Theo had a strict time limit that he had to stick to if he wanted his trip to actually serve his purposes beyond what Narmidor sent him to deal with.
Half of a day to reach Vistra. The other half of the day to get all the shopping done, stash the wares at the transportation guild, and then get himself a place to spend the night. Then, arrange a priority transport with the guild that he could either accompany back to the sect to ensure its safety… Or pay them a little bit more so that the guild itself would take care of the transport's safety.
Out of all those objectives, the one that Theo found to be arguably the most challenging, most annoying to deal with was not what a normal person would ever suspect - it was the aspect of lodging.
As a royal prince, he couldn't just go into a random tavern, get himself a drink, and then just spend the night at the inn's fireplace for a bunch of coppers.
No.
Unless he wanted to put himself in the middle of a scandal, he had to either spend some exorbitant amount for a lodging befitting a royal descendant or barge into a noble's mansion and 'politely request' for them to put him up through the night.
With this kind of a plan, Theo would have absolutely no time to deal with his actual objectives, forced to rush with all his might just to get his official mission dealt with.
Which is why, rather than doing things the way others expected him to, Theo stopped running as soon as he put enough distance between himself and the sect, slowing down to a grinding halt out in the middle of nowhere.
"Now then…"
With a quick look to confirm there were no onlookers anywhere around, Theo drew some of his mana through the mana-gate and into his fist, before casually bringing it down upon the dirt road he was running along.
Thump.
Theo's slam didn't leave behind an impact crater, but it was strong enough to kick a bunch of smaller stones up from the road when the force of the impact spread through the ground.
The stones that he then held up with his mana while raising up and then taking another look around, this time with a much different purpose than before.
"This place is as good as any other, I guess," he muttered to himself as he brought the stones closer to his chest, giving them a quick look before using a sliver of his mana to carve them all up.
'Who would've known that practicing how to set this formation up until I could do it while half-asleep would actually come in handy,' Theo smirked to his own thoughts as he held the carved-up stones in his hand before starting to casually stroll down the road, his eyes stuck right at his feet.
Despite the strict time constraints he had to abide by, Theo continued to waste the time just walking for the next fifteen minutes before his eyes finally locked on what he was looking for - a seemingly ordinary stone, just like the one he found back at his sect.
A crystalline stone.
'It's a far cry from an actual jewel, but for its purpose, it's good enough.'
Right now, there was still one problem that Theo absolutely had to address. An issue that would derail his official plans if he fancied actually following them to the letter.
Right now, Theo had no money of any kind.
'Go.'
With a single swing of his arm, Theo tossed the carved-up pebbles he gathered just before, using the sliver of mana to correct their course and thus arranging them into the very same formation he used back at Narmidor's place.
The mana in the air stirred as Theo activated the formation while carefully placing the crystalline stone in its center.
'Now, for the more difficult part…'
Theo didn't wait for the formation to saturate the stone, turning it into a mana battery slash spiritual stone.
No.
He moved to carve it up with his own mana right as the formation-bound mana started to feed into it, transforming the ordinary stone into a precious cultivation resource.
All of this, however, was but the first step of Theo's plan. After all, neither sugar nor salt were cheap in this part of the world, when compared to the much more developed place Theo's old self hailed from.
Lack of the proper methods to obtain the ingredients Theo needed greatly limited their amount on the market. The scarcity, in turn, drove the prices higher and higher, making it so that a single spirit stone, while precious in its own right, was nowhere near as valuable as what Theo wanted to get his hands on!
Which is exactly why he started to work on the spirit stone even before it actually became a spirit stone, turning it from just a mana battery into a low-grade artifact by the time the transformation process concluded.
And then, holding the shiny piece in his hand, Theo closed his eyes and infused the crystal with another sliver of his mana.
'Now, where are you…' he thought as he summoned all of the carved-up pebbles back to his hand before starting to casually jog down the road, attuned to the delicate resonance the crystal would create once its influence would wash over a stone of similar properties.
Step after step, Theo attuned to the flow of the world's mana around him and the flow within his hand where he kept the manufactured crystals.
'There!'
His attention snapped when the two flows suddenly diverged from each other, a result only possible if there was another object that his crystal could resonate with.
Three steps to the right, into the wild bushes, and Theo added another crystalline stone to his collection… Only to hurry back to the road, coat the freshly obtained stone with a thin layer of his own mana, and then start the process from scratch.
Bit by bit, Theo continued to move down the road, slowly gathering more and more of the crystalline stones, all the way to the point where he had enough of them to fill his sack to the brim.
"That should be enough," he spoke to himself, his voice all cheerful at the prospect of the job well done, even if he only managed to complete the first step of the first stage of the first iteration of his plan. "Now, for the second step…"
Theo swung his arm once again, throwing the carved-up pebbles all around. This time, however, rather than activating the formation on the spot, he struck the ground instead. And after picking up a fresh batch of the light pebbles and carving them up… he did it again.
Punch to the ground, moment to cast the net of mana and collect all the stones small and light enough to be lifted by the impact of his seemingly pointless attack, and then a dance of Theo's mana as he used it to carve away at the surface of the pebbles.
For Theo, it was a simple task… but one that forced him to stay focused. For anyone who would watch him, however, he would appear like a madman smashing his fist into the road over and over again, only to then somehow summon a bunch of pebbles to his hand… and then toss them aside before repeating the process all over again.
This was in no way a manner in which a royal should behave. Theo, however, couldn't care less. Because after roughly ten repetitions of the process, he finally gathered enough pebbles to set up all the formations that he needed.
"For the next part, I wonder," Theo commented on his own actions to the audience of the wild bushes and empty road, stretching as far as he could see in both directions, "does it classify as money-making, fraud, or maybe currency manipulation?"