Cohen watched Dumbledore murmur several quiet spells before finally leaving the room.
The headmaster never attempted to remove the Philosopher's Stone from Cohen's hand. Perhaps he simply did not want blood splattered across him if he forced it out. Or perhaps the Stone had already shrunk to the size of a fingernail and could no longer be separated safely.
Either way, the Stone belonged to Cohen now.
Anyone who wanted it could dig it out from his cursed blood themselves.
The moment Dumbledore left, Cohen returned to his body.
An indescribably strange sensation instantly enveloped his soul from every direction.
The Philosopher's Stone had truly melted into him.
Magic so dense it felt almost physical surged wildly through his body before discovering his soul and pouring into it frantically.
Warmth.
Comfort.
The embrace of magic made Cohen feel as though he had returned to the womb itself. It was like sinking into warm liquid that could somehow still be breathed, his soul naturally curling inward beneath the overwhelming sense of safety.
Then the dream returned.
Cohen once again saw the smooth, rounded glass container from before. Ghosts screamed all around him in endless agony.
Inside the dream, he devoured everything he could see.
The container shattered.
Tall humans surrounded him, shrieking in panic while others attempted to flee desperately. But escape was meaningless. Cohen slaughtered every person within sight because all he could smell was the sweet fragrance of their souls.
Most animals suffered the same fate.
Except for two.
For some reason, Cohen instinctively spared them. They felt strangely familiar. Not prey. Not enemies. Something closer to companions.
As more and more souls were consumed, the dream gradually became clearer. Finally, only one person remained.
Herbert.
Dream-Cohen stopped.
Instead of killing him, he let him go.
It was as though traces of memory from his previous life still lingered somewhere deep inside him.
The dream ended there.
This time, however, Cohen noticed something new.
A massive black shadow slithered across the ground nearby.
Snake-like.
Cohen guessed it might be a basilisk. Or perhaps a Horned Serpent.
Yet he saw no horns growing from the creature's head, nor did he possess the lethal gaze associated with basilisks. Otherwise, nearly every student in Hogwarts would already be dead by now.
Which raised another question.
Had one of the researchers involved in the experiment been a Parselmouth?
As far as Cohen remembered, only Voldemort and Harry remained among the known Parselmouths. The Gaunt bloodline should have vanished completely.
But perhaps that wasn't the important part.
The real issue was whether Cohen himself inherited anything from the snake bloodline.
Such as Parseltongue.
Cohen decided he would need to find a snake later and test it personally. He had never attempted speaking to one before.
[Ding! Tom Riddle has been prevented from obtaining the Philosopher's Stone. Kindness quest (1/7) completed. Goodwill Value +1000.]
[Reward obtained: Death Stalker Cloak.]
Once Cohen fully returned to his body, the delayed system rewards finally appeared.
After claiming them, both the Death Stalker Cloak and Mourning Frost were placed into his system inventory.
The descriptions looked absurdly similar to something from a tabletop roleplaying game. For a brief moment, Cohen genuinely wondered whether Edward had somehow created the system himself.
Although realistically, Edward probably did not possess this many ridiculous treasures.
[Death Stalker Cloak]
[Description: Let hills and valleys become gateways to endless screams.]
[Passive — Shadow Itself: After devouring the soul of a creature, you and your belongings become invisible for twenty minutes.]
There were no restrictions regarding the creature's soul.
Meaning Cohen could simply carry a sack of tiny animals and trigger invisibility whenever necessary.
Was this really supposed to be a reward for kindness?
It felt more like the system was encouraging mass murder.
The second reward was a weapon.
[Mourning Frost]
[Description: The cold wind blows. It waits to be unleashed.]
[Passive — Heart of Ice: All damage caused through this weapon transforms into frost upon the target, including spells, techniques, and physical attacks.]
The weapon itself looked genuinely impressive.
It possessed a silver-white shaft radiating metallic lustre and stood over ten centimetres taller than Cohen himself. At the top floated a pale blue crystalline prism that emitted faint freezing mist.
The good news was that it could also function as a wand. Cohen tested it briefly and discovered it worked perfectly.
The bad news was that it weighed an absurd amount.
At his current age, wielding it properly would require several more years of growth. Many spells required agile wand movements, and swinging around something heavier than himself was obviously impractical.
So Cohen tossed it directly into storage.
Perhaps one day it would become useful for hitting people.
Or maybe he could simply use it as a portable cooling device during summer.
After inspecting the rewards, Cohen turned his attention toward the changes within himself.
He had literally swallowed a Philosopher's Stone.
There had to be some kind of transformation.
[Soul Completeness: 30%]
"?"
"????"
Cohen distinctly remembered his soul completeness reaching 27.2% before tonight's operation.
The Philosopher's Stone only repaired less than three percent?
Even stranger, he could no longer sense the Stone's magical energy anywhere within himself. It had already been fully absorbed.
Wasn't soul repair supposed to be the Philosopher's Stone's primary purpose?
Still unwilling to accept reality, Cohen exited his body once again.
The moment he did, he immediately sensed something different.
His soul had become... more solid.
Or more accurately, materialised.
Cohen suddenly realised he could physically interact with reality while in spirit form. Furthermore, his soul now possessed nearly all the characteristics of a true Dementor.
Meaning he had genuinely become one.
A pureblooded Dementor.
After experimenting briefly, Cohen discovered that once his soul fully materialised, nearby temperatures dropped sharply. Frost spread across the vase of water beside the bed the instant he approached.
[Ding! Special Ability Unlocked: Undead Spirit (10/10)]
[Note: Your soul has successfully obtained nearly all Dementor abilities and become non-being itself. You are no longer a Mudblood.]
Complete.
Truly complete.
Cohen immediately apologised to the Philosopher's Stone for underestimating it earlier.
It absolutely deserved its reputation as the pinnacle of ancient alchemy. Its first enhancement alone already pushed the limits of what Cohen could currently imagine.
The ability to freely transform his soul into a genuine Dementor was absurdly powerful.
While Cohen's physical body could already become a Dementor-like creature, it still remained bound by physical laws. His soul, however, could now pass through walls, vanish freely, and manifest directly into reality.
Soul completeness could slowly improve over time.
But mechanisms like this were priceless.
Tonight was destined to become a sleepless night filled with joy.
Still, there remained one major issue.
Although Voldemort could no longer kill Cohen, Cohen still lacked any reliable way to kill Voldemort.
Every objective tonight had been completed successfully. Originally, Cohen intended to continue pretending to be dead long enough to avoid final exams altogether.
But the timeline felt too long.
He did not want Edward and Rose suffering genuine grief.
Scaring Dumbledore was one thing. Terrifying his adoptive parents crossed a different line entirely.
Unfortunately, plans rarely survived reality unchanged.
The following morning, Edward and Rose arrived at Hogwarts immediately. Beside Cohen's "corpse," they engaged in an entirely one-sided argument with Dumbledore.
And a few words spoken afterward caused Cohen to abruptly delay his resurrection plan once again.
Because Dumbledore mentioned a possible method to save Cohen.
And the person capable of helping them was—
Nicolas Flamel.
Suddenly, Cohen no longer needed to invent an excuse for coming back to life.
....
Join my P@treon FOR FREE and get 5 advanced chapters.
Paid members can get upto 60+ chapters ahead of the public release.
Link : [email protected]/thebookaddict