The goblin breathed out his bated breath; he used his mana to summon six more sentinels since he had destroyed the first prototype. He was risking having five additional assailants, but he was better prepared this time around for potential setbacks.

  He then pulled the freshly created soul clones into each of the sentinels and provided them each a mithril forging hammer. They all quickly got to work hammering in tandem to forge the unwieldy metal into a usable form.

  Armand was much more aware of his soul clones; he took the time to control them individually for a while and even practiced controlling several of them simultaneously with mixed results. The labor shortage problem had been solved for the moment.

  After a month’s passing, he not only had all the parts to assemble a new warbeast body for Fenrir but also enough souls to make another humanoid soul. This made him consider expanding the wilderness portion of the dungeon to essentially maximize the soul farming.

  This would be something he would need to research. He had attempted to create living beings but the results were pretty subpar. The goblin assumed that it was probably because the complexity of something living exceeded something non-living. Hence why he could create food and drink.

  Research was needed to truly understand this so he went to the library. Among the collection was The Garish Gardner: Lucsious Landscapes and Lawns. He could tell it was elvish in origin; he moved to a chair and began to flip through its contents. He read about soil conditions and proper lighting.

  He knew that even if he couldn’t create new life from scratch, he could make conditions suitable for spreading what was currently available. So he began to expand the cave system but did his best to mimic some of the pictures of landscapes; he created dirt rich in various nutrients. He originally thought that the bioluminescence in the cave was a fungus but it was actually millions of tiny stones that let off a small amount of light.

  He made sure to sprinkle a fair few of those through the ceilings of the new caves he was making. While magical in nature, they were of minor magic and did not take an excessive toll on him. Before long the originally large cave system had become a behemoth structure. While it was barren, it would not be for long.

  The goblin put it off for a while but it was time to upgrade Fenrir. While he had made the new warbeast, he was torn between putting a soul clone into it or transferring the old wolf’s soul into it. He decided on the latter; he didn’t really want to learn how to battle in a quadrupedal form. It would be better for something that already had the skills to do so.

  However, he had another problem: he had no control over Fenrir other than its willingness to obey. The goblin had a wild idea but wanted to get a second opinion, even if he didn’t trust said opinion much. He found Thoth feverishly rearranging the sea of books. “What can I do for your master?” He said, not even bothering to look back from his sorting.

  “Can you make a soul clone from a sentient soul?” Armand asked; he wanted to get better connected with Fenrir and keep him under his control, especially with the wolf piloting a massive mithril death machine.

  “Curious… You want to create a soul slave?” The demon asked, his head turning around unnaturally and staring at the goblin.

  “I don’t really care for the way that sounds…” The goblin said.

  “Well, that is what is called…” The demon replied with a shrug, “The creature has to be willing to have a portion of your soul attached to it, and when that happens, if you will it, you can control its life and death with a single thought. In exchange they gain a deeper connection to you and gain access to the special traits of your soul. It is how we demons create warlock minions; mind you, we only use a tiny fraction of our souls to do so.”

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  “So, Fenrir needs to be willing and I should use a very small amount of soul to do so.” The goblin surmised.

  “So you’re making the mutt a soul slave. Most interesting. I am curious what trait the mangy thing would gain.” The demon commented snidely at the goblin’s statement.

  “I wouldn’t describe him as ‘mangy.” Armand corrected.

  “Once a dog, always a dog.” That was all Thoth had to say to the comment. The demon went back to ignoring his master and continued to endlessly organize in some fruitless cycle of endless mundanity. Perhaps he is a masochist, the goblin thought as he walked away; it seemed like a demon thing to be.

  Amand began to wander through the halls; he knew where Fenrir was but he had no means to call him back. It didn’t take very long for them to meet. The beast’s back was turned to the goblin. “Fenrir!” The warbeast turned around at the call, and it began to trot towards him. It sat down before him and waited for an order; the goblin reached for and touched the metal behemoth’s side. He pulled the wolf soul out; while it struggled a little, it did not resist, probably sensing his lack of malice.

  He looked at the warbeast body lying there on the ground; he probably should have had Fenrir follow him, but it was too late now. So the goblin turned around and began to return to the center of the dungeon. He then made it to the room of the soul-severing magic circle.

  The goblin lifted the wolf soul before his eyes; it had a green tint around its edges. He then shared his intentions, to bind the spirit into an agreement. The wolf soul had its pride, but it had already chosen to serve him; it didn’t see how this really would be different so it showed no disagreement.

  Armand sat within the circle and began the soul-severing spell; he quickly and effectively cut a piece of his soul off, and the shard of purple floated over to the green soul. Once it touched, the purple melted into the green, causing it to darken. The goblin refocused his attention on his own soul and used several spare fragments to repair his soul.

  He still had some extra souls so he could use them maybe to enhance Fenrir’s soul. He kept adding souls in till the wolf’s soul seemed to lose a little color; that was a good stopping point. Going any further would be detrimental.

  The goblin could now feel a direct connection to Fenrir, just enough to sense where they were and give clear instructions. He could also feel the wolf sending feelings back; it felt stronger, which made him proud. If it felt proud now, let's see how it feels after this, thought Armand.

  He moved to the workshop, holding the enlarged soul. The sentinels were hard at work but stepped out of the way as the goblin approached. Before him stood a massive warbeast; instead of being a dark grey, it was rather a bluish-green with a dark red tint along the edges. It would be even prettier if someone were to look inside and see the immaculately sculpted golden magic circles under the armored scales.

  The first model had a lot of magic circles but this one made that one simple in comparison. With higher quality metal, the magic circles could be condensed and more spell models could be inscribed on them. To counter the light weight of mithril, a gravity-enhancing spell was added to the warbeast to give it enough weight when it attacked.

  He could spend all day admiring his handiwork, but he needed to get Fenrir put in and acquainted with its new body before some inevitable visitors. He pushed the soul within the body and the monstrous creature stood upright. A low whistle could be heard from the doorway. “I take back what I said about that being a mangy mut; that is a high-quality guard dog.” Thoth must have been curious of the final result.

  Upon the statement, Fenrir stared down the demon and slowly approached; Thoth had that wide grin across his face. The warbeast stopped right before the demon. “Oh, is that a good boy!” The demon taunted before a paw punched out, hitting the demon in the gut, sending him out the door and the adjoining wall.