Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 95: The origin of the modern magic

Chapter 95: The origin of the modern magic

"Master! Look at this!"

After Tesh had her turn fan-girling over the light-splitting device as if it was the newest model of a smartphone with a bitten apple engraved on its back, Lukas decided to prove they really had to compete over everything, even something as silly as freaking out about random items on the marketplace.

Now, he cradled a decorative, scales-covered egg in his hands, as careful as one would be with a flaming match in a sea of gasoline.

"It’s a formation seedling!"

Up until this point, Theo dismissed Lukas’ excited words. Yet, with the use of just a single key word, his disciple managed to command Theo’s undivided attention.

"Formation seedling?" Theo asked as he approached the stall, stopping his procession through the market for the very first time since they’d entered it. "As in, you plant it and then wait for a formation to... hatch?" he asked, his face twisting in confusion as he attempted to figure out the mystery of this item.

An item that, as Theo glanced down at a small tag with its price, could very well be much more expensive than the mansion he took from Julius... and everything in it, the contracts for the staff and all sorts of hidden treasures included.

"Be careful with it, boy," the shopkeeper, a short yet extremely burly man that appeared to be more of a dwarf than an actual dwarf could ever be, warned in a low voice. "You wouldn’t want to drop it."

This was all a trick.

Either a scam to have it destroyed by some ’unfortunate accident’ followed by a demand for some insane reparations, or an elaborate scheme aimed at snatching the attention of only those with the deepest of deep pockets.

Why else would such a costly item be displayed for all to see and pick, if it could be activated or seriously damaged with a short fall?

Sure, there was a chance it was a rare find, an artifact the value of which went far beyond its already steep price... A chance that Theo mostly dismissed.

’Opportunities like that only ever appear in novels written by people too stupid to make their characters grow rich in a plausible way... or written for people amused by such convenient plot devices.’

It was one thing for an extremely valuable artifact to find its way to the market. Heck, it would still be possible for even an experienced trader not to be aware of its value.

But for it to go unnoticed in the middle of the central market, a place frequented by quite literally every single powerhouse of the academy?

’Yeah, there’s no way this is something bigger than it appears to be,’ Theo thought, leaning over Lukas’ hand as he took a closer look at the decorative egg.

From up close, it looked even nicer than when viewed from afar, with every single scale covering its surface turning out to be inscribed with some kind of a rune. And out of the few hundred or so scales covering the egg...

Theo could spot only a few runes he could recognize.

"Shopkeep, what exactly is this thing?" Theo raised his head and asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. "A deployable formation of some sort?"

The dwarf on the other side of the simple stall smirked and shook his head.

"It’s nothing as simple and ordinary as those deployable pieces of trash. This here," he leisurely pointed with his fat finger at the egg in Lukas’ hands, "is a bona fide formation seed," he revealed... clearly missing the point of Theo’s question.

"And that is?" Theo asked, digging deeper while leaning his head over to the side.

Contrary to Theo’s expectation, the seller’s smirk didn’t grow bigger as it should when he revealed himself to be ignorant of the item in question.

Normally, this lack of knowledge would be a gap any merchant would happily and brutally exploit, but this man here?

The moment Theo asked his question, his face sunk as if he just bit down on some juicy and extremely sour fruit.

"If you don’t know what it is, then you can’t afford it. And if you can’t afford it, what’s the point in me explaining?"

The man shrugged and flicked his hand, causing the egg to fly out of Lukas’ hands and then gently land right back where the young man had picked it up from.

"Now, begone. You are making it hard for others to see my wares."

Shooing the group away with a leisurely wave of his hand, the dwarf had already removed Theo’s group from his consciousness, turning their rating from potential customers to nothing more than loitering idiots.

"Well, your stall, your rules," Theo shrugged his shoulders as he straightened his back, rolled his eyes and then turned away, perfectly happy to follow the man’s request and leave.

"Are you for real?" Celeste spoke out before Theo could even properly distance himself from the stall. "I thought you were into formations, so how come you’ve dismissed its seed so easily?" she asked, speeding up to move ahead of Theo only to then turn around and match his speed while walking backward, all so that she could keep her eyes on his face. "I know it’s always a bit of a gamble with those, but..."

