Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 97: A newcomer’s welcome

Chapter 97: A newcomer’s welcome

The insides of the auction house were nowhere as grand as its exterior. That, however, by no means meant it wasn’t representative.

No.

If the exterior of the auction house was set to overwhelm and awe anyone who laid their eyes on it, then its interior was kept in a much more cozy, homely, yet still perfectly rich manner.

In place of a huge open area displaying the full size of the domed cube from within, the building’s insides were all covered up and split into parts, the biggest one of which had to be the entry hall that occupied roughly a quarter of the building’s floor space.

Contrary to Theo’s expectations, the inner side of the building’s impressive dome couldn’t be seen either, perfectly covered up with a simple roof just a little bit higher than what one would expect from a standard residential building, implying the whole place actually served a much more practical role than its exterior would suggest.

Still, even though it was but a small part of the bigger whole, the entry hall was as impressive as it could get.

Occupying roughly half of the building’s width with one quarter of it left to both of its sides, it consisted of a huge, open hall in the middle and then counters and doors arranged in a checkerboard pattern by its sides. Only the very front of the hall, the part of it one could see as soon as they walked through the main entrance, was free of any obstructions like that, occupied with just a grand entrance leading up to the innermost part of the building.

’That’s one hell of a weird design,’ Theo thought as his eyes moved from left to right, scanning the place’s interior in his bid to remember the building’s layout and then try to make some sense out of it.

The counters to the side made sense, given the huge crowd of people lining up to most of them, some bearing huge bags, others firmly closing their fists over their storage rings, while some approached with arrogant levels of confidence with nothing but a self-assured smile on them.

The doors located between each of the counters made sense too, either as a way for the staff of the place to move around without drawing too much attention or for the customers to move towards the deeper parts of the building — ones that required explicit permission for anyone to visit.

The big entrance located perfectly in line with the building’s main gate was just as logical and rational as the rest of the elements Theo noticed, located perfectly in line with all those entering to daze them with its golden magnificence, baiting them to do whatever necessary to one day pass through and enter the most important area of the whole building.

Every single part of this building made a total and absolute, practical sense. Yet, when all combined into a greater whole?

’It’s like a mad architect’s nightmare,’ Theo thought.

There were thousands of more efficient ways of positioning the counters to make them more accessible for the customers. The doors, if exclusively for staff use, could be hidden much more cleverly. The doors restricted to those with access lacked the same charm as the inner entrance to visually bait the customers into obtaining the necessary qualifications to pass through.

Heck, even the main, inner gate appeared to only serve the purpose of baiting the customers in while being nothing more than a swarm-risk if anything were to happen on their other end, with their narrow width easily turning a panic in a crowd into a deadly stampede.

"This place..." Theo muttered, struggling to finalize all of those thoughts into one result, one leading thought that could put some sense back into the design, "is it just me, or is it quite weird?"

Theo cast a quick look over his group, only to be met with a look of curious confusion from Celeste... and see both of his disciples too distracted by the comfortable yet luxurious design of the place to care about his commentary.

Yet, pretty much the very next moment, Tesh’s face suddenly turned, only for her face to go from all dreamy to openly hostile.

"Welcome to the Grand Potion auction hall!"

Following the voice, Theo turned, only to then get rooted in place by the sight before his eyes.

If a goddess of elegant beauty had a child with the divine presence of sluttiness, then that child would be the woman that now stood right in front of Theo, an inch too deep into his personal space to make her spacing accidental or random.

She was clothed in quite the similar robes to what Celeste was wearing, only that quite a lot of the material was missing from her robes, exposing nearly the entire length of the side of her legs, reaching as far up as the small knot directly on her hip where the front of her robe finally met with its backside.

As if just exposing the full length of the sides of her legs wasn’t enough, the woman’s robe cut right in the middle, leaving no cloth to hide her inner thighs or elegant panties that both peeked from beneath the cloth of her robes with every step... No, with every smallest twitch.

The upper half of the woman’s robes wasn’t any better, with just enough of the cloth remaining to keep her robes moderately decent, while the gaps in it made sure no one ever had any doubt about the exact shape or size of her assets.

To top it all off, the woman’s cutely fresh face wrapped in the golden light of her long, straight, blonde hair finished up the picture of what had to be living and breathing bait for the horny to come and spend their money in this place.

Theo, being the man that he was, only managed to get his eyes back in control after giving the woman a proper, sweeping look and then saving all the details of her looks to his memory.

An involuntary decision that strangely caused both Celeste and Tesh to step forth and grab one of his arms each, pushing their chests against his sides while staring daggers at the flesh-bait of a woman.

"Since I cannot recall seeing your faces before, allow me a few words of explanation," smirking at the notion of Theo now having a flower hanging from each of his arms, the auction house presenter smiled before pointing both of her arms in an excessively elegant way to Theo’s left.

"If you wish to trade ordinary items in bulk, you should head off to the west-wing auction auditorium," she explained quickly, only to swing her arms in an impossible motion and then point to the other side. "To the east, you will find the low-auction hall, where actual auctions over valuable ingredients and potions take place. And if you either sell or buy enough in our house or through our affiliates," the woman’s smile only grew brighter as she suddenly turned to the side in a sweeping, perfectly calculated motion that made her robes flutter in... just the right way.

"Then, you shall earn an invite to the grand auction taking place behind the golden doors, where only the most precious of items are traded," she explained. "Oh, and last but not least," the woman’s smile suddenly grew openly lewd, "did I mention how our golden invites come with the right to request the company of me or any of my sisters?"