At the Silvana School of Magic, all students are required to leave voluntarily to find another job before the age of twenty unless they become an assistant or other staff member of the school.

　The graduation ceremony in other schools does not exist in this school. After the Election Ceremony, the students are getting scouted out and leaving the school, so the opportunity to get together with the whole class has disappeared before you know it.

　From the age of fifteen to the age of twenty, five years have passed since I received the Election Ceremony. The time given was enough for an average student, but a student who drew an outlier spirit would not be able to be scouted and get a job if they did it normally first.

　Users of elemental spirits can be used by the military as an immediate asset, and since the absolute number of mages is small, they are pulled in all directions.

　It is not easy to overturn the assessment of which spirits are superior and which are inferior, which is derived from the two hundred years of history in the academy.

　At first I thought I had signed a contract with a grass spirit, but to be precise, it was a plant spirit. From the time I made the contract, I could hear the voice of the grass and talk to the trees. But hearing voices is a fact of life, and if a flower on the side of the road is about to be stepped on by a person and is calling for help, I can't leave it alone.

　I've been walking around the courtyard of the school today, listening to the voice of the plants.

　I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to make the most out of your time here. When I get close to it, it shakes its branches slightly and greets me.

Jichan, you're more energetic than yesterday. Let me know if there are too many branches, and I'll give you a haircut.

　Cutting branches would normally be called pruning, but since I've been able to talk to trees, I've come to see them as living things. So it's a 'haircut'.

'I'm sorry, Glass. We can't cut our own branches, so if they become too heavy, we'll ask you again. This is all I can do to thank you, but I hope you'll be pleased.

'I'm doing this because I want to, so you can thank me by saying no thanks .......

"Ho-ho-ho, I do it because I want to repay you for the glass.

　Not long ago, the elder had become quite weak because the branches had become too heavy and the trunk was overburdened with the weight of the tree. No one in the academy had come up with the idea that 'the branches were spreading out and the weight of the tree was weakening it.

　I too thought its branches were magnificent and that it was just a matter of life expectancy for it to die. When I was able to talk to the plant spirits, my perceptions changed dramatically - even plants live with many things on their minds, and sometimes they are in good shape and sometimes they get sick.

　The elder is a 'fig tree' and the fruit has not yet grown this season, but he has accelerated the maturity of two of them for me and dropped them off the branches.

'Thank you. Doesn't it take a toll on your body to produce fruit like that?

It's not a big deal. The soil of the Magic Academy contains more magic than other places. It's just a matter of sucking the power out of the soil again.

　That kind of thing is possible partly because the elder is a long-lived spirit.

　I held up the fruit to show my gratitude once more, and then said I'd be back, and headed to the courtyard resting area nearby.

　Even before the Election Ceremony, I liked the long, tranquil scene from here. Even if that was one of the reasons I was chosen to be a plant spirit, I like to spend time in nature, and I think there's nothing better than having a meal while looking at the trees. So my heart won't be broken, no matter how Mr. Hendrick and the other teachers treat me.

(Though my dreams of being a court mage have been effectively ended. With a proven track record in other professions, it may never be impossible. (I like to think so.)

　I've been applying to take the court mage exam for two years now, but I've been rejected just because they looked at my spirit lineage. The fact that I can't take classes with other students means that I have extra time to spend on classroom study, so the average score of the candidates should be above average.

　It doesn't help that it's rotten. I sat down on a wooden chair in the rest stop and spread a cloth on the table and put two figs on it.

'...... Brother Glass, I knew you were here,'
Oh, Leslie. The old man gave me some fruit. It looks so good.

　The juice of figs is said to be susceptible to a rash, but the condition of the fruit depends on the relationship with the plant. The closer you get to the fruit, the sweeter the fruit becomes, and the toxic components may disappear or even be intensified, depending on the use.

　The fruit that the elders give us is not an ordinary fig, and the juice does not irritate the skin. When I tell this to someone, they say, 'There's no way that's possible,' and they don't believe me - to me, even plants that are considered toxic can be eliminated with dialogue.