them? Percentage-wise or just give flat-out increases."

"Of both categories, you have most skills that are in this world."

"Great. Could you open up a menu just with these skills alone?"

"If you request it."

"I do."

Different people couldn't see each other's menus but it was clear that she was browsing one of hers.

"Let's see here... Let's give you [Conserve Power]. Gives you slowly increasing max mana while not casting a skill. [Spiritual Atonement] too and [Blood Ritual] but when I give you that one then I have to give you something to increase your HP too or you'll die after casting too much. [Pierce the Veil] is useful but not for you. Increased mana costs for extra damage is not the thing we're looking for. [Power Recirculator] is great too, increased mana regen and cooldown, scales with how many other skills are on cooldown. [Pray for them] is useless too, you ain't got no party when in the arena," she said to me directly, "at the moment let that be it. How about a few SP skills? [Streamline and [Marathon], [Economy] and [Crashing Point]."

There she was for the next few minutes picking and choosing what she would give me. This was most likely the strangest hostage situation anyone had ever been in.

"Oh, I have an idea."

I dreaded what it was.

A tear in the air appeared and after the woman called Ashe put her hand into it pulled out a handful of rings.

"These'll become useful, finally. You got ten fingers, right?" She asked.

I lifted them to show her.

"Great. Put on all these rings."

"What do they do?"

"Passive resource increases."

"Are we done then?"

"Haha. No."