Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Thirty-Four

The lessons with Professor Rayax were challenging, but extremely enjoyable, I hadn't had something this challenging to do since I was learning the proper way to process herbalism ingredients. Professor Rayax expected a lot of me, but I was more than happy to try my best at every task he gave me, I was relieved to be having these private lessons, I hadn't realized how bored I was by the Intermediate level classes until I came here.

Pulse reading was difficult, so many illnesses appeared to have similar effects, it was hard to till the difference sometimes, but it also felt so good to help these people, in the process of my learning I was helping people who likely couldn't afford someone of even my skills to treat them, let alone an herbalist who was no longer a student.

I had never wanted to be an herbalist solely for the fame associated with the profession, I had wanted to help people, after being young and born into a privileged family, it was only when my own family began to distance themselves from me, that I realized how different my life was compared to almost any other person in the city. To not have to worry about having enough money for food, for new clothes without any holes, heating in the winter, the ability to pay an herbalist to cure an illness, all of it was things that were out of the grasp of many people in the Khirad Empire.

I myself had even lived partially like that, I know I was given some money by my family and the gold coins I did get would likely be enough for almost any other person to live off of, but to use them and be expected to also still look like a proud and wealthy member of the Dagon Family, was impossible. It was during those harsh days where I was beaten and starved for not looking the part, that I vowed to never rely on others for money, that I would develop the skills I needed in order to survive properly on my own.

It didn't mean I wanted to just leave my family, if that was the case I would have run away a long time ago, but they were all I knew, they were my family, and a part of me had still hoped that they would somehow change their minds and treat me like they used to, the way my siblings and cousins were treated, spoiled beyond reason, with chests full of gold to spend on whatever whim they had. I don't think anyone would choose the hard way to survive if they could choose an easier path, but I was forced from my family because of something I did not do to myself, but that was done to me.

As a child I had been healthy and able to cultivate with ease, and then something happened to stop all of that, Orpheus said I had been poisoned, that this poison damaged my inner foundation, resulting in me being practically unable to cultivate. This same damage resulted in my family seeing me as trash, as a child that should never have been born, they all likely thought I was dead and rotting in the Silver Woods, but instead I was here, in the Valena Empire, learning herbalism just as I had always hoped I could.

Something that would have likely not been possible if I had never received the twelve's blessing, they had told me that apart their blessings were powerful, but together it gave me the power to change the world if I wished to, and I had no thoughts of world domination or anything like that, but I did want to change my life, I no longer wanted to be the trash daughter of the strongest cultivators in the Dagon family, I wanted to be a strong herbalist and cultivator, I wanted to be the person I always knew I could become if I had the chance, and with this chance in front of me I wasn't going to let it go to waste.

Accepting the Professors invitation to this competition was the best choice I had ever made even if the very idea of it kind of terrified me, I would never see how much I had improved until I competed with others that were supposedly some of the best herbalists in the country. They may have had years to study, but I had a space where I could spend ten days practicing instead of sleeping at night, mine may be slightly unfair, but compared to the time they had to learn herbalism and the half a year I would have had by the time the competition came around, I think the spatial world just evened the playing field a bit.