Chapter 33: The power of knowledge

Sora was conflicted on how to feel. Currently, he sat at the foot of the bed as Zatanna slept peacefully.

He didn't know how to feel. What was supposed to be a simple act of saving Zatanna's life turned to something else.

It roused some feelings he was unaware he possessed.

It was less of unaware and more of forgotten. In both lives, it was the first time he had allowed himself to indulge in such a feeling.

He was well aware of hormones and what they did to the adolescent mind but in his defense, what place did hormones have for a starving and lonely child who wanted to survive.

He had forcibly suppressed such feelings in his first life to focus on surviving. The fact that nobody would be caught dead getting close to the homeless kid made it even easier.

But now…

'What a mess. Mom, what do I do?' He asked as he looked out the window into the night sky.

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he decided to focus on other matters. He actually had two matters that needed his attention.

The first matter being the curse seal. With Art of the Mind, it was a trivial matter to delve into his own mind.

Unlike the first time he entered his mind space, the cracks in the sky were almost non existent. His surrounding was an exact replica of his apartment minus the fact that the sky was visible on the ceiling.

He walked towards the bedroom that he first stayed in when he moved into the apartment. The dark aura emanating from the door confirmed that he was right.

Carefully opening the door, he saw a figure that anyone who lived in the shinobi world would recognize.

Orochimaru of the three Sannin.

The only thing out of place would be blank look in his eyes and his unmoving body that didn't so much as react as Sora entered the room.

'Zatanna you sure outdid yourself.' He thought with a grin as he made an observation.

The Orochimaru in front of him represented the piece of consciousness from the curse seal. The only odd thing about it was that it was blank.

The memories and knowledge of the shard was still present but it's will and mind of its own was shattered and nonexistent.

Meaning…

'All that knowledge of jutsu and chakra is standing right here in front of me. Available to browse at my whim.' He thought with an excited grin.

Let it be known that despite the number of jutsu that the sannin is shown to use, he has multitudes more in his reserves that weren't displayed.

'Jutsu that are now mine.' As if to prove that, he delved into its mind, looking through the surface knowledge before going deeper.

Of course everything he perused was recorded and stored in an aspect of his mind. There was no such thing as useless knowledge with Orochimaru so he skipped nothing.

Suddenly an idea came to him. A stupid one at that but he was going to do it either way.

The dark aura in the room represented the curse mark. Bracing himself, he used every ounce of power he could muster to isolate the dark chakra from the shard.

Despite the shard not being able to resist, the vile aura was another thing entirely. Desperately pulling it away from the shard of blank consciousness he grit his teeth as a splitting headache pushed into his head.

Small cracks were beginning to re-emerge on the sky as the world in his mind visibly shook. Only a minute had passed but it felt like years to Sora as a drop of blood trickled from his nose.

He endured this for a full ten minutes, now holding his head in pain but managing to stand upright.

Until he was finally done.

The room was no longer flooded with the dark chakra and the Orochimaru shard still stood in the center of the room lifelessly.

In front of Sora was a dark ball of energy the size of his head. It floated ominously in front of him but didn't do anything else.

'Here goes nothing.' He thought as he weakly stretched his hand to it, just touching the surface.

[Unknown Energy Detected!]

[Do you wish to integrate?]

[Yes] [No]

'Thank God it still works in here.' He thought as he accepted.

The dark ball of energy pulsed for a few seconds before bursting in all directions. Sora's eyes widened in worry only for them to relax as the energy was pulled towards his body.

The process took a full minute as the entirety of the dark chakra was absorbed into him.

[*Ding!*]

[You have gained 'Cursed Seal of Heaven'!]

His face lit up in a grin as he read the prompt. The grin only grew as he felt the progress bar increasing until it stopped at 24.6%.

All in all he was excited. Not only did his strength increase but he had acquired a library of knowledge to use as he pleased.

'Still, I don't feel comfortable with him standing there like that.' He thought with a slight frown.

With a frown of concentration, the shard was brought to its knees as shackles appeared around its hands, legs and neck.

A tube shot out of the floor and attached itself to the base of its neck. A progress bar appeared above the shard's head as the number began to rise.

[1%….5%…..13%…20%….]

He stood there, not taking his eyes off the shard as the number rose further until it was full.

[99%…..100%…]

[Download Complete!]

[Unknown Entity Detected!]

[Do you wish to terminate?]

[Yes] [No]

Without a second thought, he accepted and watched as the floor seems to open up and suck Orochimaru into itself.

Sora tried to look into the hole but saw nothing but emptiness. The moment the shard was pulled into the dark space, a bright light exploded in the void, destroying everything upon contact, the shard included.

The light died down to reveal the dark space once again empty before the floor covered itself up like nothing happened.

Using his control over his mind space, the bed and furniture in the room disappeared as large shelves appeared in the room.

What was once a small room was now as large as a library and contained multiple shelves. He had arranged the knowledge gained from the shard in their appropriate order.

It took a lot of mental energy to do all this and he was exhausted. With his job done for now, he exited his mind space.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sora found himself once again seated at the foot of the bed. He took a glance and saw Zatanna still asleep.

Taking a peek using Energy Sensing, he could feel her regaining more mana as time passed. He breathed a sign of relief at that.

'Now unto the next matter…' He thought as he pulled out a vial of green liquid from his inventory.

[Object: Healing Potion]

[Effect: Heals a decent amount of health. Heals and removes certain ailments.]

During his mixing frenzy he had made three vials of these as insurance. He took a gulp of the potion as the soreness in his body disappeared completely.

Seeing as how he wasn't exactly 'injured' a lot, he could say that the potion worked very well. Taking a knife from his inventory, he made a small cut on his finger.

Thin drops of blood began to flow out of the cut. He allowed it to bleed for a few seconds before pouring the small remains of the potion on the injury.

With immediate effect, the cut closed up leaving his finger bloody but with no sign of injury.

This wasn't like a game where it's one bottle one use. It still had its healing properties though it was reduced.

'It doesn't leave a scar. Good to know.' He thought in relief.

While he had succeeded in creating the healing potion, he wasn't satisfied. He still wanted the healing jutsu for when potions were for some reason unavailable no matter how implausible it may sound.

He took as he breath as he got off the bed. He saw Zatanna shift around uncomfortably for a moment before going still again.

He thought of something to take his mind off his current situation but came up blank.

With nothing to do, he sat back on the bed as he delved into his mind to peruse his new library of information, intentionally ignoring the way the form of the homo magi relaxed.