"I see no reason to show myself to you!"

As he pinpoints my location from the sound of my voice, the mage makes a rather long pause before saying anything.

"A swift eh?" he says finally. He tried hard to keep his composure when asking but he had a tremor in his voice that betrayed him. He is afraid.

Swifts are incredibly powerful and can do as they wish. One of them even destroyed the great city Olnmar of the Southern Continent instantly with the mere flick of the wrist. The whole city, off the map in a single second. Such is the power of Swifts.

But what's interesting about swifts is that their auras are just like regular humans. Normally you can sense the magic radiating from a being via the aura to measure up their strength before a fight for example. You don't even need to be a mage to do it.

So because swifts have the same auras as humans and you see a person with a weak aura what are you more inclined to thing: a suicidal human on a stupid quest in the most dangerous tournament of mages in history, or a Swift who seeks to gain even greater power by winning?

"Come on swift, you don't scare me. I will fill you fulla holes and then we'll see that your legends are just as false as the ones for this sad excuse for a mage lying beside me here!"