In this world’s calendar, a year has twenty terms, basically twenty time blocks.

  At Stahill Imperial Academy, the first five spring terms plus the first two summer terms make up the pre-year semester.

  The last three summer terms are summer break.

  The first five fall terms plus the first two winter terms make up the post-year semester.

  The last three winter terms are winter break.

  "Passengers traveling to Rolkiska, please be advised, the train will be arriving shortly. Please mind the platform gap."

  New Calendar Year 531, Spring Term One.

  Imperial Capital Central Station was the biggest and busiest hub in the capital of the Stahill Empire, always packed with people, always filled with the never-ending calls of trains arriving and departing.

  On one platform, a lone figure stood still, looking like she didn’t belong in the noise at all.

  Her clothes were simple but refined.

  She carried a brown leather suitcase, wore a gray long coat over a white lace blouse, paired with a black high-waisted straight skirt, and finished it off with brown heeled riding boots.

  Her waist-length white hair was clearly well cared for, smooth and glossy in the sunlight, like silk spun by a goddess.

  And the woman wearing it made beauty and grace feel almost tangible.

  Her skin was pale and flawless, her posture tall and straight like a slender bamboo stalk, and her face was so striking it could make even a goddess pause.

  Her blue eyes were like clear lake water at first glance, like deep ocean when you looked twice, beautiful and mysterious enough to pull you in, and distant enough to keep you out.

  One thing set her apart from the crowd.

  Her ears weren’t round like a human’s, they were pointed.

  She was the heroine of this story, Enid Florand.

  The stunning looks, the graceful figure, and those sharp ears made it obvious she was an elf.

  Most people, at first glance, would have assumed she was one of the short-lived High Elves, the pale, radiant kind.

  Enid’s bloodline was rarer than that.

  Put simply, her kind was the ancestor line of what people now called elves.

  She was a Natural Elf, sometimes called a nature beast, a higher immortal who held two Authorities, Nature and Balance, and one of those beings the natural world couldn’t neatly classify.

  Natural Elves were born straight from nature itself, always arriving with the blessing of elemental forces, their very existence a living symbol of nature’s power and beauty.

  In this world, intelligent beings were broadly divided into three categories, short-lived races, lesser immortals, and greater immortals.

  Short-lived races were exactly what they sounded like, intelligent beings with limited lifespans, humans and beastfolk who might reach a hundred, dwarves who might live a thousand, elves who might reach five thousand.

  Immortals didn’t truly age.

  They were deathless, and the rules of “nature” didn’t apply to them the way they did to everyone else.

  Greater immortals were something else entirely.

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  They were the handlers of laws, the agents of the world’s Authorities, living embodiments of concepts, the great races that kept the world running, and they almost never showed themselves to ordinary people.

  They were rare, and they were terrifyingly strong.

  Lesser immortals were immortals without Authorities.

  They were usually the children, heirs, or bound kin of greater immortals, or natural beings born from concepts.

  Things like true dragons with two wings and four legs, hydras, sky whales, basilisks, enormous atmospheric rays, element sprites, spider matriarchs, cave colossi, greatwing birds, deep-sea beasts, unicorns, and the like.

  Unlike greater immortals, lesser immortals were not that different from ordinary creatures, except for the fact that they didn’t die of age.

  As for immortals in general, the details would be explained more thoroughly in Volume Two, the setting wasn’t going to be dumped all at once.

  The train finally rolled to a stop.

  But unlike the passengers lining up for regular cars, Enid stood closest to the engine, where the highest-class carriage waited.

  A conductor stepped down and took his position by the door, clearly expecting an important guest, and somehow not noticing Enid standing right in front of him.

  A woman like Enid would normally turn heads anywhere she went.

  Admiring looks, hostile looks, all of it, she hated being the center of attention.

  So she’d prepared a small trick, something that kept her from appearing in anyone’s “line of sight.”

  The moment she released the light-element spell, the conductor and the nearby crowd suddenly saw a beautiful elf woman appear out of nowhere, right in front of them.

  Enid cleared her throat, giving the man a chance to reboot.

  "Ahem. Hello?"

  "Ah, sorry, ma’am." He jerked upright, flustered. "Are you Miss Ennis Florand?"

  "That’s me. Here’s my ticket, do you need to check it?"

  He still looked a little stunned by what he was seeing, and took the ticket with awkward, almost mechanical movements.

  After confirming it, he handed it back and reached for her suitcase.

  Enid politely declined.

  The conductor recovered, slipped back into professional mode, and with a practiced smile guided her aboard, then led her to the finest private suite on the entire train.

  The compartment was lavish to the point of excess.

  Every piece of furniture looked built to royal standards, all of it designed to make the guest feel like they were traveling with palace-level comfort.

  "Enid Florand, it’s been a long time. I’ve been waiting for you."

  She wasn’t alone in the suite.

  An elderly gentleman sat on the sofa, neatly dressed, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, handsome in a dignified, old-world way.

  He was preparing tea as he greeted her.

  Enid set down her luggage and took the seat across from him.

  He slid a cup of hot tea toward her.

  She accepted, took a small sip, and smiled.

  "It has been a long time, Antonio. It’s been over a decade since we last met, hasn’t it? I’m glad to see you still look so well."

  Antonio laughed softly and took a sip of his own tea.

  "Closer to thirty-five years, actually. But for you, I suppose that’s barely a blink."

  He set his cup down.

  "So, you coming here means you’re willing to take the position at Stahill Imperial Academy, Professor of Nature Magic Theory and Practice, is that right?"

  Enid took another sip, her tone lightly displeased.

  "You sent the letter and the ticket without even asking if I agreed. Don’t you think it’s a little late to ask me now?"

  Antonio’s smile stayed gentle.

  "Because I never believed you’d say no. You need a chance to bring nature magic back into the public eye, and to make people take it seriously again."

  He leaned back, amused with himself.

  "And I was right. You needed fresh air, didn’t you?"

  "Yes," Enid said, the hint of a smile returning. "You guessed right again, my student."

  After that, they drifted into other conversation, old greetings after years apart, small talk, everyday matters.

  It felt effortless, like two longtime friends catching up.

  Antonio was a half-elf, born of both human and elf blood.

  His full name was Antonio Dres, and his titles were more than a mouthful.

  He was the foremost of the Arcane Tower’s five supreme mentors, the current headmaster and founder of Stahill Imperial Academy, a member of one of the Empire’s ten grand ducal houses, the first Imperial Chancellor, a former mage of the so-called Beheading Company, and one of the party that personally defeated the Demon King alongside the Hero, bringing peace to the world, the Sage among the Four Saints.

  But Antonio had another identity, one not widely known.

  He was the eldest disciple of Enid.

  And Enid herself was the one people struggled to pin down in the history books.

  A greater immortal, bearer of the twin Authorities of Nature and Balance, the legendary nature-element archmage who could stand as an army on her own, the presence that helped secure peace across the Eastern Continent, a “pacifist” whose mere existence was deterrence, a guide to peace and hope, a gentle teacher, a witness to history, an immortal observer, a familiar figure in fairy tales, the so-called incarnation of nature in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit Church, the mysterious and mighty Natural Elf.

  Also someone with a weak body, a story blurred by “epic” records, a trail of documentation that looked deliberately buried, the hardest problem in academic history, the person every historian and every practitioner of classical nature magic wanted to meet.

  No one even knew exactly how long she had lived.

  People also said her sense of humor was strange, and that her memory was famously unreliable.

  All of that described Enid Florand.

  And Antonio, for all his fame, was still her student.