Ball of Nothing

After Ba Guai was created, Buddha went back to Nirvana and wished Zero all the best for the final stages of his training. Hua Tuo couldn't help but be amused by Zero's cultivation base. Who would have thought that Zero would come up with such a weird guardian and an even stranger name to accompany it? Now the Sage God couldn't help but be curious about the kinds of names Zero would come up with for his Spiritual Attacks after Hua Tuo taught him how to manipulate his qi.

"Today, we celebrate," Hua Tuo told Zero. "We're going to Half Moon Village for a feast. Congratulations, Zero. You did well."

The teenager blushed badly at the sincere compliment and stuttered his thanks. Still, a feast sounded fantastic so Zero told Zoe about it in his mindscape. The zashikiwarashi rejoiced and went to work immediately, not forgetting to congratulate Zero before she left.

The young village head decided that he will do his part and hunt a nice catch for the feast. Pity Hua Tuo didn't allow him to catch the spring guardian. A monster carp would make a good feast.

They arrived around late morning in the village. Zero reached into his inventory and pulled out five huge turtles from the Trigression Falls. After much debating with Hua Tuo, the physician finally relented and allowed Zero to sacrifice some cultivated turtles for the feast. Besides, eating cultivated turtle meat would mean that the villagers would all be qi nourished to some extent. Qin Yun in particular who was a cultivator would benefit the most from this boost.

Zoe welcomed Zero with a hug that went right through him. Zero chuckled and Hua Tuo thought that it might be a good time to teach Zero how to use his newly acquired ability.

While Zoe busied away, the physician pulled his student to the side.

"Next time you hug Zoe, try channelling qi through your body like a second skin."

Zero blinked at that tip but nodded. He didn't know what qi does that magic cannot do but if Hua Tuo wanted him to have some hands-on practice to familiarise himself with it, Zero had nothing to lose.

Zoe was surprised when she felt someone touch her. The ghost turned around and saw that it was Zero who was hugging her from the back but with something strange acting as his aura that was probably what made it possible for physical contact. Usually, she could only interact with objects because it took too much energy to materialise and interact with people. Also, each time someone passed through her, Zoe would feel colder as they took away some of her energy. On busy days when she didn't have time to recharge, Qin Yun would come by to help her to replenish her energy with some qi. However, it was never warm like Zero's and the sudden change in temperature made the zashikiwarashi freeze in shock.

Hua Tuo smiled when Zoe eventually returned the hug warmly. The household ghost was sobbing too, too touched to do anything else. Zero had brought spring and summer back into her life with his newly gained gift and she couldn't be more thankful. Other than inviting her on his travels with that mindscape sharing contract, Zero had reminded her what the sun felt like,

Hua Tuo was satisfied after observing Zero's level of proficiency in qi manipulation. He left silently in search of the fox spirit to teach Zero about the different kinds of qi manipulation. There were some errands he had to attend to in heaven and it was inappropriate to drag his student there. Hence, the physician brought Zero back to Half Moon Village so they could play babysitters for a while.

After hearing Hua Tuo's request, Qin Yun nodded. The Sage God smiled and thanked the fox spirit before leaving the village discreetly. Zero was still preoccupied with the lab members who were keen to get his measurements for his trial weapon that they were tasked to create. In fact, it would take a good few hours before Zero had any spare time at all. The village was in a buzz with so many matters that they needed Zero to look into as the village head.

Zero took it upon himself to work hard from the gardens to the construction project. He even took some time to play with the children while checking up on Karris and Seff's health in Hua Tuo's place. The boy was kept busy the whole time while Zoe and Lovina worked up a huge sweat preparing for the feast. Everyone wanted to make it memorable and enjoyable to celebrate Zero's new breakthrough that Hua Tuo told them about. Zenobia had a feeling that the next time they saw Zero, it would be for a farewell feast when the young doctor had to travel for his adventures.

At the feast, Zero looked around and didn't see his teacher anywhere. In fact, Zero searched his map for Hua Tuo's whereabouts but it only showed him that Hua Tuo was no longer on Endow Hill. That made him worry a little until Qin Yun told him that his teacher had some jobs to take care off and entrusted her to teach him how to use qi now that he has a stable foundation.

"Cultivation can take a long time and it is an arduous path but I believe you don't need to follow what we cultivators do. I heard that you can mix magic and qi?"

Zero grinned. "Yupp!"

Qin Yun smiled. Zero hasn't been slacking off in relaying messages to her from her village. She receives a letter from him once a week usually except for the past few weeks because of his sudden seclusion. While the fox spirit enjoyed reading what her sisters had to say, she enjoyed the little notes about Zero's progress and thoughts even more. To think that there will be a day someone would discover the solution to the mystery behind qi and mana simultaneous manipulation... Qin Yun was glad she lived for so long to see the day come true. Who knew that chaos energy from the void existed for this very purpose of harmonising qi and mana?

