Ball of Nothing Chapter 225 - The Forest

Gaia was slightly surprised to see the unexpected guest. It was rare for anyone to visit her without prior warning and even rarer for anyone to join her in her secluded domain. The Great Goddess was curious as to what one of her children wanted. Tanya was known to be one of her most powerful and independent children. Gaia had only seen her a handful of times ever since her creation. 

Still, she welcomed the Dryad Queen and listened carefully to her request. Imagine Gaia's second surprise of the day when Tanya brought up Zero's name. Being friends with Baal was possibly the work of fate. The Demon Lord of Laziness was a divine fragment after all. However, Gaia didn't know how Zero became acquainted with the Queen of the Natural Plane. Still, it was probably a good thing. They could never have too many people looking out for Zero after all. The young doctor was a powerful trouble-seeking magnet.

"Yes, I did create Zero's new vessel with a different formula. It should be perfectly safe to cultivate channels at one go. However, I don't know the risks of connecting them to the void. That is a place that does not have a limit and will absorb that comes into contact. If Zero loses control of his rationality, I'm afraid that he will end up destroying everything in his path."

Tanya nodded. She understood that Zero's existence was special. As an Empath Spirit from the Natural Plane, Tanya could see things that nobody else could see. She was able to see life particles from specks of mana. Often, the Queen Dryad will collect these intelligent scraps of life and gather them in one place so that they can fuse together and form a small soul. It's just a lot more complicated to do so when there are millions of mana matches and types that repel each other when making a soul. It's the reason why Tanya travelled far and wide. She was searching for one more last mana scrap to form another rare soul from the fallen Star Guardians. It was becoming harder to find them as time passed and Tanya wasn't very confident that there would be any more Star Guardian descendant souls to be made after this Pisces child. It was a true pity, star souls were always beautiful to look at.

On the other hand, Zero has no soul. Whenever the young doctor comes over, Tanya is immediately looking at a ball of amassed magic, energy and miscellaneous things that she was sometimes unable to understand. Ever since Zero came back from hell, Tanya was able to track him wherever he went. The plants and spirits would often report the strange sighting to her. There were small fragments of different souls inside of Zero and Tanya wasn't sure if they were part of the young doctor's original self. An ordinary body containing more than one soul would immediately experience rejection and the host often dies if one soul doesn't win control to devour the other soul fast enough. For Zero, it's like a party where all the different souls made merry and were at peace with each other, if not complimenting each other's existence.

"We could potentially replicate something similar to chakra and meridian channels for Zero. The Sage Gods were expecting this and also they made it more efficient this time by 'programming' the new vessel to process food for self-sustenance before transferring the rest into Zero's dimension. However, the system only functions if Zero has Enma's bag near him. We will use that dimensional bag to support the connection between the vessel and the void. If you can do that then I don't see why Zero cannot have chakra and meridian channels created."

Tanya was elated. Without further delay, she returned to where Zero was waiting. The Dryad Queen didn't want to keep her small friend waiting for too long. She was also excited about seeing Zero finally fulfil his dream of being able to use transformation magic to fly.

The young doctor had taken to sitting in a tall fir tree and catching bugs that resided in the barks with his magic before setting them free on the forest ground. Tanya was amused by the sight when she found him. While bugs that ate away at a tree's insides were harmful, the birds that ate these bugs were usually not as thoughtful about the damage caused to her trees when they pecked and chipped away at the poor tree. Those birds always left her tree trunks exposed to other things like moss and frost. It was frustrating but such was the way of life. Without death fertilising the plane and contributing to the unique mana, Tanya would have been long put out of her job.

"You're back!" Zero beamed and jumped off the twenty feet tall tree. Tanya cringed at the expected impact but it never came. She saw how Zero skilfully used his squirrel onesie to glide down and applauded at the trick.

Once Zero safely landed and changed back into his stuffy lab coat, Tanya didn't wait to tell him the good news.

"Gaia says that we can finish creating your channels in one night. It might be complicated but I will guide you."

Overjoyed, the brunet readily agreed and got into position as told while Tanya called a few friends.

The Dryad Queen helped to set up a formation around the rock that Zero was told to meditate on. It didn't take very long for the six great spirits that she contacted earlier to arrive. Every great spirit that arrived represented one element and with all six great spirits in place, they were finally ready to start.

The young doctor couldn't help but be nervous and excited. Unlike his old body that was unable to recover mana or produce any of its own, doing this will let his new vessel act like a normal magician. Zero knew that in order to be able to learn magic-combat from Ruth, he had to be able to renew his mana without eating everything on Endow Hill.

