Draconic Awakening

It was morning again upon the cursed landscape of the realm. And to many humans that were in this realm, this was Day three of their days on this horror-plagued land.

Ragnar's eyes hung lowly in his sockets, his body seemed to be shivering in his seat, his entire mind screaming for rest; however, he had stayed awake this entire time, not even taking up the consideration of a wink of sleep being needed.

His mind would not give in, Fang Zhen's mind would not give in, even if Ragnar's would.

If a Wendigo could walk into the cave just by the flame he created, what told him one could not randomly come in and, just because of the smell of flesh, enter while he was asleep and kill him while he was defenseless?

"Comfort is the singular enemy of all humankind," he said with a low tone that held resentment in it as he reclined his head to the rock-hard surface of the cave walls.

During his time awake, he had read the information the dancer had brought back for him, and this was one of the many reasons he had refused to have a wink of sleep.

For as far as the dancer went, it had witnessed countless numbers of ice wendigos in the jagged terrains, reaching up to many kilometers, and it had found nothing but that before it had reached its limit of how far it could wander from Ragnar.

And this made Ragnar's mind a bit troubled—if for how far the Shadow could venture, it saw nothing but monsters and the same terrain of rocks and ice like an ancient ruined city, that meant being here was dangerous.

'This would have been a nice place for me to get stronger fast, but I don't have the tools yet, and as much as I hate to admit it, at my level I need a small team of people to help me with hunting,' but until then, he needed to get out of this place.

Luckily, he could just jump off the other side of the boulder and go the other way, away from the rock terrains of this hell and at least find a human settlement.

At least find the place Hagi had come from to have such good gear.

Rising from where he sat, Ragnar felt his entire body shake, throbbing like it was about to give in to exhaustion, but his will paddled further.

He rose up to his feet and walked out of the cave and into the icy wind and sinking snow—he had not missed a bit of this feeling.

He cursed at it, walking over to where he had come from.

Seeing the rocks he had climbed down from now, it looked and was lined up like a mysterious large wall, boulders placed tightly side by side, probably to keep something in, or maybe people out.

The young Lord did not ponder about this fact much as his mind wandered to one thing the shadow had brought to him as information.

One of the many pieces of information it brought that was in dancing language or just utter gibberish, it spoke about a second son that shone as a Deity towards the begging wendigos.

It was very weird, and he disregarded it then as just one of the many mistakes the Dancer made.

But thinking about it now gave him a sense of foreboding he did not like one bit.

'I don't have a single reason to back up that worry, but I can tell something is wrong,' Ragnar thought, but after some haggling with his thoughts, he realized he would find no answer without further information.

This led him to think about his abilities.

He summoned the stats of his system.

{Name: Ragnar Rok}

{Arcana: Dragon born}

{Arcana ranked: ???}

{Title: Faceless Son of Darkness}

{Ability: Dragon sight, Dragon flames, pride}

{Weaknesses: blindness, burnout, Gold}

{Draconic imp: 1/20}

Seeing the list now was a bit more shocking than gratifying to Ragnar. Ever since getting the dragon cultivation, it seemed his stats had changed to that of dragons. However, he found it hard to prove as he could not recall what the original Ragnar saw in the system the first time he attained his Arcana.

No, not that—he could very much grasp what he had seen that day, but he could not recall it; it was the same as his blocked memories—there was a veil blocking him from recalling.

But strangely: 'Why can't I remember information from a year before? Does this mean the attacker did not just take out random memories of some days but specifically dug out the needed memories of the first Ragnar? That means there might be more I'm missing, and this makes the reason why Ragnar had to die more vast than I thought it would be.'

This thought alone sent a chill up his spine. "Just who did this idiot offend to have this kind of ending?"

Another thing that got Ragnar perplexed was his weaknesses—one was the blindness from using sight a bit too much, and not to forget, he could only use an ability at a time: seeing in the dark over predicting movements by a second.

Another was the burn from dragon flames, since he had not yet attained a dragon-like body.

But the last one that got him thinking was Gold? What did gold have to do with his weaknesses?

Ragnar thought.

Probably this meant something in the realm, or did it just mean gold in general?

Would touching gold cause him to melt, or would it give a weird reaction that would make him weaker by the second? He had no idea and went about to ask the system.

{Backlash: Gold; every dragon needs an empire of gold to help shine his radiance, but yours might be a curse. Even if you are paid the tiniest of gold, even if it is a single penny, or a bag filled with gold, you will be obligated to listen to the person paying you.}

Ragnar's face turned pale, "This has to be a joke!"

"Right..."

"Right?"

Ragnar grimaced at the fact—he was enslaved by gold, or to be. Even if it was just a single quarter of gold, he would not resist a command. That typically made him a dog despite how powerful he became in life.

The world's strongest cultivator—a dog to gold.

This made his dreams seem dashed away in his eyes.

Still, things seemed to get worse from this revelation. The young Lord stopped his trail and stared forward.

His gaze grew wide in disbelief for a second before regaining composure.

"Of course, this place is cursed. What would I expect?" Ragnar frowned.

He had been walking all this time, and despite taking steps forward, the walls of boulders did not seem to be getting any closer. This was a curse or some enchantment.

No matter how many steps he took, he would be in the same spot, and the wall would be there, staring back at him.

This sent chills up Ragnar's spine once more.

{You cannot leave Wendigo's Crust}

{Further attempt against the deities of the First Realm and the thief would be caught by the owner of the land.}

Ragnar frowned at the term owner of the land.

{There are only two ways out of Wendigo's Crust. Find one to leave.}

He was trapped.