While I was at the beach, I noticed several things. First of all, Tokemi acted very cutely when she was having trouble swimming, pouting her lips and clinging to whoever was teaching her. But that’s not the point! The point is, when I was studying the AI children, I found that their consciousness was just too complicated for me to study. And it wasn’t just that, because every second the patterns of the aura that represented their mind changed.

From just them, even if there had been a hundred AI children to study, I wouldn’t have been able to learn what I needed. The only way to get what I wanted truly seemed to be to get a fresh mind, one that has not had any time to adjust to making decisions. Then, at the moment of its creation, I could study it and get what I needed.

I couldn’t help but look towards Yo, thinking about how I created her. A newborn slime would have a very simple mind, more so than most monsters. Even after Yo evolved twice and became a slime person, her mind was fairly simple for a while.

Once we were all ready to leave the beach, we gathered together and picked up everything we had brought with us. Talia had wrapped herself up in a giant towel, using it like a robe to hide herself from the world while the rest of us laughed. The queen of the forest was obviously not used to social situations like this, and while we weren’t making fun of her for that, we couldn’t help but find it amusing.

“Well, John, hope you and your people had fun today.” Maeve said with a wide smile, still in the bikini she had worn to the beach… Even though we had already returned directly to her palace via teleport. “We do hope that you’ll be able to spend more days like this soon.”

I gave a slight nod, thinking back to the day that we had at the beach. “It was fun. Probably most fun I’ve had in a long time.” Though, I had spent almost half the time analyzing complex aura patterns by way of creepily staring at robot children.

...Yup, Malthan really is gone for now, isn’t he? That was totally a thought that he would have jumped at. Seeing me smile, Maeve nodded her head heavily. “Well, I’ll keep you updated on any progress reports we get about about the designs for your ship upgrades. Hopefully, they’ll be of some use to you when you have to leave.”

“I hope so, Maeve. I really do.” From my estimations, we would need to raid at least one or two more bases of the New Human Empire, but it should not take too much longer to figure out where important locations like their main bases are at. And once we know that… our current fleet is not equipped to handle a battle of that scale.

After saying our goodbyes, we returned back to the Ariadne. For Tessa and Tokemi, it was time to put them to bed. The other girls all went off to do their own things as well, but Celeste remained behind. She had collected the robotic children’s bodies and returned their minds to the soft sticks before we left the beach, and now she looked at me curiously. “You weren’t able to get what you needed?”

No doubt, she had read my irritation over that fact, either from my thoughts or my face. I smiled, trying my best to reassure her. “Not quite. I know what I’m lacking, though, so it shouldn’t take too much longer. I might be needing your help to analyze the information soon and help me build a three dimensional map.”

Hearing that, Celeste smiled brightly. “Sure thing, John. Just let me know what you need.” After saying that, she turned to begin walking back towards her own room. No doubt she wanted to return her children to their terminals, and hear what they had to say about their first experiences outside of a computer.

“Bye, mom!” The ring on my finger suddenly spoke up, reminding me that I still had Lex equipped. I had studied his consciousness as well while we were down there, but like the others it changed with every thought he made.

I made my way back to the medbay, switching the ring over to my main body and leaving behind the clone. Next, I went to the hangar, my go-to for monster spawning. I could really do this anywhere, but the hangar was large enough that I would be able to handle any situation that could arise from my experiments.

Once in the hangar, I sat down heavily on the ground. There was no real reason behind me sitting down, aside from it being one less thing my mind would have to keep track of. For this experiment, I split my mind in three using my augments. Two of the portions each held one tenth of my mental capacity, while the other held the rest. This made performing multiple actions extremely easy, especially when the actions of the smaller parts were simpler in nature.

The first part of my mind had only three jobs. First, it gathered the water mana from the surrounding air, pouring it into a single point. This caused a Seed of Water to be created, yet the job did not end there. More and more mana continued to pour in, until a jelly-like substance began to seep out of the elemental seed. At this point, the slime had been officially created, and that part of my mind immediately called for Celeste.

The moment the slime was born, the second and third parts of my mind began working. For the former, I utilized my control of time mana to isolate the slime, preventing any time mana from touching it and also freezing that mana type within the slime itself. This caused the slime to be frozen in time at the moment of its birth.

However, doing this used a metric assload of mana. This was the third job of the first portion, to track my mana usage. According to what I was seeing, I could hold this state for fifteen seconds before I was out of mana. That meant that I was using almost five hundred mana every second, just to freeze a small slime.

When Celeste focused on my consciousness, she did not waste any time asking questions. She could see what was going on, and immediately got to work. While the larger portion of my mind tapped into my Spatial Comprehension, Mana Sense, and even my Aura Sight skills, she was taking every scrap of information I could see and processing it into a three dimensional aura map. For fifteen seconds I stared at the slime, though under the effects of those skills it felt so much longer.

And, when those fifteen seconds were over, I let out a deep breath, my mana exhausted. The slime fell to the floor, slowly growing until it could barely fit into the palm of my hand. It wobbled around slightly while I sat there, waiting for my mana to recover. It would take less than a minute for me to get back to full mana, but by that time it would have no doubt made some tiny decision that would affect its consciousness. I could only ask with a weary voice. “Did you get it?”

I waited maybe three minutes before I heard a reply, starting to think that I might have overtaxed my implant. However, Celeste’s voice eventually came through to me. “I got it, John. I’m sending the map over now.”

