Ball of Nothing

Lily took it back. She took it all back! Zero's luck couldn't have been any worse despite his confidence. They were initially twenty million years away from Gummer but after taking three wormholes to weird places, Zero was now two hundred million years away from Gummer on a place that not even the maps could help him with.

\"Don't worry, Lily. It's not that bad. At least there is plenty of space junk that I can absorb while we wait for a new wormhole to appear. Besides, isn't this an adventure? How rare is it to find a new space that doesn't exist on the map? Wii, are you recording this new planetary system?\"

The eggplant fairy was already working on it and Mii determined it to be unfounded because it was newly created. \"Solo must have been here not too long ago,\" the strawberry fairy concluded. \"It's only two million years old.\"

Zero nodded and Lily's mind boggled with the numbers. Two million was enough time for an entire planet to be restructured completely.

\"Interesting,\" Zero nodded. \"Does that mean it doesn't have a name? Any signs of life yet?\"

Wii sent out feelers and was waiting for them to return. Mii was already adding extra information to the mindscape library. This new solar system only had four planets but two dwarf stars in the middle of the planets' orbit. They seem to form a smiley face so Zero named the unfound galaxy Smileyverse. Lily tried not to judge the lack of naming sense and the mindscape sisters simply ignored it in favour of preparing for the next wormhole.

Lily groaned. Will they ever reach Gummer?

The next wormhole that Zero took turned out to be their lucky break. Zero was very satisfied when he was spat out by the wormhole only five million years away from Gummer.

\"I think I will slowly make my way over without the help of any more wormholes,\" Zero said and his assistants agreed. This would probably be the closest Zero would get to the ruined galaxy they needed to be at. Five million years might take light a long time to reach its destination but for Zero, it was only going to take him about two days of continuous warping.

Wii worked overtime while Mii and Lily took turns working on recording the distance travelled with each of Zero's warp. Unlike teleportation that consumes mana, Zero found out that Origin was able to manipulate the plane and pull Zero closer to the destination he wanted to be at. Something about melting into the plane between the borders of the plane and void to borrow the aggressive forces of the chaos energy to push them forward... It sounded like quite the dangerous idea but Lily had to admit, it worked very well.

The only downside was that Origin had to have a long downtime after each 'warp' and Zero was slightly worried about that. If Origin couldn't be used for a long time, he was actually very vulnerable to the chaos energy at any moment. Merlin had reasons to be worried about Zero's safety. The young doctor now knew the limitations of his grimoire and had to let his teacher know about it so that they could work on a solution for it. Creating another grimoire took up way too many precious resources and the binding ritual was going to be very dangerous. Merlin would never agree to help him create a second grimoire like Origin.

Wii sensed that her master was feeling down and decided to keep Zero company. \"Don't worry,\" she told the young doctor. \"Merlin gave you something to counter chaos energy remember? That pouch he gave you on your graduation is personally crafted by him. It wouldn't be so easily defeated even if Origin is exhausted. However, I think it's better to practice conserving Origin's strength while travelling instead of depleting it completely now that we know Origin's limits.\"

Zero agreed. \"Thank you. Please let Mii and Lily know that they should monitor Origin's energy levels. If it falls below twenty percent, please stop the warp. Also, is there any way to make Origin recover faster? It wouldn't accept mana. Is chaos energy the only way to help it recover its strength?\"

Wii sighed. \"Yes. However, we're rather shorthanded as of now. The system is doing its best to replicate what you need but it still has many restrictions. Unless we get Murvin's blessing, a lot of functions will still be locked.\"

The young doctor sulked. While he was stuck here in the middle of nowhere and occasionally absorbing some stray space junk that floated his way, he couldn't do anything. Origin needed at least half an hour to recover its strength after crawling a million light-years. They had to continuously repeat the process and Zero was bored out of his mind. Thankfully, this was their fourth push. In the next warp jump, Zero should arrive at Gummer.

\"Can we play a game?\" he asked Wii who didn't have much to do either. The eggplant fairy was quick to agree and they settled for a game of chess. Wii and Zero were evenly matched now and the first game ended in a draw after eighty moves. Zero wondered how he would be like against Poseidon.

\"Is the clone still playing chess with Poseidon?\" he asked.

Wii nodded. \"Lost every game but is getting better as we speak. Due to the concentration required in the mindscape, I only set the memories of the clone to sync with the mindscape once a day. Mii is too busy and I cannot assist my sister with her work. Analysing these complicated notes are out of my area of expertise. I'm better at number-crunching and organising things.\"

Zero found it funny. \"Why not? You're both sisters, right?\"

\"We were born to specialise in different things,\" Wii replied dryly. \"I'm a personification after you developed your Parallel Minds. Mii is actually a personification of the Mind's Eye system tasked to assist you in learning new things and accomplish your goals.\"

Zero nodded and pushed a pawn forward. \"That explains it. I always thought that both of you shared memories, knowledge and all. Sometimes the both of you act in sync without even needing communication. I wonder how you do it.\"

Wii laughed. \"That's because we use telepathy in order not to disturb your concentration. It's a skill that all mindscape registered assistants possess. We often talk to Zoe to ask her for advice too.\"

That was news to Zero who paused in the middle of the game. \"You can talk to Zoe? But isn't she mute?\"

Wii tilted her head in confusion. \"Mute? That's just because of the vow she made. She can actually speak, especially in the mindscape telepathy. Her voice is very beautiful, like the clear sparkling notes from a windchime.\"

Jealous that everyone except him has heard Zoe's voice, Zero ditched the game and decided to contact Zoe himself with telepathy. the zashikiwarashi answered his telepathic call naturally and Zero threw a tantrum.

