Ball of Nothing

Hua Tuo wasn't too happy about Zero's tardiness. The young doctor was becoming more and more undisciplined ever since he returned from the abyss. The ways of the Demons must be rubbing off him a lot and the Sage God wondered if letting Zero stay there for such a long time was a bad idea. While Zero had indeed matured both physically, mentally and emotionally, he was becoming less obedient.

Just when Hua Tuo was thinking of what sort of punishment to give Zero, he felt something that made his old bones rattle. Behind him, he watched as Zero execute the qi gong exercise with the same fluidity but with something more this time.

"That's..." The Sage God's eyes widened in surprise and he stopped what he was doing to simply stare at his apprentice.

Impossible! The Sage God couldn't believe what he was looking at. With the destruction of the first Earth, Hua Tuo never imagined that there would be cultivators who were able to understand just how profound his qi gong was. This was something that could only be attained by thousands of years in cultivating qi.

The Sage God frowned. Only yesterday, Zero still couldn't manage to harness qi in his body and divert its flow. Today, Zero was not only able to harness qi and divert the flow, but he was also able to produce qi of his own by converting the energy in the dense magical air of Endow Hill. The medicine God took a look at Zero's channels and was surprised to see that they were not only perfectly formed but trained to the maximum potential. This level of hardening and widening would have taken even the most talented cultivators a few thousand years to achieve.

The refined qi flowing through Zero's meridians was golden like honey and smooth like silk. Not even Hua Tuo was able to attain his ideal form of cultivation. Only Buddha was able to create such pure qi because of his domain. Buddha basically can purify anything with his existence and that was a mega cheat that Hua Tuo was jealous about.

Speaking of cheats, Hua Tuo eyed his disciple suspiciously. There was also one brat who excelled at cheating too.

Could it be..?

"Zero," the Sage God called out and stopped the boy.

The apprentice was clearly not expecting to be stopped so early into the exercise. He knew that there were still three more repetitions to do before the routine ended. Why was his teacher deviating from the norm? Hua Tuo isn't someone who enjoyed a lot of changes and preferred to stick to his old ways. The man was super resistant to change and obstinate about things. For Zero to be told to stop, was the world coming to an end?

"Come here," the old man beckoned and Zero walked over unsteadily. Sure, he wasn't able to practice much of this in the abyss because they were constantly on the move. However, Zero thought that he remembered the forms correctly. Even if his mind forgot, he didn't think that his body would forget... unless the mistakes were caused by the change in vessels with different sizes!

Zero stiffened when he approached Hua Tuo. Was his teacher going to scold him for skiving? Those were circumstances out of his control too so Zero felt like he shouldn't be blamed for it at all.

"What have you been doing in the forest last night?"

The question was simple and Zero felt his knees go weak. Has his teacher found out that he didn't follow the bedtime curfew and sneaked out?

"Do you feel anything different this morning when you're practising the qi gong?"

Zero didn't know how to answer Hua Tuo. While he felt very strong from all the qi buzzing inside of him right now, Zero didn't know if it was anything different from normal. The exercises still didn't make any sense to him.

"I don't think so?"

Hua Tuo frowned. That can't be.

"You've already broken through to the highest tier of cultivation. There isn't any real need to be practising the gathering of qi in your dantian any longer. We can move on to the next stage. You can start learning the self-defence techniques using qi to reinforce yourself."

Zero blinked. Self-defence techniques? He had some of those.

"I think Lord Amon has taught me a few neat tricks. Master, would you like to see? Amon claims that they are the most powerful techniques that can help me escape any dangerous situation."

Hearing that made the Sage God curious. he didn't think that someone would be one step ahead of him to teach the brunet self-defence arts. However, when Zero got into position and started doing strange stabbing movements to where a person's eyes would normally be, the Sage God took it all back. The abyss was a horrible influence on Zero after all! Things were only escalated to an alarming degree when Zero demonstrated the groin kick.

"I think that's good enough," Hua Tuo hurried to stop his disciple and felt cold sweat soaking his shirt. If the Great Gods ever knew what their precious creator had learnt, he was going to blame it all on Baal.

Zero didn't know why his teacher looked so pale. These techniques were extremely effective. Perhaps he was doing it the wrong way.

Hua Tuo had a hard time trying to convince his apprentice that there was nothing wrong with the way he executed those self-defensive moves. However, he couldn't tell Zero that Amon had taught him well. That Demon Lord had taught Zero a little too well that caused Hua Tuo to fear for his life. Instead of staying on that subject, the Sage God decided to demonstrate breaking rocks with his bare hands after reinforcing them with qi.

Zero watched in amazement at what Hua Tuo could accomplish. This was the power of qi and cultivation? It was so powerful! While wind magic could slice rocks, it couldn't make it shatter the way Hua Tuo did. To make things more impressive, Hua Tuo did not seem to have hurt his hand at all. The old man was still fit as a fiddle and Zero looked at his teacher with a new kind of admiration.

"What? Interested now?"

"Yes! Please teach me how to do that too!"

