"Ryokai, chief, but I think I can handle these myself." he chuckled confidently at Olliver. He had been away for a while, training, levelling, and he had gained two whole levels. How much had Olli gone up? Zero, probably? One, if he was lucky? Pfft.

But then, Zhao watched as Olliver effortlessly took out the level nine Forsaken with his coin attack.

Uuuh. A fluke, surely. Some kind of critical hit. Right? There was no way that he was that strong.

...Right?

"Alright, let's do this Himari." he said, turning towards the two level eight Forsaken that were heading towards their side of the ship. Zhao's Carapace Shield appeared in his hand as he braced himself for impact. The two Forsaken collided with his shield, creating a loud clang as the force of their attack was absorbed by the shield. "Hah, not bad for a fat guy like me." Zhao chuckled, taking advantage of their momentary daze to strike back with a swift bash from his shield.

Himari, who was holding her own against the level four Forsaken, nodded in agreement. "Just leave the rest to me, okay?" she said, her tone a mix of annoyance and determination. Her quick and agile movements made it a bit difficult for the Forsaken to keep up with her, and she was able to land a solid How Dare! attack on it, causing some damage but not eliminating it outright.

"Right, I'll leave it to you. But don't forget, I'm here too." Zhao said, as he readied himself for the next attack. The two level eight Forsaken were getting back on their feet and were about to charge again. "Here they come, brace yourself!" he yelled to Himari, as he held up his shield. The two beasts slammed into their defenses, but this time, the impact was stronger and more forceful. Zhao's knees buckled under the pressure, but he managed to hold his ground.

"Zhao, are you okay?" Himari asked, flustered, trying to not seem to care but failing to.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's keep going!" Zhao replied, determination in his voice. Himari nodded and they both focused their attention on their Forsaken.

"...No level adjustments?" he pointed out, then shrugged. "Well, go easy on me if you're terribly strong. Let's get this show on the road."

"Himari! I summon you!" he called out, then snapped his fingers, conjuring forth his summon. With a loud electric puff of feathers and cotton, she materialized into existence. It was a ridiculously proportioned pink-haired anime girl with two large pigtails in a suit, having appeared in a power pose of her fists being on her hips.

"I have to fight him? Hmpf!" he scoffed, then tossed her head to a side, as usual.

At the same time that the summon appeared, Zhao himself seemed to vanish in another cloud of feathers, which then quickly subsisded to reveal three near-identical pillows in the area where he used to be. Two of them were decoys, the third had the real Zhao.

But which one? That was the effect of his passive.

"So I just stand here and wait for a partner?" Zhao asked one of the other players in this hall of the Colosseum. There were plenty of other players sparring against each other in decently-sized squares of light, each acting as a fighting ring for them.

"Yeah" a man in heavy armor replied through his silver helmet. "Not much else to it."

"Alright then!" Zhao effused. He waddled over to one of the empty rings and stood within, and excitedly looked around to see who would join him.

He mentally reviewed his abilities. He had that summon, yes. Just one though. Maybe he should get more? Later. Sparring would help him in the challenges ahead that would come with trying to get more summons. Next, he had his passive, which worked really well in the same few moments that he summoned. Maybe he could base his strategy off of that, he speculated. It seemed useful, but costly, since it required him to perform a summon, which already was pretty taxing as it was. Then he had his special summon-specific buff. If he had infinite prep time, he could buff his familiar to the high heavens, but he didn't believe that would be sportsmanlike to attempt. If anything, he'd try to play on the same level as his opponent, or ask them to do the same. The whole point was to try to improve, not to just get creamed and learn nothing, or to cream someone else and also learn nothing.

"Empires of the Ages and Legends of the Leagues, mostly." he admitted. "A couple of less mainstream games too, but just for fun. I like to compete against a lot of people you know, not just find some obscure game with few players and beat it. I want the biggest challenge I can get!"

He chuckled as he put his fists on his hips, proudly.

"I found two more, master." Himari then pointed out, raising her hand with the final trophies in them.

"...That's all, isn't it?" he replied. "That's all ten of them."

He kind of wished that it could've been him instead who had found the last ones, and have gotten at the end a bit more than just one sad herb, but there was nothing more he could do now, besides perhaps blame RNG. It just wasn't his day. He doubted that it had to be due to his gamer skills, but the fact that they could be put into doubt here was starting to concern him. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

He turned to face Crom. "I believe we're done now, aren't we?"

"Zhao kept jogging, he could see the torches come ever closer, his flab bounced and jiggled all over the place as he tried to keep pace and get ahead as quick as possible. He could hear Dakota too, and he glanced now and then to see how his blurry figure was doing. It was difficult to make out what exactly he was doing given the visual effect of the anonymization, but he could tell that they were giving each other a bad time.

"The... torches! We're... almost there!" he panted out. Himari replied by patting his shoulders twice and pushing harder, forcing them both to race up faster to the goal.

And then, in just a couple dozen more steps, calmly, they made it. They reached the spot they had to get to. The torches were just there, right beside them.

"We... made... it." Zhao breathed out. "We're here. This is it! Mission complete!"

"Y-yeah..." Himari exhaled as well. "What... happens now?"

"How is the other guy... doing?" he asked.

"He seems to be doing fine now actually. Coyotes just got beat back there."

"Ah. That's... good. Still, I... dunno what we have to do now." the gamer replied. "Do we need to do... something in particular? Is it something with these menus, perhaps?"

He conjured forth his personal holographic interface, and browsed through the options, finding nothing useful.

"Ah. By daybreak was it?" Zhao then brought up, rubbing his chin as he pondered, distracted. "It's still not time, exactly. But it will soon be. I suppose we just need to wai-"

The summoner and the summon suddenly vanished in a poof of pixels, as the first rays of light hit the summit.

"Oh? I dabbled a bit here and there in some fintech. Stock trading, a little investments here and there to pay the bills. Not much, but it was enough to make sure that I didn't starve or have to use leaves instead of toilet paper." he replied.

He then kept searching through the grass and leaves until - there it was. One of those goddamn herbs he had to look for.

He pushed away the surrounding vegetation to make sure that it was in fact, indeed, those of those goddamn herbs. He brought up his menu and compared the image of his target with what he had in front of himself - they matched. Bingo. This was it.

"I FOUND ONE!" he yelled, way too excited. "Guys, I found one! I did it! Look, it's here. Look at my herby boi."

He plucked it out of the ground held it high in the air, proud. "One for Booblord!"

Himari rolled her eyes.