She made an agreement to start teaching Zero about qi manipulation right away after they tended to the medical garden tomorrow morning.

"Latitia says that some of the herbs you got from the abyss auction are growing well. However, Cleo is having some difficulty with the special seed that you requested for. It might be the lack of proper environment on Earth that makes it impossible to grow. She was also unable to determine the type of plant the seed belongs to."

Zero was surprised to hear that. Perhaps he should take that seed to Tanya for investigation. Cleo was a dryad and there shouldn't be any plant that the spirit couldn't grow.

"I see, thanks for letting me know. I will see you tomorrow morning."

Qin Yun smiled and urged Zero to join Clowis and the warriors for a hand wrestling match. So far, the most impressive match was Mitchnew holding her own against Tambolt. Dwarves were known for their strength and as an elf, Mitchnew was naturally at a disadvantage. However, the ex-assassin was doing well by defeating Tambolt and Grandma Moppo who was sipping ale in a corner, grumbling about getting on in her years.

Zero stood close to the wrestling match and watched out for anyone who was possibly injured. He cheered loudly when the two dragon descendants were made to pit against each other. Vrald was winning but Zero urged Gerald not to give up. With a strange twist of events, the golden-haired swordsman pinned his friend down hard enough to put a crack in the rock surface. Zero panicked a little but Vrald seemed to be injured apart from his bruised pride.

The feast progressed late into the night until everyone fell asleep from exhaustion or became dead drunk. Zero found himself cuddling up against Zenobia together with Leon, Rima and Jacqueline. Qin Yun was cleaning up some of the mess when she chanced upon the endearing sight. She couldn't help but be thankful to the teenager who'd given her a second chance at becoming a human again and went up to him to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. Zero didn't stir and Qin Yun continued cleaning the rest of the cave with Moona's help.

The next morning arrived too soon and Zero hurried to prepare hangover medicine for those who drank too much the night before. Nobody kept to the schedule and the village had a relaxed atmosphere hanging around it. Cleo and Qin Yun didn't take offence when Zero was tardy. He apologised and hurried along to help them with the garden while taking back that one seed that simply wouldn't grow. He knew where he'd gotten that seed and didn't think that it would actually grow at all. Still, it was worth a shot and Zero thanked the ladies.

The young doctor helped with harvesting the ready herbs and expressed his excitement at some of the rarer abyss herbs growing. Cleo and Latitia giggled at the teenager's behaviour. Zero hasn't really changed much since he was a boy and they were thankful for that.

After gardening, Qin Yun took Zero out of the village for a short training lecture and demonstration. Zero followed eagerly and the other villagers slowly settled back into their normal pace of life, busying away on their individual tasks.

When they were a good distance away from the village, Qin Yun stopped and had Zero sit down to watch her demonstrate what could be done with qi.

The teenager sat by the river bank and watched as Qin Yun gathered qi to her feet. She smiled and walked across the river surface without losing balance or getting wet. Zero was impressed with the water walking technique and Qin Yun made it more impressive by demonstrating that it was possible to create ice as she walked.

"The trick here is to use yin qi instead of yang qi that I was using earlier. Tang qi heats the water up and I was actually walking on a layer of steam. Ordinarily, that steam would have burnt the soles of my feet but I was circulating yin qi internally to counter the external yang qi. Likewise, I did the opposite for frost walking."

Zero applauded and couldn't wait to try it out.

"You might want to change out of your clothes when you're practising water walking," the fox spirit smiled and Zero agreed.

The first time Zero tried to circulate yang qi on the outside and yin on the inside, he misjudged the amount of qi required and was shot up into the air from the extreme heat. Qin Yun laughed at Zero's surprised expression and the boy quickly switched to magic to cushion his landing. Usually, beginner cultivators found it hard to maintain enough heat to properly walk on water. Most of them would sink into the river on their first attempt, getting wet. Zero was completely opposite and didn't know what moderation meant. Despite living for a very long time, this was the first time Qin Yun saw a beginner cultivator getting shot into the air by an explosion of steam trying to walk on water.

Zero groaned as he made his way back to the river. He'd been shot up quite high and landed a good twenty metres away from where he started. The shock still rattled him but the young doctor had an idea of which direction he should be working towards when it came to adjusting his control.

"How was it?" the lady asked, totally amused.

Zero groaned in embarrassment. "I'll try toning it down this time," he told her.

Zero was more cautious the second time he tried. He allowed the qi to circulate in one leg as he slowly placed it on the water surface, testing the stability of the foothold.

The water started boiling and sizzling when Zero was still a good ten centimetres away from the surface so the boy reduced the intensity of the qi and was satisfied when he could place his foot on the surface without sending him flying. However, as he tried putting more weight onto it, Zero found himself sinking and raised a brow at that. Was it not enough?

