Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Professor Rayax may have thought he was helping by inviting the other professors to teach me some things, but most of them weren't even on my level of skills in herbalism. I may have only been learning herbalism for three months at this academy, but with the extra time I got while in the spatial world, even excluding the few weeks I had taken a break from it in order to properly learn pulse reading, I was at least at five years of herbalism training overall. Not much compared to many of these professors who had decades of experience, but with my innate talent for herbalism, and the numerous precious books left to me by Nero and Marcellus my knowledge far surpassed theirs.

I'm not sure if they underestimated my skills or not, but they had assigned each professor a whole three days to teach me their skill, which was frustrating because more often than not, I already knew how to do it, so they only ended up staying for a few hours as I showed them that they could teach me nothing. I can't believe I ever thought five months wasn't long enough to prepare for this competition, it had only been a little over two months since I started having private lessons with Professor Rayax, lessons that were supposed to challenge me, and I was already bored.

Even with my years of training in the spatial world there were still a few books on herbs and potions that I hadn't yet memorized, by now I had skimmed through all of them at least, but there were a few I had still yet to memorize, so as my inner foundation was slowly solidifying, and I had to spend a miserable three days of boredom with professors that knew less than me, I took to try decreasing the already small number of books I hadn't completely memorized yet.

I suppose I should be grateful that my physical body couldn't enter the spatial world, and only my mind or maybe spirit, even I wasn't truly sure which, could enter it, because if my body could then I would already be five years older, instead only my consciousness, whether that was my mind or soul, was older. Though the stronger the cultivator the longer the life, so at the stage of Peak Spirit General I was looking at remaining young for at least another fifty years before I began aging. That was partially what I always found strange about my parents, as Intermediate Martial Lords they had at least a hundred years before they started getting much older, leaving them plenty of time to have children, and yet they had three children in six years.

I didn't think they had the mental prowess to raise three children at once, and yet they wanted to try anyways, even if they hired maids to take care of us most of the time, I just couldn't understand the rush, but then again, I couldn't understand how power obsessed they were either, hating me for not being good enough in their eyes, if only they could look at me now. Except I didn't want to see them anytime soon, even as a Peak Spirit General, and an Advanced Herbalist, if not almost Master Herbalist, I was still not strong enough to take them on directly, unless I involved poisons.

But I didn't want to do that, I wanted to return one day, stronger than them, and show them what a mistake they made to banish me from the family, that I was all the stronger for leaving them. So, for now I had to content myself with my boredom, and even though most of the professors knew less than I did, some of them had some knowledge that at least held my attention for a little while, so at least it wasn't all for nothing. Though some days it certainly felt like it, luckily when I ran out of books to occupy my time, I turned to my friends who were more than happy for the company.

"I heard a weird rumor that you made a poison and threatened a professor's life with it." I raise an eyebrow at Andreas, surprised that he brought it up, or that it was even being talked about, I had figured the arrogant professors wouldn't want something like that to be spread around. "It's just other students making stuff up to try to make you seem like a crazy person right?" I fidget with my hands gently, not sure how he'll take it when he finds out every word of it was true.