Ball of Nothing

King Yama sighed. It was a tough topic. Even when Hades was explaining the logic to him, he didn't fully understand its meaning until many years after he assumed the role as the King of the Purgatory.

The aloof ruler stared at Zero calculatingly. He knew about Zero's origin and in a sense, Zero was the creator of both sins and virtues. Perhaps he would be able to understand the complex theory of how sins were calculated. It took Enma many years to come up with a perfect formula for calculating sins. It was much like accounting and most of the Purgatory's manpower were involved in bookkeeping.

"It's a tough question to answer," he told Zero honestly. "I think we should start from the beginning about how Sins were formed."

Zero leaned forward in interest, the tea was quickly forgotten.

"I'm sure you know a thing or two about how the Divine Entities were created. Sins and Virtues were formed by the Great One. They were the emotions that the Great One wanted to separate from himself. Being the embodiment of everything, the Great One had to be impartial. Emotions were things that got in his way so he let them go. These Divine Entities acted individually on their own. They had the intelligence and power to alter what is known as the natural cycle of life. Some of them weren't concerned with anything that happened to the world. Some of them played active parts in the development of the world. Worlds get created and destroyed constantly and to cope with the cycle of souls, the Great Gods decided to create someone who could manage the Purgatory. I am a child born from Freya, Hades and Gaia for that very reason."

Zero nodded in understanding. He always thought that while Enma was a child of Gaia, Freya and Hades, they didn't treat him as their child. Perhaps this was how Gods did things. They were different from humans who would care for their offspring and nurture them with love. He knew that Hades was previously in charge of the Purgatory and the Abyss. It made him wonder exactly how busy the God of Death was.

"You know about the existence of souls, right? Every living thing has something called life essence. The weaker ones do not manage to cultivate souls. They become absorbed by stronger ones and fuse with them as mana before returning to the world. Over time when enough life essence gathers at one place, they fuse and form something called a soul. Spirits are the purest form of a soul."

Zero was surprised. Half Moon village had many spirits. Zoe was one of them and so was Qin Yun.

"Wait, spirits are the purest form of a soul. What about other species like animals, elves and demons? Qin Yun was a spirit, how did she end up becoming a demon?"

Enma smiled. "That's where virtues and sins come in. The soul that is just born is always pure. They have no sins and no virtues, they grow with experience over time. Virtues are what you can consider a person's kindness and selflessness. Sins are what you can consider a person's ill intentions and malice. The deeds are not as important as their thoughts and intention."

Zero looked lost and Enma didn't blame him. When he first took over the job, he had a hard time identifying which acts were considered sins and which weren't. There were false sins and sins in his book of souls and the calculation can be complex when a person has false virtues and virtues in the same lifetime. The conversion rate was sometimes difficult to justify and that was when Enma becomes busy with replaying their life records to pass judgement.

"Let's break it down. There are four categories..." Enma drew four quadrants in the air using magic and Zero nodded.

In the upper left quadrant, Enma wrote "False Sins". On the bottom left, he wrote "Actual Sins". On the opposite side, he wrote "False Virtue" and "Actual Virtue".

"Let's use Kerberos' case as an example," Enma said and pulled out a thin device. Zero recognised it as the magical reading device he had.

"Is that a tablet?"

Enma nodded. "Things were different in the past but paper records were difficult to locate after several centuries worth of records so the administrative department had started archiving everything into the digital system. Thank goodness for Steve Job's existence. I don't know why we didn't have a God of Technology before but I hope we never return to that era."

Zero didn't understand what Enma was talking about but nodded anyway. "So about Kerberos...?"

Enma tapped something on his tablet and pushed it over to show Zero a document.

"This is confidential information but I'm letting you view this based on trust. In any case, all the above aren't important. You only have to look at this portion in the summary."

Zero squinted. There was a long list of records below indicating the offences Kerberos did but the summary made things easier to understand. Under the sins column, Kerberos had a grand total of 1,747 sins for the same reason under the category of greed. However, the column beside it explained the reason for his actions and that was what made Zero blink twice.

