Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Forty-One

The decorations laid out in preparation for this competition were more abundant than I had expected, I mean it wasn't like this was some sort of celebrated holiday, this was a competition of herbalists, yet the crowds were lining the streets, so many unique items being offered at stalls, whether food, or other items, there was just so much I had never seen before.

It doesn't take us long to make our way through the crowds though, if only because people realized some competitors were in the approaching carriages, they made way for us, all the while trying to peek inside and catch a glimpse of the competitors. I had just sat quietly in the carriage, trying to ignore the glares of the other Ashara Academy competitors. They were not happy I was here at all, they all seemed to dispise me, though I wasn't sure why, surely if they believed I didn't belong here they should feel all the more grateful because it was one less competent competitor they had to go up against.

Not that I was truly bad at herbalism, in fact I bet I was better than everyone here in this carriage with me, but they could choose to believe what they liked, it would only benefit me in the long run, if they chose to make an enemy of me, I wasn't going to stop them. This competition was interesting for the fact that the competitors were new every year, because if you won you could never compete in the competition again, but if you lost you were banned from attending for three years, resulting in rather new competitors with some old ones that just finished their banned time, it meant that it was never the same students over and over again.

It was smart actually it allowed more talented herbalists to show their skills than if the same ones could attend over and over again. I had no intention of waiting three years before competing again, as I'm sure everyone else had the intention of as well, but there could only be one winner, and while I would certainly try my best, there was no guarantee I'd win. If I lost I would simply go about my life still, for these other students who were relying on the competition to make a name for themselves, they were solely wrong in that aspect, it was too hard to do, even if it was a quick way to success and fame to win the competition, the odds were simply against them.

It would be no hardship for me to lose this competition, I didn't need it to make me famous, I could do that in my own time, but I did want to see what level of skills the supposedly most talented herbalism students in the Valena Empire had, if mine were below or above them. In pill refining because it was a lost art, I was surely above everyone, but in everything else, like potion brewing or pulse reading, and any of the other numerous things a herbalist does in their skillset, I wasn't sure if I was above anyone.

I knew I was above those at Ashara Academy, but I had no way to know if there was anyone from a different academy who was better, hell I didn't even know if there were herbalism schools that might specialize in certain things, like potions, or poisons, or even growing rare herbs. There were so many aspects to being an herbalist, it wouldn't be hard to specialize in any one of the numerous things we had to know, though the true herbalists had an encompassing knowledge of all the skills that were involved in our trade.

It doesn't take us long to arrive at what I believe is the nicest inn of this city, being the capital city of the Valena Empire, there were quite a few inns, but with this one being so close to the palace grounds, and its grandeur even from the outside, I doubted there were many other inns in the city that could match it. I disembark from the carriage as soon as it stops, eager to be away from the fellow herbalism students who hated me so. Luckily for me, the professors disembarking from their carriages spares me from any insults they might throw at me.

"We have nine rooms booked for here, six of them will belong to the professors, and the remaining three will belong to you students who are competing, Elianna because you are the only female you'll get a smaller private room, while the four of you will split two double rooms." It wasn't that the academy didn't have money to book individual rooms, but that there weren't enough rooms in the city for all the arriving competitors and their professors, which is why many rooms had had extra beds shoved in them to make more space.