The speeches were just as boring as Rhys dreaded they would be. He didn’t even need to sleep any more as a mage, and he still fell asleep a half-dozen tis during the ceremonies. Eventually, Bast nudged him awake, and he followed Bast up to the stage to receive second place, which was a silver dal and a small sum of gold. Laurent stood awkwardly beside them to take bronze, refusing to make eye contact with either of them. Whether that was because he’d finally clued on to the Empress’s plans, or because he’d figured out Rina’s true identity, Rhys didn’t know, but it was awkward standing there next to soone he knew would soon be his sworn enemy. At least Laurent had washed his hair and put on a new uniform, so he wasn’t rocking the two-tone red-white look, though honestly, Rhys wasn’t sure it was an upgrade. He’d been pulling it off, and who didn’t like two-tone hair, at the end of the day? Sure, it’d been a weird stripe of red horizontally bisecting his head just behind the bangs, which was a weird place to put a chunk of red hair, but it was better than the all-white look. Then again, it did kind of turn Laurent from a tampon into a used one, so…
Rhys coughed, suddenly unable to unsee the Empress’s whole army as a giant pack of tampons. Her boat looked like a tampon ad in his eyes, suddenly, all the soldiers standing up stock-straight at the rails of the boat. Ah, the eternal struggle of all-white designs. That, and doing anything in an all-white costu was a nightmare. Eating? Nope. Drinking? Better be water. Sitting? Check the chair first, and don’t even think about the floor. The only thing worse than an all-white design was a design in white satin. At least most fabrics didn’t stain when they got wet, unlike satin, the hellbeast that it was. He still held a grudge against a certain RUBY series and his female friend’s obsession with the magical girl from it that wore all white. Why was she shiny white? Why did her dress only look good in satin? Why did the creators of that series hate him on a personal level? All questions he could never discover the answers to.
Bast glanced at him, raising a questioning brow behind his mask at Rhys’s cough. Rhys waved his hand subtly. It was just him being silly, not a serious cough.
The ceremonies concluded, and they were shuffled off the stage for the Tier 3 competitors to take the stage. Ev had taken second place under a swordsman. As for Tier 1, Walter had co in third. Rhys didn’t recognize any of the Tier 3 or 1 competitors aside from Ev and Walter, so he clapped politely like everyone else when they took the stage and were handed their dals.
There were another few speeches, all by pompous mbers of the teaching staff at Purple Dawn. One of them even apologized for the Schoolmaster not being there, at which Rhys rolled his eyes. Couldn’t even see it to the end, that guy. He sure hoped that Purple Dawn’s Schoolmaster had so grand plan that he was working on this whole ti, and that was why he wasn’t here, but he was pretty sure the guy was just a coward and didn’t want to risk his life even a little bit. It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d at least evacuated his school first, but it seed like Purple Dawn’s Schoolmaster believed in ‘every man for himself’ as much as most mages around here seed to. Oh, Rhys was sure there would be a last-second evacuation order, and the Schoolmaster would turn out to have been innocently on vacation this whole ti, unwinding and totally unaware of anything going on back ho, what do you an he wasn’t present for the tournant?—but he wasn’t going to buy it. He’d seen that kind of face-saving bullshit play out a million tis back in his ho world, and honestly, he was tired of it. He’d rather take a leader who owned up to getting the hell out of dodge over one who lied and pretended they just ‘happened’ to be elsewhere any day. At least the first leader admitted they’d done wrong and basically gave up any chance at ever being a leader again, as they should, because soone that cowardly should never be a leader. The second one still thought they had a chance, and that pissed Rhys off more than anything else, not least because sohow, despite all logic, reasoning, and morality, that second leader was right, and sotis idiots would fall for their transparent lie and reelect them.
Not that Schoolmasters were elected, but still. He’d rather have soone who owned up to their mistakes over soone who lied their way out of them, any day. Unless Purple Dawn’s Schoolmaster had a rock-solid reason to abandon his school to the Empire, the guy was quickly moving to Rhys’s permanent shit list. He held grudges. He was trashy like that.
