Chapter 107: The Competition

Chapter 107

The Competition

After being absent for nearly 1 week, Ellie was finally back in her botanic elemental student form. Although Professor Medik grumbled a bit about her sudden disappearance and neglect of her herb plot, he didn’t make a big fuss. He understood that Ellie needed some personal time, just like when he was a student and had many curiosities to explore.

Of course, Professor Lucien also spoke up for Ellie. He had been taking care of her planting plot, which was why Professor Medik didn’t complain much. He still had his own work to focus on, with Professor Lucien supporting him as always.

Ellie heard that Professor Lucien now had the same assigned mission as Professor Medik. His magic power would help Professor Medik work more efficiently, so the palace hadn’t given him additional tasks. Otherwise, Professor Lucien might already be at the palace.

Ellie continued her daily life at the institution. Nara attended morning classes and then disappeared, and Ellie stopped following the story’s heroine to see where she went. The man who usually annoyed her, Wint, had to train with Professor Regan every afternoon, leaving him with no time to bother her. She considered this her good fortune.

Ellie used her free time to train and increase her magic power as much as possible. After reaching level 3, she realized there was still a lot of room to improve. Unlike training at level 2, where she could see faint hope, Ellie focused intensely on developing her powers. She trained diligently until the institute’s important day finally arrived.

Who would have thought that the first year of study would pass so quickly? Before she knew it, more than half of the first year had already gone by, with only 3 months left until its end. Just like in previous years, after 8 months of study, the institute had begun its annual point distribution event.

These last 3 months served as a deadline for students who hadn’t yet accumulated enough points. The institute organized various competitions, mirroring the theme set by the host institution of the year. The institute would select representatives through internal competitions between classes, followed by contests to determine the true champions in different competitions.

This meant that students who hadn’t earned enough points, or those who wanted to accumulate more, had the chance to earn points during the intra-institute competitions and the inter-institute contests. The institute required all students to participate in these competitions, with each student choosing events based on the provided details.

Reflecting on the novel’s plot, the heroine and both heroes would be in the same group. They chose to enter an event called the “Timed Combat Challenge,” where competitors had to last as long as possible in each combat arena. Eliminating beasts earned bonus points, but those skilled in hiding could still win without killing any beasts.

The Timed Combat Challenge was divided into 2 formats: individual and group registrations. Groups could have no more than 4 members, though participants could register with just 2 members if they wished. Having more members didn’t necessarily mean an advantage, as the more members there were, the higher the chances of losing.

The rule was that if any member of a group was hit in a critical spot and had to be eliminated, the entire group would be disqualified. However, not everyone tried to minimize the number of members in their group. Having too few members also posed risks. With fewer members, their survival skills were less diverse, making them easy prey for beasts or opponents.

Thus, the heroine’s group, with Wint as the protective knight and the Demon eliminating enemies, became the perfect victors. They not only won at the class level but also became representatives of the institute. Although cheating during the inter-institute competition caused the heroine to fall ill and require treatment, the points they earned as institute representatives were still substantial.

For this reason...Ellie was also interested in participating in the competition!

Based on her plan, Ellie was confident she could easily pass the first year. However, what she wanted this year was not just the points to pass the first year. With this opportunity, why not make the most of it? Moreover...there was something she could do in this competition as well!

The competition wasn’t just about combat and survival; it also included a "potion concocting" competition!

Ellie had already demonstrated her potion concocting skills to others, so it wouldn’t be surprising if she participated in this event as well.

According to the novel, the institute had never won the top 3 prizes in the potion concocting competition. This was likely because they only started teaching potion concocting from the third year onwards, whereas other institutes began in the second year. This had its own advantages and disadvantages.

For institutes that began teaching potion concocting in the second year, students would learn combat skills more slowly, making it harder for them to win awards in survival competitions, one-on-one fights, or stage duels. Instead, they excelled in competitions like "Quality of Potion Concocting," "Herb Sorting," "Timed Potion Concocting," "Herbal Knowledge," "Potion Concocting Quiz," and other potion-related events. Overall, their total number of awards was about the same as other institutes, not significantly more or less.

Typically, a student would register for 1 or 2 competitions, but Ellie had no intention of being modest. With the students’ general knowledge of potion concocting, she believed that the knowledge she gained from Lady Celey [PL1] would undoubtedly make her the top contender.

Moreover, she hadn’t even mentioned the abilities of her power of botany. By merely touching. Or, no! By now, the ability had developed to send spores to root in herbs and instantly inspect them, while she appeared to discern herbs effortlessly. This could be considered a "cheat ability," couldn’t it?

Unfortunately, Ellie’s knowledge of potions wasn’t extensive enough. While she could identify the properties of various herbs, she couldn’t distinguish every type of potion. This was because she hadn’t truly studied yet. Her knowledge was mainly from textbooks she had skimmed, and some potions were too similar to differentiate clearly.

