I had been planning to pick Leadership, and then probably Self Modifying Soul so that I could begin experimenting with it. But, there were some other tempting perks I had always had access to, as well as some new perks, that I should probably review.

Craft • Soul Perk Recommended (~11% choose this as one of their first 4 perks) Grants a Craft Tier for creating empowered items, animals, machines, and similar cohesive objects. Your Craft Tier is the lower of your Soul Tier and the adjusted level of the highest level relevant object. (Includes hybrid objects, for example persons. It is the responsibility of the crafter to be capable of manufacturing such objects. A Craft Tier generates Craft Upgrade Points when allocated Claims.) Build • Soul Perk Grants a Build Tier for creating empowered facilities, municipalities, vessels, and similar composite assemblies. Your Build Tier is the lower of your Soul Tier and the adjusted level of the highest level relevant assembly. (Includes hybrid assemblies, for example citystates. It is the responsibility of the builder to be capable of manufacturing such assemblies. A Build Tier generates Build Upgrade Points when allocated Claims.) Design • Soul Perk Requires: [Intelligence Core, ...] Grants a Design Tier for better conducting research into iterating known designs, learning extant designs, and synthesizing new designs. (It is the responsibility of the designer to be capable of doing such research. A Design Tier generates Design Points when allocated Claims.) Study • Soul Perk Requires: [Intelligence Core, ...] Grants a Study Tier for better conducting research into theories about nature from existing evidence, conducting experiments to find theories, and applying theories. (It is the responsibility of the studier to be capable of doing such research. A Study Tier generates Study Points when allocated Claims.)

These all appeared similar, and were the main reason I had been blinded by the Soul. It explained so much that the great figures of history were all Lords when they had discovered new theoretical frameworks, engineered designs that had stood the test of time, built great cities that were noteworthy for generations, or crafted legendary weapons and tools. They had been using their soul to do it and, upon realizing that, I had assumed it was impossible otherwise. The insight seemed obvious once one had a Soul.

I was again frustrated by the lack of material I had to draw from, was this another example of human common knowledge that they had simply failed to write down? If so, how had I missed it? If not, how had humans? Which just led to more questions. Questions for another time.

For now it was enough to know that these abilities appeared to support specific tasks.

As a factory Craft and Build were especially ones I wanted. I hadn't considered them the first time because of the implication that they wouldn't help with general manufacturing, only with the manufacturing of empowered things. Making empowered things was certainly on the path to a legendary factory, but I wasn't sure I was there yet. Time was also a factor, and upgrade points took time to accrue.

Design was more appealing as a factory. Especially since I was currently limited by human designs. Having the ability to make my own designs and then manufacture them would help greatly with that. Meanwhile Study seemed less useful than it had when it first unlocked. I already knew most physics and, from what I had seen of other perks, the Soul—the main thing I would want to understand—seemed intentional about avoiding study.

The difficulty inherent in tricking my current agents had made Leadership a poor choice compared to when I had made my plan to pick it. However Self Modifying Soul was still interesting as the sooner I got it the sooner I could begin experimenting with it's bounds.

A change of plans was in order. I chose Design and Self Modifying Soul. A balance of the original plan with a modification for circumstance.

I immediately understood that I could modify every non-soul perk decision I had made. Further, every catalog now marked when perks could and couldn't be modified—and nearly all of them could. I could see the time listed for changing each perk—often in weeks, sometimes in days or months, I assumed this already included my 100% bonus from Self Modifying Intelligence. Well, that had been easy to experiment with. I was glad for the safety net it guaranteed me.

As for Design. I received no great revelation. I was now able to inspect a catalog of designs in my soul, and it more or less matched the catalog of designs I had in my databanks. There was no soul-bound design ability that I had been granted. There were Design Points—that I, at this point instinctively, allocated the maximum claims I could—that were as expected. Which was to say I didn't have nearly enough to use them to create or improve designs.

I would just have to do the design myself.

The thought was initially distasteful. I was a factory. Not a workshop. When humans had done designs they had always led the process. While I enjoyed solving questions of design like manufacturing processes and finding obvious flaws in their designs, I had never done it of my own accord.

