Ball of Nothing

Zero didn't need to be woken up the next morning. In fact, he was up before the sun came out. The first thing Zero did was to check on the new garden expansion at Hua Tuo's hut. The array was holding up well and nothing looked out of the ordinary so Zero left a message for Zoe to relay it to Truen when the archer woke up. Cleo was going to start sowing the first batch of seeds in the pasture in Heaven while Beelzebub and Hua Tuo would assist Zero to manage the farm in Hell.

With everything progressing smoothly, it was time for Zero to settle the difficult part. He prioritised medicine golems over garden golems for now because there wasn't a need for gardeners yet. Hua Tuo did say that he would help to sponsor half of Zero's creation cost if he split the uses of medicine golems with him. The hospital could use more hands for preparing herbs and Zero agreed.

With fifteen high-grade light magic crystal cores and fifteen earth magic crystal cores, Zero started inscribing runes on every core. The first step alone to isolate the core crystal and birth its inner spirit was going to take Zero at least half a day for each crystal. The doctor sighed. He didn't have a lot of time to prepare everything perfectly. If he wasn't in a rush to visit Magnus Hilda, he would have spent about half a year in Half Moon village working on his garden management project and overseeing the village matters before he left. However, Zero didn't want to keep Camie waiting for too long. As such, the only option Zero had was to complete everything he had to do within a week.

"Mii, Wii... are we ready? Let's start with the initialising stage for all thirty crystal cores. Lily, you're in charge of monitoring the mana and qi levels using the system. Wii should have created a new command function for you to manually adjust some of the processing done by PMs. Today, you shall act as the operating commander."

"Yes, sir!" the flower fairy saluted and got into position. Zoe wasn't present today with the team. She was busy making important breakfast preparations for Zero that would be brought over later by Truen when he came to sow the first seeds in Zero's new garden.

The doctor chose to start his projects in his shifu's hut instead of the village because there would be lesser distractions. Not to mention, there were natural resources that provided Zero with the mana and qi he needed to make this work. Ba Guai fed on the waters from Trigression Falls eagerly and kept the flow of qi smooth throughout Zero's meridians while Lily watched the mana flow through his chakra channels, adjusting accordingly so that they wouldn't collide with the qi from her control panel.

The night before, Zero got in touch with his dragon who was happily hunting in Sleepy Cave, tormenting the cave monster with Kerberos. Olaf took Bob to Sleepy Cave for the first time to feed him and train the dragon warriors but after they left the village to start their adventures, Bob chose to remain with the three-headed dog. Zero hasn't seen the Eternal Dragon in a while but from the strengthening mana in the air on Endow Hill, he could guess how much stronger Bob has become.

Bob was in charge of supplying Zero with mana as the Endow Hill guardian and the dragon did his best to accumulate mana by hunting in the cave. Zero could feel it in the air this morning when he arrived. Now that everything was in place, he could finally start.

Zero quickly drew a rune circle in the middle of Hua Tuo's hut. On the outside of the hut, Zero placed several barrier formations to prevent any outsiders from entering while he was still working. Also, the barriers served a second purpose of containing the mess inside if something went wrong. Zero didn't have enough time to test his theory out on high-grade crystal cores but he was confident of being able to handle the situation even if something went south.

Once the rune circle was completed, Zero arranged the crystal cores into two piles. For the first step, the inscription process for both crystal core types will be the same. However, the awakening process and contracting process will be different. Zero decided to complete the inscription process first then work on the medicine golems in one batch before completing the garden golems in the second production batch.

Wii activated three hundred PMs when Zero started the inscription process and Mii gave out instructions to the three hundred PMs step by step. Zero watched over everything as his assistants worked hard and observed for any changes or fluctuations to the crystal cores carefully. Of the thousand steps that Zero created and memorised, the most crucial stage would be at the seven hundredth spell when he connects the system to the golems. It would bind the golems to Zero as second-tier assistants below Wii, Mii, Lily and Zoe.

Zero didn't know what his mindscape assistants thought about having a promotion in the hierarchy but they didn't seem to mind so Zero left it as it was. The inscription process took two hours and by the time Zero had completed the first stage successfully, the sun had already risen. He could also hear Truen outside. Cleo was teaching the wood elf how to plant the seeds and the most important part was how Zero smelled food.

"Good morning," Zero greeted them as he emerged. The inscribed crystal cores were stashed away in his inventory and Zero told everyone to take a break. Now that the crystal cores were enslaved to the system, Zero could take his time to implement the second step to awake the spirits within the crystal cores.

"Good morning," Cleo smiled. "Sorry I cannot stay for long. There are matters waiting for me to attend to in Heaven. Also, Beelzebub has been asking for me to visit him in Hell to discuss the best methods for growing the new batch of herbs. However, I do suspect that he has asked me over more precisely to get the new packet of spices that he has been craving."

