Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Thirty-Three

I wasn't sure what to expect of these private lessons with Professor Rayax, in truth I hadn't heard much about him and his method of teaching. Nonetheless I waited for him to arrive at the front of the herbalism division building, unsure of how long I had to wait there, he never did specify an exact time just asked me to wait for him here tomorrow morning. With nothing else to do I closed my eyes and entered the spatial world, I looked over at all the herbs which were growing steadily, under the constant influence of an environment rich with spiritual energy, they were growing at a faster rate than normal.

The tea bushes that I had bought only a few days ago seemed to already have grown, even though it had only been about half a year's time in the spatial world, when in the real world they took up to three years to reach maturity. I expected in another week or so, I would have fully mature tea bushes that can be harvested, I looked forward to seeing what heavy spiritual energy did to the tea's flavor.

I was calmly walking through my fields of growing herbs in the spatial world, observing all their stages of growth, while Orpheus was busy pacing around in circles around me. He had insisted on coming much to my annoyance, he never seemed to leave me alone, though the fox bead in my chest meant that I would never truly be apart from him, he would always be able to feel me. "Why hasn't he shown up yet? He said morning, and it is almost afternoon!" He was always so irritable in public lately, unable to speak his mind except telepathically to me, which didn't let him vent his frustrations as good as actually saying it out loud.

"Don't you get it? Funny, for me to be the one to realize something before you do. This is a test, herbalism is just as much about patience as it is knowledge and effort, too rushed and you add something too soon, causing inadequate results, being calm enough to wait patiently for a potion to reach the proper stage is a valued skill that not many students here seem to have." I had seen this from many other students here, their knowledge in herbalism wasn't lacking, but many were so impatient to finish a potion that they rushed and ended up destroying the very thing they wanted to finish with their impatience.

"Oh, enough of your silly little herbalism tidbits, I am so sick of all these plants, the smell will never leave my nose. Oh, oh! He's coming, hurry up!" With Orpheus' warning I open my eyes and give the approaching Professor a small dip of my head in respect.

"Sorry, I'm late. Something came up with another one of my students, I had to help them fix their problem, shall we begin?" He gestures me forward and I follow with ease, ignoring Orpheus' smug look for being right.

"Don't whine about all the plants, you're the reason I'm here, remember?" He sniffs, flicking his tail up proudly, as he struts forward, uncaring of my words.

"Well, you didn't look like you could learn on your own, after all you failed to do so for half a year, even going so far as to almost kill yourself with the failed results of your attempt at learning herbalism without a teacher." Now I was the one at a loss for words, because he wasn't exactly lying, I'm not sure it was the full truth either, but it certainly wasn't a complete lie, luckily, I am spared from having to respond as Professor Rayax finally opens a door to the room we are supposed to be training in, except it is not empty like I would assume, instead it is crowded with people.

"Um, Professor, what exactly is going on?" He glances back at me in surprise, as if he doesn't know why I even asked that question, though once he notices the obvious confusion on my face he looks back at the crowd of people and laughs, as if only now realizing he hasn't yet told me a damn thing about what we were going to do.

"Well, you are extremely competent in Intermediate potions and below, and while there are definitely some Advanced potions I'll have to show you, I thought we'd start off with something a little different. You said you hadn't yet started to learn the art of pulse reading, which makes sense, after all usually only Advanced Herbalism students learn that, I thought we'd give it a shot today, all of these volunteers have come, each of them has different ailments, and instead of getting them to tell you, I am going to teach you to read their pulse in order to determine what is wrong, and to give them a potion to fix that. Don't worry, you don't have to worry about making potions as well, I've assembled more potions than we should need today, and you'll pick from those." I had been nervous about his method of teaching and I'm not sure if I was pleased or stressed by it yet.