Another point was that she had already registered for 2 competitions, which were, “Herb Sorting” and “Herbal Knowledge,” as mentioned the above. Ellie was very confident in both and believed that 1st place should be hers. Although she was interested in the “Quality of Potion Concocting” and “Timed Potion Concocting” competitions, she felt her chances of winning were quite low. She would be confident if the potions to be concocted in the competition were the one she had learned from Celey, but she didn’t think she would be that lucky.

The mere risk of competing without receiving good rewards was enough for Ellie to opt out. The 2 competitions she had registered for should earn her plenty of points.

Her friends were very excited about the event, and many wanted to form groups, so there were frequent contacts. Ellie received invitations from Aman, Koross, and Wint. Although they were in different years, they could still form a group, just like when the heroine formed her group. The disadvantage was that the professor would set the competition level based on the highest year in the group to ensure fairness for lower-year students. Thus, most students didn’t group with those from higher or lower years to avoid unfairness.

However, Wint, Aman, and Koross didn’t think that way. To them, participating in the competition was just fulfilling a duty, and the outcome was beyond their control. That’s what all 3 told her.

If it was the original storyline, both would strive hard to ensure Nara’s victory in this contest, as the heroine’s points were still lacking slightly due to the time she spent training intensely with Professor Lucien, leaving her no time to complete tasks with them.

Upon being declined, the 3 dispersed to find other groups to join since Ellie had already planned to register for the 2 competitions, and potion concocting wasn’t suitable for their abilities.

The petite girl wrote her application and was about to submit it to the central office when she encountered the person she least wanted to see!

"Ellie?" The owner of the lovely face glanced at the paper in her former friend’s hand with surprise when she noticed that the corner of Ellie’s paper had the same pattern as hers.

"..........."

"You...also signed up for potion concocting too?" Nara asked in disbelief. Earlier, she had followed Wint to ask him to let her join his group. However, Wint had said that he needed to ask Ellie first, fearing that the group might already be full since there were 2 other members from the Setter family. With Wint and Ellie, that made 4 members, meaning they couldn’t accept any more.

Nara had been very angry about this. But before she could process her anger, she ran into Ellie right in front of the registration room for the potion concocting competition!

“Mmm.”

“Mmm, you said? Even though you already signed up with Wint and the Setter family, why are you signing up for this as well?”

“So what?” After seeing Nara’s displeased expression, the eyebrows of the smaller girl furrowed.

Nara wasn’t the only one who could show displeasure towards others; Ellie could do it just as well!

“What is with, so what? What do you mean by that, Ellie!? Are you saying that you signed up for everything just to block me? Are you afraid that I’ll win and get the points? Why are you doing this!?” The more she spoke, the louder Nara’s voice became. Ellie looked at the heroine she once admired with exasperation.

"I’m sorry to say this, but...I haven’t thought about you at all. There’s no rule saying others can’t enter the competition just because you have. Besides...if you believe you have the skill, then let’s compete fairly. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s not like I can do anything for you. I’m not the one setting the rules for this competition," Ellie calmly brought the flustered heroine back to her senses.

Ellie somewhat understood what Nara was thinking, much like what she herself had initially thought. The potion concocting competition usually didn’t attract many participants because even if they competed, they would likely lose to institutions that focused more on teaching potion concocting. But it seemed Nara hadn’t even considered the possibility of winning from the start. She probably just wanted to pass the first round and become a representative of the institution, which would grant her extra points.

Ellie had heard that Nara hadn’t accumulated many points yet. She tried to follow the guys on various missions, but her reputation wasn’t great. Many said her light elemental powers weren’t genuinely useful; she couldn’t even manage minor healing. It seemed Nara’s light element abilities currently only provided illumination and could repel beasts. Therefore, people rarely invited her to join missions lately.

Nara without Professor Lucien was like a fish out of water! Previously, under Professor Lucien’s guidance, she had become strong enough to earn the title of Goddess of Light. But now that everything wasn’t following the novel’s plot, it seemed her life was gradually falling apart as well.

The heroine felt anger rise within her after hearing Ellie’s words. She didn’t share Ellie’s thoughts at all. Nara only wanted to pass and become a representative of the first-year students. Just winning within her year would earn her some points. But with Ellie now appearing, she was sure Ellie would take all the points. This was because Ellie already had some potion concocting skills from the previous emergency camp.

Ellie’s words were just a reminder that Nara had no chance of winning against her. How could challenging her to compete with their true abilities be fair as Ellie suggested? One had already learned potion concocting, while the other hadn’t even started!

It was clear that everything Ellie said was just to humiliate her!

It was obvious that Ellie registered for the potion concocting competition just to block her path to survival entirely!!