"Try controlling the area that your qi circulates to and condense it within a bubble. Right now, the qi you send downwards are dispersing into the water," Qin Yun told Zero and the boy took a few minutes to try holding onto his qi.

"It's still escaping," he told Qin Yun. By now, the qi around his feet was more stabilised but it was still shaky.

The fox demon nodded. Zero was doing well controlling his output but he was forgetting to direct them to the right channel. In fact, Zero has stopped circulating the qi and simply allowed the stagnant energy to flow out of his meridian channel much like water through a hole-riddled balloon. There was little control and the lack of technique made Qin Yun wonder how Zero was able to power through it without knowledge of how it actually worked. Hua Tuo told her that Zero was an experimental learner and seeing it for herself wasn't the same as hearing it.

Zero was quick to understand concepts when given hints in the right direction. Qin Yun had never seen such a self-directed learner before and Zero's progress frightened her as a cultivator. How was Zeroable to manage everything so perfectly with only one or two tries? In order to fully understand how to control qi and manipulate it, cultivators took years of practice from developing their cultivation base and building up reserves to unlocking higher levels of understanding for a more refined level of control.

It didn't take long for Zero to experiment pushing qi through specific open meridian points to understand the trick behind walking on water. Qin Yun spent the hour watching Zero explore all different options between skating on the water surface to springboarding through the air. Qin Yun thought that the surprises would end there but she was severely mistaken when Zero demonstrated a yin yang performance of simultaneously maintaining one foot encased in yang qi and the other in yin qi.

"Has he understood the principles behind the yin-yang coexistence?" Qin Yun couldn't help but be shocked and humbled by Zero's cultivation talent. To reach the stage of understanding co-existence of finding yin within the yang and vice-versa, the fox spirit had to go through seclusion and gruelling meditation sessions. The chances of losing control and having the qi backfire were very high. The fox demon had to spend several months recovering from a particularly bad internal injury after a miscalculation trying to master the skill but Zero was switching between yin and yang freely as if he had centuries worth of practice already.

Was there anything that this child couldn't do?

Zero remained unaware of Qin Yun's inner conflict and focussed on exploring new methods to use qi. He was finding a way to perfect walking on ice without getting stuck onto it or melting it completely. The skill was by far the trickiest he had to overcome and Zero clicked his tongue in frustration as the ice melted once more.

Qin Yun couldn't help but wonder what Zero was thinking about for the last twenty minutes. On the surface, it looked as if the young doctor was having fun skating on the water surface and painting a beautiful picture with ice. However, as time dragged on, she couldn't help but notice how troubled it looked.

"Zero, let's take a break!"

The brunet paused for a moment and sighed before heading back to the river bank.

"I see that you're having some difficulty?" the fox spirit asked with a smile and Zero nodded.

"I can't seem to walk without melting the ice once it is formed. I think my control lacks finesse."

If that was said by someone other than Zero, Qin Yun wouldn't hesitate to whip them with her tails for bragging. However, coming from the doctor's apprentice, she could only exercise patience. Zero was still very ignorant about the standards of the world and he wasn't bragging through his statement because Qin Yun understood how Zero genuinely thought he wasn't good enough.

"Zero, not even your teacher Hua Tuo has mastered the art of walking on ice without melting it. I believe you've found the difficulty in maintaining a heat high enough to create steam but low enough to not melt it. The logic is impossible from the start. Ice cannot remain intact when you're trying to walk using steam."

Zero thought about it and hummed. Qin Yun made sense. Now he understood why he couldn't succeed. He was going about it the wrong way.

"Are there any other things I can do with qi? For example, maybe I can create wind instead or steam to walk on water?"

Qin Yun smiled. It didn't take long for Zero to figure out that there were more than one ways of walking on water apart from what she'd shown him.

"That's right, other ways exist. Simply put it, qi manipulation can be in a direct method like what you've been doing so far and an indirect method. However, unlike magic, qi can only alter the forms of objects that are in your surroundings. They are not automatically imbued with elements like mana so many cultivators choose to train their bodies in addition to their cultivation bases. I have an ice body and Hua Tuo has a medicine body."

Zero blinked. "Medicine body? How does he get a medicine body? Is he part plant or something?"

Qin Yun laughed at Zero's mental imagery. "No, silly. He's human still. Have you heard of Western Venom? He was a cultivator who created the toad skill. His body was trained to become poisonous and very toxic so when he activates his qi, it will fuse with the blood in his body to create a poison-based attack. Like how you encased your feet with qi to walk on water, qi can be applied the same way internally. Many pugilists use qi to encase and guard their heart when they are poisoned. Think of it as a barrier to redirect the poison. The poison will be circulated and gathered at one point using qi to be purged from the body through sweating or vomiting normally. However, that's just one way of using qi."

