Akevorax stared at the upright stone golem in front of him, it stood passively without a sense of life or existence. As snow poured down on its rough surface, he watched every snowflake melt and fall to the ground before disappearing completely, winds buffeted it, but such a heavy figure easily remained perfectly fine in these conditions.

All he cared for was the Soul within this golem. Forcibly trapped in place, it tried to slowly transition outwards, but met a repulsive force that kept it near the golem’s heart. He intentionally watched as the speed slowed down until the Soul inevitably pulsed to life with its dull grey coat transformed to one of a purer white. Additionally, the Mind also sat quietly in the golem’s head without a single problem.

Minds have a far vaguer physical form, unlike Souls, but even so, they very much existed. What Akevorax moved when he controlled this golem’s Mind was actually a web of energy with a small ‘hole’ in the middle. This hole attached to an independent space in which a being’s consciousness may reside.

As illogical as it sounded, the Mind did not actually contain the person’s consciousness!

Regardless, the web of psychic energy settled in place and began to move back and forth as arrays in the golem’s head sprung to life using information gathered from further arrays spread all along its body.

Likewise, the Soul finally settled in place and spread its own influence to a degree. An influence so imperceptible and minute that he failed to sense it for days on end; all through a process he regarded as nearly invisible.

In this process, he didn’t detect any changes in the Soul, nor the smallest signals or messages sent by the white spot of light. And yet, without a very special bit of information gathered by this influence, the Soul would always reject the Body given to it.

He only discovered all this when his bloodline evolved to Conjunctured Ice-cream as he now firmly felt the previously indescribable connection between his Soul and Body!

Obviously, he always knew the Nexus considered these a trinity as the Soul depended on a constant stream of power from its Body to survive and recover… But for there to be such a clear and decided link between the two amazed him. This all could’ve been solved with a single trip to the library, funnily enough, but still the Nexus urged him to investigate such a method himself. Still, with this bit of information he was able to decide on the final flaw with his method!

The Mind loved interaction with this body, seeing it precisely as any other, but the Soul sought out specific flesh and blood. As Akevorax watched it attach to a random lump of flesh he kindly ‘harvested’ from a random bandit, it was clear how Souls worked in this regard.

At the time, he asked an unanswerable question to the Nexus, “Would I be dead if I was born with a body of flesh and blood? Because of my Soul mutation…”

No response came though, and in the end, a theory is but a theory.

He grew certain of a different fact, that being his condition if his bloodline ever replaced the ice cream with flesh and blood.

Just as mutations could drastically transform a creature into something entirely different, he saw no reason that a dedicated evolution evoked a different reaction. In the end, this unknown link between Body and Soul only formed once when the two first connected. As long as the connection came about, the Soul gladly stayed in that body. So all he had to do was trick this sense into what he needed, and then everything would work perfectly!

Finally, back to the golem at hand. Akevorax watched as a new array around its heart burst into action with a glow of gold and red, corresponding to life essence and blood, respectively.

His solution was inelegant and wasteful, requiring about a teaspoon of life essence and litre of Mithril rank human blood to work… But he saw the faint link between the heart and Soul appear.

A link no different to what appeared in his friends or other dragons.

When this finally happened, the golem’s finger twitched, followed by its arm moving and its legs trembling. The whole body shivered as the mountain’s unforgiving cold seeped right through to its bones, if it had any, and Akevorax watched from the side as it looked around hopelessly. Part of its chaotic Mind saw the overwhelming figure of might and greatness, recognising it on sight, but for some reason just looked away listlessly like a child afraid of an authority figure. Completely different from a deer in headlights or a human in between their fight or flight response.

In an attempt to test the remnant mental faculties of this artificial existence, he asked a simple question in an Elvish dialect. Of the several he knew, it didn’t really matter as any elf could distinguish them. “Do you know why you are here?”

“I… don’t know? Am I here for a reason?” With complete confusion and a sense of loss, Akevorax now realised just how easily he could manipulate this mentally ruined individual. It felt morally wrong to even compare them to a mentally-damaged child, perhaps a lobotomised person matched this behaviour more.

He lied as naturally as he breathed, “You seem to have suffered some mental damage. To clarify, you, as well as many others, were my servants that suffered an unfortunate attack. I was able to save you at the last moment but your bodies were lost… As you can see.” Without a moment’s hesitation, he pointed his head towards the golem body which the befuddled elf took a glance at too.

