Holly stared at the front of the class with blank eyes, the voice of her teacher seemingly turning into a muffled drivel as her mind wandered to the clouds. When she heard a loud ring erupt from the hallways to the entrance of the room and into her ear, her eyes lit up in excitement as life rushed back into her body.
“That’s all for today’s classes. I advise everyone to read pages 73 to 76 in advance for tomorrow’s class,” the teacher said as he closed his book with a crisp thud. “Have fun with your lunch, everyone.”
Finally, finally! Holly excitedly stood up and she grabbed her bag in a hurry. It’s finally time!
“Woah, why are you so excited?” Alice walked up to Holly with a bemused grin. “You have a date or something?”
“Is our dear and pure Holly finally going to feel the pain of heartbreak?” Kain asked with a teasing smile.
“Yes, yes! I have something so important to do! You guys can eat lunch without me! See you guys later!” Holly said in a hurry. “Botany… botany!”
The two then watched as Holly left, confused and amused by her enthusiastic display.
“So… it is a date?” Kain mumbled.
“She did say yes, but she also said botany at the end. Wait, maybe it’s about the notice yesterday!” said Alice.
“Oh yeah, the botany thing,” said Kain. “Oh well, at least she seems to be having fun.”
…
Holly walked out into an open grass field, through the long stone paths, and out towards a distant building. It was the school garden, a place where students can plant their own plants for alchemical use, or for their studies in magic.
She had already gotten her own field yesterday after the eventual end of her meeting with Rob, so she didn’t have to worry about lacking any place to start practicing botany. The school garden was uniquely designed, with it having two parts, the outside garden, and the inner garden.
The outside garden was particularly reserved for appearance purposes, so the place where students can actively plant their herbs was in the inner garden, a place that is beautiful in its own right, but messy and cluttered to look at a general glance. Only a discerning eye would realize the worth of the inner garden with it housing precious plants rarely found in the wilderness or dungeons.
Holly arrived inside the huge glass dome filled to the brim with colorful flora. Flowers bloomed in all kinds of colors, long swiveling vines crept out like snakes across the ground, and leaves shook as if responding to the presence of new life that had entered the quiet land of plants.
In the distance, on a dimly lit corner of the inner garden, she found a smooth stone table with seats placed around it, and a lone man sipping on a glass of orange liquid. There was also a glass pitcher placed on top of the table full of the same orange liquid in his glass cup, with ice cubes floating to the top of the container.
“You’re finally here,” Rob said with a smile as Holly sat on the seat opposite to him. He mindlessly passed the empty glass cup beside him to the girl, and said, “Go on, get yourself some orange juice.”
“I dabbed in a little bit of mentally soothing… chemicals into it, a little help to your studies,” Rob said with a chuckle.
“You mean a potion?” Holly stared at the pitcher in curiosity. “And orange juice? Is it safe to mix in a potion with orange juice?”
“It’s perfectly safe, and if something does go wrong, you can still use your magic, right?” Rob smiled as he sipped on his drink and munched on a loaf of cheesy and meaty bread. It was a delightful lunch that satisfied his cravings for cheese.
“I suppose you’re not wrong…,” Holly mumbled. She grabbed the pitcher, cool to the touch, and poured some orange juice into her glass as the ice cubes inside clanked against the glass walls of the container.
“So, let’s get down to business,” Rob said and finished his drink in one go. A strange, soothing sensation warmed his brain into a pool of serenity. He wore a calm smile as he pulled out the contract from his bag, as clean and as non-crinkly as before.
Oh yeah, I could have used alchemy to create the contract. Rob almost smacked his head then and there when he realized his mistake. Well, that’s mental exhaustion for you. Luckily, that problem is solved with my new potion.
Rob silently chuckled at what is effectively drugs, before he then coughed and said, “So? Do you find the contract okay? And for your information, there are no loopholes in there. I don’t even have any need to swindle a girl like you, and if you’re still paranoid about it, you can use some lie-detection spells on me. You’re good at holy magic anyways, right?”
“Uh… well, I don’t really understand what this all means, but…” she paused with a dazzling grin. “Since you said so, then I’ll believe in you!”
How naive. Rob smiled as he gave her a pen to sign with. “You know, knowing how to trust is a great personality treat, really, but you should learn how to doubt others from time to time. Who knows, maybe you’ll get swindled later by some evil bastard, and I don’t want my precious botanist to be swindled now, do I?”
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“Precious botanist?” Holly mumbled and blushed. “Precious…”
Damn girl, you can’t handle a little compliment? Rob shook his head and quietly took out the educational materials he had prepared from his bag. Whether it be books, seeds, or a bottle of water, he was well prepared.
Holly finished signing the contract and gave it to Rob. After placing it back inside his bag, he clapped his hands and said, “Now, let’s start our lesson, shall we?”
“Mmm!” Holly nodded her head, pumped up for the next hour of studying.
…
Holly slowly walked through the stone paths, through the open grass fields, with furrowed brows. Words, memories, knowledge; a whirlpool of information swirled in her mind as her eyes shone brightly. She didn’t know if it was because of the strange orange juice that soothed her mind whenever she took a sip, or it was because of how good Rob was at teaching the subject, but she managed to learn so much in just an hour.
Compared to the usual lessons in class, it’s like a day’s worth of studying was crammed into her brain in less than an hour. Was it because it was partially about holy magic which she has a deep foundation already, or maybe it was because of her natural talent?
