Ball of Nothing

Ten days of constant pain. Zero had to tell Mii to inform Merlin that he would be resting in the lamp that Zeus gave him.

Unable to do anything more than have information shoved into his head, Zero could only lay numbly on the bed and receive everything that his assistants were pouring in. Wii was also given the instruction to do what she could to hasten the process of studying Merlin's libraries. The wizard god wasn't surprised when Mii told him about her master's request. Instead, he asked if there was anything he could help with.

Mii thought for a while. \"It would be good to not disturb him while he is processing all the information. Also, Wii and I will take over the transcribing, updating and recording of new books in your libraries. A section of the libraries has been cordoned off to put the completed books for your checking. There will be an easily accessible version on the reading device as well. We estimate the entire process to take about a month, depending on how much Zero can take. He's suffering a terrible headache from the information overload. The mindscape's mental capacity cannot cope with the amount of information flooding in. Both Wii and I are short-handed as it is, we can't handle organising the books, processing them and organising them at the same time.\"

Merlin hummed. \"I might have something for that.\"

Mii was surprised when the wizard god told her to wait. He went to his alchemy lab to search for something and came back about twenty minutes later with a huge sack of odd gadgets.

\"This is for the headache he has caused by insufficient memory space and overloading. You should have his Parallel Minds study and work on memory increasing capacity. This is a temporary space for storing all the information that could not be processed immediately. The capacity is directly proportional to the mana flow in it. Zero has a huge reserve of mana, it should be enough. This is a magic translator and transcriber to help with information processing. If you equip this and work on it, you don't have to spend so much time referencing. It is linked to my memory and knowledge base but the downside is needing a lot of mana to maintain that connection for it to work. If you face any other difficulties, let me know. I might have a few more useful gadgets lying around that might help.\"

Mii couldn't deny that the odd trinkets were actually very useful. She held up a wrist band that Merlin introduced as a magic translator and transcriber. \"Do you have more of this? Wii and her clones need them badly. Possibly thirty?\"

Merlin blanked out at that.\"Th-thirty? Zero has that many Parallel Minds?\"

Mii thought for a while. \"I think Zero's current capacity for Parallel Minds is actually close to two hundred. However, due to the limit of his mindscape's capacity and the system's restriction, he is only able to successfully use twenty for processing at any one time.\"

Merlin wanted to faint at the absurd number. Did his student not have any limits? With sixteen Parallel Minds, Truen had already long surpassed ordinary mages. When Truen hit his limit at the twenties, Merlin was already satisfied because that made Truen as powerful as a demigod. Zero had ten times the number of Parallel Minds his guardian had and wasn't able to fully use them. What kind of horrible power could Zero harness if he is able to gain control over all his Parallel Minds? With Mii's claims, Zero doesn't seem to have a limit with creating Parallel Minds either.

\"Out of curiosity, isn't it getting progressively harder to increase the number of Parallel Minds as you progress? Arithmetic hasn't progressed to the point of being able to create more than thirty Parallel Minds, you need alchemy for that.\"

Mii shrugged. \"Zero's doing it in a very strange way. It is true that Wii hit a wall at thirty with advanced Arithmetic. After that, Zero told Wii to focus on focus on something called philosophy. There are many of such books in the reading device that we are currently syncing with Zero's mind. It was my mistake. Wii was only supposed to sync the books from your physical libraries into the reading device that was linked to Zero's mindscape library. However, we didn't know that it would sync the entire reading device's library. There was no system option to stop that process. If we do that, parts of Zero's mind could be damaged.\"

Merlin shuddered. \"How many books does the reading device have?\"

Mii swallowed, not knowing how Merlin would react if he heard the real number. \"About a septillion? We thought that there was going to be a few million but we were wrong... the millions came from your library. The rest are still being processed. We don't know the actual number of books there are in the reading device... Steve updates it every hour.\"

Merlin looked odd like a fish out of water for a moment. \"Zero's reading of all those septillion books?\"

Mii nodded. \"It's not easy. The boy's practically paralysed and confined to the bed, groaning with pain constantly, unable to eat or sleep. I tried to bring him food but Zero doesn't have an appetite. he only eats pills now for pain relief and revitalisation. I've asked Hua Tuo for more pills because those are what Zero needs most now.\"

Merlin grew sick with worry hearing how horrible his student was feeling. \"I understand. Keep me updated about Zero's condition. Unfortunately, I don't have spares for that device. It was difficult to make but if you can find a way to duplicate it without causing side effects to my mind, let me know.\"

The strawcherry fairy thanked Merlin and excused herself. Mii could barely wait to introduce all the new gadgets. Maybe with the gadgets easing the pain, Zero would start to eat again.

Wii was pleasantly surprised to see her sister return with a bag of gadgets.\"These are...?\"

Mii nodded. \"From Merlin to aid us. Is it possible to make a clone to care for Zero? We will need a few more to study the nature of this magic translator and transcriber. If we can replicate that and make a few more copies tapping on the original device, we can work more efficiently.\"

The two fairies conversed in detail while helping Zero equip the headband that Merlin claimed would help Zero with his headache. They also set up a link for all the processed books to not be thrown into the library's floor and into the temporary space instead. Mii asked Lily to monitor Zero's mana levels.

\"We should have reserves of sins and energy that can be converted to mana if required,\" she told the flower fairy who nodded.

\"The amount of mana needed to sustain everything is actually about two thousand per second using the lamp's time flow. I'm afraid there wouldn't be enough to sustain the operations once we start. Zero has to replenish the mana source from somewhere...\"

Mii frowned. \"Understood. I will talk to Zero about it. We have some ideas. Just let us know when the mana reserves have fallen below thirty percent.\"

As promised, the gadgets Merlin loaned helped. Zero was finally able to hear his own thoughts for the first time in days. Wii came up to Zero to assist her master to get up from the bed while Mii managed the setting up of the temporary storage space system.