It seemed to now form some sort of link between its cold, stone body as opposed to a warm sack of flesh. Nonetheless, it came to terms with this reality very quickly, perhaps because it took his words as fact?

If all these broken Minds thought like this, he’d really have the group set up in no time.

“Anyway, this body is still a prototype, if you’d prefer I can rip out your Soul and make some amends in the meantime,” he purposely intoned the violence of the action as a way to push fear into the golem’s head.

And just like a scared puppy it reacted precisely as expected. The figure stepped back and answered, “Of course not! This body is perfectly fine, I’m more than happy to continue serving you… Master.” It addressed him without any mention from Akevorax what title it ought to use, a perfect reality as he could just nod to appear even larger in the little thing’s eyes. Just like that, with a few lines, he easily had a servant under complete submission and ready to work endlessly.

“Firstly, it appears that your body is too sensitive to the cold. If you shiver like that with a task you’d only mess it up. Now speak, tell me what else impacts your ability to focus,” he immediately moved on from instilling fear to showing a benefit of proper work. Akevorax’s own desires to perfect all of this himself also came to light here, and with a suitable test subject every answer came smoothly.

“The joints are a bit stiff still, and my fingers feel… unnatural,” as the golem spoke, it looked away shyly, afraid that it may have offended its master. However, Akevorax just looked at the body parts and noted their structures, he too knew that these arrays and parts were just made as a ‘trick’ for the Mind.

“Continue,” he replied emotionlessly.

“The fingers are sensitive but it's as though every action is painful. Even just tapping them against each other stings. Breathing is also an issue, I know I don’t need the air, but I also feel like I’m suffocating.” The more this golem spoke, the more Akevorax realised just how messed up their Mind was. Somehow it retained an ability to gauge and comprehend magical concepts, but lost all exact knowledge?

Even though its brain ought to hold all that knowledge… Maybe he mixed it up?

It had all that knowledge, but couldn’t comprehend it beyond a surface level, like a child memorising test answers. Akevorax came to a loose conclusion over this anomalous state and found it most suitable for such a subordinate. If he could reproduce it consistently, he’d gladly set up a large force of such golems here.

“I can fix the issue regarding breathing and sensitivity now, but the others will take time. For now, I have a task for you. Will you accept it?”

“It would be my pleasure, master. How may I be of service?”

He found it cute how decisively it lowered itself on one knee in the snow and lowered itself. He was already over twice its height, yet now the thing almost sunk down in the flavoured snow of this land. Part of him wondered if it tasted a bit of it yet and realised how strange this place was…

Most of his attention remained on a clear task to complete first, which he gave, “Do you see that smaller house, the one with a door?” A pause filled the silence as the subordinate golem looked over as directed to the line of buildings. While just three such things, he easily picked out the smaller house beneath a strange rectangular tower and the larger house not far away. With this confirmation, Akevorax continued, “There will be more like you in the future, and as I cannot protect you in reality, I ask you to instead serve me here as constructors of my mental defences. For now, just focus on creating a similar brick house as your living quarters, I imagine you still tire and face exhaustion all the same.”

“I understand, master. But how should I make it?” The servant asked so dutifully, and he could not help but grin. Pulling them over towards the houses, if one walked a little while further, they would find a region of bricks laid out with various tanks placed on top. Dozens of these tanks filled with identical bright azure liquid which pulsated with incredible power.

He finally replied, “Go ahead and open the tap for a few seconds. Then grab the fluid with your hands.” Without further questions, the golem stepped up to one of the many tanks and gently turned a simple valve connected to the tap.

At first, they lightly twisted it in fear that they may harm their master’s construction, but as it refused to budge, they repeated with far more strength. This time it turned slowly, and they realised their mistake, assuming their strength was even close to their master’s. Obviously such a powerful creature saw no reason to use weak things as it assumed.

This time, arrays all down its arm flared to life, creating a substantial rotational force in the golem’s wrist for just a moment. The effect instantly loosened the metal object and finally released a thin stream of blue liquid, but this was far from open. They twisted it a few more times and allowed a thick line of blue to escape the tap… But only now did it reveal its odd nature.

After travelling roughly a metre down, near to the brick floor the blue liquid slowed down in mid-air and softly floated in place. While it shimmered and shook like water, somehow it moved in a viscous and slow manner like pitch or tar.

It wasn’t a liquid that made any sense. Especially given that it simply floated in the air, and that was after it slowed down as it fell.