Tanya and the six great elemental spirits started singing and weaving the spells while Zero did his job to focus on regulating the balance between magic and qi. Tanya's instructions were simple. He had to let go and disperse what was causing an imbalance in his body throughout the process while the spirits forcefully pumped mana and qi into his vessel.

Gaia's new vessel was able to grow in response to the things it was exposed to. Hence, the easiest way to create channels for mana and qi was to constantly expose it to both forces.

Slowly but surely, Zero felt the change. The warmth spiralled from the bottom of his stomach and spread to the tips of his fingers and toes. However, it didn't remain stagnant like the previous time. With the spirits controlling the flow, the energy circulated throughout the small branches that were created.

Zero allowed Tanya to forcefully flood his small and fragile channels, breaking them open and widening the passageways. With healing magic in the spell weaving, the broken channels constantly broke and repaired itself to become stronger. Zero didn't know if this was considered as painful while the channels developed. All he knew was that at the back of his mindscape and back in the lamp where his actual body was, things were beginning to change too.

Zero thought that he'd spent days working on dispersing all the excess mana and qi to the surroundings whenever it got too close to tipping that balance and was mentally tired. However, for the spirits weaving the spells and Tanya who was coordinating the ritual, they were all amazed by Zero's progress. The Dryad Queen thought that Zero would have requested to take a break for about two hours ago but the brunet hadn't said anything.

They were about seventy percent done with the creation of new channels. At this point, Tanya asked if Zero was tired and needed a break. The next step of linking Zero's channels to his void was critical and they couldn't afford a misstep.

"I think I need a break. I've been sitting here for days that my butt has gone numb," Zero whined and the Dryad Queen paused the ritual with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Zero opened his eyes and realised that it was already night. He marvelled at the beauty of the six great elemental spirits during his break while Tanya explained to him about the void-linking limitations.

"That's no problem," he told the great queen. If carrying Enma's bag around was all he needed to do for the convenient power, Zero was more than happy to do so. In fact, he felt more reassured that his new body wouldn't self destruct due to his natural powers.

After resting for a while more, Zero was ready to continue.

"I need you to continuously absorb the mana and qi in equal amounts to the void using King Yama's bag as the medium. Absorb it slowly but steadily, the spirits will supply you with the mana and qi required. I will sew the connection myself so any mistakes here will result in the destruction of King Yama's bag."

Zero nodded and was immediately focussed on the task at hand once the ritual resumed.

Although absorbing things was easy, Zero found maintaining it at a steady pace in small amount incredibly difficult. Usually, he tried to inhale everything in one go and felt sleepy after that but now, it's like asking a starving man to chew fifty times before swallowing a single mouthful of food. Zero was frustrated. Why couldn't he absorb everything at one go and be done with it?

Tanya sensed Zero frustration and scolded the boy.

"Patience. All good things must be waited for. Think of it as nurturing a child. Only the best quality can bring out the best results. Focus on the present, don't think about anything else."

Zero inhaled and calmed his mind once more, reminding himself over and over again in his mind like a mantra that it was only a one-time thing.

Slowly but surely, the spell was completed and the six great elemental spirits excused themselves. Tanya smiled as the sun peeked over the horizon. All in a night's work and Zero tested his new abilities out.

Back in the lamp, Bob panicked. Why wasn't Zero back yet? The dragon and the strawcherry fairy tried many ways of waking Zero up from his meditative trance to no avail. The alarm was about to go off soon but the brunet was still not back yet from his trip. Should they get Hua Tuo or Baal?

Just before Bob could bring up the suggestion, Zero blinked and his left eye turned back to the regular hazel colour instead of that eerie green. He stretched and yawned.

"That was a nice nap!" he declared and Bob gave him the stink eye. Zero was a terrible liar and everyone knew that the doctor certainly wasn't sleeping.

"What did you do?" the dragon asked but Zero was tight-lipped about it.

"You'll find out when I have my magic-combat practice," he told his guardians who couldn't stop him when he escaped the lamp in record time.

In the hut, Hua Tuo wasn't pleased. Zero ducked his head and approached his teacher with a kicked puppy look.

"You're late!" the physician yelled. "Where have you been?"

Zero bowed in apology and simply said, "The forest."

Hua Tuo didn't question it and told the disciple to fetch water from the river later to tend to the crops as punishment for being tardy. Zero heaved a sigh of relief, happy that Hua Tuo didn't question which forest he'd been to. It would have been awkward trying to explain how he ended up in the Great Mountain Range in the Natural Plane!

Chapter end