Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 94: The chaos of the marketplace

Chapter 94: The chaos of the marketplace

If the library would allow Theo to expand his knowledge over the narrow selection of fields he knew to be important, then the central marketplace of the academy was the best place for him to expand said selection.

It was a place where people from all sorts of departments and walks of life would come in and trade away their wares to obtain money and credits necessary for them to buy stuff they needed and only others could provide.

In a certain way, the central marketplace was a snapshot of what any economy would look like, centralizing most of the high-end and high-volume trade that went through the academy.

Those who just finished their missions, during which they defeated powerful monsters or found rare herbs, would come to the marketplace to either sell those things in bulk in one of the few leading wholesale companies or put them up to auction in one of the seven auction houses, each dealing with a different kind of merchandise.

Beyond those who procured high-value base items on an opportunistic, occasional manner, there were those who cultivated herbs and reared mid-level monsters on their own, supplying the fruits of their labors to those who had a use for them.

Above them were the first-contact craftsmen, taking those prime resources and refining them into things usable by the specialized craftsmen of the level above.

Those specialized craftsmen, in turn, would take the pre-fabricated elements and masterfully put them together to create a finished product, be it a potion, formation, or maybe a magic-engineering tool that everyone else on the market would have their own uses for.

A team of students specializing in hunting monsters would buy potions and formations to improve the efficiency and safety of their hunts. The farmers and monster ranchers would supply themselves with special fertilizers and feeds, each a product straight from the alchemy department of the academy. The refiners wouldn’t be able to do their job without proper magic tools, and the specialist craftsmen often needed an array of items from every field imaginable to make their job possible.

It was in this way that the academy took in basic resources, ranging from the cheapest to some of the most expensive ones, and then processed them as much as it was currently possible. Then, after satisfying the local needs for whatever its specialists could produce, the remaining wares would be sold off to the academy sponsors at a discount or to the wide world at whatever price it was willing to offer.

Just like that, this one area of the academy gave birth to a fully autonomous economy with enough of a surplus to make the profits from the tax on all the internal sales and then the profit off the external sales contribute a considerable percentage to the academy’s budget, be it through the sponsor incentivization or the direct proceeds from the sales.

And with all of that trade, all of that produce and craftsmanship centralized to just a single location, there was no better place at the academy for anyone to make some serious money.

But today, it wasn’t money that Theo was after.

No.

If anyone had enough time to waste to spare them a look longer than what was necessary to confirm they weren’t likely customers, they would likely judge Theo’s group to be just tourists—two teachers and their two disciples out on a trip to show the new generation the wonders one could not only get their hands on but also participate in creating.

Trips like that weren’t all that uncommon, often put to use by the teachers to help their disciples find some clues to what their calling could be. And with how there was a considerable number of refiners and craftsmen using their rented spots both as a shopping stall but also a crafting area, there was no better place for someone interested in a craft to see how it looked in reality.

To a degree, Theo’s group adhered to the principles of this kind of a trip, with both Tesh and Lukas looking around with their eyes shining, curious about every shiny item on every stall they passed by.

"Oh my gosh! Look at this!" Tesh squealed in a high-pitched voice, taking a seemingly simple cube into her hands and then raising it up to the sky, all under the watchful eyes of both Celeste and the owner of the stall she just took the item from. "Wait, isn’t it fifth generation already?!" she then added in an even more excited voice than before, her body suddenly growing rather still as she lowered the item back to the stall with utmost, almost excessive care.

"So it is," the stall-owner replied with a small smirk of satisfaction while his hands continued to screw two small parts together, clearly a tiny element of a much bigger whole. "Our workshop managed to improve the ratio of the light absorbed into the light dispersed, greatly limiting the waste and thus decreasing the need for the light amplification," he explained with a professional smile, putting the part he just finished away only to grab two exact copies of the elements he just combined before starting to screw those together too. "Going by rough estimate, with just six generation five cubes you can achieve as much as with eleven cubes of fourth generation!"

The item Tesh held up only to then carefully bring back down was just a nicely decorated prism, splitting the white light into its constituent parts for... for reasons Theo had no clue about. Reasons that, judging by the way both the shopkeeper and Tesh acted, were supposed to be quite damn obvious.

This discrepancy between what Theo should know and what he actually knew was exactly why he decided to visit the central marketplace.

His group of two teachers and two disciples wasn’t here to help Tesh or Lukas figure out what kind of job they would like to do beyond just growing their strength as cultivators or mages, even if they all happily pretended that to be the case.

No, this trip was for Theo to take a look at all sorts of inventions local to this place, so that he could learn more about all the possible uses for the mana coursing in his veins!

After all, as anyone could learn with just a single look at the people spending all of their time in the marketplace, reaching a high level of personal strength wasn’t the goal itself but merely a prerequisite for them to dabble in jobs that actually allowed them to turn a profit!

"Somber stones for sale! Somber stones for sale!" someone tried to attract customers by levitating a huge sign in the air while simultaneously announcing their wares by means as simple as mana-reinforced shouting.

"Hey you, yes, you! Look over here! We’ve got the freshest bottles from the immortal brewery here! Only two tokens per bottle!"

"Spirit stooooones! Spirit stones for sale!"

The noises made by the salesmen mixed with the noises of hundreds of different crafters banging parts together, mixing ingredients in huge pots, or humming different mantras while enchanting pendants. To a degree, it was this very noise that created the specific vibe of this place, a sense that one could easily drown themselves in, quickly growing too addicted to this liveliness to ever give up on it, soon to become a part of the noisy crowd, a part of the central market.

Theo, however, just as it was his habit, refused to follow the example of his disciples or even Celeste.

His eyes were firmly set to the front, always there to help him navigate through the messy, chaotic crowd of this busy place.

He wasn’t here to amuse himself with the lively atmosphere. He wasn’t here to marvel at each and every quirky item others would lose their minds over. He wasn’t even here to gauge the prices or to figure out what kind of wares he could try to replicate to turn considerable profit with ease.

No.

He was here to do all of that and more. Above all, however, he was here to find some inspiration. And for Theo to learn all there was to learn about all sorts of items, half-products, and finished crafts, each one with a different function and purpose...

The swarm of his nanites was infinitely better than just throwing unfocused glances all over the place!