Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Thirty-Two

"I don't know why you're so conflicted about this. You win or you lose, even being invited to the competition is an honor, yet you hesitate, so what if you lose, others will just say it made sense given how much more time the other competitors have had to learn herbalism. But what if you win? Do you know what kind of accomplishment that would be here? Herbalists are renowned here, but you would be worshipped for winning that competition." I scowl at Orpheus not at all pleased with his latest attempt to get me to choose to go to the competition.

"I don't want to be worshipped, I just want to learn herbalism." I didn't want to become famous, that was never my goal, I simply wanted to be good at herbalism.

"Okay, but think about all you'll learn from Professor Rayax when he trains you for the competition, you've been bored with the Intermediate level classes, and it has only been a little over two weeks, can you really face an entire year of these boring classes?" I wince at the thought, even though I don't want to admit he is right at all.

"The classes are fine, I've been occupying my time fine." He raises a furry eyebrow at me in doubt, not that he had to look at me like that, I knew that I was lying even as I said the words.

"Yes, with cultivation, poison brewing, and pill refining, except you're running out of Intermediate level things you can do, these past few days you've been doing all you can to not think about it, and yet the deadline Professor Takeshi gave you is tomorrow and you're still no closer to deciding. Make your choice, lull your way through Intermediate classes for a year, choose to see if you can move up to the Advanced Classes, even though I imagine they will bore you after a month or two, or you can do what I suggested and take Professor Rayax's offer to privately teach you for the competition." I hated even contemplating what Orpheus was suggesting, he was too smug when he found out I agreed with him.

Though as much as I didn't want to admit it, the Intermediate level classes were beginning to bore me, and though I had plenty of other things to occupy my time with, I also wasn't sure if after a few months the Advanced level classes wouldn't just become the same. I had always known I was rather smart, my limited amount of time with schooling and I was still at this level of knowing things, I always knew I was smarter though physically weaker than my siblings. I had thought that herbalism would suit me because I was smarter than I was strong, which mostly suited herbalists, but when I failed miserably in the Silver Woods for six months, I thought I was simply deluding myself into believing I could possibly be good at anything.

Then I arrived here, somehow making it through that entrance test through sheer luck, and starting in the Beginner level classes, but once I learned the basics it all seemed to come to me so easily. Then I was moved up to the Intermediate level classes and though Andreas joked about me being a prodigy, I never really believed it, after believing I was too weak to be a proper cultivator and failing to figure out herbalism by myself, I thought I was too stupid to be a prodigy, I thought it was all the time I put in during the nights, the time that passed much quicker in the spatial world.

Though maybe it was that at first, but when I could learn a potion during class and complete it during the same day, I should have realized that maybe I was indeed better at herbalism than my classmates. But a part of me still refused to believe that, after years of being told I was weak and stupid by my own parents, how could I possibly be so good at something to be called a prodigy.

This competition made me question that status even more, because if I wasn't a prodigy, there is no way I would be invited to this, but if I did go to this competition full of hopes and lost, I'm not sure how I would feel. I think I feared losing more than even going at all, a silly fear for sure but if I didn't go, I would have no chance of losing. But Orpheus words that if I did lose everyone would just say it is expected, and even going to the competition at all was a huge honor, they made me feel a way I hadn't expected them to.