No. She guffawed at the thought. Holly knew herself the best, and she knew her memory wasn’t the most spectacular.
Is it even mere memory at this point? Holly seemed to have latched onto a train of thought that intrigued her. If it’s simply memorizing, then it shouldn’t feel this way. Instead of embedding something into my memory, it’s like I’m making it an… intuition of sorts?
It’s like knowing one plus one is equal to two. You don’t even need to think to know the answer. Holly scratched her chin as she found this conundrum all the more interesting. Sigh, let’s just be thankful to God that I’ve been given such a great tutor!
Later on, I’ll even be able to sell my plants to him so that I can finally earn money for myself! This means Mama and Papa wouldn’t have to worry so much.
As she checked the time using magic, she found that there were still ten minutes or so before lunch ended. Ten minutes. That was plenty of time for her to test out what she had just learned on something other than the potted plant her tutor had prepared in the garden.
“Let’s see,” she mumbled with a smile as she looked around the open fields of the campus. The academy was quite large to say the least, spanning hundreds of meters, acting as a sort of bubble of magic, with various ranches containing magical beasts, large fields of mystical plants with various effects, and numerous buildings having state-of-the-art magical technology.
With such a large size, the grass fields stretched out to the distant horizon in her view as if they would never end, but the vague misty walls in the far distance reminded her that it did end. She dismissed her wandering thoughts and instead found the thing she was looking for.
Near the stone path she was treading on, a small red rose grew on the sidewalk with shriveled-up petals filled with dark spots. A casual glance made her know the rose is dying. Even someone ignorant in agriculture or botany could tell, much less her.
As she knelt down on the ground to inspect the rose at a closer distance, she remembered one of Rob’s various lessons on holy magic.
“Magic in itself is a strange field of knowledge full of arcane secrets and mysteries to be understood. Holy magic is a magic known to stem from divine origins, a power that can fend against evil, heal the wounded, invigorate the life of others, and other pious teachings.”
“Let me tell you first since this is gonna be the most integral part of anyone learning Holy Magic,” Rob said in an overly serious tone that teased her curiosity. “Are you ready to hear it?”
“Mmm!” Holly nodded her head as she prepared to write down some notes.
“Fufufu, well then, let me tell you the greatest little hack to learning Holy Magic,” Rob said and grinned. “God is real.”
“’God is real’? Of course, God is real, right? The Bible says so.” Holly scratched her head in confusion.
“That’s right, that’s right. Erase all doubts in your heart, place all your trust in the holy lord, and your Holy Magic would eventually be blessed by God.” Rob wore a sarcastic smile whenever he spoke of God’s name, but Holly wasn’t able to notice it.
“With that said and done, let’s move on to your broken advantage when it comes to botany and agriculture through the help of holy magic.” Rob grabbed a potted plant from beneath the table and placed it in front of Holly. On the pot, a small sprout was forming, belonging to a normal potato, but she could tell that the plant was a bit sickly and would be lackluster in terms of quality once fully grown.
“Holy magic’s known for its healing, removing the sickness of men and removing fatal wounds. All of the healing spells you have used up till now are basically rooted in biology, and botany is merely another part of biology. If we simply treat this sickly potato as a human who is sick, cast a healing spell, and a little buff spell like Increase Vigor, then you’ll witness something really cool.” Rob wore a mysterious grin as he nudged the pot forward by a bit.
Holly took a deep breath and carefully grabbed the rose with her hand. A warm holy light soon suffused from her palms as mana rushed into the rose and brought it new life. Its dull red petals turned into a saturated red color like blood, while its green stem filled with dark spots turned into a vibrant green color without any discoloration.
Not only that, the small rose rapidly grew in size with the excess vitality. In a couple of minutes, the rose grew to the point it was larger than the average rose based on Holly’s memory.
…
“Eh?” Holly stared at the potato inside the pot with a stupefied look. “How did it work? Shouldn’t the plant have died?”
“Too much healing would result in harm,” Rob explained as he plucked out the potato from the soil, and Holly almost looked away in disgust as its roots wriggled around like worms. “Plants also have vitality, but they’re much weaker compared to a rat, a dog, a pig, and a human when it comes to vitality.”
“There’s also the problem of mana basically overwhelming the cells of normal plants. Without my precise instructions, the potato would have died in less than seconds, turning into some sort of mush, right?” Rob placed the potato on the table as the surge of vitality disappeared, and its roots stopped wriggling. “This is just the tip to the potential your holy magic holds. Not just normal plants, magical plants can be blessed by holy magic! Of course, that would be a lot harder when compared to something like a potato.”
“This…” Holly’s eyes shone brightly as she looked at the large and plump potato in front of her. I can really revolutionize agriculture if I spread this knowledge around!
…
“Hmm? You’re finally back,” Alice said with a grin as she watched Holly sit on the seat beside her.
“You’re particularly happy today,” Kain said with a curious tone. “Is it related to that mysterious business of yours?”
“Fufufu!” Holly gave a cheeky laugh as she wore a mysterious grin on her face. “Just you guys wait, in due time, you’ll see my name in the history books as the person who brought agriculture and farming to a golden era!”
“Sure…” Alice held in her urge to laugh at Holly’s cute display of arrogance. “And how would you do that?”
“Hehehe…” Holly laughed mischievously. “It’s a secret!”