Within the Imperial City Academy, nestled amidst a lush, green pasture fragrant with medicinal herbs, sat several dilapidated courtyards.
They were called dilapidated not because the Imperial City Academy lacked the funds to repair them, but due to a peculiar reason: even if they were fixed, it would be useless. It was enough that they hadn't collapsed yet.
The cost of repairing the houses once was nearly the same as rebuilding them from scratch. In the end, the academy simply gave up.
But despite the decrepit state of the buildings, the surrounding medicinal fields were meticulously cared for. They were divided into several neat, clearly organized plots based on the grade and type of the herbs.
Every single medicinal plant was thriving. This wasn't just because the herbs themselves were of a high grade, but more so because of the cultivator's careful nurturing and conditioning—a skill most ordinary Alchemists did not possess.
