God of Trash

There were piles of rotting food amidst the rubbish, plus shredded herbs that were too far gone to be used in even the most impure of potions. He picked out the compostable matter, leaving behind the bones, meats, and cheeses, and made a compost heap. Rather than simply wait for nature to take its course, he scanned over the compost pile with his mana, searching for the tiniest signs of life. He needed microorganisms and bugs. They were what turned food into compost. If he could supercharge them with mana, he’d have compost much faster. Mana made people stronger and animals stronger, so why not bugs and bacteria?

Time passed. He sat down and meditated beside the compost pile, focusing all his mana on the pile. He sensed the rats picking at the pile, the chipmunks burrowing into it. Smaller. Large worms and big beetles appeared on his awareness, shimmering with mana. Not yet. Smaller! He burrowed down deeper yet. His whole world was the compost pile. The compost pile marked the edges of his universe, and he knew nothing but the compost. Every leaf, every piece of scrap, every bug lit up in his mind.

And then his mind expanded. He saw more, saw smaller things. Down into the abyss below bugs. Tiny spots of light lit up in his vision. They huddled together in splotches, clinging to one another for warmth.

There. Rhys pushed his mana into them and the bugs alike. The microorganisms immediately leaped into action. They multiplied at a furious rate, chewing through the compost. The bugs, too, sped up. Their actions had been at bug speeds before, but now, they all ran around like maniacs, chewing down leaves and shitting them out at turbo speed.

He opened his eyes. The pile of scraps transformed into lush, dark compost before his eyes. When it was all transformed, he stopped putting mana into it, and all the organisms returned to normal.

Rhys took the compost and spread some of it over his existing garden. There was still plenty of room in the wilderness, and plenty of compost, too. He took a moment to pick through the garbage until he found a broken rake, then raked up a patch of ground. Some more herbs went down, roots and bits that could grow into fresh plants, and then he covered them with a good layer of compost.

He repeated his actions over and over until he ran out of mana. There was no shortage of bits and bobs of herbs in the trash, nor any shortage of compost materials. When he was done, five neat plots of herbs stood next to the garbage pile. But there were still more herbs to plant, and still more materials to compost. The only limitation was his small mana pool.

Rhys stood back, pinching his chin. He wasn’t going to make much profit with five small plots. Sure, he could treat these as his first generation, then build a second and third generation, and so on, but that was boring, and it took too much time. He wanted a profitable garden right now. Not only that, but he knew he could do it. If he followed the same principles as the compost-generation, he could speed up the growth of the herbs. From the alchemy book, some herbs needed very specific growing conditions, but none of the herbs at this low a level needed that special of a caring regimen. He could throw them in good soil, pump them full of mana, and harvest them immediately for a profit.

Of course, the problem was that anyone could do that. The only limitation was mana, and mana was a serious limitation for everyone, not just trash-tier low level mages like Rhys. He’d need to be basically hooked up to an infinite supply of mana to make it worth it. He did have better soil than most people would have access to, so that was a definite advantage for him; that would lower the amount of mana he’d need to grow the plants, and if he simply sat still and waited, he’d be able to grow good herbs one way or another. But he didn’t just want the same slow rate of herbs anyone else could produce. He wanted to get rich from the trash, and that meant doing more than ordinary gardening.

He could try charging for removal, but he didn’t want anyone else to get ideas. The trash belonged to him. If someone else saw him charging money for trash removal, they might try to butt in on his market. Better to make it a free service so no one thought about butting in on it, and reap the benefits of the trash himself. The last thing he wanted was for someone else to start getting ideas about his trash.

Sitting back, he sighed. At times like this, he missed Bast. Bast would happily dig a dozen plots for him, even if he didn’t have the mana to create compost or grow the plants yet. Motivate him. Provide the effort to force him to keep going when he got tired or lost the plot. He needed a friend. Someone who would help him out with his wild plans.

Of course, then he’d have to split the profits, so there were downsides as well.