God of Trash

The light faded away from the robes Rhys had sewn from the piercing-resistant fabric. Once more, it had melded together, but this time, it looked far more handsome. He’d bothered to pick fabrics with complimentary patterns, colors, and textures this time to craft a garment that actually looked passable, since this would be his external clothing, and he quickly put it on. He’d mostly used dark colors—navy, forest green, brown, and black—since there were plenty of dark colors in the pile, and many of them were complimentary. Some highlights of white mixed in as contrast.

The robes were loose. They naturally draped around his body to hide the seams where the fabrics melded together, where the colors got a bit blurred and strange. The central panel was black, with a small white panel just outside, then blue and green in that order, finishing with black again in the center back. The sleeves were made from brown leather, and he’d made a belt to match, with a buckle he’d fished out of a different pile of trash. The shoulders were reinforced with a darker shade of leather, as was the collar. They weren’t the best-looking robes he’d ever seen, but they were passable for his first attempt at making clothes with his new technique.

Trash Enchanting was now level 2, and he was almost out of mana. He’d taken two full potions to enchant the larger robes, but he had plenty of potions, and as long as he took them one sip at a time, Less is More kicked in and provided him with bonus mana, which multiplied the total mana that he could absorb from the potions by several times. He sipped the mana potion again and checked on the ash. It had burned down, and was about ready to brew.

Farewell, giant trash pile from the upper peak. Rhys saluted to the pile of ash, then drew out his cauldron and started piling ash inside to begin the process of concentrating the impurities. He skimmed the purified ash out and added more, over and over, until the pot was absolutely full of impurities. On and on, until at last, he called a blob of impurities out of the cauldron and tucked it away into his robes.

He patted his chest, pleased. Two goals achieved: new robes, and a new, stronger impurities potion that he could absorb slowly while he was leading the Purple Dawn folks around. He’d defeated them soundly, and their attempts to catch the school on the back foot had failed, thanks to his intervention. Everything was going swimmingly.

The hairs on the back of Rhys’ neck prickled, and he grimaced. It was all going well, but that only made him more suspicious. For a group that was supposed to find every fault and not stop until he and his school were embarrassed and subservient to their academy, they sure had been playing by the rules so far.

He hurried down the mountain, through the barrier, and toward the cabin where the students had been given quarters. He’d almost reached the cabin when he heard footsteps, crunching through the undergrowth. From his training with Bast and Straw, Rhys instinctively moved silently through forests, and his Trash Step only enhanced his ability to move silently, given that the ground was carpeted in leaves the trees had thrown away. Before anyone saw him, Rhys reined in his aura and ducked behind a tree, holding his breath.

“…even looking for?” Mae asked, frustrated.

“Anything that can embarrass the school. Split up. We need to cover as much ground as we can,” Walter replied.

“What about Ernesto?” Victor asked.

Hono scoffed. “Do you ever listen? He told us. He’s chasing down the source of that terrifying curse energy I sensed. If this Infinite Constellation School is really brewing a curse that potent, forget conquering this school; he’ll be able to bring down the force of the entire North-Eastern Alliance on their heads. We’ll crack this place open like an egg and suck all the valuables out of it.”

“Yuck. What are you doing to eggs?” Victor asked, disgusted.