Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 61: Are you willing to pay the price?

Chapter 61: Are you willing to pay the price?

"Teacher, please!"

Hearing the slightly familiar voice of the guy from back at the trial, Theo closed his eyes and breathed out a long, exhausted sigh.

’Not even a moment of peace, huh?’

As much as he wanted to just ignore it all and focus on his own cultivation, the sense soon kicked in, attacking Theo’s mind from several different angles.

First, it were his actions - even if brought forth by Julius’s needless attack on him - that led to the current situation, where that Lukas boy ended up becoming his disciple.

Secondly, even with the rumors about the trial quickly spreading throughout the gossip circles of the academy, if those two were to camp at Theo’s doors only for Theo never to respond to their requests...

If that were to happen, it wouldn’t take long before this element would get added to the rumors, only to then morph into something that not even Theo himself could imagine.

Finally, however, it was all about the practical approach.

The more he stalled dealing with this new issue, not only the harder it would become for Theo to breach it, but the more effort he would have to put to actually deal with it.

’In the end, the fastest and easiest way for me to regain my peace is to just get this over with, isn’t it?’

Taking in a deep breath, Theo then slowly sighed it out before standing up from the floor and moving over to the entrance of his room. And as he pushed the doors open, he could see hints pointing just how correct his guesses were.

Beyond the doors, both Lukas and Tesh sat down on their knees, their foreheads pressed against the corridor’s floor as they kowtowed at the doors.

But it was the sight of several teachers poking their heads out of their own rooms, some curious, others disgusted while some already annoyed by all the noise, that proved Theo’s decision was the best one he could make in this situation.

’If it were to go any longer, some of them would be sure to start voicing out their complaints,’ Theo thought only to fully pull the doors to his room open before standing to the side, opening up a path for the two kids outside.

"How long do you intend to remain on your knees?" Theo asked in a cold, slightly annoyed voice. "You wanted in, so just come inside already."

At first, the two of them merely raised their heads, looking at Theo with expressions revealing how they weren’t exactly ready to believe he was letting them in. Yet, as Theo stood in the doorway, looking at them with that slightly-annoyed look in his eyes, they soon realized he wasn’t trying to make fun or prank them, prompting both Lukas and Tesh to quickly stand up from their knees and hurry inside... Only to then stop, merely a few steps in, unsure what they were supposed to do next.

"Now," Theo pushed the doors, turning away from it before it could even fully close, "you," he said while locking his eyes on Lukas. "Strip your back bare and then kneel down on the floor."

Moving away from the door, Theo made his way over to his butchered alchemy stand, taking a quick sip of whatever there was left of the meat-broth from where he cook-cultivated, turning back to face his new disciples only when the rustling sound of Lukas removing his robes came to an end.

By now, Tesh settled to sit down on her knees just a few steps away from the other kid, her eyes darting between Lukas’ bare chest and Theo as he approached him from behind. Her cheeks grew redder and redder as easily guessable thoughts and questions started to occupy her head, all the way to the point where Theo sat down on his knees behind Lukas only to press his palm against the kid’s back before lowering his head a bit and closing his eyes.

’Since I can’t really push nanites through his skin without risking a rejection-based injury... I guess I can only limit myself to just the energy from my own flow, huh?’

Making the quick decision, Theo detached a sliver of his own cultivated energy before inserting it into Lukas’ system and then allowing it to slowly circulate within the already established flow of mana within the kid’s system.

Roughly a minute later, Theo sighed out as he retracted his hand.

"It’s just as I feared..." he muttered, only to shake his head and then rise up from his knees. "You can dress now. I already know all that I need. And that means, now we actually have things to talk about."

Turning away from both of his recently acquired disciples, Theo moved over to the lone window of his room, resting his hands down on the window sill and then leaning his head down, sinking deep into his own thoughts.

’I could help him out, but... It would be up to him to bear the consequences. And if I were to do things my way, he would pretty much have to give up on all that he learned thus far. Then,’ Theo’s face twisted a little, ’then, there’s a whole slew of issues born from potentially imparting him with the technique born out through the hive...’

"Master...?"