"Didn’t you hear me asking what that formation egg is?" Theo interrupted Celeste before she could go on a prolonged tangent. "Why is it that both you and that shopkeeper assumed that what those formation eggs are is common knowledge?"

Celeste brought her eyebrows together, her eyes opening up a bit wider than normal.

"Wait, you seriously don’t know?"

"Do I need to repeat myself for the third time for anyone to believe me?" Theo wailed while raising his eyes to the sky as if to complain to the heavens themselves.

"Master, a formation egg, when planted in mana-rich soil, is said to grow into an ancient formation," Lukas hurried to explain the whole thing, sensing the opportunity to score some points with Theo and thus, get ahead of Tesh in their imaginary competition. "As long as certain pre-requisites are maintained, once the formation fully blooms, it can then be used to study the ancient runes, otherwise known as arcana."

"If lucky, you will get to discover a new working rune," Celeste finished up the explanation, finally coming to terms with the degree to which Theo was detached from what she considered common sense. "That’s why it’s a gamble," she added with a shrug of her shoulders, "depending on the class of an egg, you could have as little as a single percent chance of discovering a new rune, while the high-end ones can give you odds as high as seventy percent. But those probabilities are all about discovering a working rune. Don’t forget that even if you luck out, there’s still a chance the arcana you discover won’t be anything new, but one of the ones in common use."

"That’s..."

Theo squinted his eyes. His steps slowed down while his hand moved down to rub his chin.

It wasn’t the formation egg itself or even the whole gambling thing that caught his attention, though.

’Is that how the study of formations of today came to be?’ Theo posed the question in his mind, only to sink deeper and deeper into the hole this question created. ’And if so, that means there used to be a civilization with far more advanced magical means than what’s possible today, the remains of which lay at the foundation of the modern magic.’

This trope was popular in the novels of Theo’s old world for a reason—it simply made sense. Yet, in Theo’s specific circumstances of actually living in a world taken straight out of some kind of a fantasy novel, the weight of this realization was far greater than just that, its importance reaching far beyond just the niche of formations.

"And that’s the second habit that makes you hard to approach or, to a degree, understand," Celeste sighed, her words just loud enough to drag Theo out of his daze and force him to focus back on reality instead. "It’s okay to think things through, but do you have any idea how annoying it is when you just... close yourself down and ignore everything around you while you muse over whatever it is that you are thinking right now?"

Hearing all of this, Theo merely raised his right eyebrow. Yet, as soon as he gathered the breath to bounce the ball back to Celeste’s court... he sighed his breath out and then lowered his head a bit.

"Point taken," he said, revealing his small bow to be an apologetic one, "I guess I’m just not all that used to taking into account the people around me. My best bet, I’ve spent so long all on my own, I’ve developed habits that do not account for the presence of companions around me."

Obviously, that was nothing short of bullshit. If anything, Theo simply attached that much more weight to his sudden discovery than he did to Celeste or even his own disciples, even with all those weird and complex feelings he was starting to feel about them.

After all, in a certain way, learning about the existence of some ancient, half-forgotten civilizations was like hitting the jackpot, the best potential outcome for why he even came to the marketplace in the first place.

At the same time, however, there was absolutely no reason for Theo to let his excitement get the better of him. There were still more things to learn from touring this place and absolutely no rush for him to gather his thoughts about all his findings.

"Well, as long as you understand," satisfied with Theo’s response, Celeste nodded her head before finally turning back and then slowing down just enough to put Theo back in the lead. "At the very least you didn’t waste everyone’s time trying to study the runes on that egg’s scales," she added with relief oozing out of her voice.

’Oh, that’s right,’ reminded of the detail, Theo smiled, ’Hive, did you get the proper scan of the entire thing?’

<Designated Object’s Scan: Completed>

The Hive, always listening to even the deepest of Theo’s thoughts, readily responded.

<Would you like to have all runes engraved upon the object listed out?>