Ball of Nothing

Thankfully, Gaia came back with news from the Weeping Willow.

"She said that she was willing to help on a condition..."

"What condition?"

The Great Goddess hesitated. It wasn\'t easy to talk to the Tree of the Future because she was in such a distraught state. Unlike the Tree of Life and her spriggan Axel who had a very close bond or the Tree of Knowledge and Ouroboros who was a very responsible guardian, Alex was probably the worst spriggan to exist.

"It\'s a rather complicated situation," Gaia sighed. "I\'ll try to make it simple for you. The Weeping Willow\'s spriggan, Axel, is very much into elven women and not in a healthy way. He neglects the Weeping Willow a lot and now she\'s complaining that her flowers and leaves are going to fall bare from stress if this goes on. I\'ve seen it happen, her leaves were yellowing when I saw her on her home planet. Her spriggan is still partying on Earth in Altear. She can give us a flower but she wants you to chase all the elven women away from Alex. Better still, she wants him to stop flirting with any females."

Zero sighed. Indeed, this was quite a domestic problem. As an outsider, he was slightly embarrassed to hear it but he agreed anyway. For now, creating the Tree of Fertility was more important. As for the womanising problem that Alex has, he would find out more from Axel at a later part.

"Understood. Please tell the Weeping Willow not to worry, I will come up with a solution for her spriggan\'s womanising tendencies. It could be a mental illness, I would have to make a visit in person to find out more. Please thank her on my behalf as well for the cooperation, it must not have been easy for her all these years."

Gaia felt that Zero had become a very reliable leader after his travels. He was now able to make decisions confidently and she looked forward to seeing what else he could do. For now, she left to relay his message while Zero continued to look into any information he could find about Baku.

Like Zero, Jynx and Sylvia didn\'t sleep. Truen was returning with Bob tomorrow and there were many things to be done.

The preparation for the purification ritual was almost complete but the location wasn\'t perfect. Zero needed a clean room but due to the severe neglect, there wasn\'t a ready space available in Sylvia\'s tower.

Jynx was going through her design file to decide on the first type of fashion product she wanted to work on. When she heard from Zero that Truen was returning with a sample of Night Terror Penelope\'s silk, the banshee became overly excited.

After hours of flipping and calling up people, Zero had to admit defeat. There was little he knew about Baku other than the small bit of information from Gaia. Baku wasn\'t just a regular monster. It was created like a god but due to the lack of power and information from its worshippers, it couldn\'t become a deity. Instead, Baku became a wandering God, helping people wherever it could.

That also explained why Baku had purifying powers even though it wasn\'t able to use magic. The ability to transform must also come from the power of prayers instead of magic. Transforming into a human was something all gods could do. Baku simply never learned how and Sylvia\'s lessons gave it some inspiration to achieve that.

Baku\'s soul was able to exist for so long even after its death because the soul of Gods does not enter the reincarnation cycle. They usually fall back to the Natural Plane and wait to gather powers back again to be recreated. The mystery was somewhat solved and Zero didn\'t know how to tell Sylvia that this child was actually a wandering god who should have returned to slumber. By keeping it on the material plane, this God\'s soul couldn\'t help but try to purify the negative energy even if it was weak. It no longer had a body to absorb the negative energy hence it took it into his soul.

Undoing such a large amount of corruption was impossible. Zero can only separate that out and save whatever fragments of Baku\'s remaining soul into the new world tree. Everything else should return to the void. It was the only way to save Baku now. However, he hasn\'t told Sylvia or Jynx about it yet. The chances of success for this was only fifty percent seeing as nobody has attempted such a crazy thing before.

Without finding anything useful about Baku, Zero decided to spend the rest of his night reading up about soul purification methods and possible repair methods. There was a text sent to him by Hua Tuo that Buddha loaned his shifu many years ago. It didn\'t repair a soul but it could help to strengthen it. Zero might use this method during his purification procedure to stabilise it after removing the corrupted parts.

In the middle of his research, Axel contacted Zero to inform him about the cross-pollination between the Tree of the Future and the Tree of Life. Gaia sent a clone over to oversee the procedure and Zero felt reassured that a professional was there. Cleo was also on standby to offer assistance if needed. The process will take about three days before they can confirm if it was successful and Zero told the hardworking spriggan to keep him updated before the soul stone\'s connection disappeared.

"It\'s late, you should rest. Truen wouldn\'t be happy to know that you didn\'t sleep," Mii materialised and frowned at how Zero was working too hard and neglecting his health.

"I know it\'s past bedtime but we don\'t have that luxury now to be idling away. I wouldn\'t be able to sleep even if I wanted to. There are just too many thoughts in my head now that need answering. Operating on a body isn\'t the same as operating on a soul and cross-pollination between different flowers isn\'t the same as making a new world tree. I still have no idea how to fuse a soul into a seed even if the cross-pollination is successful. I can\'t sleep yet."

Mii sighed as her master yawned and asked for another cup of tea. If Truen knew about this, he would definitely not be happy. While it wasn\'t the first time Zero was too deeply engrossed in his task, it was the first time the stress levels were this high. He might have the Acceptance skill to regulate his emotional levels but Zero didn\'t have anything to help him manage his stress levels. In defeat, the strawcherry assistant returned to the mindscape. She only hoped that Zero could find some way to let it up before he worked himself into insanity. It wouldn\'t be good if the doctor trying to save someone needed a doctor himself.