Chapter 54. Becoming Trash
Activating Trash Manipulation, Rhys pulled the trash toward himself. Rather than staving it off, trying to push the trash away and reject it like any sane person would do when beset by deadly toxic garbage, he dragged it forcibly into himself. This was his last breath of life, the last spark of mana. The trash, the goo, actively extinguished his life with every passing moment, and rather than pushing it away, he pulled it in. It was the ultimate in counterintuitive. He was staking his life on being able to conquer this trash.
But it was trash, and therefore, it was his. If he didn’t stake his all on trash, what was he? It was a mage’s job to discover their path, then risk everything they had to pursue that path to the end. He’d found his calling. The one thing that allowed him to overcome his trash start. He wasn’t going to give it up for anything. If he turned away now and pushed the trash away, it would all be lost. He’d lose his path, and lose everything.
Trash poured into him. He pulled it deeper and deeper, directly into his core. There, he dragged it all together, pulling it into the very heart of his core. With his sluggish, curse-power-tainted mana, he compressed it down, adding pressure from all sides. Down, down, down. As the trash compressed, he added more. The ball of trash trembled, trying to break free of his hold and shoot off in a direction, any direction.
Rhys refused to let it go. He clamped down on it with Trash Manipulation and held tight.
Trash Manipulation 2
Trash Manipulation 3
Trash Manipulation 4
Message after message popped up in the corner of his eye. He had no attention to pay them. All his focus was concentrated on the ball, on holding on, on compressing it tighter still. Trash continued to flow into him, impurities, toxic goo, everything. He kept pushing it together. Compressing. Tighter. Tighter.
The ball grew hot. It began to glow. Rhys grinned, and he shoved a tiny bit of mana into the trash ball. It ignited, burning with a ferocity unlike everything he’d ever experienced.
Like a star.
The compressed star burst, propelled outward by the forces within it. The fire rushed through him like a wave. All the impurities, the trash, the toxins, everything in the pit that had soaked into him, it all burned away. In the wake of the flame, his body remained, but stronger. Far stronger than anything he’d done before.
He’d survived. He’d cleared all the impurities and trash from his body, and now, his body was strong enough to survive in the toxins. He could swim out, escape, with no downsides. He’d succeeded!