At last, it was ti for the food to co out. Rhys had slumped down in his seat again, on the verge of drifting off, but he sat bolt upright at the scent of delicious food. The first course was a delicious lemony chicken soup, one with a mysteriously silky broth. Every bite ward Rhys to the core, and invigorated his newly-ford vitality-soaked body. The tomato had been obvious, an absolute blast of vitality, so much so that it had hurt. This food was subtle, a warm trickle that quietly boosted every part of his body without harming him or posing any risk of harm, but for all that it was subtle, the vitality contained within it was no less pure or powerful than the tomato had been. No… it might have been more powerful, if all he looked at was the purity and strength of the vitality in the food, and disregarded the small quantity this soup contained. If he hadn’t already imbued his body with the vitality from the tomato, he could have attempted the sa here. The primary difference was that this soup held far less vitality than the tomato, so he could only strengthen a tiny amount of his body with it, whereas the tomato had held such a huge quantity of vitality that he’d almost hard himself eating two of them.
There were still many courses yet to co. Rhys finished his soup, licked his lips, and sat back, waiting for the next course. So far, his experiences with imbuing food with mana were limited to cheap tricks for the potato chips, and borderline harmful techniques for the tomatoes. This delicate, subtle, yet powerful food prickled his mind, drawing forth the possibilities of magical cooking. For now, all he needed were cheap tricks, but in the future, maybe he could pursue the path of magical cooking, just for fun and deliciousness? What was more trashy than pursuing a random path for hedonism’s sake, after all? And food was supposedly the way to a lady’s heart, not that he would know. But maybe in the future, it would be a good thing to have in his back pocket.
It would have to wait until he figured out how to survive in the Empire and then how to release Straw, but it was sothing to consider, if he ever ca upon a block of free ti. Of course, it was outside of his path, so it wouldn’t do much for him in general, but who knew? Maybe he could find a way to bring it into his path. Or maybe he’d just pick up so bonus skills for fun. That was an option, wasn’t it? Everything didn’t have to be dead-focused on his path. He could take so ti and work on other skills.
Can I? Rhys wondered, as the next dish appeared in front of him. Salad this ti, a big pile of rabbit food. Wrinkling his nose, he took a bite of the crunchy salad to be polite, and almost died from how delicious it was. Leaves were not supposed to taste this good. They had taken lead, and transmuted it to gold. Not only that, but so of these herbs and plants were clearly dicinal. Their power washed through his body, opening his mana passages and unblocking choke points as they scoured away impurities. Rhys pulled the impurities they lifted out of his body into his core and piled them up there in preparation for the next trash star, but nonetheless, it was good to see his body refined, and the impurities put to use, rather than rotting away in the wrong part of his body.
Still… was it an option for him to pursue random skills for fun that weren’t related to his path? He was trash. He had trash skills and a trash body, a trash foundation and a trash fate. If he didn’t put everything he had into his path, he’d fall behind, and who knew? Mages had long lives, but the secrets of higher-level magic took a long ti to figure out, especially when one was forging their own path… or so he’d read, in the books he’d borrowed from Az. Maybe he was so trash that he’d run out even his long lifespan and die before he achieved immortality or godhood or whatever, if he did anything but keep his eye on the prize. A flinch could an death for a diocre, no, lacking talent like him. Looking away from his path for an instant might an losing out on the precious seconds he needed to obtain insights that let him progress to the next stage, versus die out like a nobody and return to dust, without even a na recorded.
As the empty salad plate retreated, to be replaced with a hunk of dark red at that Rhys couldn’t identify, not that it mattered—it was delicious, and so was the molten-caral-colored a jus it was drenched in—he shook his head. His instincts were right. He couldn’t veer off his path. He needed to pursue it to its end. Once he’d accomplished that, then he’d have plenty of ti to pick up extra skills, faff about, do whatever he wanted. Until then, though, he couldn’t let anything get between him and advancent, or else he might never see the end of the path he walked.
