Chapter 23. Star Ice Seed
Pausing in the center of the square, Rhys extended his mana. He searched the air, hunting out any sign of Tarais’ signature. For a long moment, there was nothing, and then the color of her materialized, brushing the very limit of his senses. He chased after it, leaving the square behind. Not far behind the main buildings, he came up to a large, blank, boring-looking white building with evenly spaced windows placed at short intervals over its entire three-story height. Instantly, he recognized it. A hive of villainy. A pillar of filth. A den of utter depravity.
A dormitory.
Or at least, it had been that way in his college. It was probably different in a school for mages in the medieval era.
Yeah, it’s probably worse, he thought, laughing to himself.
He stood outside for a moment, contemplating how to get her attention. He was used to the building itself; he could count on it for a good couple armloads of trash every few days. But he’d never been inside, and he didn’t know, either, if he should go inside. What if it was a women’s dormitory? He already had Cynog on his case. He didn’t need all the women of Infinite Constellation School out to murder him, too.
A male student passed by and entered the dormitory, thus ending his moral conundrum. Rhys followed him in. The dorm was a pretty familiar layout to him, with narrow white hallways and doors on either side of each hall. Each room held a single aura… for the most part. He didn’t look too closely at the ones that held two or more. They were probably just wholesome study groups, anyways. Good students, focusing eagerly on practice and study.
He traced Tarais’ aura through the dorm to a boring door on the third floor. There, he paused, scanning her room briefly. When he sensed Tarais and only Tarais’ aura within, he knocked.
“Hello?” Tarais pushed the door open, only to frown when she saw Rhys. “You’re still alive?”
“Yep! Do you have time to help me grow some herbs?”
She considered for a second, then shrugged and nodded. “Lead the way.”
They quickly crossed the peak and reached Rhys’ cave in no time. The furniture he’d found ripped up in the storage ring was patched with fragments of robes from the trash. Bright segments of fine fabrics gave the furniture a boho look…at least in Rhys’ opinion. From the look Tarais shot it, she had a much lower opinion of his efforts. He shook his head. She couldn’t comprehend his modern aesthetic.
Around the corner, he already had the plots set up. In his few moments of downtime the previous week, he’d set the scraps of herbs from the garbage into the plowed earth. There was still enough compost hanging around that he’d been able to renew the rich soil around the herbs. Rhys checked his stocks of compost, then sighed. It wasn’t low, but it wasn’t high, either. If he had extra mana after growing the Star Ice herb and the other herbs, he might as well have the compost ready to go. “I’m going to separate out the compostable garbage, if you want to wait for a minute.”