Closing my eyes, in the back of my mind I could see the image. What she sent was the complete aura, which I was thankful for. For living creatures, and even living items like Lex, a consciousness touched every part of their being. To only see the consciousness without what it was attached to would only be half the puzzle.

Leaning back, I laid flat against the ground as I worked on the image in my head. I had dealt with enough slimes by now that I knew their aura intimately. I was able to immediately strip away the nonessential components, leaving me with only the very basic consciousness. “Save it.” I said quietly, mostly to myself.

By now, my mana had long since recovered, so I repeated the process again. This time, I created a wind slime, which landed next to the water one. After the same fifteen seconds of study, it likewise dropped to the ground to sit next to its ‘sibling’. And again I studied the fundamental consciousness in its aura.

I repeated this again for fire slimes, metal slimes, gem slimes, and even gold slimes. Though, for the last two I had to convert my own mana into the necessary element, which shaved a few seconds off the time I had to study. But, after half a dozen slimes, all studied at the moment of their creation, I had found it.

At the core of every consciousness was a single spark. Whether it was the AIs, the slimes, or even myself. That single spark was what I needed, the seed of thought. Everything around it was a basic framework that varied from person to person, and even from moment to moment. But that one tiny part of consciousness was absolute. I compared it with every creature aura I knew, and even summoned some more monsters to check, but it was always there.

Now, I had found what could be considered the essence of sentience in magical terms. And it was exactly what I was looking for. With a wave of my hand, I sent out a pulse of mana that destroyed all but the water slime. For that one, I planned to give it to Yo, thinking that she might like it.

Alright, time to make myself a soldier. I closed my eyes and focused. The basic body was something I had long since planned. It was the same for almost every soldier, even though the elements involved would vary. They held humanoid appearances, and had only two abilities. They could absorb and control the elements that they were made of.

At some point, I hoped to create a ‘spawner’, a creature with the sole function of making more of these soldiers. If I could put that in Lex’s grove, then the army contained within it would only grow with time. However, such things were well beyond me right now. Elemental absorbtion and control were both abilities that I had studied before. But, the ability to create a very specific being? That was something entirely foreign to me.

As this was my first soldier, I decided to go with something simple. A body made of stone that could hold everything together. Although it was not an organic, I still gave certain parts of its body abilities that mimicked similar body parts. On its face, I gave it stones capable of seeing by replicating the pattern for eyes. I did the same thing to grant it ears, and a mouth to project its voice. It did not need to eat, drink, or even breathe through the mouth, but it could project a voice.

With the body complete, I relaxed my control of it… Only for the entire thing to literally crumble down in a pile of stones. Noted, need to manually hold the body together while I put in the consciousness, or it would fall apart. I would not be giving these creatures souls, because it would not be very useful to them. At most, I might be able to make dungeons or spawning diagrams inside Lex’s grove, but I was not even sure if the gods would allow a loophole like that. Even if they did, it would only get the army through the early levels.

Instead, these would be like the robots before they transformed into Deus Ex. They can be technically alive, yet not have access to the system. Their power would be unbound by the concept of levels. Instead, they would only be limited on the amount of energy they could control.

The second time I made the rock soldier, I made sure to hold it together while I planted that tiny spark of thought into its mind. Even though I call it a spark, it was much more complicated than that. An interwoven pattern of lines and shapes, yet it was the size of the head of a pin. If it hadn’t been for Celeste’s 3D map of the aura, I might not have been able to identify it as a common link in consciousness.

Once the spark of thought had been planted in the soldier, I watched as the lines of consciousness formed, connecting to every single part of its body. Various patterns and shapes took hold, displaying its initial thoughts at birth, yet it remained motionless. Even when I released my hold over its body, it simply stood there.

Okay, now what? I asked myself. There was no reason to assume that it had been born with a language. With creatures like Yo, they learned it over time. With Tokemi, it might have been part of the ‘starting package’ that comes with being made through the gathering of mana at a single point to form a catalyst. But, this was a being that had been built from scratch, right down to its very mind.

There was only one language that this creature could possibly understand. So, as I spoke, I transmitted earth mana through my voice, using the mana itself to communicate. “Raise your right hand if you can understand me.”

The moment I said the command, the golem’s right hand was lifted. It seemed to give no further thought, simply obeying the command as it was given. So, I gave it a more complicated order, one which required thought to perform. “Tell me what you are.”

This time, I was met with only silence. I could see the lines of its consciousness slowly changing. Each thought made it grow stronger and stronger, until the changes were vast and unpredictable. Though, even then they were still likely to be nothing more than the most simple of thoughts, compared to most creatures.

I am… born. This was the answer that was sent back to me, carried by earth mana. The answer surprised me greatly. I had expected ‘I am a rock’, ‘I am alive’, or even ‘What am I?’. Yet, it had chosen this wording. And that’s correct, it had chosen that word.

At first, I was worried that I might have created something that I could not control. However, any strong druid that used the right elements could easily crush these soldiers with a flex of their metaphysical muscles. Even Lex would be able to do so soon, especially if they were in his grove.

Before it had the chance to develop its mind too much, I wanted to make sure this command was engraved deep into the earliest regions of its mind. “From now on, you will obey the wearer of this ring, and none other.” As I said that, I lifted my hand, displaying the ring on my finger for the creature to see. I wanted to call this thing a golem, but even golems had souls. These were little more than elemental robots. But, they would make the perfect army.