354 Scamming to Save Lives (1/2)
Zero quickly transformed into his pre-saved vessel customisation template. Slowly, Zero was beginning to put together all the skills he had for more practical purposes. The vessel customising function wasn't just to make him look better and taller. Zero was also able to load some of his physical assimilation like wings and change his size to resemble a dwarf or a giant. It took some practice but he was finally able to switch between pre-loaded avatars like summoning a clone.
In the last two days he spent in Magnus Hilda, Zero hadn't been slacking off. Now that he had a shared inventory with Truen, Zero started storing more items that he thought they would need in it. Some of the items included Zero's pills and recovery potions. He made many pill supplements and mana recovery potions just in case Truen required it. Among the items, Zero also copied a lot of charms and talismans for future uses. He didn't like the idea of Truen staying up to watch the camp whenever they had to camp outdoors. Hence, Zero created hundreds of array copies on the talismans that were single uses. This should be able to last them a whole year even if they camped out every night.
The one thing Zero was very proud of was his new pharmacy dimension. Taking a book from Arabesque, Zero linked all his golems to his inventory. While they worked as garden assistants and medical assistants, Zero didn't tell anyone else a sneaky little function he included. All thirty golems were actually power generators for Zero. They had the ability to collect payment of siphon energy from where they were working constantly. The golems charged their internal crystals first and the surplus goes to Zero. Even if Zero is naturally unable to produce mana or qi, he had no problems now with thirty golems doing it for him. The doctor still understood the risks and was careful about splurging the precious energy collected in his reserves.
The one thing that Zero was worried about was his financial status. making money and keeping it was trickier than Zero thought it would be. Back in Half Moon village, Zero didn't have to worry about such things. There wasn't really a need for Zero to earn any money at all previously. When he trained with his shifu, they would grow their own herbs. When he was in Heaven, the Great Gods took care of him. When he was in Nirvana, everything was on Buddha. When he was with Merlin, the wizard provided everything Zero could possibly need. If he was ever starving, there was the free meal ticket he had valid for a year. Sadly, that ticket expired.
Honestly speaking, Zero wasn't resource poor. He had four farms and could build more if he really needed it. Zero tested out many methods that could be used to get rid of the mushrooms. Like Joseph said, fire really didn't do anything to them. Zero's appraisal level wasn't high enough to identify their weakness so he could only experiment. The Talia golems worked hard and found that the mushrooms had magic resistance to fire but were weak to heat. Cleo also mentioned that acid worked very well on the mushrooms. Unfortunately for Zero, he didn't have many acid-producing resources so that wasn't a good idea. Fortunately, cinnamon powder worked against the mushrooms but it wasn't as effective. The doctor sighed. There had to be a better alternative.
Bob wasn't travelling with them to Magnus Hilda but at this point, Zero really thought that having the dragon here would be a good thing. Zero could simply feed the dragon a ton of hunger-inducing potion and extract the acid from his stomach to distribute it to the garrison to spray on the annoying paralysing mushrooms. Alternatively, Zero could cast a large area of heat magic on Magnus Hilda to dehydrate every single annoying fungi and turn them into mushroom powder for paralysing potions to sell to the guilds for a handsome profit. However, Zero promised Truen not to use any overpowered magic and keep a low profile.
The doctor sighed. How was he going to keep a low profile when he had to convince Queen Rosalind to change Magnus Hilda's faith into worshipping only Freya? Then again, Truen did say that he was free to use aliases whenever he needed. Maybe now he was the wandering healer who listened to voices of wandering gods and a lady healer. After he leaves, he could be a magician scholar who is collecting research throughout the land.
Zero groaned. Who was he kidding? He would eventually run out of fake identities and Zero didn't think it was a permanent solution. The cure for paralysis was easily made. In his pharmacy dimension, he had ten thousand paralysis cure potions waiting. The issue wasn't mass producing potions. It was explaining them.
Why did curing a plague suddenly sound like a huge scam job? Zero couldn't understand. The old him would have easily tossed the potions, wished the folks good day and be out of the way. However, now that his eyes were opened to something called consequences, Zero couldn't be so irresponsible. he wondered what Hua Tuo would have done in his shoes but knowing his shifu's temperament, the physician would have told Zero to close his eyes to the things he couldn't handle and leave the rest to fate.
To help him gather his thoughts better, Zero wrote down what he needed.
1. Get rid of mushrooms.
2. Convince Queen Rosalind to build a Freya shrine and worship her from now on.
3. Distribute the uses for coma patients without alerting others of my mass-producing abilities.
”Mii, are there any monsters or creatures on Earth that actually use acid to attack? The nearer they are to Magnus Hilda, the better.”
The strawcherry fairy groaned. ”Zero, what are you doing up so late at night? Shouldn't you be sleeping?”
Zero sighed and explained his problem. ”I don't want to involve Truen in this if I can. Also, has Bob contacted any of you recently? He said that he still needed to train a little more before he could join us.”