Ball of Nothing

#100: Training (8)

"I... I did it!"

It took Zero one week to finally succeed in reviving all the fishes and maybe some birds that Hua Tuo caught. After ten successful revives, it wasn't even lunch time yet. That was a huge leap in progress and Zero wanted to cry in both joy and relief.

Hua Tuo was proud of his student. With such an astonishing rate of progress, the old physician had no doubts that his apprentice will one day surpass him. For now, it was time to celebrate a little. Lunch will be lavish and dumplings sounded great.

"You did well," Hua Tuo commended and Zero beamed.

Yesterday's failure paved the road for today's success. Zero's perseverance managed to allow him to transcend and overcome all obstacles. Although Zero didn't mention it, Hua Tuo knew that the young boy had been training secretly behind Hua Tuo's back. The doctor didn't discourage that but he didn't mention anything about it and pretended not to know. After all, Zero's method of training was truly bizarre.

Normally, students would get familiarised with the steps of healing and practice to make the flow second nature. However, Zero wasn't the same. Instead, the young boy explored different ways to save a life using healing magic. Some ended with results crueller than death but Hua Tuo was in equal parts curious and worried at Zero's unique way of thinking.

He didn't know how Zero thought about fusing two dying or dead animals to improve his success rates. The creatures lived but seeing that they were two very different species, they couldn't come to agree on which prey to hunt and that resulted in their deaths by starvation - something Zero learnt the hard way.

Hua Tuo didn't understand how Zero thought it would be a great idea to pour healing magic constantly into a dead creature for more than three minutes. The unexpected happened when the creature morphed into a zombie who came alive in the form of a spirit taking over possession of its rotting body. Even after its resurrection, Zero faithfully continued to supply it healing magic and Hua Tuo almost fainted when the creature became a zombie mutant capable of absorbing mana for its survival. Without knowing what he did, Zero left happily. Hua Tuo only knew about a massacre of a small village the day after and had to secretly end that monster's 'life'. Endow Hill's magic was strong enough to drive the weak-willed minds insane. With an indestructible body and a weak mind, it was only a matter of time before what Zero 'saved' morphed into everyone's nightmare. If not put to a stop, it could very well turn into a calamity class demon, given enough time. When Zero learnt about the monster he created from Gaia who heard it from Hua Tuo, he mourned for the deaths of those innocent villagers and promised to never do that again.

Despite all that, Zero's secret nightly experiments paid off. In less than a week, the young boy came to understand the nature of healing magic after pushing it to extents that not even Hua Tuo did. He proved to be highly intelligent when Hua Tuo was surprised with a perfected revival of the fourth fish that he caught. The first three were revived but died shortly after. The fourth fish was the mark of Zero's first successful attempt as it was set free back into the river.

Hua Tuo was impressed and amazed by Zero's ability to improve. He began to coach Zero seriously on the finer points in the art of revival magic. Zero learned fast and he perfected his revival magic on fishes. The physician took it to the next level on the sixth day of their training and introduced new species.

Initially, Zero couldn't perform very well with species that didn't have similar organs and system due to his lack of understanding. Hua Tuo then explained that Healing Magic was a very innate thing. The healer was merely a mediator between the magic and the patient receiving treatment. If Zero was able to sync his mind with the patient's, the magic would flow naturally and Zero would only need to follow the flow, supplying more when it is needed to places more critical as determined by the magic.