"Those are…!"
The Clerk's wrinkled eyes shot up wide, only for the man to rapidly blink a few times, trying to shed whatever illusion Theo might've cast on him to see the stones in his pouch for what they really were.
Yet, no matter how many times he blinked, those stones continued to look exactly the same, like pure crystals with a slight, blueish hue ensnared within, never to be exhausted until the stone would be used by a cultivator.
"I… S-sir… I might need to call my manager for a transaction like that, so if that wouldn't be too much of an issue…"
Theo nodded his head before the poor clerk could even finish his excuse.
"That works for me too. I understand that I'm asking a bit much from just a clerk, so I would be perfectly happy if you brought over someone allowed to make deals with those."
Even if the spirit stones were an unofficial currency of the cultivators, one used to deal with the cultivation-related materials, manuscripts, and all the likes, for a common person…?
Even for a frontier's farmer who worked the fields for long enough to do the smart thing and change his job to a safer, less back-breaking, and better-paying one as a shop's clerk… Even for him, seeing that many spirit stones at once could, or rather – was likely to be a first.
'For the lower-rank cultivators, getting their hands on a single stone would be their lifetime limit, and even then – only if they were insanely lucky,' Theo thought, watching how the clerk backed away, his old, wrinkled eyes filled with reverence and fear.
"Oh, before you go, good man," Theo smiled as he called after the clerk before he could vanish from his sights or escape the range of his voice.
"Y-yes s-s-sir?"
Called back right as he thought he was about to get away from such a troublesome matter, the old clerk appeared like a man who brought over for a ceremonial pardon, only for it to take place on execution grounds with no one any wiser about the whole pardon thingy.
"Where can I find the things I asked for? Especially the raw ingriedients?" Theo asked with a courtly, polite smile. "I would love to inspect them so that I know what I'm paying for."
For all the fear that the poor man felt, Theo had absolutely no plans at making life any harder for the man than it already was.
Sure, most of the commoners wouldn't mix with actual cultivators or nobles, but the societal divide between the common folk and the valiant nobility inherently invited fear into any interaction between the two.
Not even out of malice on the nobility or cultivator's end, but more out of their ignorance of the common sense that everyone below them had to live by.
"Ah," the clerk breathed out a visible sigh of relief. "While for the pastries, I intended to have them ordered from the bakeries affiliated with our cooperative, the sugar and salt can be found at the second floor, good sir," he reported dutifully.
"Second floor?" Theo raised his eyebrows. "Not in the safety of the third one?"
Just like Theo's experiment from very recently proved, only those at the very peak of magic or cultivation could conquer the skies. And people on that level wouldn't be interested in robbing a shop out of something as common and relatively cheap as sugar or salt.
The low-rank cultivators, on the other hand, were more than just capable of jumping up to the building's second floor, while a third or fourth would be out of the range for most.
Which is why, for something as expensive in the mortal common sense as the two raw ingredients Theo desired, he would expect them to be on the highest floor of the shop possible. In this way, not only a thief with some cultivation base couldn't reach them simply by jumping up, but they would be the most challenging to carry away in case of a more organized robbery.
"Ah, sir, it's because our roof is leaking," the clerk likely guessed Theo's thoughts before providing him with an explanation so logical and simple, Theo nearly choked on his own spit. "We've been trying to get it repaired, but it's easier to just move the solvable wares down to the more secure floors than replacing all the roofing in such a huge building."
"That makes sense," Theo nodded his head to express his gratitude. "Then, one last thing, where can I find the stairs?"
"Follow me, good sir. They are on the way to the manager's office, so if I could be of service and guide you towards them…"
A few short moments later, Theo bid a silent farewell to the old clerk before ascending to the second level of the shop. And right away, he could both see… and feel the difference.
Down at the ground floor, with the masonry-based walls, the air felt thicker, heavier, and somewhat colder, with the stone of the walls providing both an insulation from the heat of the day while also slowly dissipating the coldness it gained through the night into the building's insides.
On the second floor, the air was a lot lighter, fresher, pretty much revealing the reason for why even a cooperative rich and powerful enough to own one of the bigger buildings in the district would struggle to keep its roof from leaking.
'This place is held by hopes and prayers more than nails and mortars,' Theo thought, squinting his eyes a tiny little bit as even the wooden floor upon which he stepped seemed to be just a slight misfortune away from breaking under his weight.
For as uncertain as it felt to walk on the second floor, Theo didn't really have much choice. And as he finally reached the part of the shop where he spotted the familiar sight, his focus moved over to his task so completely, he forgot about all his architectural-related worries.
After all, with how easy it was to find the shop with exactly what Theo was looking for, it was only reasonable for the difficulty to appear later, right when Theo thought he had the whole thing in the bag.
'I kind of forgot all about it, but I guess that's the best kind of a sugar I could ask for in a place like this,' Theo thought, his face darkening as he lowered himself down on one knee over the displayed case of a coarse powder in the dark hue of brown.
It was nothing like the perfectly white goodness he was familiar with and upon which he based his plans.
And while Theo's range of various, inobligatory interests was quite wide, he was no alchemist in the true meaning of this world. Regardless of how easy it could potentially be to purify this coarse, brown sugar offered by the shop into the pure, white crystals he was familiar with… without even a clue on how to start, not even Theo's best wishes and intentions could allow him to do that!
'I guess I can either get an alchemist to do it for me, or just put the sugar aside and focus on the salt. And unless I want everyone in the royal family to know I'm up to something…'
Theo shook his head. And stuck in the crowd of merchants moving all around the floor while, in the same way he did, inspecting the wares on display, he allowed his emotions to reflect on his face.
After all, while both sugar and salt would work for Theo's purposes, there were some very specific uses for both that he was planning to rely on.
"I guess I have to scrap the plans for boomcandy, huh?" he muttered to himself, taking one last look at the brown goodness before rising up, shaking his head and then turning his head, eager to check whether the salt offered at the shop would come with problems on its own.
Before he could as much as take a glance around, however…
"Welcome to our humble establishment, good sir," a fancily dressed stranger approached, curling up the long whisker of his mustache with a small, confident smile. "I've been informed you are in need of an exchange, is that correct, sir?"