God of Trash

Rhys was a pebble, and the mana he’d unleashed was a tsunami, looming over him. He could sense the wave of power rushing toward him, see it closing in with every passing second. It hadn’t hit yet, but it would, and he knew it would absolutely sweep him away.

He’d known this would unlock a vast wave of mana, but this exceeded all his expectations. Whether it was forging his core or forging his body, building up energy and structures inside his core to reach the next tier or using his most powerful techniques, the mana rushing toward him exceeded all of that. It was beyond his capacity to meaningfully vent. Even if he pushed it all out of his body, it wouldn’t be enough. He couldn’t push enough out fast enough to save his life. He needed something else. All of that, but also something else that would pull it out of him at the same time. Something he could dump it into, that would also yank it out of him. But what?

Time seemed to slow. He searched around him, extending his mana—no cost was too much—desperate to find something, anything, to use it on. At the same time, he instinctively patted himself down, like he was checking for change in his pocket before heading through the x-ray machine at the airport. His hands landed on the tomato seeds in his pocket, and his gut jolted. Would that work? Could he even channel that much mana into them?

The wave hit, and his mind went blank. More mana than he’d ever experienced crashed into him. Almost instantly, his body began to melt from the inside out. His core burned hot, far too hot. His mana passages burned. Rhys let them burn and used the mana to reforge them stronger, but that wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be enough.

Inside his core, he condensed the mana into super-pure droplets, pushing it down until they joined the pool at the bottom of his core. The pool steadily filled, but the rate at which he could condense the droplets was too slow. It wasn’t enough.

His core glowed so brightly it could be seen outside his body. Every single mana passage lit up inside him, burning through his flesh like a flashlight shone through one’s hand. Smoke rose up from his body, and cracks appeared on the surface of his skin.

Rhys tightened his grip on the tomato seeds and shoved mana into them recklessly. He wasn’t high enough Tier to comprehend the concept? Fine. He wouldn’t comprehend the concept! Like a trash student at a math test, he’d just brute force it instead. Stuff it so full of mana that it either took form, or combusted, and nothing in between. It was his outlet, and not only that, he needed it to be his paper towel, his microfiber blanket, his absorbent dumping grounds that would suck up all his mana.

One of the seeds immediately ignited, burning out in a fiery flash. Another exploded, bursting his hand open for a moment. Two of them manifested, growing spectral roots, sprouts, vines and leaves, growing their spectral selves at an accelerated rate, sprouting flowers which withered, then swelled, until ghostly fruits dangled from the vine’s immaterial boughs. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He couldn’t harvest the fruits, or cook them down into ketchup. This intent was worthless to him. He needed more than just intent. He needed true Trashomancy, the ability to force useless trash back to life! A trash skill specifically for things that had once been alive, an Intent that didn’t just bring things back to their shape, or grant them their truest, strongest shape, but instead granted things true life once more. Even if it cost mana, no, especially if it cost mana, he needed to bring it back to life. True life, or at least a semblance of it. Enough life that he could harvest fruits, cook them down, and create ketchup. It didn’t need to be true-true life. It didn’t need to have hopes and dreams. A trashy imitation of life, just passable enough to taste close enough that he could turn it into the delicious, processed red sludge known as ketchup, or sometimes katsup.

His skin crisped, blackening at the edges. Rhys’s forehead grew hot, and his vision blurred. He kept pushing mana into the four remaining seeds. They sucked it up, absorbing it without manifesting or burning. He could feel the hint of desire in them, the same as the bones had possessed desire. These seeds remembered that they had once been alive, and they strived to be alive once more. They didn’t know how to get there, and neither did Rhys, but they were searching for it, all of them together, and Rhys had plenty of mana to shove in.

Abruptly, one of the seeds stopped absorbing mana, and a second later, it burst into flame. Three seeds left.