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That was the most important. It was why he was here, probably, not that absolutexistance had given him any more pointers since his arrival, but more importantly, mages could live for ages, millenia, even, under the right conditions, with the proper advancent. His route to eternity was through the trash, whether he liked it or not, and honestly, he was pretty happy with it. Other people had to fight over resources and battle for the optimal herbs and most perfect mana, while he got to slop around in the filth and still get stronger. If he could choose… well, he probably would’ve chosen sothing that could cast fireballs, but aside from that? Trash was a great choice. There were literally no downsides, except for being filthy and slling like trash and having to spend most of his life in this world in trash piles, but those were all tiny downsides compared to the aweso power he could unlock through the trash, that no one else seed to understand how to unlock.
His mind drifted to the Impure Wells. There had been one in Infinite Constellation that was full of trash and absolutely toxic as a result… or maybe it had been toxic to start out with, and them adding their trash had actually diluted the horrifically toxic sludge it had begun as? Either way, the one here in Purple Dawn was exponentially worse, as it was full of pure curse power, which was pure nasty and hideously corrosive. If Rhys didn’t have ways of dealing with it, he didn’t know what he would have done. He shook his head, saying a silent prayer for all the idiots out there using curse power. It really wasn’t a good idea. Unless they were like Sable and had so bloodline or technique to mitigate the damage curse power did, they were basically throwing away their future in return for power right now. After all, curse power let one use curses, which were highly powerful and well above the level of the mage using them, usually—Rhys would have absolutely dominated in the tournant if he had used that cold hands one, though obviously that was a bad idea, using the illegal power in front of god and everyone when he had a sentence on his head from Ernesto already—but curse power was so destructive, now that Rhys had experienced its full corrosiveness, that using it was basically throwing your future away for power now. He’d done Walter a service by taking the curse away from him. Really, Walter ought to thank him. Avenging his family was all well and good, but Rhys was pretty sure Walter’s family wouldn’t want him to throw his life away to avenge them. Better that he grew up strong the normal way… though given that he was still Ernesto’s student? Rhys wouldn’t be surprised if he was still using curse power. He glanced down the table at Walter, extending his mana to sense the boy’s mage powers. As expected, there was a tiny gleam of curse power in Walter’s mana. It was well-hidden, better than before, even, but it was there nonetheless, the corrosive gleam of curse power tucked away under Walter’s mana.
Rhys pinched his chin, regarding Walter thoughtfully. I wonder if he found a new curse? I’d like to have a few more to use for when I need them.
Walter noticed him looking and narrowed his eyes, glaring death at Rhys. Rhys smiled and waved a little, then turned back to his al, secretly deeply satisfied with himself. I finally got to be my favorite type of villain! There was nothing better than the ice cold, fake-nice villain with the knowing smile and the friendly wave, who wanted nothing but failure for the young, plucky main character. Not that Walter had main character energy, but gods… he loved those kinds of villains more than anything else, except maybe cat girls. And boys? Rhys considered, then shook his head. No, that kind of villain beat out cat boys. Unless they were cat boy fem boys, but that was its own discussion.
Of course, he didn’t have a grand evil plan for Walter or anything, but it sure was fun pretending like he did. And who knew? Maybe Walter would consider Rhys’s plan to repeatedly mug him for curses as a grand evil plan. Then he would truly be the best type of villain—yes, the kind who was just fucking around, but just happened to fuck around in a way that fucked up the main character (not that Walter had main character energy)! Rhys’s grin grew even eviler as the thought sunk in, and he nodded nacingly to himself.
Down the table, Walter squinted, confused more than anything. What the hell is he doing?
The at retreated, replaced by a soft, delicate piece of white fish swimming in a buttery broth. Rhys took a bite, and felt pure mana and deliciousness lt on his tongue. The pure mana in his core reacted, lting and swirling around. He’d thought all the droplets were rged, but now, he discovered that they had actually remained discrete, until this mont. They mixed together into… sothing. Almost a lake, but not quite. Rhys stared at it, then widened his eyes. He felt as though he’d gotten a glimpse of the next step. Not this step, not the one he was building up to, which was sothing about filling up his core with those golden droplets, but the one after it. What happened with all the gold after he condensed it into a core.