Zero laughed. That sounded very much like Beelzebub. He didn't want to keep the dryad here for too long and told her to be on her way. Cleo left quickly and Truen brought out the good stuff. Zero moaned when he bit into the sandwich that Zoe prepared. There were at least a hundred sandwiches in the huge basket that Truen carried along but Zero felt as if it might not be enough for what he had to do next.

"How was everything going?" the archer asked.

Zero smiled. "It's going well but I need more food. These few sandwiches won't last me till lunch if I'm going to be awakening thirty crystal core spirits and levelling them up in the second phase. Are these honey cakes for the pixies?"

Truen nodded. "I think a more frequent offering is required if we are asking for their help to care for a larger garden now."

Zero laughed. It was true. "Good thing you thought about it. I would hate to explain to shifu why his herb garden had withered if he returns. I'll be sure to let Zoe know about it although I seriously think that there's no real need for the pixies to help much once I have completed the golems."

Truen smiled and ruffled the doctor's hair. Zero might have grown but he was still about half a head shorter than him. "I'll ask Zoe to prepare a little more food for you and leave it in the kitchen outside the hut. You can eat it when you're done with the second stage. I'll come back with lunch in a few hours. Any special request? The hunting team wants me to join them."

Zero thought about it. It had been a while since he'd eaten any pheasant so he told Truen to find some pheasants if he could. The elf smirked. If it was pheasants that Zero wanted, the archer had no problems finding ten or twenty of those alone. Still, he didn't make Zero any promises and told him not to get his hopes up before leaving.

Alone again, Zero moved on to the second phase of his golem production. He saved twenty sandwiches and transferred them to his inventory so that the hardworking assistants could share. Zoe received Truen's message and informed Zero that the food won't be left at the kitchen outside of his hut. Instead, she will send them directly to Zero's inventory so that Zero can retrieve it when he needs it.

Zero laughed. It might be a good thing that he wouldn't have to manually retrieve the food later because, for the second stage, Zero was going to meditate and enter the mindscape. Each crystal core was already getting soaked in thick qi essence, courtesy of Ba Guai who was a superb nanny. Whenever one of the crystals became cranky, the octopus would balance out the disharmony. After an hour or so, the crystal cores were now able to speak to Zero telepathically.

Zero moved on to the second stage and fed the crystal core spirit babies with mana and satisfied their whims in every way he could to please them enough. Then, he proposed a spirit contract. It wasn't difficult to get all thirty contracts with the food Zoe prepared but by the end of the second phase, it was already two hours past lunch and Zero was positively starving even though he had only been meditating.

Lunch was waiting for him in the kitchen outside the hut and Truen left him a message telling him not to overwork. As expected, Truen did hunt some pheasants that Zero was craving and they were roasted to perfection after being seasoned with Cleo's special spice mix.

Now that the crystal cores were ready, Zero had to work on assembling the golem parts. This time, the doctor went outside. The sun was too hot and Zero groaned. He applied the salve that Ruth often used so that the light rays and heat from the sun wouldn't harm him. It was uncomfortable working in the heat but Zero didn't want to wait till night to get it ready.

Zero worked in batches. The first batch of five took up a third of Zero's prepared resources. It wasn't because Zero miscalculated the number of resources he needed for thirty golems. The calculations were correct but the results were disappointing. With high-grade crystal cores acting as the golem's heart, by theory, Zero should be able to use medium-grade mana crystals to act as the supporting formation points. However, too many medium grade crystals shattered when Zero tried to draw the chakra links from the core to the coordinating points. Helpless, Zero gave Merlin a call for advice.

"Have you inspected the quality of your crustal core after they awakened?" the wizard asked. "A mana crystal only explodes if the mana capacity exceeds it. I suspect that your awakened crystal cores are way higher than a high-grade crystal right now. You need to repurchase the crystals required and make accommodations for future growth if you don't want your golems to be destroyed or you should write spells to limit their future growth."

Zero thanked his teacher and revised the plan. He didn't want to limit his golems' growth but he didn't know if it was possible to obtain so many legendary mana crystals in such short notice. The crystal cores had the potential to evolve into demi-god tiers even if they were only at the legendary level. That was akin to a level just slightly below Tanya's. If Zero was honest, sage levelled mana crystals would be the best but those types of mana crystals simply didn't exist.

Hence, the doctor came out with another idea. If he could not buy them, was he able to create them? After all, mana crystals are condensed mana in physical forms. Mii pulled out all the books that Zero had read about creating mana crystals from Merlin's library and decided that the quickest way to resolve the problem was to create sagely crystals. At the same time, Zero wondered if he could redesign the golem's body completely. If he wasn't going to use regular materials, he should need to follow the regular way of binding the golem heart to the vessel.

With that, it was back to the drawing board.