Compared with the other two academies, the Earth Academy's construction had been largely settled from the outset. It would teach not only earth magic, but farming as well.
Rather than an earth magic academy, "Agricultural College" would have been a more fitting name.
Its grounds therefore had to be large, with nearby space for Magic Flowerbed Arrays capable of growing all sorts of crops, including crops of different elements.
In theory, it was the most important academy, bar none.
And so,
the Orpheus Oak personally joined the construction work, even shooing Mifein aside.
Yet the apprentices ran into a major problem as soon as construction began. The earth here had actually rejected their request!
It was a rather awkward situation.
On the Semrio Continent, anyone undertaking complicated engineering or construction on the land was supposed to ask the earth to accommodate them.
This was more of a custom than anything. After all, 99.9 percent of people never received a response from the earth. It simply did not care what they were doing.
Hoping for an auspicious start, the apprentices had performed the ritual too. It was only a formality, anyway.
But this time... once the sacrificial ritual ended, Jamie, who served as their team leader, was astonished to see an earthy yellow glow rise from the altar.
The deep color shimmered with a gentle light, forcefully covering the ground where they intended to build and emitting a resistant mental fluctuation.
Its meaning could hardly have been clearer-permission denied!
"No?"
"What is this?"
"Did you get the ritual wrong?"
Jamie and the other apprentices were dumbfounded.
Despite living in the Northern Frontier for so long, they had never encountered the consciousness of the land that nurtured them, much less been rejected by it outright.
Now they were completely at a loss.