Damn, this al is amazing, Rhys thought. In all kinds of ways, whether it was flavor, power, or even comprehension and hints of the future of magehood.
Impure Wells really seed to attract trash, and he didn’t just an himself. Every single one he’d encountered so far was either filled with trash, or hidden under a trash pile. It wasn’t a mind-blowing coincidence, since both Impure Wells were toxic in their own way, so it made sense to pile trash up in or around them. It was like throwing trash in a swamp or dumping bodies in a bog; it just made sense, at least until people figured out that swamps and bogs were actually valuable ecosystems in of themselves. Still, it was an interesting coincidence that the ones he’d found so far were either treated as their own trash pit, or buried under a trash pit. Sothing worth noting for later, in case it turned out to be important. Who knew? Maybe it was just a trashy coincidence with no deeper aning. But given absolutexistance’s question about trash, and the fact that the Impure Wells appeared around trash heaps or pits… he couldn’t help but wonder if the two were related.
At last, dessert ca out, a fine, delicate cake so light and airy that it seed to float off the plate. It went down easy, and reinforced all the gains Rhys had made throughout the al, locking them in so he wouldn’t lose them over ti and helping his body process them. He sat back, patting his stomach and letting out a sigh of relief. So good. This food put his trashy potato ships to sha. It wasn’t even close, not even a little. The fake enlightennt he could give people had nothing on this truly impressive series of buffs.
Bast nudged him. “Nothing like the orphanage, huh?”
Rhys cut a glance his way, raising a brow. “Nope. Nothing at all.” It was crazy to think that they’d started out scrapping over moldy bread crusts, and now, they were filling themselves with the finest cuisine in the lap of luxury. Truly mind-boggling.
“Thanks for picking , back then. For not holding a grudge,” Bast said quietly.
“Thanks for believing in ,” Rhys replied earnestly. They’d just been two kids in the muck. Nothing to make them stand out from anyone else. But now? Now they were the two finalists in the tournant. Rhys had the freedom that ca with a scrap of power, and Bast was the Sword Saint’s apprentice. Both of them had co a long way, and they still had a long way to go.
There were trials to co, and dangers looming, but for a mont, for one glorious mont, they sat in warmth and comfort, full of delicious food, and just enjoyed one another’s company. Just two orphan boys, who were now so much more than the scrappy, filthy kids they’d once been. Rhys glanced at Bast, and for a mont, he saw that boy he’d seen when he’d first arrived, just a little bit more muscular than the other kids, a cruel glint in his eyes and no one on his side. And then he blinked, and Solaire once more sat beside him, cloaked in white, his powerful master not far from his side.
The other contestants started to rise. Dinner was over, and it was ti to enjoy the rest of the festivities outside this room, whether it was the festival or the dances among the other students. Bast nodded, starting to rise.
Rhys smiled. He patted Bast’s shoulder. Knowing a tiny glimr of what was to co, of what he would face, and Bast would be protected from, he said, “I’ll see you later. But no matter what, rember, I’m always on your side.”
“Of course. And the sa for ,” Bast pledged, and Rhys could tell he ant it. “I said it when we were kids, didn’t I? I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. That hasn’t changed.”
“Then I’ll need to grow into a great leader, if I’m going to lead the next Sword Saint,” Rhys joked.
Bast nodded, dead serious. “You’d better,” he said, and walked away.
Rhys stared after him. He reached out, so startled he tried to stop Bast from leaving. Wait—seriously? I can’t actually do that. What kind of earth-shattering general would I have to be, to be able to lead the next Sword Saint? I’m just so trash! Hey, co back! I don’t need that pressure!
Bast was gone. Rhys lowered his hand and chuckled to himself. Fine. If that was how it was going to be, he accepted the challenge. He’d show Bast. No one was going to underestimate trash when he was done!
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