Ball of Nothing

Nobody knew what was going on behind closed doors. Zero asked the royal kitchen to prepare Princess Dorothy's favourite dessert and follow his secret diet recipe. King Darius was slightly worried but he decided to leave and place his faith in the elven healer. The chancellor didn't say anything and only greeted Zero a good morning. He saw the bills that Zero submitted to the administration department but chose not to comment about them. While Zero wasn't overcharging for his services, the chancellor couldn't help but feel as if Zero was still taking advantage of the royal treasury. Whichever the case, it was easier to deal with a person after knowing what they wanted. If what Zero wanted was to strike a business deal and some gold, the dwarven kingdom could easily afford that.

Princess Dorothy was looking much better after breakfast that Zero told the cooks to prepare. The dwarven lady no longer refused food and obeyed Zero's every single instruction from what to eat, when to sleep and how to do simple body-strengthening exercises.

For the first lesson, Zero didn't know what to do as a teacher. Hence, he drew upon his earliest memories of lessons with his shifu since Merlin was hardly a teacher. Dieting and learning how to be a great beauty cannot come from books. For Zero, it came from the soul and the energy emitted by it. The easiest way to increase the purity of the soul was to cultivate. He checked Princess Dorothy's chakra yesterday while he took her pulse. Dwarves don't have much affinity with magic even though some dwarves were capable of using weak Earth magic. For a blacksmith or a craftsman to possess magic capable of producing legendary works, they need the blessing of a god.

Princess Dorothy did not have a god's blessing so Zero could only teach her the basics of cultivation. Rocket Mountain wasn't very good for cultivating because of the lack of qi present in the air. However, Zero was confident that even without the external influence, Princess Dorothy can still cultivate by taking special pills produced from mana lotus pods soaked in the water from the Spring of Vitality. These pills were specially made by Zero for Buddha and Hua Tuo. If anything, it was a condensed version of qi to be directly ingested and tampered with by the cultivator. The pill was good for his busy shifu who was seeing patients with no time to improve on his cultivation and for Buddha who wanted an extra boost for his cultivation progress in the void. For Princess Dorothy, Zero thought that it would be good to help nourish her soul into something more beautiful and restore her destroyed health.

"Remember," he told the princess who had her eyes closed in concentration and her leg crossed on the bed. "Beauty is not external, it is internal. True beauty radiates from the soul and what we are doing now is soul training."

"Yes, ma'am!" the princess grit her teeth to endure the feeling of having thousands of bugs crawling all over her body as she breathed and meditated. Whatever strange pilot hat Zero fed her earlier took effect quickly and Zero told her to decide how much of a beauty she wanted to become. The pill was only effective for four hours.

After hearing that, Princess Dorothy wasted no time. She was going to maximise what she could within four hours. According to Zero, the pill can only be consumed once a day because overtraining will only do her harm. Initially, Dorothy was expecting to receive a slimming potion if she followed Zero's instructions to eat breakfast and exercise a strange dance called qi-gong. However, when Zero only told her to eat a solo cultivation pill, Dorothy questioned him.

The doctor sighed and explained to the princess that he could give her slimming potions but the effect was only temporary. However, if the princess agreed to learn how to cultivate her soul, not only will the effects last permanently, her lifespan would also be increased and her youth preserved for hundreds of years. Hearing that, it was obvious which option the princess would choose.

Seeing that his student was smart enough, Zero warned her about the difficulties that Dorothy would meet in her pursuit of beauty. Cultivation was not something that Dorothy could abandon when she grew tired of it.

"If you abandon cultivating halfway without breaking through the first base, you would not only go back to being ugly, you will also become ill and bedridden. This pill is a cheating method to force your body to cope with the changes and force open your qi meridians. If you stop halfway, the half-opened qi meridians will cause your body to be out of balance and you will age rapidly."

Of course, Zero was half-lying when he said that. As a doctor, he took everything into consideration and would never let such a thing happen. Even if Princess Dorothy quit halfway, nothing much would happen to her. The half-opened meridian channels will slowly close itself again over time and the princess would only suffer a slight side-effect of being more sensitive to energy.

The resolve that the princess showed was commendable and Zero imparted his knowledge to her. As the princess was a complete novice, Zero decided to kill two birds with one stone. As the princess cultivated the pill, Zero would monitor her and also give her lectures about etiquette and counsel her to change her mentality about beauty and self-worth.

"Do you think I am beautiful?" he asked the dwarven princess who answered without hesitation.

"Yes, teacher. You're very beautiful."

Zero smiled. "Why do you think I am beautiful? Did you know that elves with dark skin are considered ugly? We were not welcomed in Altear because we looked different."

Princess Dorothy opened her eyes and Zero barked at her to focus. The princes complied and apologised before protesting. "Just because you look different doesn't mean you're not beautiful, teacher! Those Altear elves are wrong."

"Exactly! We cannot choose who we are but in every species, there will always be those who are better than the rest who will command the respect of others. Do you know what makes a person beautiful?"

In the past, Princess Dorothy would describe beauty as being slim, have bright eyes, silky hair and mild manners. However, after knowing Zero for a while, her answer was now different. "Their kind hearts make them beautiful."

Satisfied that he had a brilliant pupil, Zero continued to explain how beauty can be learned and Princess Dorothy hung onto his every word, repeating them and committing them to memory while she meditated. The feeling of bugs crawling all over her body faded towards the end of the four hours but the princess was soaked in sweat by the end of it.

"Good work, pupil. You've done well for your first lesson. Take a shower, eat something and then rest. We will continue our lessons tomorrow. Don't forget to practice the qi-gong tomorrow morning. It is most effective when practised for an hour just before the sun rises."

Princess Dorothy thanked Zero and watched as her wise teacher left for the clinic. There was no more doubt in the princess' mind that this was the teacher sent by the gods to be her salvation. With Zero's lecture about what defines true beauty, Princess Dorothy's eyes were now opened. She had to become a woman better than she was and as the princess of Rocket Mountain, she was going to become the greatest beauty a dwarf can ever be so as not to put the royal name to shame. Even if Fae King Vivian cannot forget about his love for Queen Rihanna, she was going to do her best to cultivate and move him with her efforts for hundreds of years to come without rushing.

As Zero left the humble castle grounds, he pondered deeply and reflected critically. Was he too harsh on a girl like Dorothy for their first lesson? Still, he hoped that the dessert he ordered the cooks to make will cheer the girl up as a reward for working hard.