Left alone and already done dressing back up, Lukas muttered weakly, not sure how to read Theo’s weird reaction that followed his even weirder inspection. Yet, with nothing but silence for an answer, sparks of suspicion started to appear in his eyes, only reinforced by the weird fascination in Tesh’s eyes as her stare danced between her fellow disciple and their shared teacher, all of which culminated in a cold shiver that slightly shook his body.

"Okay, let’s make it simple," Theo sighed out, caring not for whatever his students were feeling over his extended period of silence, only bothering to speak up once he was properly done assessing the situation and calculating the risks of every possible route he could take from there on.

"Right now," Theo said as he turned around and rested his back against the inner ledge of his lone window before crossing his arms over his chest as he locked his stare straight on Lukas’ face. "Right now, your cultivation is a disgusting mess. I cannot call it anything else but an amalgamation of half-baked ideas that somehow, by what feels like a divine intervention, granted you some powers."

Theo released a deep sigh from the very bottom of his soul.

Even as an actual novice to the ways of magic, what he saw within that kid’s body could only be called a crying shame.

"To give you a better picture of what I found out..." Theo took a moment to think, "imagine yourself in a world without shoes. And in such a world, everyone just keeps cutting their feet on sharp stones, everyone struggles to walk through slick or muddy terrain, it’s all a mess."

Lukas’ face twisted in confusion as he struggled to figure out just where the hell was Theo coming from.

A shoe-less world?

How did that ever relate to cultivation?

"Then, suddenly, someone makes a breakthrough!" Theo exclaimed, even going as far as to raise his hands up to the ceiling of his room. "And by that breakthrough I mean, they invent the very first shoe! The problem is..."

Rather than keeping his lecture as words and words alone, Theo walked away from where he started it and over to his alchemy stand, only to then quickly turn back to his disciples with nothing but a simple iron bucket in his hand.

"That’s the shoe they came up with. It’s just a little bit smaller than your feet, so if you tuck your toes in, you can somehow fit it on. Still, despite the discomfort, this so-called shoe," Theo shook the bucket in his hand to ensure his disciples still remembered what he was actually talking about, "this so-called shoe actually allows you to walk over rough stones, walk through swampy areas with a dry foot... When compared to not using any shoe at all, it’s a definitive improvement!"

The confusion on Lukas and Tesh’s faces only grew greater as Theo’s impromptu lecture continued.

Thankfully, he didn’t really have to take it all that far to pass his point along.

"Now, extend this concept from just shoes to every part of clothing. In this way, you end up in a world where everyone uses buckets for shoes, wooden boxes with holes for pants, burlap sacks for shirts and food plates for hats."

Theo sighed out and shrugged his shoulders.

"In a certain way, each of those articles of stupid clothing fills its role. The buckets protect your feet, the box keeps your dignity, the sack protects you from the elements while the plate stops the rain from dripping down your face," Theo counted out the potential uses of the imaginary clothing he came up with for the sake of making the point. "But still, this kind of clothing would look insanely weird to anyone used to actual clothes like the robes we are all wearing just now, wouldn’t they?"

Finally, a look of understanding appeared on Lukas’s face as he grasped the concept Theo was trying to pass on, squinting his eyes and looking down as he then hurried to apply it not to the world Theo tasked him with imagining, but the cultivation of the world he was actually familiar with.

"So, what do you mean to say is..." a moment later, Lukas’s eyes widened as he raised his face and looked towards Theo.

"That’s right," Theo nodded his head right as he returned to his spot by the window’s ledge. "To my eyes, the things you’ve diligently practiced are as ridiculous and outright stupid and inefficient as someone dressed with buckets for shoes, wooden box for pants, burlap sack for shirt and a food plate for a hat would appear to you right now. The question is, however," Theo then leaned his head over his shoulder, "even if I’m willing to help you practice proper techniques, are you willing to accept the price that doing so imposes on you?"

Theo asked, only to then step forward, leaving the comfortable ledge on which he could rest his weary ass on and only stopping once he stood right above the kid, looming over him like some sort of a distant mountain.

"Are you willing to give up on all the results that you’ve worked so hard for, all so you could start anew but with proper technique?"