Dungeon Prowler : One Man Army

Chapter 364: old friends

"The mortal world has gotten pretty interesting, to think that magic and technology has reached this far!" Apophis was really having a good time as he walked side by side with Yunan and talked with him about everything there was, especially the newer things, more complicated and more impressive.

It did not take long for the three small parties to coalesce as they arrived almost all at the same time before a gate at the heart of the arena, an actual colossal coliseum, this was where the truest festival was happening. While most tourist where still looking around at the oddities and the attractions, the worst clans had already sent out their representatives to start off the odd worship, since according to Sapphira, the worst of the clans had either bloodline limited magic or very common skills to show the gods, there was no need to watch the festival from day one. Especially since the first day would be allocated to the showcasing of mediocrity itself.

It was already late in the afternoon and the sun was threatening to dive beyond the horizon at any moment, and with her last rays, the last mediocre clan left the colossal coliseum under the genuine clapping and encouragement of the whole public, this festival, after all, was the only chance of seeing that, in the faction oriented island.

Having arrived later than the ones already seated, even Sapphira had to sit in the further seats, it was possible to change seats later if some opened up or Dustan managed to bribe with enough gusto, using any means of violence or threat or deception was the shortest way to become the public enemy number one in the festival, and it would result in death, most oftentimes, this was a sacred time with sacred rules after all.

Not many were even paying attention to Dustan and his generous donations to acquire some better seats, that only lasted until the big log of an orc brought out some of the delicate things that were considered as rarities and were sold only now and then back in Tartarus. And that was when Yunan had the epiphany that would make his life a bit harder, everything had a price, what was that price range for himself and his family? If even sacredness could be walked around and bent for some "rarity" then nothing else was without price, even divinity could be bought, thus what was his price?

Yunan brushed the though fast enough, there was absolutely no need to dwell on such things, his price could not be met by any power currently at the top of Burkan, he was not that cheap.

After changing to the new seats, things looked much more alive, no wonder those who got here were very reluctant at parting with these seats, not only one could feel the magic take shape and flow among the performers, one could also feel the levels of coordination all performers from each clan have reached, the unity was sometimes very terrifying, it felt like a single entity controlled and moved the performers and their magic, that was most apparent with the intellectual type of awakened.

Synchronisation was not the only oddity, Yunan got to witness some rare spells and abstract ways of magic casting that he never imagined before, the side commentary from the gods nearby did not make things any better.

The clans that started to appear after the change of location ranged from the odd to the fantastic, from species who still walked on all fours, six sometimes, to those walking upright on any number of legs paired with any number of arms, most of the ones with anything more than four limbs either belonged to humanoid versions of arthropods or tentacled beings, still there was beauty to witness and techniques to be learned from the well-orchestrated moves, for those who looked beyond the mesmerizing faade of course.

Although the noise beside Yunan was rather distracting, he lost himself in focus on all the enlightenment he glimpsed from watching the performing clans. He learned a lot from the low-levelled clans, he learned a sudden movement skill from watching the spider-descended Arania clan, which incidentally had a wide range of performers from complete spiders to half humanoids and half spiders, and then complete humans with extra arms.

From the Ant clan, he learned how to distribute weight and power on limbs that would otherwise be unable to support such an influx of power, how to use his tentacles for more than just extra arms, and instead incorporate them into distractions and extreme threats to strike on opportune moments.

Even though he got much more enlightenment in the half day he sat there than he could by simply fighting for years, Yunan hated ost that he was snapped out of his reverie by the hungry Dustan who was chosen for his ability to take a beating. Since it was rare to see Yunan so deep in musing over enlightenment, it took an hour for the family to finally snap him out of it, they wanted to got find something to eat, and as they were about to leave Yunan felt a look on his back then all of a sudden he heard the rusty roaring voice of a lizardman calling to him "exalted champion" called one of them who was mirrored by the rest of his team, it was the first time Yunan heard someone start their show by saying anything other than to praise the gods.

Knowing he was the one called to, Yunan took a moment to look behind and rummage through his memories, something was very familiar in the voices he heard, seeing Yunan turning around, the rest of the family looked back, and not two seconds later both Balin and Dustan had jumped inside the arena and were bumping chests with the reptilians who were very happy to see them. Yunan nodded to the lizardmen after his memory was jogged enough to know who these people were. He then retrieved his two unruly friends with some help from Lucian and Bai, he then sat down to watch the familiar dance with his family by saying: "the food is not gonna run away, let's watch and cheer for our old friends.