Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 80: Everyone’s limit

Chapter 80: Everyone’s limit

"Okay, that should be enough."

Theo stopped the process right as his two disciples broke into the fourth rank, mere moments after they reached the maturation of the third stage.

With the flawless form of the cultivation, there was no backlash from advancing through the stages. In theory, it meant Theo could push them even higher, to match or maybe even exceed his own cultivation...

But he decided against it.

One part of it was the rational sense of self-preservation by keeping his disciples below his own level. The other part, however, was much more ordinary.

Even though the two of them were fourth and fifth rank respectively just a few hours earlier, the moment their cultivation vanished, so did their natural ability to absorb mana.

As a product of one’s cultivation, it needed time to properly kick in by way of the body adapting to one’s changed state.

And upon reaching the fourth stage, both Lukas and Tesh reached the limits of just how much mana their bodies could physically hold.

While pushing even more mana through them wouldn’t bear that much of a danger for Theo to be concerned with, it would be nothing more than a waste, given how any amount of mana infused into the two would merely force an equal amount of mana out of them.

"And that’s it, kids," Theo spoke out as he finally lowered his hands, allowing the link connecting his palms to his students’ backs to detach and then disperse into a thin mist that soon completely vanished.

By now, Theo was the only one left standing, Celeste included. And while Lukas and Tesh collapsed down from the exhaustion of going from their original rank, down to becoming mortals and then regaining the power of the initial fourth stage, Celeste...

She likely ended up falling asleep over in the bushes from where she observed the whole ordeal.

’I’ve gotta give it to her,’ Theo thought, ignoring how Tesh squirmed on the ground before him, still struggling to adapt to her new cultivation. ’She did stay the whole time, though.’

From early in the morning when everything began, by the time Theo’s lesson concluded the sun had long vanished beyond the horizon, leaving behind only the moon for Theo to tell the time from. And while not the deepest hour of the night yet, soon there would no longer be any point in ever going to sleep.

Yet, with his disciples taking their time to recover and Celeste sound asleep, Theo still had a bit more to deal with.

Because even after bringing his disciples so high up, roughly half of the formation’s mana was left.

Part of it came from the harvesters working ever since Theo activated the whole thing, but a considerable part of the remaining mana still came from the cultivation of those two.

In a way, taking this mana... felt just wrong, like taking a piece of candy from a child.

"I guess that’s the tuition?" Theo whispered to himself before shaking his head. ’And I’m not exactly in a position where I can afford to remain idle, am I?’

Even with the danger of the trial passing, who was there to say there would be no more dangers coming Theo’s way? And if Theo were to use his instincts to decide on his course of action, preparing for the worst would be a clear winner.

’A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, then!’

Theo sent a small surge of mana, just big enough to refill whatever reserves his disciples managed to burn through. And then...

’Let’s do this!’

Theo himself was within the same realm as his students... because the stage they were at corresponded with the lowest of the three tiers that Theo’s own third step encompassed. And while the two of them were merely starting in the area, Theo was already nearing its end.

’I already have the hub, the network of meridians and the steady flow through them all. And that only leaves one thing.’

With a deep breath, Theo switched the gears of his formation yet again, this time directing the remaining mana strictly towards himself.

A bold step, especially for Theo.

And not for some lofty, complex, and convoluted reasons. It would simply be his first time cultivating with just mana and mana alone, as opposed to his previous two sessions.

During the first cultivation attempt, Theo cultivated mostly through his nanites. In the session shortly after, he used a mix of spiritual energy and the leftovers of his feast, inducing both mana and nanites into his system as he grew.

This time, though, would be the first time cultivating purely with mana, though.

’But such a small detail isn’t going to stop me, is it?’

Theo smiled to his own thoughts, slowly taking in a breath and then exhaling it... only to sharply raise his face and straighten up in the meditation pose he was in as he took a fresh breath again, this time greedily swallowing the air deep into his lungs.

The mana rushed into Theo’s system, near-instantly filling whatever energy he spent ever since his last cultivation session. And soon enough, the inflow of mana started to test the limits of Theo’s structure, filling all of his meridians, all of his paths, and even the entirety of his central energy hub... or, how locals would call it, dantian.

For a moment, Theo froze.

And then...

There once was a setting in the phones of old where pressing both the lock and lower volume buttons would push the phone to hard-reset. That later became a joke transposed on humans, of how one could make a screenshot of what they were seeing if they were to burp and fart at the same time.

And right now, that’s exactly how Theo felt for but a single instant.

As if someone — or something — took a screenshot of his entire existence, before printing it out and then slapping it right into him, only for the projection to anchor itself on Theo’s dantian, turning it into a gate that connected the real... with the unreal?

’Is this what locals would call a nascent soul?’ Theo thought, only to realize that while his cultivation pretty much doubled in a single instant... it also fully drained his cultivation, leaving him starving for mana like never before.

A primal greed, hunger, not induced by the nanorgan in a bid to restore the balance of nanites.

A hunger that went much deeper, resonating not only with Theo’s entire body... but also throughout this snapshot copy of his to which he was connected through his dantian.

Thankfully, stuck in the middle of the formation, Theo quickly sated his hunger, restoring just enough power to his frame to keep himself stable before even the formation ran out of juice.

’Dang...’ Theo thought, looking down on the ground, still struggling to come to terms with the new, twin-like presence now constantly attached to his very own self, an innate copy of himself that was always there yet always just out of the reach of his touch.

And what was even worse, now that this parasitic copy existed, the amount of mana Theo commanded increased twofold, but the amount of mana he needed to fill both his own cultivation and the cultivation of his other self... grew easily fourfold!

That still wasn’t even the worst of it yet, though! For the very moment Theo managed to gather his thoughts, a blaring new text burned right before his eyes.

<Insufficient Knowledge to Progress>

<Consume more knowledge to establish further steps to the infinite nanite cultivation method!>