Zero groaned at the stiffness of his body and meditated for a while to regulate qi into all his meridian points, easing the fatigue he felt.

\"What's this?\" he asked and pointed to the bulky headband on his head.

Wii smiled and explained what Mii told her. Zero nodded and heard a loud grumble from his stomach. He blushed.

\"Master, why not get something to eat first? I'm sure the chefs at La Boutique will still welcome you even if the coupon is nearing its expiry. We also need to search for a way to gain more mana. Using these gadgets consume a lot of mana, Lily and Mii fear that the reserves you have wouldn't sustain. There are simply way too many books from the reading device that need processing. The mindscape's library is about to burst too. I'm not sure if you've seen it lately but there are about a hundred floors now and the spaces of each floor have increased by five times. We're still unable to cope with the influx of information.\"

Zero stared at the eggplant fairy. \"Is it that bad? A hundred floors should be enough... why are we still struggling?\"

Wii bowed her head in shame. \"Mii estimated it wrongly. It isn't a few million books to handle... those were merely from Merlin's library. The reading device actually has about a septillion books and we can't stop until everything has been processed. Every hour Steve updates it and adds more books so this reading marathon will be a tough one to complete. We haven't found a way to stop the syncing either without damaging parts of your mind. Very sorry, master!\"

Zero smiled and shook his head. \"No, don't stop. I'll be fine. Let's find a solution to it together now that I can actually hear my own thoughts. First, food and then mana. I think I know just the place to increase my mana reserves. Don't tell anyone yet but we're going to visit Trigression Falls for a bit before we visit Titan Cliff.\"

Wii's eyes widened. Trigression Falls, she could understand. But Titan Cliff? Didn't the gods warn Zero to stay clear of that dangerous place? If anything, the eggplant fairy thought that Zero would go to the Spring of Vitality or the abyss to replenish his mana.

\"Master!\"

Zero grinned and shushed her. \"I'll get dressed. We're going to La Boutique first. Also, I'm not going to rip the chefs off this time. Consuming food for energy reserves is surprisingly ineffective. I'm going there to simply fill my stomach. We're going to negotiate for food delivery services with the chefs there. Bib will collect our food while we work. You should ask teacher what he wants from La Boutique to save us all the trouble. I'm going to ask for all kinds of food that help with mana recovery.\"

Wii nodded and disappeared with a twinkle to find Merlin while Zero got dressed. Thanks to Coux, Zero knew that he had to look the part of a powerful person whenever he was going to negotiate. The problem of having no money still remained. If it weren't for that one year pass of free eating at La Boutique, he might be helpless. Bib's cooking was only as good as Zero's and the golem wasn't able to cook food that Zero hasn't cooked before. Even if Zero had thousands of recipes in his head, the lack of experience meant that Bib was only cooking stir-fried mushrooms, soup and deep-fried shrimps alongside rice for every meal. It didn't taste bad but it was getting boring. Just thinking about that made Zero lose his appetite. Zero might not have eaten for a while now due to the constant pain but he certainly didn't feel like eating another one of Bib's predictable meals. He promised to cook more often and experiment with a few more new recipes just so that Merlin wouldn't have to suffer eating the same things over and over again when he leaves.

\"I'm back!\" Wii announced with a wide smile. \"Merlin says that he's fine with anything that isn't the same as what Bib has been making.\"

Zero laughed without humour. It wasn't surprising that Merlin felt the same way he did. With that settled, Zero teleported them both to La Boutique using Merlin's portal. Mii's new function of being able to remember coordinates of places he once visited was proving to be very handy. Borrowing a ready-made portal was more mana effective than opening one himself.

Unknown to everyone else, Zero had an idea about the kind of magic he wanted to create. The accident of having the reading device's library syncing with Zero's mindscape was actually a welcomed one despite the inconvenience caused and constant pain. Zero was taking many inspirations from all the other subjects that he usually wouldn't bother reading up. Who knew that philosophy would be his saving grace? When Wii's progress was stagnant, Zero was able to create a breakthrough with philosophy. many other subjects fell under this wide umbrella and a subject called science came into the picture when philosophy was brought up. Also, psychology, art, history and martial arts were all by-products of philosophy.

Through that discovery, it was obvious to Zero what he had to do. In philosophy, there was one constant pattern that couldn't be broken and that gave Zero the hint he needed for his answer. In philosophy, the starting point often becomes the ending point. Everything else is merely an expansion of that one small point. But it doesn't matter which direction the flow of thought travelled to, in the end, the one thing that remained constant would be the present.

One can change everything from their frame of mind to their logical conclusions and convictions. However, it was impossible to deny the truth of the present. Everything still came back to the current timeline of existence. No past or future can alter it. No time fragmentation can disturb it. The present was a very powerful thing.

The magic that Zero wanted to create was built on the concept of the present. However, Zero wasn't just a magician, he was also a doctor and a philosopher. The teenager wanted to own everything that Solo had created even if his gift was the gift of destruction. In order to do that, Zero had to embrace everything, including his power for destruction and find a way to make everything that Solo created his.

He might not be able to create like Solo, but Zero was confident of being able to recreate things. The magic that he wanted to create and master was the art of recreation. The ability to manipulate everything that exists in the present world that they lived in. The ability to change what was predestined.

Solo wanted Zero to help him destroy his creations and Zero will do that in his own way. He wasn't going to let Solo continue manipulating him from behind the scenes. After all, there were things that this doctor wanted to protect.