"He indirectly caused the death of so many individuals for personal gains so that came under the category of Greed. I understood that part but what is this column on the right? All his sins didn't count as sins because they were committed under the assumption of zero casualties?"

Enma grinned. "Complicated right? There are a few rules we use to determine if a sin is an actual sin or a false sin, the same with false virtue and actual virtue. There is a device in the Purgatory that allows us to extract the records of a soul during their lifetime. It will let us view and action and translate their intention at that point of time. For Kerberos, we reviewed his actions and intentions over the past decade. Throughout the entire period, Kerberos' intention was to rewind time so that he could change his future. He never once thought about intentionally harming all those demons he killed because he thought that once the time was rewound, the deaths he caused in the future would not be a permanent thing. Obviously, he was wrong but in the Purgatory, it is the intention that matters more than the outcome. Granted, if the crime hasn't been committed despite the solidified intention, we give them the benefit of doubt. As such, all of Kerberos' sins were written into false sins. If he was a regular soul, we would refer to the fate table and send him into the reincarnation cycle to some less fortunate life in order to atone for his misdeeds in this life. Fortunately, he is an immortal and can repay his false sins in this life."

Mind-boggled, Zero tried to digest everything Enma has told him so far. "How about virtues? What if someone had false virtues... would they be given a more fortunate life? It sounds unfair."

Enma chuckled. "False virtues happen when someone does a good thing with the intention of getting repaid. Of course, in this case, we will calculate the number of repayments made to them and subtract it from the total false virtue. naturally, if you help someone, you should be repaid so whatever that was unpaid will be carried forward to their next lives. That is based on the assumption they have no sins and false sins in their record. Often enough, a case like that doesn't exist."

Zero tried to perform some mathematical calculations based on the example but promptly gave up. Enma then wrote out another equation that Zero couldn't understand.

"The formula after many centuries of doing this job is this."

Species reincarnation = Actual Virtue - Actual Sin

Fate reincarnation = False Virtue - False Sin

Period of next life = 10 + (Fate/Species)

"For example, Soul 1 in his first life as a spirit accumulated a total of 3 actual sins, 500 false sins, 9 actual virtues and 20 false virtues before it gets sent to the after life. According to the formula, the species reincarnation should be +6 which means the spirit will get reincarnated into a species of a higher plane. A general guideline would be this..."

0 total for Tier 2 (Energy Plane)

+/- 100 total for Tier 3 (Abyss & Purgatory Plane)

+/- 250 total for Tier 4 (Material Plane)

+/- 500 and above for Tier 5 (Enlightened Plane)

"What about Tier 6?"

Enma smiled. "The Divine Plane is for those born into it. Nobody soul created by the world can enter the divine plane. In a way, all Demon Lords are Tier 6 souls. They were born with sins, just like how Gods were born with virtues. It's also the reason why there is only one Divine Being in charge of one domain. You don't see two Divine Beings handling the same Entity now, do you?"

Zero thought about it. "What about Baal and Duu? They're both Divine Beings lording over the same domain."

Enma shook his head. "Duu is a Divine Entity, not a Divine Being. He is a portion of the Great One. His existence does not disrupt the balance in the cycle of life. In fact, Duu is capable of creating and destroying that equation if he wants to. He's just not interested in doing so. On the other hand, you have Divine Entities like Venn and Kale who are known for accidentally destroying a world and throwing a plane into the void. There are also Entities like Nel who creates new worlds that nobody discovers until a few millenniums later. However, the most mysterious Divine force is the nameless God that humans of the previous Earth created. We don't know anything about them."

"Right... so it's a lot of calculation to pass judgement for a soul... won't one plane be over populated if everyone keeps accumulating points?"

Enma laughed. "That's the thing... not everybody accumulates points that goes upwards. Many fluctuate. Let's take Qin Yun for example. Every life is different. She started out as a good snow fox spirit who led a peaceful life. However, she met a human and fell in love. Her decision to want to be with him made her cultivate and perform good deeds to accumulate both actual and false virtue so that she could become a human and accompany him. However, before she managed to complete accumulating those points, her lover was killed. She became a vengeful spirit who killed humans indiscriminately. Her actual sin points increased tremendously, undoing all the accumulated virtues she collected. Eventually, she was subdued by Nezha, a God passing by and sent for judgement. As Qin Yun was the mother of all fox spirits, she was too powerful to send for reincarnation. hence her journey of redemption began. She was turned into a demon and banished from the Energy Plane. Now that all her sins were written off, Qin Yun can now move out from the Abyss Plane to the Material Plane with her accumulated false virtues."

