Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 109: Amoral purchase?

Chapter 109: Amoral purchase?

On the surface, the task of scanning all the books on the library’s first floor would appear as the bulk of the challenge.

In reality, however, it was the latter process of parsing all that the nanites scanned, sorting it out, and then somehow integrating it in an orderly fashion into the library of what Theo already knew.

A process made all the more complex by the need for the hive to hyper-connect it all with Theo’s own synapses, to make it all into a knowledge he could freely access off the back of his head.

In a way, knowing something but lacking the awareness of the topic made the knowledge in question quite useless, as Theo would need an external stimulus to even realize he knew something!

That’s why, even when the nanites finished their scanning job roughly by midnight, he then had no other choice but to just freeze still in his seat, enduring the mental exhaustion caused by the hive overworking itself for the hours to come.

A few hours later, Theo sucked the last drop of the materia prima from the bottle, restoring his stock of the nanites for the last time. And before long, he had to start pulling the scanning nanites back to maintain his stock, even though he had to do it at a considerable loss.

With the nanites already set to scanning the books, it would be much easier to use them for the same purpose on the second floor of the library that Theo planned to consume too. But what would be the use of knowledge that his hive had yet to parse?

And so, having little to no other choice, Theo soon retracted almost all of the scan-focused nanites.

The hive continued to burn through Theo’s external reserve for the next few hours, only to run empty roughly two hours before the library opening hours. Because of this, Theo had to slow the parsing process even further by switching his hive to a much more sustainable pace.

Still, after a night of scanning and learning, roughly seventy percent of the library was now firmly etched into his unconscious memory. And while the remaining thirty percent continued to simmer in Theo’s head, it should take, at most, until the late evening before the process would fully finish.

Until then, however, Theo had to endure the strain of the ongoing process, rendering him much more exhausted than he should be after one sleepless night.

And as if to make things even worse, right as Theo packed up and reached the library’s door, he could already recognize a set of familiar silhouettes waiting for him in the library’s gardens outside.

’What now?’

Theo nearly cried out with a deep whine.

’Not even a damn moment of peace or rest?!’

Still, what else was he supposed to do, standing at the library’s doorstep with the trio outside already well aware of his presence beyond the doors?

’Well, here goes nothing I guess?’

Rolling his eyes, Theo gritted his teeth and stepped out, only to then immediately step to the side when a group of library workers came up and rushed inside, but not before giving him some weird looks.

’I guess they somehow found out I was behind their night off,’ he thought, patiently waiting for the people to pass before facing the next hurdle in his way.

"Don’t you have your class to take care of?" Theo asked as his eyes lay down upon Celeste’s face.

"My classes do not start until two hours later," she replied with a shrug of her shoulders, only to then cross her arms over her chest and bob her head off to the side. "What, now that you’ve got me to front some resources for you, I’m no longer welcome?"

"It’s not that..."

It took Theo a moment to realize Celeste wasn’t really trying to blame him but merely teasing him up.

"I’m sorry, I’m just tired," he lowered his head in a short apology.

By all means, what Celeste said was true. With the hive still working in overdrive in his head, however, Theo couldn’t help but reconsider whether or not those three bottles of materia prima didn’t come with too much of a price.

"You’ve spent an entire night in the library. And judging from your looks," Celeste gave Theo an intense stare before shaking her head, "you’ve worked hard, didn’t you?"

Celeste’s head came to a stop as she gave him a worried look with a little weird vibe to it.

"I guess I did?" Theo muttered, his head hanging low. "Now, though, all I want is to either get some rest or maybe to cultivate a bit," he added before raising his head to look towards his disciples. "I’m sorry guys, but there will be no lesson or tasks for you for today. Consider it a rare day off...?"

Theo wasn’t really sure whether he was being generous by granting his disciples the leave or rather the one begging them to get off his head for just one day.

Either way, those two turned out to be quite the low maintenance by taking Theo’s words as they came, pushing their thoughts deep enough not to let Theo read them as they both bowed down at the same time.

"Thank you, master!" the two of them exclaimed while cupping their hands together in front of their chests while bowing their heads down a little.

"Feel free to take money from the treasury if you want to do anything not related to cultivation," Theo then decided to double down on his generosity, even though he couldn’t tell whether it didn’t feel even worse to be buying himself the time to rest in this way.

It felt as wrong as handing a phone to a young child just to get it to shut the hell up.

"As for the amount, as long as you don’t go over the top, feel free to use the treasury as if it was yours," Theo added while forcing a small smile to his lips. "You guys worked hard, so you both deserve a proper break, not one spent wondering what you can do with what little money you guys might have."

When it came to this logistical side of managing his disciples, Theo couldn’t be a bigger newbie.

Was he supposed to provide them with housing? Was it his responsibility to prepare the training areas? Did their needs for cultivation resources also fall upon his shoulders, or was it something they were supposed to take care of themselves?

Was Theo supposed to be paying... No, to give them some sort of pocket money? What about the academy’s requirements like tests or growth reports?

All Theo did thus far was impart a slightly simplified version of his own technique upon them, helping them redo their entire cultivation to make it worlds more efficient than what it was before.

But was that really enough for Theo to call himself a proper teacher? No, not even a teacher, a proper master?

As those questions started to swarm Theo’s head, his eyes ended up moving over to Celeste.

Noticing his look, Celeste smiled welcomingly, looking back at him with the curiosity of what that stare of his was all about.

"Actually, as much as I would like to just go get some rest," Theo forced himself to straighten his back as he properly looked back at Celeste. "Would you mind getting a coffee with me?" he asked, staring directly into Celeste’s eyes as her cheeks were covered with a slight blush of mild surprise while she backed off a step.

"Huh?"

For a moment, Theo had to resist the idea of throwing Celeste’s words back at her and asking if he was no longer welcome now that he was the one initiating contact.

A choice he ultimately gave up on, seeing no benefit to randomly throwing snarky comments like that, regardless of how good it would feel to do so.

"There are some things that I would like to learn about, stuff I don’t feel all that good leaving for later again and again," Theo started to explain before Celeste would be forced to confront him about his intentions and the meaning of his invite herself. "So, if you wouldn’t mind," Theo lowered his head as he reached the request part of his speech, "could I kidnap you for an hour or two?"

Celeste first squinted her eyes a little before pushing herself a step forward, right back to where she stood when Theo shot out his question.

"Sharing a cup doesn’t sound all that bad," she smiled lightly, yet in a way that seemingly added a strange, warm shine to her eyes. "Especially if you are paying for it," she then added, dispelling whatever tension that managed to grow in the moment with this silly comment.

"That’s fine with me," Theo sighed as he allowed his head to drop down, no longer having the strength to keep it up. "And honestly, right now?" he asked, looking up for just a moment only to then bring his head down and shake it in defeat.

"Right now, a cup of strong coffee would really go a long way."