MIDNIGHT PRINCE: Empire of Sin

Adam was indeed engrossed in his learning spree. His eyes were being opened to a new world he could have never imagined before in his life.

The human body was a huge trove of infinite treasures. It was composed of 114 Chakras evenly distributed throughout the body. Out of these Chakras, the seven main or major Chakras were perfectly aligned on the spines.

Prana was the primordial energy of the world. To contain that energy it was necessary to open one of the seven main Chakras and then proceed to open the 107 minors ones. Those 107 points would serve as veins to help circulate the energy.

The more of those 107 chakras were opened, the better it would be for the individual.

Since Adam had only opened his Third Eye, none of the 107 following chakra pathways were opened. But this was not a problem for him. He simply needed to feel the Prana in his Third Eye and slowly make it circulate through his body and open them one by one.

Even without opening the 107 pathways, he could use Appraisal— one of the skills that were available to those who had opened their Third Eye pathway.

The books The Fool, or Akasha as he preferred to call the holy woman, gave him were indeed the very basics of the basics but even then, Adam was struggling hard. There were so many things he needed to learn.

He needed to memorize the emplacement of all 114 Chakras. Since one mistake would mean certain death. He needed to learn how to feel the energy in the first place and how to use it once unlocked.

Theory and practice went hand in hand, and were absolute necessities to fully reap all the benefits of knowledge. Thankfully, the skill called appraisal was not particularly hard to learn from what was mentioned in the book.

The problem would be obtaining the so-called Eye of Truth, however. There were only a few mentions of it in the book and even then the information was very sparse. Clearly, it was not possible to access this skill directly from the book alone.

But it didn't matter. Like Genesis said, how could he learn to walk if he couldn't even crawl in the first place?

Like this, Adam continued to assimilate the knowledge that was so graciously given to him.

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But he could already feel that his limits were slowly being tested. The more he tried to learn, the more his head hurt and his mind became blurry.

Adam knew that his time was soon coming to an end. But he could not stop recording the knowledge of the book, nor did he even wish to stop.

Just a little more. Just one more page.

*Drip*

Blood dripped from his nose and eyes but he did not notice as all his focus had been assimilated into reading just one more word. As though completely possessed by who knows what, his mind was completely engrossed in gathering whatever knowledge he could.

"It has already been three weeks. You lasted longer than I thought you would. But this is enough."

Adam was pulled out of his trance when a hand firmly closed the book shut.

"I am happy to see you are serious about attaining knowledge but you need to stop. Any damage incurred here is much more dangerous than mere physical damage. You can slowly learn more once you return to your world."

Adam tried to protest. He wanted to say that he was alright. That he could still continue but he could do no such thing as his vision slowly blurred and finally turned dark. He couldn't see with his eyes anymore…

"You have reached your limit."

She placed a hand on his head and gently massaged his temples. "Now sleep. When you wake up, I assure you, you will see a whole new world that is beyond what you can fathom."

Adam tried to speak again. He had so many questions, so many things he wanted to – needed to know.

As if sensing his thoughts, she muttered, "Become stronger. If you wish to know more, to stay here for longer periods of time and obtain even more knowledge… Then strengthen your soul and return. I'll be waiting for your arrival…"

She smiled a gentle and serene smile, "The energy necessary to open each subsequent Lock will exponentially increase. Be careful about the choices you make so that you do not regret them later on. Of course, you can also choose to be satisfied with what you have now. The choice is yours, after all."

She nodded as she watched his body slowly dissipate into a mote of lights, having reached the limit of what his soul could endure being detached from its host.

"Of course, next time you come here, learn to not exceed your limits. This is a lesson you will learn the hard way once you return to your world."

She smiled, some lessons could only be learned by making mistakes. No matter the consequences…

"Well now, what to do…"

After Adam's body completely vanished from the Nexus, Akasha was once again alone in the vast and limitless library of knowledge.

Time had always been meaningless for her. But she had to admit that she did feel quite lonely now after having someone to accompany her after eons. Watching Adam greedily learn had truly been a delight to her eyes.

"Now that I think about it, he talked about something called anime, didn't he?"

This library contained all the knowledge of all the realms. This did not stop at esoteric or supernatural knowledge but even the most mundane ones and of course, entertainment was part of it.

Akasha had never been interested in that section of the library. She was only interested in actual and useful knowledge. But could she really call herself a seeker if she shunned a certain section of knowledge out of a misjudged sense of superiority?

Thinking like this, Akasha finally came to a decision…

"Perhaps I should go take a look?"

She was intrigued and wondered what she would find there. She hoped that she would not be disappointed, at least.

———

[Los Angeles, Wild Hunt]

When Adam opened his eyes, he tried to reach for his phone, hoping to see what time it was.

But the moment he moved, a splitting headache was his only reward for all of his hard work at the library.

"Ugh…"

Adam felt parched. He felt sore, hungry, tired and so many more such devastating feelings rushing at him all at once.

It was like he had stayed awake for days without eating or moving for a single bit. He felt like hundred of ants were crawling on his limbs.

*Huff* *Huff*

'What the hell!!'

His heart went into a seizure as breathing itself became so difficult it was outright painful. His vision darkened and his pulse slowed down. His body seemed to hollow itself out as if he had not eaten anything for days or even weeks. Maybe even months…

In a moment of clarity, Adam understood what was happening to him. But knowing changed nothing to his fate that was sealed by the heavens.

On that night, Adam died for the second time.

Cause of death — Hunger

(AN: Not trying to whine but chapters 25-26 took me around 5 hours to write. Went at it at 7 pm and stopped around 11:30. They aren't even that long but damn did I fucking need to make so much research for them. Thankfully I am used to doing things like this with SHK so I didn't give up. I hope you will like the power system as it's slowly expanded. It isn't anything super revolutionary or whatever but I tried really hard to make it slightly unique, at least.)