The Nightmare Wizard
Chapter 98: The Coliseum

Chapter 98: Chapter 98: The Coliseum

After waiting for the potion to take effect, Neri stood up and said, "I’m going to take a shower. There are bathrooms next door for those who come here. I won’t be too long."

"Come on, I want to take a bath too," William replied as the three of them headed to some small rooms next to the potion sales area.

The bathing area consisted of individual, completely sealed cubicles that could easily fit one person. Inside, there was only a shower and some personal hygiene items. The shower had hot and cold water, but William chose only cold water. Although he hadn’t wanted to say it in front of Neri, he had overused his muscle strength, causing considerable internal injuries, and he still hadn’t recovered from his injuries sustained on the ship. If Neri found out about this, she would surely be disappointed in herself, as for her, it had been an even battle, but William hadn’t been able to use close to half of his physical strength or speed.

After a few minutes, both emerged with their tunics on, and William with his sword tied to his back again.

"It was a great fight; I learned a lot," William said, trying to be as polite as possible.

"I learned a lot too; I need to train much more from now on. I’ve never been controlled like that. You know, my pseudo-domain was destroyed by you too easily."

"Pseudo-domain? What’s that?" William asked with a confused look.

"You’ll learn about it during your classes, but a domain is control over your environment. You allowed me to attack first, so I unleashed my two control spells: Ice Field and Snow Field in Blizzard mode, to create perfect weather conditions so my spells wouldn’t be affected by the environment. With those combined spells, I can move faster, and my attacks are empowered. Also, they provide camouflage, although this time they didn’t work at all." With an inquisitive look, Neri stared at William, asking how he had managed something like that.

"I’m very sensitive; I guess it’s an advantage for pursuing my rivals."

"It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to tell me, although what impressed me the most is the mana shield. To obtain it, you have to go up to the third floor. Although I don’t judge you, my grandfather gave me this combination of spells which are from the fifth floor, so I can understand how you got your spells."

"My master taught me these spells; I really didn’t know how valuable they were. I should thank him the next time I see him." William answered without any hesitation or falsehood, as Aurus had only warned him about his third spell, the Eye of Agimenes, so he thought nothing would happen.

"Although I don’t understand why you didn’t use your third spell. I stayed on guard the whole time to gain control and force you to show your spells and counterattack them, but you ended up forcing me to use all the spells I know without any effort. My Freezing Breeze could only barely help me evade you, and my Electric Claws didn’t hit you even once. In fact, I suspect you could predict where I would attack. Tell me, what are your other spells?"

"Actually, those are the only spells I’ve mastered."

"Impossible! You can’t ascend to Level 2 apprentice without knowing at least three spells," Neri said, surprised.

William had forgotten that small detail, which exposed his lie, but before he could justify himself, Neri spoke again, "You don’t need to tell me your secrets; you could just say no, and I would understand."

Neri’s voice sounded somewhat dejected, so William approached to avoid misunderstandings, "I apologize, it’s not that I don’t want to show you, but it was a promise to my professor that I wouldn’t use this spell. Please forgive me."

"I understand, but let’s not talk about that. Let’s go to the Coliseum. I’m sure you’ll love it."

Without another word, Neri walked ahead of them towards the Coliseum. The Coliseum was quite far, so it took them some time to get there. Along the way, the atmosphere between them was tense, and no one spoke. Lía approached Neri, and they started talking about other topics while William followed behind them. In the distance, a large structure rose imposingly; a grand oval stadium built in the same style as the outer walls, resulting in an incredibly sturdy and beautiful structure.

"We’ve arrived; this is the Coliseum." Neri seemed excited to come to the Coliseum; by the way she walked, it was safe to say it wasn’t her first time here, but rather she seemed very familiar with the surroundings. All the street vendors smiled as she passed and greeted her, while the uniformed staff also seemed to show her a lot of respect. For a second, William thought he had come to Neri’s house because of how everyone behaved around her.

"If the library and the training ground are where you’ll spend all your time training and perfecting your skills, this will be the place where you can put everything you learn into practice and also earn money doing it." William and Lía’s gazes became confused, as Neri’s explanation hinted at what kind of place this was.

"Follow me, the entrances are over here." The trio walked through some wide corridors full of people until they reached a hall that was almost empty and only had a counter with a few apprentices who occasionally approached.

"This is the place where you can register and also where you wait to fight. There are three types of fights in this place: mage duels, knight duels, and mixed duels. Each person can choose who they want to fight, and depending on the difficulty, they will be given a payment. The fights are generally between students or travelers who come to challenge us. Everything is allowed, and only murder is forbidden, although if you want to earn real money, you can join the death matches. The battle will be against some people condemned to death by the academy who are offered freedom if they manage to kill their opponents, so these fights are completely bloody and merciless, but the amount of points they pay is extremely high. You can even bet on yourself, but you can only bet on your victory, as this prevents you from cheating by letting yourself win in any modality, and bets are always a maximum of 5 to 1, to prevent people from defrauding the house. What do you think?"