While the tower sent commands to the puppets, it didn't actually seem to control them directly, which Minos quickly figured out exactly due to that lack of chaos.
The puppets were dead, and they acted according to their information, never straying out of bounds to unknown realms.
Such a nature made them incredibly easy to predict for someone like Minos, who could peer into that world of information.
And such predictions became easier and more precise as he understood his abilities more deeply.
With Minos's incredible intelligence, he could make leaps in his skills with every passing moment, which was stunning to watch for the crowds.
From slightly awkward movements at the beginning, Minos seemed to rapidly evolve, his movements becoming more fluid every second.
From the puppet landing a few blows at the start, it soon became the case that it couldn't land a single blow, instead being toyed with by Minos.
'Here comes a kick attack.' Minos thought as he saw the numbers shift.
With a duck of his head, he dodged the move within a hair's length, making use of the opportunity to palm the puppet right on its chest.
But he purposely held back his power, not interested in beating the puppet just yet, wanting to exchange a few more moves first.
'And now a punch, another punch, left, left, right, left, headbutt? Another kick, though this one's a feint, oh? A backwards roundhouse kick, interesting…'
With his thoughts moving rapidly, Minos danced around the floor, maneuvering through each attack like he could see them beforehand.
It seemed the tower was becoming aware of his skills, so it promptly upped the difficulty, advancing the puppets skill-set.
However what it didn't realize was that it didn't matter what moves the puppet used, as long as it was 'dead' then it could only lose to Minos.
As if angry, the tower kept raising the difficulty of the puppet, its moves becoming more and more refined as time passed.
But it didn't matter, even if it had the skills of the Nine-Tailed Emperor itself it wouldn't matter, because it lacked the 'chaos' required to catch Minos off guard.
Finally done playing around, Minos swept in after dodging a punch, his elbow flying in and detaching the puppets head from its body, causing it to collapse into light.
The crowd started cheering at the result, not because Minos had beaten a single floor, which was easy, but instead because of the grace in which he did so.
Compared to the other competitors, it seemed easy for him, as if he could have ended the battle right away, but only stayed back to practice.
This became even more blatant on the second floor, the two puppets attacking Minos in unison, but his movements were just as brilliant as before.
Like a leaf in the wind, he kept weaving between their attacks, the movements so rapid that it was akin to a blur, but the speed not making any difference to him.
With another swift dodge, Minos ducked under a punch, at the same time re-directing it towards the other puppet who was launching a kick from behind.
With fist and leg clashing, the two puppets were blown back, neither of them having held back, naturally not expecting such a thing.
Utilizing the gap, Minos made use of a mortal technique he had learned casually in the past, which was called Inch-Step.
Gathering all his strength into his foot, he exploded out, turning a few meters into what seemed like an 'inch,' hence the namesake.
Almost instantly appearing in front of the puppet, Minos released a barrage of attacks, which the puppet tried its best to avoid.
But at this point, Minos understood its operations better than it did, so using its weaknesses against it, he easily exposed and assaulted all of its openings.
Like lightning, Minos's fist rained down akin to a storm, ripping the puppet apart piece by piece and reducing it back to light.
By the time the other puppet had finally recovered, it was already too late, its partner having been 'executed' by him.
Shifting his attention back, Minos once again dodged the puppets head-raised kick, ducking down into a sweep kick to knock it off its feet.
Falling back, the puppet didn't even have a chance to hit the floor, Minos swiftly moving under it and kicking it up back into the air with a strong donkey kick.
Once again gathering his strength in his feet, Minos exploded upwards, instantly appearing near the ceiling of the first floor.
Flipping over, Minos's feet planted firmly on the ceiling, once again kicking off in an explosive movement, this time aimed down towards the puppet.
With a rapid spin, Minos gathered a tremendous amount of momentum before releasing it all in a devastating kick that landed squarely on the puppet's exposed chest.
The strength in the kick was so tremendous that the puppet couldn't even hold on for a second, immediately bursting into light as its body was exposed to damage far beyond what it could take.
Reeling his back momentum, Minos landed flatly on his feet, the light from the puppet sprinkling down on him, almost giving him a divine glow.
At the same time, the crowd went absolutely crazy, having never seen a move so amazing before.
"My heaven's, what was that!"
"Are mortals really capable of such moves?"
"Maybe, but this isn't a normal person we're talking about, this is Minos, the Chosen One!"
"Chosen One? Hehehe, that title really suits him."
"Yeah, it's perfect! Chosen One, Chosen One, Chosen One!" Someone began chanting.
Soon enough, the entire crowd followed in his chant, unfortunately Minos couldn't hear any of it from within the tightly sealed tower.
Though if he could, he'd probably just be embarrassed, after all he certainly didn't see himself as a so-called 'Chosen One.'
However, unlike him who couldn't hear anything, the other competitors could hear loud and clear, though by this point all of them had already given up.
The only one who would likely still fight would be Nufes, but he was eliminated last time, meaning there was no longer anyone brave or stupid enough to challenge Minos's position.
At most they could only look on with defeated smiles, having to accept their loss as painful as that was.
Of course on the other end, there were those who were jumping in joy and happiness, the big two being Tylia and Suki, each happy for different but similar reasons.
The Seventh Prince, Orino, and Asumi were also looking on with smiles, all of them happy for Minos's performance, of course they also had their own ulterior motives.
Unaware of any of this, Minos just prepared for the third wave, this time three puppets appearing simultaneously, blocking him off from every side.
Their difficulty level also seemed to be increased, even incorporating some of the moves Minos had used on the previous floor.
But still, they were dead while Minos was alive, allowing him to create an unclosable gap via his True Vision.
Still, their advanced difficulty helped Minos raise his skills to an even more refined level, so he didn't defeat them right away, instead giving them time to evolve and become stronger.
The stronger and more skilled they were, the happier he was, using them as grindstones to sharpen his 'edge.'
While one part of his mind was doing that, another portion was focused on going through all the mortal techniques he had learnt in the past.
Just through passive absorptions, Minos had unknowingly gathered tens of thousands of such moves, though the vast majority were quite useless.
Only a rare few such as the Inch-Step could point towards a higher essence, clearly being techniques created from the best among the mortals.
Even mortals had levels among themselves, which they had split into what they called 'rings.'
Those who achieved the First-Ring were mortals who had trained their physiques to the absolute limit, some of these mortals even comparable to low-tier Mortal Renewal Cultivators.
The Second-Ring were those who had mastered their bodies, allowing all their strength to move in one, like a massive compressed spring, ready to explode.
This allowed them to once again go beyond their limits, reaching a level well beyond the First-Ring.
As for the final ring, the Third-Ring, this was a legendary level that even the most skilled of mortals struggled to attain.
In this final ring, one was expected to awaken what other Third-Ring masters simply called the instinct.
What exactly the instinct was was hard to explain, but from what Minos had read, it was akin to an extremely watered down version of Divine Sense.
But what interested Minos was that it didn't seem to act on the same principles, instead more like a different path that headed towards the same direction.
The main difference between Divine Sense and Instinct was that Divine Sense could be seen as the ultimate culmination of the soul, whereas Instinct was the ultimate culmination of the body.
To turn matter into machine, fallibility into certainty, and most importantly, thought into instinct, this was Instinct!