4. Seeds

The coliseum was a place where practitioners of all kinds gathered and put their skills to the test in a battle against other practitioners.

In the Verf Blauw Coliseum there were two types of combat, the exhibition ones, which were held every day and the death matches, which were held on the last day of each month.

If you fought in the coliseum you could make a fortune or lose everything, because although death was not allowed you could always suffer serious injuries that would leave sequels for the rest of your life.

For exhibition matches the prize was proportional to the strength of the contenders, this prize always varied between gold coins and medium quality equipment, some adventurers participated to win a decent team, although the danger was not high it was still there.

Deathmatches functioned as a tournament, normally the participants were not citizens of Verf Blauw, the contestants were adventurers, mercenaries, or soldiers who came to town just to participate in the coliseum.

Although they knew that losing meant death, even so many people entered, the reason was, the rewards, if you won the tournament you would have secured a large sum of money.

In addition, people with money could approach to request your services, you also won high-quality equipment, the rest of your life was solved if you won.

After explaining all that, the old man and I arrived at the coliseum, it was a huge circular building, it was made of white rock, it had an imposing appearance, when we arrived, we bought tickets and went up to the stands.

When we reached the stands the fights had not yet started, the old man explained to me what was the reason why we came here.

"Throughout my life I have known many people and I faced many of them and each one was fight different, each practitioner has a unique magic seed but many cultivate their seed in the same way, what do you think the consequence is?" he asked as he watched me.

I thought for a while and could only reply that I didn't know the answer.

"If you grow two roses, you give the same care to both. Do you think they will be the same as they grow?"

"Yes" I answered without much thought.

"You are wrong, maybe they can grow similar but they will not be the same, there will be small differences"

I Try to understand what the old man wanted to say, but i couldn't.

"Let's change the example, if you have two apple trees, do you think they will grow the same?"

"No" I answered immediately.

"Why?" he said.

"Because everyone will grow differently," I answered, doubting a little.

"Yes, but you are not understanding" said the old man "They will not be the same because they are not the same, even if you take care of them in the same way, there will be one that grows bigger than another, one of them will have more fruits or more leafs".

"What does gardening have to do with fighting," I replied, getting a little angry.

"I forget that you're only a 7-year-old brat, I think I overestimated you too much" he said with a sigh.

"But what you say makes no sense," I replied.

"It makes perfect sense, only an idiot wouldn't understand it."

I sulking and rolled my eyes as I watched the sand.

"What I mean is that even if you train in the same way that someone powerful does not mean that you will be powerful, but it does not imply that your seed is bad, it just means that you are different" said the old man with impatience.

I thought his words for a second and understood what he was trying to teach me.

That stupid old man, because he didn't say that from the beginning.

According to his words the magic seeds they are like the seeds of the trees, when a tree grows, this will not be the same as another tree, each tree will grow to its liking, spreading its branches everywhere, but a doubt arose in my head.

"What happens if one of its branches breaks or if we want to direct how the tree grows? we can cut the branches to control their size "I said proudly.

The old man looked at me for a second and curled his lips into a smile.

"You're right, you're not as stupid as I thought" the stupid old man scoffed

"By doing that, that tree will no longer be able to grow to its full potential, as we control its growth."

"Magic seeds are the same, if a person insists on controlling the growth of their seed, they will never reach their full potential, because we impede their growth and our magic will stagnate at some point."

"The seeds must grow naturally, without our intervening, letting them grow freely, only then will they reach their full potential, if we force it to grow it will only be bad for us."

After explaining this, the purpose of going to the coliseum was somewhat clarified, although I still did not fully understand it.

He was silent for a while, but when he saw my frown the old man spoke again.

"The fighting is about to begin, remember to be attentive to each movement of the combatants and analyze them, not to lose detail from the time it took them to move their sword, the steps they had to take before hitting the enemy, the size and power of their magic, his physique, focus all your senses on the contenders "

After listening to the old man I looked at him confused.

He sighed before speaking again "Dan, you may not yet understand why I brought you here, but I will explain it to you now, to understand the essence behind your magic, you must first understand how the magic of others works, only by seeing others fight you will know what the flaws of forcing magic growth, only when you understand this, can you train your own magic "

After finishing speaking the first battle of the night was about to start, the battle was between a martial artist and a user of swords, against all my expectations, the martial artist controlled the combat all the time until he eventually surpassed the swordsman and I defeat him with a kick to the face.

Then a wizard and a cat breed man fought, once again the battle was amazing, the wizard controlled the elements of the land and water, while the beast man was of the assassin type, they interchanged many movements until the wizard a spell use turned the entire terrain into muddy ground and the Beastman was unable to fight in such conditions, the magician used a rock bullet to defeat him.

Afterwards, all kinds of people fought, from sorcerers, to metamorphs, there was even an archer who fought against a swordsman in an amazing battle where in the end the archer took the victory.

Each contestant was different, I understood why the old man forced me to watch these guys fight, each of them had a different fighting style, all had something that characterized them, although some had similar methods were not the same.

The same movement could change power depending on the person, the difference was incredible.

When the fighting ended we left the coliseum and headed towards the port, while we walked the old man asked me many questions to check if I understood everything he said.

Although my head hurts a little, I managed to understand the old man's lesson, we talked for a while about the magic and weapons that the contestants used.

-Groooowl-

Suddenly my stomach sounded, she looked at me and her lips curved.

"I know a place where they serve delicious food," he said and changed direction to go to another street, I followed him until I reached the post I am talking about.

Upon entering we headed to a place with good lighting, we found a table in front of where the musicians were playing, we sat in that place and one of the waiters approached us, the old man ordered for me.

While looking at the place you can see that everyone present was wearing beautiful clothes like that of the brat that I met in the port, look at my clothes, the old man bought me very good clothes.

After looking all over the place I saw the old man, he looked happy, thinking that this old man was my only family, a strange feeling formed in my chest, I missed my parents, but the old man and the crew treat me very well, also he was the grandson of such a strong person.

After listening to the old man all afternoon, I understood him because he is so powerful, I was proud to be his grandson, the old man is not as bad as he seems.

After thinking things over a bit, i smiled openly and I said, "Thank you for taking care of me, grandpa."

The old man looked at me as a smile formed on his face, but a tear ran down his cheek.

"That is my duty brat," replied the old man.

At that time they brought the food and we began to eat, the food was delicious, we enjoyed eating together, the old man was talking about his adventures, while I listened carefully to everything he said.

When we finished eating the old payment As we headed to the exit I stopped I recognized a figure, I quickly turned around and saw her, it was the girl I saw in the afternoon, she was sitting with an older man and woman, apparently they They were her parents.

The old man noticed my gaze and also directed his gaze towards the table, then turned his head and looked at me with a mocking smile.

"That girl helped me at the port, I want to talk to her," I said to the old man.

He looked at me with an amused look "You still can't have a girlfriend" said the old man as he scoffed and headed towards the exit.

I rolled my eyes and resigned myself to following him.

Seeing that she was sulking he said to me while laughing "Maybe you have the opportunity to talk to her, she is the daughter of one of the richest merchants in the city and she spends most of the day in the port with her father"

Hearing that, I couldn't but blush, seeing my reaction the old man started to laugh out loud, angrily I hit him in the abdomen using all my strength.

"Hahahahgaaaffk"

Seeing him choking, I started to run while laughing, he ran after me while he yelled at me "Come back here, you damn brat"

Running and playing we returned to the port, thus ending my first day in Verf Blauw.

I was determined to go ahead and trust the old man who claimed to be my grandfather.