Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 76: Magical surgery

Chapter 76: Magical surgery

Freed from the burden of the overwhelming flow of mana, Tesh and Lukas settled properly within the formation’s void.

They sat down directly on the ground, caring not for how it could stain their perfectly clean robes. Sitting down, they both crossed their legs to get themselves in the position most were taught to cultivate in. Yet, rather than freezing as soon as they sat down, they then both moved to undo the upper part of their robes, dropping the cloth just down enough to reveal the upper portion of their backs to Theo.

Theo, however, paid little to no attention to them yet, throwing a long, inquisitive glance across the field, doing his best to spot any sort of imperfections in his formation - be it through his own eyes, or through the myriad of nanites floating through the field and inspecting every single bit of it in search of potential imperfections.

Obviously, just like it was the case with Theo’s cultivation and pretty much everything else, there was no hard limit to how efficient, how perfect a formation could be.

Upon a close-enough look, Theo could easily spot several dozen small bits that he could fix, imperfections of the terrain itself that, in the most minimal of ways, affected the flow of mana.

In theory, he could spend the next few hours if not a few days trying to iron out all those kinks, but the moment he would do so, Theo was bound to find another set of even smaller imperfections.

In reality, however, there was no point in bothering with such minuscule flaws.

An imperfection of uneven ground affecting the flow?

By now, there was enough mana in the formation for its flows to easily erase anything that foolishly tried to stand in their path.

One of the trenches being a bit too shallow, thus elevating the node a bit above its designed position?

Given the pressure of mana that flowed through it, the node would bury itself into the ground all on its own, reaching its most optimal position simply by the means of the wasted energy pushing it down in a self-regulating flaw adjustment.

In the end, this formation was as perfect as Theo could make it without letting the idea of perfection infect his head too much. And with the last check now concluded, it was finally time to get to business.

"Okay guys, I’m not going to hide it," Theo announced as he moved behind his two disciples and kneeled down just a hand’s reach away from them. "The first part is likely going to hurt like hell."

Not giving his students any time for new doubts, Theo breathed all the air out of his lungs before reaching forth with both of his hands that he then gently placed down on his disciples’ exposed backs.

Normally, touching the fair skin of a young woman like Tesh would be enough to throw Theo’s focus off... Thankfully, by touching Lukas’ back at the same time, Theo managed to put himself into a proper mindset, nullifying whatever distraction Tesh could be by using Lukas’ presence to replace both of them with faceless images of conduits for Theo to perfect.

Theo then took a breath, allowing the mana in the air to flow into his system, only for him to then expel it through his hands while still maintaining a loose connection to it.

In this way, by merely observing the wave of mana he sent into the bodies of his disciples, Theo could watch how the energy bounced around their structures, quickly drafting the blueprints for it in his head and then abusing the hell out of his hive to save and perfect those drafts.

’Damn, those two are one hell of a mess...’

Even though this wasn’t Theo’s first time inspecting the inner world of his disciples, he once again couldn’t help but feel shocked by how messy their cultivation was.

Sure, some elements of it were nearly as efficient as Theo’s own cultivation... but those were just some individual elements. When looking at the whole thing, not only was it infested with a bunch of knots that made absolutely no sense all in their own right, the way their structure looked as a whole...

’It’s going to be one hell of a job to untangle it all,’ Theo thought before sighing out and then taking a long, although shallow breath.

"Okay guys, I can now see what I will be working with. Just one last thing before we start," he spoke out, feeling under his hands how both of the kids shifted a little. "Are you both ready?"

This time, Theo opted not to hurry the two of them up. Instead, he allowed them to stabilize their breathing, tense up... and then relax, before finally breathing out as they braced themselves for what was about to come.

"And that’s the very first thing you shouldn’t do," Theo quickly pointed out the mistake. "If you brace yourself, you are only going to make it harder for me to untangle that mess of your cultivation," he explained before shaking his head. "I know I’m asking for a lot, but for as long as you are able to, try to relax to let me do my job."

For the second time, Theo gave his disciples some time to prepare, patiently waiting for one moment after the other, only raising his eyes when he felt both of his students properly relax.

’Now then...’

With a single thrust of his condensed mana, Theo created a channel from his hands to the bodies of the two, using it as a highway for both his energy and his nanites to enter their flesh. And from the very second his own power fed itself into his students, the temperature of their bodies started to rise.

Snap.

In a flash, Theo severed the biggest knot in Lukas’ cultivation, one that was there merely to bulk up his structure while having no real effect on its own save for bloating the kid’s cultivation.

’To think I would start with such an invasive action,’ Theo thought, gritting his teeth as he carefully controlled the amputated knot of spiritual power to draw it out of Lukas’ body before tossing it away in a random direction, leaving it for his formation to dissolve it into raw energy and then contain it within the formation’s bounds.

Next, Theo carefully injected his energy into Tesh’s biggest but relatively simple knot, tugging at the strings of the weaved mana to slowly, gracefully untangle it.

Once finished, Theo finally allowed himself to cut the now straightforward flow out of the girl’s system before giving it the same treatment as he did to Lukas’ knot.

’That seems like a relatively good start,’ Theo thought, flushing his disciples with a fresh wave of his mana to check how their structures changed after the removal of the biggest obstructions in them.

To a degree, it was the same. But the moment Theo looked closer and allowed his hive to point out the differences, he was forced to realize just how insanely complex his task had become.

’It’s like a jenga tower,’ Theo thought, gritting his teeth as he located his next target and sent a slim surge of mana in the direction of Lukas’ spleen, ’the more you work it out, the harder it is to complete the next step without collapsing the entire thing.’