Ball of Nothing

Chapter 340 Welcome Back, Zero

After Zero’s return, the teen busied himself with settling some administrative matters. Zoe did a good job relaying the message and the projects were coming together. Zenobia was doing a good job of creating awareness about Half Moon village’s worth with Schaf overseeing the business expansion. Coux was working hard in Hell and the medicine farm was a huge success.

Zero made a list of things that he would require to bring with him for his travels. As a wandering doctor, the one thing that the teen was afraid of would be the shortage of medicine or resources required to treat his patients. Hua Tuo mentioned that a doctor’s worst nightmare is knowing how a patient can be saved but not having the resources or ability to do so. Of course, his teacher said this in reference to the plague that was spreading across a rural village in one of his past travels. Back then, Hua Tuo wasn’t a Sage God yet and he could only carry herbs in his portable wooden medicine chest. Even after many years, that was still one of Hua Tuo’s lingering regrets from his mortal days.

"We have a few medicine farms going at the same time," Zero called all his mindscape assistants for a strategy meeting.

Mii presented a list of medicinal herbs that are growing in the various farms that Zero owned and co-owned. Some of them were unique to the environment they were grown in while others were magically infused.

The doctor currently had four farms and three regions where his herbs were growing. The first was Hua Tuo’s tiny medicine garden where his teacher cross-bred certain poisonous plants to create a more potent medicine that can be used to save thousands of lives in one concoction. It was currently being maintained by the invisible helpers and Zoe was in charge of bringing the honey cake offerings. Cleo would help to harvest the herbs for processing when it was ready.

The second farm was in Half Moon Village. The small farm that the agricultural team worked with was divided into half for growing vegetables and the other half for Zero’s unique herbs that required the water from the Spring of Vitality. Zero was considering expanding this particular farm. He did want to try re-routing the water from Trigression Falls to another part of the garden just so that he could study the difference between magical plants and qi nourished plants.

"Master," Wii frowned. "I don’t think we can do that. Half Moon village doesn’t have that much space for garden expansion."

Mii looked over the layout plans done by the lab members and agreed. Tambolt and Wiser had already finalised the remodelling plans for the entire village. To add or remove anything from the project at this stage would only cause disturbances in the progress made. Zero sighed. He really wanted to test the difference between plants grown in mana and qi but he didn’t want to ruin everyone’s hard work with his selfishness again. As it is, Zero knew how much he owed the people around him. Back when he was a wee brat, he did a lot of selfish things without understanding consequences. Baal, Hua Tuo and the Great Gods often had to clean up after him and Zero didn’t want history to repeat itself now that he was more mature.

"I still really want to test it out. Does anyone have any suggestions?" Zero asked his small team and Lily raised her hand.

"Why don’t we ask permission from Hua Tuo to expand his farm and redirect the water from Trigression Falls to his hut?"

Zero thought about it. There was a portal leading from Hua Tuo’s hut to the Trigression Falls. Zero was actually glad that he didn’t remove that portal even though his training was complete. The current medicinal farm at Hua Tuo’s hut was actually rather small. They didn’t need to do much to tend to it on a daily basis. There was also plenty of fertile soil good for planting.

"Good idea, Lily. I will ask shifu if I can expand his plot of land and garden to test it out. Might as well do up an array and have the agricultural team rotate their duties to monitor shifu’s hut and garden as well."

The third garden that Zero had shares in was the one in the abyss. Beelzebub had a massive farm outside of his domain and Zero asked the Lord of Gluttony to help him grow some specific plants that can only grow on the abyss soils. The territory outside of Roth garden was still undeveloped so if he required it in future, Zero could ask Ruth to help him manage the farm that can be developed outside of Garden of Roth. For now, Zero wasn’t in urgent need of too many herbs although the same cannot be said about Hope Hospital.

"Did my shifu say anything about his medicinal supplies in the abyss?" Zero asked.

Mii shook her head. "I only hear reports from Coux about the increase in the number of patients. Hua Tuo’s new students are doing well so they are thinking of expanding the hospital operations but that’s still undergoing discussions. Mammon doesn’t know if every domain would require a clinic because travelling to and fro from domains have become so convenient with Ten-Path Crossway. Beelzebub’s herbs must be sufficient."

Knowing that the current situation was still looking good with back up plans for future expansion, Zero moved down the list. His fourth garden was the newly acquired pasture in Heaven that he was co-owning with Merlin. Currently, there was nothing grown in that pasture but that will soon change. He hasn’t told the agricultural team about it because Zero didn’t know what to grow on it yet. Merlin will be using about half of the pasture to cultivate magical plants for potions and pills. That alone will fetch a high price. With his teacher’s aid, getting a few gardening golems wouldn’t be difficult. The real question was what kind of herbs did Zero want to grow in that pasture?

"Do we have a list of medicinal plants unique to Heaven?" he asked Mii.

Wii smiled and helped her sister retrieve a scroll. While Zero busied himself with preparing Medusa and Poseidon’s wedding gift, the sisters collected all the information that they thought Zero would require. Zero was very pleased with the efficiency and praised them for it.

