Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 100: Is it my rotten luck, or what?

Chapter 100: Is it my rotten luck, or what?

"A mid-grade materia prima, sold in batches of five liters each! Starting bid, three gold coins!"

Even though the amount in the batch decreased by half, the calling price rose three times from when the low-grade materia prima was traded.

And yet...

The same feeling from before returned, this time much stronger, much more... tangible.

’Is it really the thing?’ Theo thought, gritting his teeth in frustration over how he couldn’t test his theory on the low-grade he just bought right away, now stuck between reasonable hesitation between investing more money in what was ultimately a hunch and the risk of losing the chance of obtaining a potential treasure only he knew the true value of because of nothing more but his own sense of wealth-preservation.

"I know I set my mind not to get surprised by anything you did anymore, but..." Celeste gulped her saliva while giving Theo a confused look, "ten liters of materia prima?" she asked, shaking her head, "what would you even need that much of it for? Sure, it’s cheaper than buying it off the counter, but if you really wanted to get your hands on something good..."

"Jiangu Group, eleven gold coins!"

Before Celeste could even finish her train of thought, the auction already moved ahead.

"...then you should’ve waited for the mid and high grade of it! The low-grade can be easily bought in every third stall you will find on the market!"

With Celeste’s protests ringing in his ears, Theo could only watch how the price for the smaller batch of the mid-grade materia prima broke through the level of twenty gold coins per batch with a bid from the Kaegoro Company.

"To be honest, it was just a hunch," eager to ask a question on his own, Theo gave Celeste a proper, honest answer.

For the few gold coins he just spent, he did so on nothing more than that, just a raw hunch.

A hunch and then the familiar yet also foreign feeling that came not even from inside of him, but from somewhere even deeper.

It wasn’t the call of the hive. It lacked the proper tell-tale signs to be that. Instead, it was the nanites themselves getting excited, as if they were starved for days and now, through Theo’s own eyes, they saw a literal feast only waiting for them to devour.

A weird feeling that borderline gave Theo the fright of his hive somehow developing a proper personality. On the other hand, though...

Theo’s cultivation was unbalanced.

As a technique based on coexisting and cooperation between his mana and his nanites, he couldn’t afford to have them out of balance for long.

On its own, letting either his nanites or his mana be left behind when compared to the other felt like it would lead Theo straight down the path of fully immersing himself in one while completely forgetting about the other.

And now, for the first time since he was hungry enough to seriously consider sinking his teeth into Tesh’s flesh when she invaded, Theo felt his nanites growing hungry while his nanorgan grew restless, as if preparing for the feast of a lifetime, even bigger than what Theo enjoyed through the course of his early cultivation.

What’s more, if Theo’s feelings were to be proven correct, then...

Then the materia prima, while a base item that Theo could turn into quite literally anything, would also be the perfect nutrition for Theo’s mana organ to feed on! Or, in other words, it would be the way for him to restore the balance between his nanites and his mana, growing a fair bit stronger without the burden of going for another cultivation breakthrough given his lack of method to do so!

"Batch of mid-grade materia prima for thirty-two gold coins going once, going twice..."

Hearing the approaching end of the auction, Theo bit down on his lips... and then tapped at the crystal attached to his seat four times, raising the price by a further two coins.

"Unregistered newbie with thirty-four coins!" The announcer exploded in excitement as he announced the new price, his smile only growing wider with each rise. "Going once, going twi... And Jiangu Guild comes in with a sweep for the full thirty-eight... No, the brave newbie takes it back with a total of forty coins!"

For a moment, Theo thought he was about to lose the bidding war. And before that moment could pass, he ended up raising the price yet again, already nearing the realm of what he would consider too pricey... if he cared about gold at all.

’The easier you get it, the easier it is to part with it,’ Theo thought, recalling just how easily he gained his current fortune before training his finger above the seat-embedded crystal, ready to raise the price even further if necessary.

"Going once," the announcer called out, "going twice..."

The tension in the room grew as different merchants calculated whether or not it was still worth participating with just how high the price grew, "And going..."

BOOM!

As if right on cue, the roof of the auction house exploded with several shadows dropping in.

’What the hell?’

Squinting his eyes, Theo merely leaned back in his seat as the entire hall froze, be it the stage or anyone in the auditorium.

For a moment, the tense silence persisted as the broken-off pieces of the roof continued to rain down from above while not a single soul in sight dared to make even the slightest move.

’Is this my luck?’ Meanwhile, Theo whined in his thoughts, ’to have this place attacked right when I came to scout it out? Right before I can get my hands on the things I just bought?’

Resisting the desire to shake his head, Theo remained perfectly motionless, waiting for the situation to develop while readying himself to take action if the need for it arose.

The seconds stretched as the shadows simply rose up, revealing themselves to be just people wearing black, hooded robes, positioned strategically throughout the stage and the auditorium from the moment they dropped down from the level above.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" Finally, the presenter snapped, his arm shooting to the side as if he wanted to cut the bullshit of the moment while already summoning his strength to hold the attackers down to buy time for the auction-hall guards to arrive. "Did you really think you can just burst into this place to steal the company’s wares?! Dream on!" he screamed out right as he condensed the mana between his hands before unleashing it in the direction of the nearest of the assailants.

Only for all hell to break loose.