Hua Tuo pretended to consider. "Hmm, what should I do? My apprentice has become more disobedient lately after growing up. Maybe if he calls me 'shifu' I will teach him how to do that."

Zero didn't hesitate. After waiting for so long, there was finally something new to learn. The brunet pounced at that opportunity and called Hua Tuo shifu without regard to who was listening in the vicinity.

Hua Tuo didn't let that go to waste and recorded it. There was now leverage against a certain Wizard God and Hua Tuo felt satisfied. Wasting no time, they went through the basics of forcing qi to form a layer outside of his body.

Zero thought that it would be easy to control qi like magic. However, ten minutes into the lesson, he realised that it wasn't as simple. Unlike magic, qi was like a stubborn rubber band that snapped back into his body when Zero didn't hold onto it tight enough. That was odd.

After the fifth failure, Hua Tuo sensed that something wasn't right. Normally, those who had cultivated their qi to this level would naturally be able to control the flow and will it to encompass a shape outside of their body. It was used as an aura armour for fights between pugilists in the past. For Zero to be unable to control something as basic as this meant only two things. Either Zero did not attain the powers by himself or the body the Great Gods made for Zero is not properly calibrated to his growth. the only way to find out is to test Zero.

"Hold it. This isn't working. We will take a few steps back. Can you start by circulating your qi in the dantian? Hold it there and don't let it spread elsewhere."

Zero sat down in a meditative position before entering his inner world like how Hua Tuo had taught him. This time, the apprentice didn't visit the void. Instead, he focussed on the qi spiralling and circulating within his body.

Slowly, he pulled the qi back into his dantian like coiling a ball of threads. Hua Tuo watched this happen with understanding. If Zero was able to control the qi inside of his body and not outside, that meant Zero cheated for this ability. A few months back, Zero had proven he was naturally gifted with cultivation. However, by developing the meridian channels without practising the opening of meridian points through hard work, the boy would never be able to use the power he had attained.

Also, there was something strange that Hua Tuo spotted with his Medicine Eye. Apart from fully developed meridian channels, Zero also had a complete set of chakra channels that was compatible with all elemental magic. It was extremely rare for anyone to be compatible with all magic types and even rarer to see anyone be completely adept in all elements. Magicians usually have a stronger affinity with one and weaker affinity with the others. Not even Merlin was spared from this. However, Zero didn't have such weakness and it made Hua Tuo suspicious.

Something definitely happened last night when Zero snuck out. This development was definitely the work of some other powerful individual.

Wanting to confirm his suspicion, Hua Tuo called Ruth over to begin Zero's first magic-combat lesson.

The vampire didn't go easy on Zero at all and Hua Tuo watched as Ruth beat his disciple up. Zero healed his wounds with healing magic after the end of each sparring match round. He was told to use defensive magic to hold up and block Ruth's attacks but the vampire was way too fast! The young doctor could barely follow Ruth with his eyes. If it wasn't for the intuitive gift, Zero would have been knocked out of commission at least eight times within the first fifteen minutes.

After observing or a good half an hour, Hua Tuo told the boys to wash up while he prepared breakfast. He was slightly disappointed to know that Zero's cultivation was not a product of his own but by the assistance of some other powerful individuals. He wanted to ask Zero for some tips about how to achieve that type of pure qi but after knowing that Zero didn't do this on his own, the physician was depressed.

Until he solved the mystery of Zero's aider, Hua Tuo was determined to put all magic and cultivation training on hold. He would start with the basics of surgery and acupuncture instead. Zero should be ready for it now that he'd grown into a fine young man.

While the Sage God was confident that Zero wouldn't waver at the sight of a knife, he needed to know if Zero would be able to perform the traditional surgery without the use of healing magic. Stitching back skin and organs were sometimes required according to the traditional surgical methods. If Zero wanted to be a doctor, he needed to learn everything Hua Tuo knew. the Sage God still stubbornly believed that life should be lived without the influence of magic as much as possible. for some reason, he viewed magic as a way to disrupt a human's way of life and introduce a whole new array of problems.

With that firm belief, he decided to send a carrier pigeon to a certain expert seamstress in Half Moon Village.

When the pigeon landed, the dark elf was pleasantly surprised that her presence was so quickly requested. After being unable to catch much of Zero after his return from the abyss with the sudden announcement of his new position of the village head, Mitchnew had been experiencing Zero-withdrawal symptoms. Her husband was also not around to ease that loneliness so when the letter came, Mitchnew packed immediately before informing Zenobia that she would be gone for a few days.

Back in Endow Hill, Hua Tuo sent a text to ask around about the mysterious individual who helped Zero to cheat with his cultivation base. It didn't take the Sage God very long to know who it was and Hua Tuo sighed when he received a reply.

The Sage God of Medicine looked wistful. It was only the first official day of Zero's return to resume his training and yet there had been so many changes. He glanced at the sky and sighed deeper this time. The sun hasn't even risen but already Hua Tuo wanted to crawl back into bed and pretend that everything was just a bad dream.

Oh, how he despised change!