Intent is one of the fundamental forces of magic for one particular reason. As Seth had begrudgingly discovered, the runic language, much like every language, was annoyingly vague in its descriptors.

Take the word 'Big' for example. It's a word that everyone knew and understood in concept, but once you began to dig into the details of it you would realise how little it actually described at its core.

The main issue was it was incredibly subjective, not just in terms of what it was describing but what was doing the description.

For example, someone who stood at the stature of 3 inches tall would have a completely different understanding of the word 'Big' as someone who is 6 foot tall. If the former cast a spell that would summon a 'Big' monster, would the latter individual consider it big also or would it be relative to their height?

Then there is also the case of something like a wish upon a monkey's paw. If you were to wish for a 'Big' pile of money, most people would be expecting a pile that is 'Big' in size, but mostly big in terms of monetary value.

They would be content with a human sized pile that ultimately added up to a billion pounds, if the past world's currency still meant anything. Which it did not.

But the Monkey's paw, as wicked as it is, could easily interpret the wish in a way that would allow it to create a towering pile of coins that ultimately amounted to a mere 100 pounds, yet the tower would be unarguably 'Big' and could even be considered bigger than the former.

So, now that you understand that, consider what would happen if you were to carve the runes for creating a 'big' explosion. How 'Big' would that explosion be, exactly? Would you have any idea until you detonated it? It was unlikely.

Some of you might be thinking that you could specify the dimensions of the explosion in clear and concise terms, listing detailed measurements of size, heat, force, etc. But that presented its own issues.

Firstly, it would cause every enchantment to become needlessly complicated and incredibly restrictive in function. You would be writing hundreds of runes, which would add more points of failure in an already difficult task.

You'd be turning a sundial into a pocket watch. While the latter is inarguabley better at performing the task at hand than the former, the task of creating such a delicate and intricate device becomes magnitudes more difficult and requires much more time.

Secondly, the language of the runes simply did not have human measurements. Surprising though it may seem to some, especially those that frequent the conspiracy theory groups, whatever other worldly or divine being that created this world bending, ancient alien language was not beholden to human created measurement systems created only in the last few hundred years or so.

There just wasn't a convenient rune for millimetres or inches, imperial or metric. It simply didn't exist. If there was a measurement system possible to be used by it, Seth had yet to discover it and definitely did not know the conversion rate. He barely knew the conversion rate of metric to imperial.

Thus, Intent became the ultimate tool in overcoming the vague obstacle of magic and enchantment.

While it couldn't write an entire enchantment by itself, he was still required to use his runic knowledge to some extent, it allowed him to bypass any flaws when it came to the specifics of the creation.

Such as creating a light source. He could carve the rune for light, imbue it with magic and it would create a random amount of light for as long as it was supplied mana. But if he imbued his intent into the rune as he carved it, then he could force it to understand how bright of a light he wanted it to emit.

It was a simple concept, but required a powerful will as it came with the feeling of mentally bending the magic to your will, instead of letting it run wild as nature enjoyed.

It was an exhausting process, and incredibly taxing on Seth's mental energy whenever he did it. But it allowed for spectacular, and consistent, results. And that was the most important part of creations such as this. Consistency.

The intent that he was pouring forth for this particular enchantment was a simple one. Continuation.

As sweat dribbled down the bridge of his nose and dissolved into his lips, forcing him to taste the salty juices, Seth forced the world to bend to his will in this minor way. Imbuing his intent of continuation onto this most basic enchantment.

When he finally finished, Seth let out a gasping breath and sucked in lungfuls of air. Despite only standing there for a few minutes, staring at the glowing crystal, he had felt as if he had run across the country and back.

He severed the connection he had to the crystal, literally pinching off the threads and cutting them off from the tips of his fingers and letting them float in the air, still tethered to the needles eye of the crystal core.

The crystal in question gently lifted itself from Seth's palm, gliding its way through the air like a bobbing balloon, before halting over the puppet's chest. The threads that Seth had severed were still connected to the crystal, and in turn connected to the puppet.

It was those spectral threads that anchored the radiant crystal, as well as began to drag it downwards into the puppet's chest cavity. All the while, the puppet's fingers kept tapping that same rhythm.

TAP TAP TAP TAP. TAP TAP TAP TAP.

Over and over, ceaseless and unending, the puppet tapped its fingers despite the fact that it had been completely severed from Seth. There was no connection linking the puppet to its master, yet still it obeyed his orders, tapping its finger away to a drumbeat of four.

Seth laughed softly at the rhythmic sound. A sound so simple, yet it sounded like the heartbeat of a new life desperate to be born.

He rubbed his face softly, keeping his eyes closed for a few seconds as the wave of exhaustion weighed down on him like the heavens weighed down on Atlas. It was only a quick experiment, but it had completely drained him of whatever energy he had left. Although it was possible he had been awake for an entire day already, so it wasn't surprising that this body was starting to feel the burden.

Controlling so many bodies at once, all doing different things throughout the days and nights, really did mess with Seth's ability to keep a consistent sleep schedule. Although a sleep schedule had also been little more than a myth to him in his previous life, so it was hard to blame it entirely on his powers.

Since all he had to do now was wait and study the results of his experiment, Seth figured that this was the perfect opportunity for a quick power nap. He just hoped that he could get to his labs cot before his body simply gave out beneath him.

It wouldn't be the first time it had happened, and was unlikely to be the last if it did.

***

5 hours. It took 5 hours for the mana imbued into the crystal to finally wear thin enough that the tapping of the finger eventually came to a halt. In that time Seth had took a quick nap, and was currently stuffing his face with some of his recently restocked supplies, something he told himself was to test out the dexterity of his new hand, when the finger finally stopped its motion.

Placing his coffee mug down, Seth wiped his mouth clean and focused back on the project at hand. 5 hours was a good amount of time, it wasn't the best, but for something so small and how much energy he put into it, 5 hours was an acceptable number.

Perhaps more charge would increase that time, but he had yet to find out the upper limit of these crystals, and how they'd react if he put more than that upper limit into them. Would they crumble to dust or would they overload and explode, if so how big would that explosion be?

It would simply be embarrassing to accidentally detonate a magic nuke in the middle of his new city, all because he left his magic arm on charge overnight.

Speaking of his arm, despite the puppets charge having been depleted, his arm was still functional at this current moment. However that was no doubt down to the fact that he was not constantly using it, unlike the puppet.

Having his spider puppet pull the core from the wooden golems chest, Seth analysed the crystal and jotted down his thoughts into his journal, which was currently sitting on a different table and being written into by a floating pencil.

As he wrote with that floating pencil, he spoke out loud to the room, although it was completely empty, as if he was dictating to the pencil that was under his own control. Definitely a good sign for his mental state.

"Prelimary reports show small signs of degradation to the structure. Hairline fractures along the surface in locations, but nothing serious as of yet. Core still accepts charge, as of yet unknown whether it is per use or based on the amount of charge passing through.

Further testing required. Will be performed alongside other testing for efficiency. Next test... examination of complexity and reprogramming."

Reaching forward, Seth cast his spiritual threads out and plunged them into the depths of the core. He began to flood it with his mana once more, causing the finger to immediately start tapping as soon as it got enough juice.

But as Seth fed it power, he began to direct a new intent into core. He was unsure as to whether this would be possible, but his theory was proven right when the puppet stopped tapping its finger and slowly sat up on the table.