Ball of Nothing

Zero concentrated the flow of qi into his hands and condensed it together like how he was taught and held the pressure within his palm. With enough energy circulating, it started to glow and Zero opened his eyes to look at the lighted cave.

Thousands of red eyes stared back at him and Zero shuddered. Each creature had eight hairy legs, eight red eyes and they were all looking at him hostilely. Anyone with arachnophobia would have died on the spot and even for those who didn't, they would have faltered and become weak-kneed.

Zero gulped. This was a lot of spiders and Zero wondered how an army of them gathered without him realising.

"Appraisal!"

Name: Spider Minion

Level: 2

Attack: C-

Speed: B

Defence: D+

Health: E

Ability:

- Motherhood Brood: Allows the monster to share skills from the mother when their siblings have gathered together

Zero shuddered. The skill that interfered with Zero's minimap was Motherhood Brood. These guys alone would be no match for Zero but together, they easily made a few hundred in numbers. Zero didn't know if purely physical attacks and absorption would work with so many enemies. As of now, they didn't seem like they wanted to move from their spot which made Zero more worried. The boss of this dungeon had to be the mother arachnid who was controlling these smaller spiders. It didn't seem to be a regular monster either and displayed higher intelligence.

"What can I do to break free from their formation?" Zero asked. If he reached the mother spider, all these spiders would be no threat. There was also a high chance that the dungeon boss was the mother spider but Zero couldn't be sure.

Lily suggested a targeted spot to attack and breakthrough before running but Wii had a better plan.

"Master, why don't we let them attack and absorb everything until the mother spider comes out of hiding? From what I'm seeing, they've laid traps everywhere with their webs. It's going to be tricky to get out of those and once you're stuck, they will attack."

Zero listened to both ideas and thought quickly. These spiders didn't seem keen on moving from their spot and Zero was surrounded. Both ideas sounded good but Zero wanted something more effective with lesser effort on his part.

With that, Zero put YY Tonfas away and changed into his favourite tracksuit. This should hold up for a long time with the multiple layers of magical charms on the clothes. The dungeon might absorb mana but they cannot suck mana out of the unliving or manaless. These clothes are unliving and do not possess mana of their own so they defy all dungeon laws. That made them perfect armour against a mana absorbing dungeon.

Wii and Mii didn't know what Zero was up to. Normally, people didn't change their wardrobe in the middle of a battle but Zero didn't seem to follow logic. There had to be a reason why he was doing it and if Zero stopped blocking their outgoing communications, they could inform Truen and Bob to get opinions about what Zero could possibly be up to before it was too late.

The spiders were wary and slightly afraid when Zero showed no signs of fear or panic as he calmly walked past them. Nobody could give their mother the information about this unusual adventurer so he must be a rather high-levelled one.

As Zero progressed, the spiders parted and formed a little walk path without Zero needing to fight his way through. The qi was still condensed around his hands and Zero lit the path to observe what sort of traps the spiders had made. The webs weren't ordinary spider webs that broke with a touch of Zero's finger. If anything, they were mana reinforced and Zero stopped in front of an intricate weave.

Letting the qi go back to normal, the cave slowly dimmed once more until all was dark. Zero activated his dark vision again but this time, he could see thousands of tiny red eyes behind him. There wasn't a way past these critters now that he voluntarily walked into their trap. Zero wanted to test the strength and material of the web. If they were good, Zero could harvest them and rake up a handsome profit even if they were slightly tricky to handle.

"Zero?" Wii asked. "What are you planning to do?"

Zero grinned. He lifted his hand to touch the spider web and immediately felt the numbing sensation on his skin that was quickly neutralised.

"Hmm, rare tranquilising poison and sleep charms. These webs also have a stickiness that is strong enough to lift a few tonnes. Very good material! It's stronger than Sekkin's spider silk, Schaf should be able to get a high price for this if we had good crafters. I wonder if Dorgon would be interested in such rare spider silk."

Mii nodded. "It's at least a B grade material because it has natural magic imbued properties in it. What do you want to do now?"

Zero grinned and looked at the spiders. "What do you think these spiders will do if I shamelessly harvested their traps before their eyes? Also, do you think they will attack me if I pretended to fall into a trap?"

As the longest mindscape assistant working with Zero, Mii instantly knew where this was going and frowned. "I wouldn't advise pulling such a risky thing but if you are confident of taking down the mother spider if you antagonise her children, I think it might be a good strategy."

With Mii's green light of approval, Zero threw caution to the wind and let himself bounce onto the web trap like a comfortable hammock. Wii was given orders to automatically absorb any spiders that came into contact with him and Zero concentrated on circulating the qi to counter the effects of the sleeping charm while his clothing effectively neutralised the tranquilising poison.

Like simple-clockwork, the spiders attacked at once when Zero stopped moving on their web trap. Initially, they thought that this adventurer was a powerful person with how confident he behaved so they reported back to their mother but seeing him walk into the trap willingly and landing himself in their web without hesitation, the spider minions no longer hesitated. They attacked at once and screeched to call for more of their brood.

This was the first meal in a good long while that didn't taste like rotting scorpions. How could they possibly pass up the chance?