Delving back into his storage room, Seth immediately set to work gathering up the remnants of the stone he had used for the crafting of his forge. It was a strange, almost mystical stone that had been discovered within the depths of his workshop when it was still nothing more than a half built secret escape tunnel.

When he was searching throughout the grounds of the castle, it had been utter luck that he had stumbled across this secret tunnel, and by following it down to the end, he had found that the tunnel ended with a completely sheen wall of the purest black. Even with a torch in his hand, it seemed to drink in the light.

When he had touched it, it was absolutely smooth to the touch. A stark difference from the rough, tool carved walls of the tunnel.

The discovery of this strange artefact is actually the final straw that convinced Seth to build the workshop in this location, instead of far away where he could never be found.

That was mainly because, It was absolutely impossible to move.

Even with all of their workers putting all of their strength into it, they could not shift it by a single millimetre. Not even when they lifted with their knees. It was no wonder that the workers of old, those who had carved out the original tunnel, had simply given up when they had met with this wondrous wall. He wouldn't have been surprised if they had thought this light sucking void was a doorway to hell, or something along those lines.

That was, if this even existed when they were building this tunnel in the first place.

Part of him wanted to simply believe that it was stone that had been transformed and enhanced by the mana that was permeating their world after the awakening. It wouldn't be uncommon, trees and other plants were constantly being affected as well as the very dirt beneath their feet.

He didn't know how dirt could evolve, but somehow it did. Most of the time it simply gained some mystical properties, such as being able to feed their crops mana and help them grow. But sometimes it would develop into something more.

For instance, a patch of stone that could be dug like dirt, even with your bare hands, and could even be used to grow plants. Unlike gravel, this stone would solidify itself once it stops being dug. It was utterly paradoxical, and amazing.

So upon first seeing this wall of sheen obsidian, what he would later discover is an entire cube of it, he did assume that this was one of those new evolutions of stone. But another part of him, perhaps the part that still held the strange beliefs of his cult upbringing, considered that it might be an object from the stars instead.

They did love to talk about their visitors from afar, aliens leaving certain objects or monoliths within their society, even when they had proof of human hands building it.

If his parents could see this object they would simply lose their minds. But there was no way that they could be right... Right?

'Aha! There you are!'

Quickly banishing the thoughts of his crazed parents and their 'loving collective', Seth found the remnant shards that had been left behind when he had carved his forge from the mystical block.

Scoping his arm around the box, Seth simply lifted them without a single hint of effort. As inconceivable as it was, the shards carved from the impossible to move monolith - shards that had to be carved with a serious amount of effort to very little return- were as light as a feather.

The monolith itself was able to take all manner of abuse, turning it into a herculean task to carve it out into a crude forge. But as soon as the fragments had fallen from the main body, it could be crushed in his hand like pasta.

That was, until mana was injected into it. Mana gave it those properties once more, the more mana he put in the more durable and impossibly heavy it became. Why this only worked when they were broken from the main body, he had no earthly idea. It was unfortunately impractical for a weapon, But it was this principle he was eager to exploit for his forge-master.

They would be a forger who was able to modify the weight of their arm, letting them have tyrannical and devastating blows one moment and delicate, precise blows the next. Perfect for forging weapons to perfection.

As he was cobbling this new body together, piecing fragments of a mystical otherworldly stone together like a jigsaw, Seth could not help but reminisce about his first puppet. Cole, a monster made of stone and held together first by broiling lava, then with Seth's ethereal threads.

That first puppet had helped him survive, it was arguably the only reason he was still alive and thanks to the way that he ended up destroying Cole, it was the only reason why he was now able to split his soul and create living puppets.

Although he wasn't really thankful for having his soul torn apart at the time, Seth actually felt strangely nostalgic about it now.

If it wasn't for his stupid treatment of Cole, then it would be very unlikely that he would have Bob and would have most likely died in that department store.

So building a new puppet, his first step into truly being able to create a living puppet beyond the accident that was Bob, perhaps it was poetry that it was also made of fragmented stone just like Cole.

With his mind swimming in nostalgia, Seth crushed a few fragments in his hand and used the smaller crystals to build his new puppet a face. Something that Cole had been missing, and Bob was struggling to deal with.

Just as he was putting the finishing touches on his wondrous new creation, another part of Seth's consciousness that he had pushed to the side gently crawled its way out of the shadows, alerting him to the fact that his work puppet had finally returned. Not just with the bounty that he had been sent out to collect, but an additional prize along with it.

Of course, even if it was a small part of Seth's consciousness performing the actions, it was still part of his mind carrying it all out. So even if he had not laid his true eyes on the bounties of the puppets scavenging adventure, he knew what the additional prize was. It was not in the least surprising, he was the one that grabbed it in the first place, after all.

That prize just so happened to be remains of the Giant Dwarf he had killed with an exploding crystal core. Its head was missing and its rib cage blown open, so it mostly consisted of limbs and a half exploded, portly gut befitting a dwarf. But even with half of his height missing, the corpse of the so-called 'Dwarf' was still as big as a car.

A few minutes later, and with most of that time being spent struggling to get the stupidly oversized 'dwarf' through the door of his secret little hidey-hole, Seth finally had all the pieces he needed to complete his work.

With a soft smile on his face, he idly tossed the bag of freshly made crystal cores up before catching it in his hand over and over. Before him, stood the loyal puppet who had collected them, armed with the special device that Seth himself had crafted.

It was the same tool that Bob had used to collect his first goodie bag of cores. A prototype soul sucker, a name that definitely needed some reworking.

He had initially designed it for collecting souls with two main goals in mind. One, feeding himself and two, feeding others.

Since he was locked up in his workshop most of the time, Seth didn't personally partake in many hunts. Meanwhile, his puppets were rarely not fighting in some capacity, whether it be simple guard duty or actively hunting for food. So, there were a lot of tasty souls on offer, but rarely an occasion to actually eat them himself. Sure, he could transfer himself to the puppets that killed them to eat that way, but it took far too much time and wasn't worth the effort.

Plus, he was unaware of anyone else who had the capacity to detect them, never mind eating them. With more and more average citizens, and especially squires, working towards getting their powers, he realised that every one avoided acquiring soul based powers because it was essentially a dead end.

So, with this device, he could suck up the souls and had intended to create a pill or drink to let others consume the gathered soul energy. But the outcome had been the crystal cores, something that he had discovered the hard way was not to be consumed.

It wasn't dangerous. Just offered no benefits and was... ahem, uncomfortable on the way out.

But while it hadn't been a product that he had been intending to create, the crystal cores proved themselves useful in a multitude of ways. if it wasn't for these, it was very possible he wouldn't be able to do this at all, or would have only discovered it much later.

To think, that this wondrous discovery could only come about due to mistakes and screw ups. Perhaps he should screw up more often. Who know's, maybe one day he might trip over the key to immortality and fall into a bed of infinite power.

Now wouldn't that be nice? Knowing his luck though, all that was in store for his future was pain and misery. But enough about that.

Now that he had everything in store and was completely prepared, it was finally time to start his latest experiment. Life.