The Drogen's Law

Wendigo (Edwin)

Edwin’s eyes popped open. The worried face of Chris greeted him.

“Oh! Thank god you are alright,” Chris said, sighing in relief. “You are alright. Right?”

Edwin just looked at her mesmerizing face before answering. “O-yeah, yeah, I’m good. I’m alright. I can dance a jig if you want proof.”

Chris cryishly laughed, wiping the drop of tears from her eyes. “There is no need for that. You are a disaster when you dance.”

Edwin just grinned at her. His radiant face fell when he remembered his brother dropping like a sack of potatoes after emitting a flash of red from his body.

“Chris, how is Jimmy? Where is he?”

Edwin looked around, frantic. He was inside a tent, lit by an oil lantern. There was no sign of Jimmy.

“He is fine, Edwin. A few drops of my blood did the trick.”

It was Edwin’s turn to sigh in relief.

“I think..” Chris hesitated just a tad before continuing on. “I think your brother is going mad. That red light must have done something to his mind. He is seeing things, hearing them. He has been trying to tell me everything about this Blood Heat System thingy that has somehow fused with his soul. Of course, I didn’t understand half the things he said. I just nodded and made the right comment at the right time. Can you believe…” She went on and on about Jimmy’s supposed madness. She said so much in less than a few minutes. Edwin just smiled.

Chris looked at him with those confused blue eyes of hers, biting her lower lips. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”

Edwin threw back his head and laughed. He couldn’t help himself.

“Oh my God!” Chris brought both her hands to her mouth. “You must have gone mad too, from that blue stone thing. I should have never made us come this way. It’s all my fault.” She was on the verge of tears.

“Calm down Chris, I haven’t gone mad,” Edwin said, stopping himself from laughing—which was more difficult than he had thought. “I just couldn’t help myself. It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. If I really wanted to stop us from coming this way, I could have just bundled you up and walked in a different direction.”

‘That came out wrong, didn’t it?’ Edwin thought, mentally smacking himself for his stupid tongue.

Chris stood up like a spring and planted her hands on her hips. “What did you say—you could do to me?”

“A sentence I’ll never repeat again,” Edwin Said, solemnly.

“You had better not. Now, tell me exactly why you were laughing.” If glares could kill, he would have died a thousand deaths.

“Jimmy and I should probably explain this to you together. Come on.”

Edwin stood up and walked out of the tent, Chris following behind him. When he found his brother, the twins greeted each other with a hug. After exchanging a few words with Jimmy, the three of them sat down in a circle. First, Jimmy told them everything that had happened to him. Jimmy passing out before, with a flash of red, was the reaction of the Blood Heart System to the Dragonheart System. Jimmy and Edwin exchanged information about their system.

Edwin skimmed through his user manual and explained everything to the others. To his surprise, Edwin found out that he could also access Jimmy’s system as long as he was within a fifteen meters radius of Jimmy. Edwin decided to test it later.

It took him less than half an hour to become proficient at using the system. There was hardly any difference between the two systems. Aside from a few minor things. For instance, his system didn’t have a menu; Legacies. There were other differences, but Edwin thought them inconsequential.

Both their systems were in similar condition. Most of the system functions were locked because of insufficient power—whatever that meant.

Edwin opened his profile. A transparent blue screen appeared in front of him.

[Name: Edwin Wright]

[Race: Human (Dweller)]

[Greater Relm: Foundation]

[Lesser Relm: Ordinary (Not Advanced)]

[Relm Stage: None]

[Advancement Progress: 0/50 Ordinary level cores of any affinity]

[Core: Energy (White)]

[Core Level: 5 (Max.)]

[Healing Factor: 2HP/Day (Self)]

[HP: 5]

[Strength: 20]

[Agility: 10]

[Stamania: 15]

[Drogen: 20]

The fact—that his race marked him as a Dweller in the parenthesis made him want to shiver. He had grown up with the stories of how the dwellers had brought monsters to his world and nearly destroyed it. Edwin knew that there had to be more to the story than he was told, yet—he still couldn’t help but shiver.

Another thing that confused Edwin was his Core—Energy Core—White Core. He knew the colour of all the seven cores and their corresponding elements/affinity—white wasn’t one of them. Each person had one affinity and they could only cultivate with cores of that affinity to advance. For instance, Jimmy could only cultivate with blood cores as his affinity was red (Blood).

However, his affinity was energy, which was something he had never heard before. That wasn’t exactly a bad thing for Edwin. since the system indicated he could cultivate with a core of any affinity. That meant he didn’t have to target the cores of specific creatures to further his evolution goals.

Edwin opened his quest menu. He had two available quests.

[Quest 1: Cultivate any two ordinary level cores. Reward: Feature-Core Smithing.]

[Quest 2: Dwell for 25 Hours. Reward: 1 Drogen point for every five hours of continuous Dwelling.]

Edwin saw an information icon next to his Dweller Points. Edwin opened it.

[Information: As a Dweller, the host’s core acts as a bridge to the well of drogen. A dweller can directly draw power from the well into their core. Dewller’s core also acts similar to a prism—to separate drogen into seven fundamental laws. A dweller can blend these laws in various ways to create spells.]

Edwin exchanged all the information from his system with the other two—as he did that, another question pricked his mind.

“Jimmy, you said one of your quests was to reach an energy source which turned out to be my system—did you receive the reward for it?”

Jimmy scratched the back of his head, fidgeting. “Um… Yes… and No.”

“What does that mean?” Edwin and Chris asked at the same time.

“I… Well… It says I can’t collect my reward ‘3 HP’ because the damage to my soul is preventing me from growing stronger.”

“Oh, so you will…”

“Edwin behind you,” Chris screamed.

Edwin jerked behind him and caught the hand that was about to sever his head—using the creature’s own momentum—he hurled the creature away. The black-furred humanoid creature with antler-like horns slammed into the ground. The creature stood up, shaking its head, which looked like a skull free of flesh. Instead of eyes, it had a red glow behind its sockets. Its hands and legs were long and scrawny while its body was bulky.

“It’s a wendigo,” Chris said.

They were surrounded—there were seven wendigos. Six of them were similar. He knew they were ordinary-level wendigo, thankfully. The seventh one was bigger and bulkier—an elementary-level wendigo.