\"Why did you never speak to me? This is so unfair!\" he complained.

The poor household ghost was perplexed. \"But you've never had a problem understanding me before and you never contacted me using this method...\"

Unable to refute, Zero opted for sulking until Zoe promised to make it up to him. Who was the young doctor to pass up such a chance? At once, Zero made his request in the form of a long list of food he wanted to eat.

\"I'm so sick of sashimi and seaweed salad! The tea is either bitter, salty or both and everything under the sea lacked flavour. No wonder Poseidon got fed up with eating most of the time!\"

Zoe didn't blame Zero. However, she asked how Zero wanted to collect them. The young doctor blinked. \"You're a mindscape assistant, right? Surely you have access to my void inventory. Just deposit it there.\"

Zoe blushed at that in the kitchen. \"Sorry, Zero. I don't know how to use the interface of a mindscape assistant so I have to trouble Wii and Mii all the time. I barely know how to use the party call function so we often talked via telepathic calls.\"

\"Wii!\" Zero called and the eggplant fairy scuttled over. \"Can you help Zoe learn how to use the mindscape interface? I can't have Zoe giving me any more excuses about not knowing how to do things in future when I need to contact her...\"

The eggplant fairy didn't comment about how selfish that sounded but agreed since she was bored anyway. Mii only gave Zero a disgusted look before she went to the system administration panel to check the settings for Zoe's access rights.

\"Zero, prepare for the final warp jump in ten minutes,\" the strawcherry fairy said. Zero meditated and prepared for the final warp. Gummer was so close right now that he could almost taste it. Once he was done with Gummer, they would hope back into the lamp and teleport back to the waypoint he left behind on Hyacinth.

\"I don't think Truen can come with me on wormhole hopping. We might have to find a different way to do this if he tags along,\" Zero told Mii who rolled her eyes.

\"Who said anything about him tagging along? Just like how you're teaching Zoe to stuff things into your inventory, you can just hide Truen in the lamp and take him out again when you reach your destination. It's not like he's going to starve in the lamp if Zoe's going to act as your portable kitchen. In fact, if we can expand the lamp, Bob can fit in it too.\"

The teen laughed and his eyes lit up. \"Mii, why are you so smart? You're absolutely correct, I can just put Truen in the lamp with anyone else who wants to come along. Now, if only I can find a less tedious way of travelling. I really don't want to have to ride on Zeus' lightning bolt express every time I have to visit a planet without portals. It's not a pleasant experience. Wormhole hopping is also equally dangerous. You never really know where you'd end up.\"

Mii deadpanned. Is Zero only realising this now?

Nobody made further small talks when it was time to warp. The last warp was smoother than the first few warps Zero made. At least this time, they were not in the middle of nowhere. Gummer came into view on the map and the mindscape fairies held their breaths.

Zero wasn't expecting Gummer to look like a plate of cookie dust when he arrived. The teenager was immediately smacked by a huge piece of rubble upon arrival and with Origin so exhausted, the brunet was sent flying from the impact. Thankfully, he was still able to manoeuvre himself in the junkyard.

\"I guess it's time to start spring cleaning?\" Zero asked and wrinkled his nose in disgust at some unknown liquid.

Zero stepped on YY and balanced himself on it while spreading both arms outwards to start siphoning everything into his inventory regardless of what it was. Gummer was so destroyed that there was no way to piece it back together. Jevy and Gugu's energy traces were also present but it was very stale, indicating that the fight broke out very long ago.

Zero chose not to look at what he was absorbed with his eyes. Instead, he focussed on the inventory log and was fascinated by how many things the system was able to identify. After reading so many books, the mindscape's library was a monster. Even if Zero couldn't always remember everything after synchronisation, the Mind's Eye system did and the inventory log reflected that perfectly.

From stones to plant saps and animal remains, Zero took it all. The good thing about having such a huge variety of raw materials in his inventory from the broken galaxy was how Zero didn't need to recreate and convert some of the original substance to build that land Poseidon wanted. He just had to remodel what he had and piece them together into a small continent. It helped that he was able to find some parts of the planet core that were very weak but still alive. Once it was recreated, Zero would fuse them into Hyacinth's dead core so that Poseidon had more room to work with.

Zero spent ten days just absorbing everything that remained of Gummer including the stars and the space rocks in its orbit. On the other hand, he was busy making preparations to welcome a Great God back in Heaven even if Poseidon didn't want it. Zero couldn't allow Sedna to shoulder everything on her own, the responsibility was much too heavy. Sedna had to oversee the cycle of life on top of her domain of the sea. Poseidon could help to share that burden and also regain some of his divine strength and vitality while doing it. Zero wasn't going to forgive his teacher for taking the easy way out and join Athena in death after he resolved her regrets. There was still Medusa and her sisters to worry about.

The spring cleaning session went well and Zero took a look at his inventory. His loot from Gummer was enough to create a small planet and not just a small piece of land. The young doctor felt proud of his accomplishments and quickly returned to Hyacinth after the job was done. He would create land for Poseidon and throw in some plants for a bonus but the rest of his loot from Gummer was his to keep. Who knew when he needed to start converting inventory items into mana or energy again?