"Does that mean all demons in the Abyss had committed some kind of wrongs in their previous lives?"

Enma didn't know if he should explain it further. Not all demons in the abyss were sinners. In fact, the line between Heaven and Hell was very fine. "Zero, do you know about the Great War between heaven and Hell and why the Abyss exists?"

The apprentice tried to recall. "I've heard stories about it but I don't know the details," he admitted.

"There are two kinds of demons. The first kind is the ones who've accumulated too many sins. They are sent here to be punished by the different Demon Lords according to the sins accumulated. These demons are often the weaker demons you see scrapping by trying to make a living. The second kind of demons is aristocratic or demons with no origin. They are souls who have graduated from the Energy Plane and wish to move to a higher plane indefinitely. The difference between the Abyss and the Purgatory lies in soul advancement. All the souls working in the Purgatory will not be able to progress further and have to undergo a reincarnation before they can move on to a different plane. These souls find peace in working a routine job to maintain the cycle of life. On the other hand, you have spirits who didn't manage to accumulate enough points to enter the material realm before they were sent to the Purgatory. That's where these new souls make their decisions to climb their way out through the Abyss. For aristocratic demons, they once belonged to Tier 5, the Enlightened Plane. However, not all souls agree with the way Heaven does things. There is more freedom in the Abyss and that is why Hell is such a diverse place."

Schaf had to be a soul that had sins to pay off. He wasn't an aristocratic demon and neither was he a demon with no origin. "Does that mean Schaf would only be able to move on from the Abyss if he accumulated enough points in the negative range to be sent to the Material Plane?"

Enma nodded lightly. "As terrible as it sounded, he would have made it if you hadn't interfered. Now that you are writing his sins off, Schaf doesn't have enough points to be in the Material Plane. Banishment from the Abyss without sufficient points can only mean Schaf will now be taken care of by the Purgatory. It would be many years of hard labour before he can move to the Material Plane. I'm making an exception for this soul on your request."

Zero felt bad. He hadn't meant to trouble Enma so much with his selfish request. King Yama noticed it and flicked Zero on the forehead lightly.

"Don't worry about it. We have many special cases from time to time. Sage Gods are one such case. Not everyone who can make it into the Enlightened Plane can become a Sage God. They have to be souls who met the basic point requirements and have contributed to a world-changing phenomenon. They will go through interviews with the Great Gods before Heaven helps to register their unique domain. Most souls who enter the Enlightened Plane become office angels, Nirvana researches or aristocratic demons who continue to involve themselves in the Material Plane for fun."

"Sage Gods are special?"

Enma deadpanned. What kind of question was that?

"I never thought that my master would be such an amazing person... Who knew that someone who didn't know the beauty of magic and technology would be such an amazing individual. Say, do you know how Hua Tuo became a Sage God? What did he do to become the God of Medicine?"

Enma fell speechless. For someone who was learning from the best doctor in existence, did Zero really not know the answer?

"Has your teacher not taught you acupuncture or surgery?"

Zero shook his head. "Only medicine and basic healing magic so far."

King Yama smiled mysteriously. "Oh, you'll find out the answer to your question soon. When it comes to inventing ways for saving lives without divine powers, Hua Tuo is the only person in any world to be able to accomplish that. Call him old-fashioned if you may. However, he has proven time and again that miracles can be created. There are many things that you do not know about your teacher yet and as a friend, I'd advise you to look more closely at the way your teacher does things more than what he does."

Zero didn't know what that meant but filed Enma's words away at the back of his mind. They moved the conversation away from the topic and chatted about what Enma thought was interesting about what they saw in the market. The parfaits came and Zero ordered for more desserts, much to Enma's amusement. Who knew that Zero's love for desserts wouldn't disappear with age?