The doctor wasn’t surprised by the effects of the unique herbs. In fact, he was expecting it. Herbs grown in Heaven possessed a very unique blessing and healing status. They often give positive buffs for a short period of time and the most important part is how it can exorcise evil and erase sins. Zero didn’t know what kind of situations would require such a unique type of herb but he was more than happy to stock up on a few heavenly medicines.

"For now, please tell Cleo and the agricultural team to grow these four herbs in the pasture to test it out. I don’t need a lot, just two satchels full of each herb is enough. When they are ready, tell them to inform me. I will personally process them and experiment on them in the lab. Speaking of the lab, did anyone inform Raj and his team about the specialised medical tools I need?"

Zoe left to relay the message to the dryad while Lily looked over the drafted design by Zero. She heard Mii and Wii talking about it before but it was her first time seeing her master’s special medical tool designs.

Wii nodded. "We passed it to Hyelin this morning and she said that she would go through it. Pardon me, master. What exactly would these two tools do?"

Zero smiled. He was actually inspired by YY Tonfas to create these two medical tools. Like everything else, it was a design that would benefit only Zero. Not even Hua Tuo would be able to put them to proper use. Zero learnt early on that his shifu had a unique ability to automatically diagnose all known illnesses with his eye. While Zero didn’t have that, he wanted to create something similar.

"The first tool is a probe. It tests for all known poisons and illnesses by extracting cell samples and injecting them into my temporary void space for analysis," Zero explained.

The first tool was actually rather simple looking. One could fit it in the palm and it could blend in with the rest of the acupuncture needles. However, the composite of this needle-like tool differs from acupuncture needles. It is required to be forged using mana crystals of the strongest type and inscribed with high-levelled runes that will connect it to Wii’s parallel mind dimension for analysis.

When the fairies heard Zero explain it, they couldn’t help but be impressed. Zero’s magic proficiency and knowledge of basic alchemy made him able to make full use of Mind’s Eye system’s abilities. Even with administrator abilities, Lily wasn’t able to do such things. Zero was no longer simply a user, he was actually rewriting the system’s program little by little.

"What’s the second one for?" Mii asked. If the first tool was for diagnosis, could the second tool be for medicine creation?

Zero smiled and read Mii’s thoughts. "Close enough but not exactly correct. The second tool is indeed used for medicine creation but it’s not the same as the pill-making kit. This is an alchemy furnace that uses qi to fuse the various medicines together to create a pill. In other words, this little cauldron shaped tool is a divine pill-maker that can only be operated by someone who has good control over qi. I don’t know if magic works the same on this tool but we can only test it after the prototype is finished."

Wii thought that both medical tools were good investments. However, she had one last concern. If Zero was going to travel, how would he access his medicine and process them? He couldn’t possibly split himself between travelling and working on processing herbs, right? It was also slightly ridiculous to continuously open portals to travel to and fro every few days during his travel even if Zero was fully capable of leaving portal doorways wherever he camped on his journey.

Zero shook his head. "I thought about doing that at first. However, it is much too inefficient to travel to and fro. I might be able to save time by leaving Truen to do the actual walking and travelling for me while I return to Half Moon village to work but I would be missing out on a lot. Hence, I came up with an alternative solution. The agricultural team is currently shorthanded with so many farms to oversee. Hence, I will be relying on Wii for this."

The eggplant fairy blinked, not expecting to be arrowed with responsibilities. Zero grinned.

"I will be creating a small group of garden golems and medicine golems to be my assistants. Wii, your job is to coordinate their movements and sync their memories to mine regularly so that I can still manage them remotely. Likewise, should there be any problems that arise in any other areas regarding Half Moon village, these golems can help me to resolve them."

Wii had a bad feeling about it. "How small is the group?"

Zero thought about it. "Not much. Only about thirty golems or so."

Wii did the calculations. In order to ensure the smooth operation of each golem, they would require two to three parallel minds per golem depending on the complexity of the tasks. A separate set of Parallel Minds (PM) would be required to become the control centre for these golems, constantly updating the central library about their progress and syncing the memories. With a quick estimation, Wii would consider setting aside about a hundred and fifty PMs safe for what Zero required. Still, she wasn’t too happy about the number.

"Master, forgive me but I think thirty golems might be too many. Assigning about 150 PMs to the task for daily routine would take up about 40% of your available PMs. I wouldn’t be able to react on time if there is an emergency."

Zero made a face. "Wii, are you forgetting that I have over three hundred PMs? I feel that 60% of the PMs I currently have will be sufficient to overcome any dangers we would possibly face on Earth."

The eggplant fairy made a face. "Opening a wormhole takes up two hundred PMs. We only have three hundred and sixty-nine PMs, this is cutting too close for comfort!"

Zero made a face. It was true. Opening a wormhole that worked poorly already used up two hundred PMs. If he wanted to perfect the art of intergalactic travelling, he would need to gain more PMs.

"No worries," he assured the fairy. "Just do as I say for now. We have approximately one Earth year if not more to increase the number of PMs we need. Even after two years of training, I’m only ready to take on the challenges on this planet. Travelling to Gummer made me realise how lacking I am to start searching for the other Divine Entities."

None of Zero’s assistants said anything. To many others, Zero was an overpowered entity. Even the Great Gods were humbled before him. However, nobody knew the truth about Zero’s current abilities more than the doctor. To go against himself from the past, Zero had much to learn. Thankfully, this was only the beginning.