Zero listened carefully and nodded. As far as the explanation went, qi and blood were very closely related. Was that why Hua Tuo was asking him about his standard meridian channels? Without them, he couldn't cultivate at all.

"What will happen if I cannot circulate qi through a certain meridian because it is blocked off? Hua Tuo mentioned something about being able to disarm cultivators and paralyse them by blocking off their meridian points temporarily although he hasn't taught me how it is done."

Without warning, Qin Yun hit two of Zero's acupuncture points that blocked off his meridian circulation. The apprentice was alarmed at first but soon noticed that it didn't affect his qi circulation. He did feel significantly weaker in the areas that the meridian path was blocked off and could move his limbs connected to it but there wasn't anything major or life-threatening.

The fox spirit smiled. "Even if I didn't do anything, the meridian path will unblock itself within a day. Think of it as a blood clot. If you rub it, the blood clot will clear faster and if you don't it will simply take longer to recover. However, this is only dangerous when you're in a battle and are rendered immobile during it. You wouldn't be able to clear the blockage so soon and that gives your enemies enough time to finish you off."

As Qin Yun unblocked the meridian points, Zero felt his strength coming back to his limbs slowly. It was a strange feeling but he could understand where Qin Yun was coming from.

"What is the second way of using qi other than using it as a barrier internally?"

Qin Yun grinned and demonstrated gathering qi into her palms and pulling in air from the surroundings, forming a huge vortex in the middle of the forest. Zero felt his jaw slacken at that display of skill. With Qin Yun acting as the centre of the world, she was drawing in elements from the surrounding to control them as an extension of herself.

"This is an advanced form of Tai Ji that involves qi manipulation. You can use qi to sharpen a blade to pierce through any armour with wind or use qi to reinforce your armour with dirt. Qi can also be used to create walls to defend against arrows. You can use any element to create that as long as you have a good grasp of yin and yang. There are pugilists who have channelled qi into music for an area attack too. The basic of qi is life and as long as there is life, you can do anything."

Zero practised a little with Qin Yun and took to sparring using qi, exploring new ways of using it and taking pointers from the skilled fox spirit. Somewhere in the middle of the sparring, Zero knew what kind of combat style he wanted to develop. From magic enhancement to qi, Zero thought that simple was best. Tai Ji was an art that consisted of only basic movements but it had a very fluid style of movement that allowed Zero to be highly adaptable to any situation. With qi and magic at his disposal, Zero didn't want to restrict himself to either. Qi attacks didn't kill but magic if used wrongly could.

The teenager dodged another tail stab and used qi to act as springboard mid-air to put some distance between them. If qi was like the weapon then magic would be like his armour. Zero focussed on dodging for the time being. He observed carefully how Qin Yun covered her blind spots with no wasted movements. The ancient fox was very skilled and never over expanded herself, proving it difficult for Zero to close in on her.

Qin Yun smiled when Zero started using qi to enhance his forearm that blocked yet another tail strike. After getting hit by it the first time, Zero quickly learnt that she was not to be underestimated despite his indestructible body of sorts. Zero felt the bone fracture but the adrenaline didn't allow him any time to feel pain as healing magic kicked in.

Given no choice, Zero was forced to be on the defensive and focussed qi into the places that Qin Yun struck. Through that exercise, Zero found that he was getting better at keeping a continuous circulation of qi while distributing qi to the areas that require it more. He was also getting the hang of rebalancing the qi after using some and it became easier for the young doctor to get used to stepping on water or tricky surfaces.

One cool trick he learnt from the spar was the act of walking in the air. Although it wasn't considered as flying, Zero knew that it came very close to what he wanted. Right now, Zero was focussed on trying to close in on Qin Yun to block one of her meridian points and render her immobile. From Hua Tuo's lessons, Zero already knew the major meridian points on the human body. However, Qin Yun was a nine-tailed fox. The pesky thing about fighting with someone who had nine extra limbs was how difficult it was to locate the one acupoint that connects all nine tails. Each time Zero landed a hit to disable one, Qin Yun would use the other eight tails to distract him while unblocking the meridian for that one tail and they would be back to square one.

Right now, Zero was hiding in a bush, waiting to ambush Qin Yun when she came. He had a good idea on where that magical acupoint was that would render all nine tails immobile but the tricky part was getting behind Qin Yun. He was baiting the fox spirit to look for him and Qin Yun was approaching when Zero's stomach decided to betray him with a growl loud enough to scare away some birds resting on a tree nearby.

Qin Yun heard the growl from the bush and couldn't hold it in any longer before bursting out in laughter.

Zero stood up from the bush with his cheeks red from embarrassment now that his position had been compromised. The fox spirit called it a truce and helped the teen get leaves out of his hair before both of them headed back to the village for lunch, unaware that lunch was two hours ago.