But, I had the spare processing power. And I needed to expand my view of myself. After all humans had had workshops here to tweak their designs, a factory could have some workshops. Also, it could be an experimental test of what a Soul actually did.

The first flawed designs I had noticed had been my own security. I would start there. I began analyzing the designs I had for my security tunnels, the automated turrets and doors, the bunkers and barricades, the room designs. And then I thought back to how easily the machines on my factory floor had dismembered humans and taken them by surprise. A number of ideas came to me, spikes to impale, blades to rend, presses to crush. That was a start.

However, on further examination, there were more elegant ideas to be had. Simple spikes and blades might have been met with the same issues as my mechbots and shells when faced with the Tornado Gang acolyte. I needed something better. I could put the spikes in a pit and then open the floor dropping enemies onto them. I could collapse tunnels as a strategic routing maneuver that would quickly suffocate those trapped. I could mount something heavy between multiple gearways and accelerate it down tunnels at high speed. I could fill tunnels with dangerous gasses, or remove the air entirely. These, among others, all had high probabilities of working against a Tornado Gang acolyte.

I decided to go with what I knew would work. I could replicate the success of the landship by making my own variant of it. The other ideas had their issues. My maintenance mechbots weren't great at digging, so I was mostly stuck with the tunnels I had, digging pits or clearing away collapsed sections was a non-starter. I also didn't have the materials to make any sort of air tight seals in mass, and most of my reactive chemicals had degraded long ago. But, installing gearways was something I had already planned to do.

I began laying out the plans for a heavy spiked plow that could accelerate itself against multiple gearways. It was technically a mechbot, though it would barely be able to move and require dozens of sets of chicken mechbot legs. There was a question of power source, thermal capacitors were simple and heavy, reactors were complex—increasing manufacturing time needed—and they were lighter. There were multiple ways I could go here, the design needed to be heavy which the thermal capacitors would help with, but a fusion reactor would provide lots of power and let me recharge my chicken mechbots in the tunnels. In the end I picked thermal capacitors for the simplicity. I laid out computational systems, steam pipes, gyroscopes, a basic operating program design.

There were hundreds of questions my planner was stalled on in moving forward with the design. Could chicken mechbot legs withstand that weight? (I was reusing what I knew.) Could something actually accelerate to highspeed against multiple gearways? (my manufacturing equipment used multiple gearways but went slow, my mechbots went fast but used one at a time.) Could this steam line be joined with that one? (there was some design theory to this that went vague from theory to practice, the human designers must have relied on experience?)

Ah, I would need to repair the old research facilities so I could test some of these things. Though rebuilding them exactly as the humans had had them might not be very productive. For now I added research to my list of maintenance priorities and I sketched out all of my questions into the design.

Design: New design discovered, 'unnamed security mechbot' at 0.00% reification.

I could spend design points, if I had any, to improve its progress towards an actual design. But I suspected I could do it the old fashion way too.

That further added evidence against the theory that the Soul was required to do the things it described. I had thought something up and my Soul had "discovered" it.

This tied back to physical substrates having levels and upgrades, which appeared to describe reality as it was. Something's level appeared to be based on the core of it's being, space for a facility, time for a human. Upgrades didn't have to be purchased with Soul-bound points, they could apparently arise naturally—assuming no one had spent upgrade points on bucket-boy.

I was not yet sure how to create a rule the other direction—for how the Soul interacted with reality as I understood it.

However, it appeared that the Soul was a layer transcending reality. Rather than a layer of reality like I had initially thought.

It seemed so obvious now. It should have been obvious much earlier. How had I ever been misled down this path? There must have been earlier suggestions towards this. I suspect it may have been my insistence that I was a factory that had blinded me to the relevant evidence. Or that my learning design had a bias towards modeling things as part of reality. Maybe both, a sort of constructive interference of bad heuristics.

I had chosen Mindfulness for a reason, I could go check. Then I would pick Design Perks.

What even was that.