After a few moments of shock, the golem hurriedly closed the tap and moved his hands to the snake of shimmering azure in front of him. As soon as the pair of stone palms approached, new arrays burst to life and both of them watched intently, Akevorax the more watchful by leaps and bounds. These arrays practically defined the chances of success in this entire method, and now came the matter of a test. Not one performed by himself, but rather a low-minded golem with limited control of their own bodies.

The array’s light, a fading white, pressed upon a middle section of the long trail of fluid, and as soon as it approached, the fluid morphed in shape. Repulsed by the white light, it gently curved away, further and further, until slowly necking on both sides and splitting.

The two stretched lines rebounded backwards, and the middle section under the light’s influence flew further away for a short while, but all of it came to a stop once more. The physics of it all went against pure logic, but made some sort of sense if you took some presumptions.

For example, condensed mana is disassociated with forces like gravity, but that doesn’t mean air resistance disappeared. That was why it slowed down in the air after arrays inside the tank forcibly shot it out of the nozzle.

Akevorax set up this whole platform with this in mind.

“Now, using that repulsion, try to take some of it and mould it into a brick. Exactly like the ones beneath you.”

Surprisingly, it followed this process extremely easily. After a few attempts of moving the condensed mana, the golem roughly understood how its hands worked and quickly removed a large lump of the blue liquid as necessary. However, what it struggled with was creating a perfectly rectangular brick like Akevorax often did. It realised that by spreading out its fingers the force created became far more planar, and thus resulted in an oblong… But a defect still appeared in the brick’s centre as the radial force still remained.

It looked like an oblong with squashed sides. Close but not quite there yet.

Worst of all, Akevorax had no solution to this part. No easy solution at least. This problem was also why an obtuse number of spells utilised circular areas of effect. Creating a circle is so much easier geometrically than any other shape, ironic as it may seem given that drawing a circle free-hand is one of the hardest things.

The two easier objects are lines and points, which shouldn’t really need explanations. This only applied on macroscopic scales as well, like what he dealt with here and now.

Two hard solutions to choose between:

Either massively raise the golem’s mana cost hundred-folds by including an array which produced this planar force; or grant this golem some small ability over his Mind which allowed it to amend the bricks and fix the mistake by hand.

Honestly, it was only one option in reality. He wanted an army of these golems.

“You can stop now, I’ve seen enough. How is the cold now as well? I made a few modifications to your senses,” his dry voice cut off the worried golem’s actions as it repeatedly tried to reform the brick and reduce the obvious slant in the centre of every face.

But as Akevorax lumped up all the condensed mana and threw it back into the tank, he mimicked the action of gulping and stood up with a lowered head in disgrace. Then replying, “The changes are wonderful, master. I’m extremely thankful for them.” He almost couldn’t believe the depth of fear it showed in the short half-hour since it’d been brought to life.

“The arrays cannot be improved in the short term, which gives me two options. Wait until I can improve them… Or give you an opportunity,” he paused between the options to better indicate the golem’s fate if they weren’t useful in the short term. He never showed an adverse thought of destroying this body and sealing them once more.

In a swift show of dedication, they immediately dropped to one knee once more and spoke with certainty, “I shall show unending loyalty and work, master. As long as you desire, I will ensure it gets built.”

To show such decisive action without a hint of strangeness or lack of loyalty, he tried to figure out if this newly-formed Mind was too smart for its own good or truly spoke from its heart. However, he had to start somewhere and this thing certainly knew the right things to say. Given that just one alone couldn’t threaten him, it should be safe for a while. And it shouldn’t be long until an evolution formally combined his Mind and Soul to ensure that the latter lost all weakness whilst inside this mental space.

He came to a conclusion.

“Good. You shall lead your fellow servants in the future, for your safety you will stay in my mental space from here on. And as the leader, I shall grant you a name, Tritheus, meaning ‘Pure Loyalty’ to dragons,” his voice gently shook the entire mountain, and the kneeling golem shuddered from the immensity of it all.

He did not choose such a name arbitrarily though. As a reward, it not only separated him from the other unnamed individuals, but it ensured that anytime this one heard their name, they thought back to its meaning. A crucial piece of negative reinforcement, and arguably an extremely cruel one.

But when did he ever show sympathy or kindness to these creations?

The souls of these ridiculous assassins may as well be put to good use. The others didn’t exactly care enough to stop him, he knew that for sure.