The first day fights were more interesting than usual, normally the first few days would be for the newbies but if this was this years worst then the best were prone to be a treat to the eye, after all a lantern knight and torch knight had set the other on fire just a few moments ago, last year it had just been basic fights even when the knights participating were supposed to have nice techniques.
It was true however that this festival put a few knight establisments at a disadvantage and other at an advantage as it took place during the day, granting an advantage to the sun knights and a disadvantage to the moon knights.
Vlasfimia still couldn't get over the first match's suplex, the execution of it by the burial knight had been smooth and utterly turn the tides of the battle, a piece of art it had been.
Burial knights were known as protectors of cemeteries, they overlook burials and even carry the coffin sometimes but what people remembered the most about them was that their weapons were made of mortuary wax and were thus exceptional at giving infections.
How their weapons were made in the first place was a secret.
Then their had been the flower knight versus noble knight fight, very classy for an activity consisting of hitting someone else until they can't fight anymore.
There also had been the cat knight against a fetid knight, the cat knights had an actual cat has their leader, not even one that walks on two legs just a cat that speaks, the fetid knights on the other end were praticing something they called 'half-death', allowing them, when succesful, to quit doing what most needed to do, such as eating or drinking without ever dying for real, their insides would rot though so they stink when you get up close, not that it had ever deterred Vlas.
The other fights had went as usual but still more entertaining than usual, as of now the grey masked adventurer was heading back to the world dungeon, he was going to start doing the quests he had taken, the materials were due in a month but Vlas like to get ahead of the schedule a bit, it would also be the occasion for him to find another subject, not a goblin this time.
He already had prepared cages on a few other floors in rarely visited areas, this time he would try it with a minotaur they took a longer time to evolve than goblins and were just harder to deal with in general but they tended to defeat themselves by ramming into walls repeatedly and knocking themselves out, they weren't very adapted to tight areas, of which there were plenty everywhere.
Only issue being that there was a bit more people in the dungeon than usual as the knights were given permission to go train inside of it but it rarely tended to change much things, Vlas was sued to their presence, the festival was held every three month after all and they did not tend to be annoying as they were portrayed in this romance books that he kept finding on people he murdered, quite rude of the writers really.
And also despite being different writers they seemed to all have the same vocabulary for some reason, it was so bad it was good to read.
Anyways, passing by the two guards as always, Vlas made his way to the second floor, minotaurs were too rare on the first while on the second if you searched well, took multiple turns in unlit areas and dived into a small pond that didn't seem like much you would after a minute or so of swimming you would reach a small areas with nothing on one side and a ton of minotaurs on the other, a great place to put a cage and to do tests in.
Vlas had found this area by falling into the pound while wrestling with a particularily large kobold and then proving that he had a better lung capacity than it.
No one other than him had been brave or perhaps crazy enough to go venture into a tight underwater passage.
Passing by a draconic knight unleashing a flame breath upon unsuspecting goblins, after making sure no one was around, he dived into the pond, squeezed throught the particularily narrow passages and emerged on the other side, the little patch of grass surrounding was quickly replaced by the stone floor of the dungeon.
Going to the right would lead him to a bunch of minotaurs and the left to a bunch of empty areas, which contained one of his cages, to being it overhere he had had to take it piece by piece and also needed to carve the underwater passage a bit, modification which had now been repaired by the dungeon.
But it was finally going to see use, he started by going left, preparing the cage before slowly making his way toward the minotaurs, it was capital that he only lured one out, two would be manageable but three would be a bit less manageable.
arriving to the place, the grey saw five minotaurs busy doing nothing, just standing there or moving a bit, they didn't even sit down, he waited for a while maybe a few hours for minotaurs to leave this room and go further.
After some time, only two remained in the room these minotaurs weren't the largest specie at all, being the same height as Vlasfimia, meaning that they stood at a bit more than two meters in height.
Sneaking up behind one of them, Vlas pulled out a large hunting knife and a dagger, plunging the later into the minotaurs back, piercing one if its lung, it didn't make sound, simply exhaling in response to the stab and then the hunting knife was stabbed through its neck, with no air in its lung and its neck pierced it couldn't make any sound, the other minotaur who had fallen asleep was none the wiser.
Vlas dragged the corpse out of the room, bringing it to the room with the water, making sure that a clear blood trail would be left behind and then came back, threw some rocks at the slumbering minotaur to wake it up.
The gruffy minotaur looked around to see, who had the gall of waking it up and after looking around for a bit found the blood trail and instead of telling other minotaurs about it like an intelligent being, it immediately started following it leading it far away from its brethen, the blood trail would soon disappear due to the dungeon and he would truly be alone, alone with Vlas.
The minotaur first looked at the corpse of its companion, showed no response to it, then looked at the mask human at the and of the room, his back resting against the wall and showed a reaction, it prepared a charge after letting a bellow.