In Master Mercer’s office, light coalesced into an image.

It was a humanoid figure made of energy, bound and pierced by countless fine Rune chains. With every pulse, mottled, multi-colored specks of light were stripped away by the chains, until only a pure, ethereal blue remained.

"The essence of soul processing is not creation, but selection and trimming."

Mercer’s voice was devoid of inflection.

"What you must do is eliminate the useless ’impurities’ in the soul, such as emotions, memories, and self-awareness, leaving only the core ’functional modules’: combat instinct, the capacity to learn, and absolute obedience to commands."

"This is a process as precise as surgery. Trim too much, and it will become sluggish; trim too little, and the original self-will might remain, leading to a backlash."

Allen and Victor listened with rapt attention; this was precisely the problem they faced in the process of creating Golems.

After explaining the final technical point, Mercer closed the light screen.

"In the Third Ring Belt of the Seven Towers Alliance, there is an abandoned Ancient Golem Factory, a relic from the previous epoch. The technological style there is vastly different from today’s, but it should be enlightening for your understanding of how to integrate a ’soul’ with a ’construct.’"

His emotionless eyes swept over the two of them.

"It’s also a decent place for exploration. If you’re lucky, you might find some lost ancient artifacts. Of course, be careful not to activate something you shouldn’t."

’An Ancient Golem Factory?’

A thought sparked in Allen’s mind. DSeek had already automatically created a new exploration quest for this location.

Once his Golem was officially operational, perhaps he could take his most powerful "hired muscle" to that ancient factory for a bit of "archaeology."

...

「Zone F, Workshop 37.」

Under the bright light of an Alchemy Lamp, Allen stood before a spotless workbench.

Before him, sealed within a special crystal container, was a fist-sized, restless ball of red light.

This was the soul of a male Volcanic Fierce Ape he had selected.

For his first attempt, he didn’t intend to risk using the leader’s soul.

Soul Processing Formula initiated. Phase One: Memory Wipe.

Allen mobilized his Spiritual Power, sending invisible tendrils into the crystal container. He began to strip away the chaotic information from the soul’s outer layer, following the method Master Mercer had taught him.

Chaotic memory fragments rushed toward him.

Playing, drinking by the Molten River, fighting with others of its kind for mates...

’This is all "junk data."’

Expressionless, Allen manipulated the Spiritual Power probes and began the "formatting" operation.

Phase Two: Erase emotions, rewrite self-awareness, retain and enhance ’predator’ base logic.

Phase Three: Write permissions, write Golem intelligence basic architecture, write ’beam emission’ and other driver abilities.

The entire process was tedious and meticulous, and it consumed a vast amount of Spiritual Power.

An hour later, the once-restless Soul Light Ball gradually grew quiet.

It was no longer a complete soul, but had gradually taken on the semblance of an artificial intelligence.

To test whether this freshly-made "component" was up to standard, Allen installed it into a temporary test Mechanical Body—a metal box equipped only with a simple vocalization module and sensory organs.

He activated the Mechanical Body.

The indicator light on the metal box flickered, and a stiff, synthesized voice spoke.

"...Pacifist... activated."

Allen sat opposite it.

"Can you understand me?"

"...Yes." The voice was a bit sluggish.

"Who are you?"

"...I... am..." The metal box was silent for a long time. "...Me."

Allen frowned. ’It seems its self-awareness has been mostly erased, but its logical reasoning ability has apparently dropped significantly as well.’

"What is your mission?" Allen asked a different question.

"Mission... combat."

"Combat with whom?"

"...Enemies."

"Who are the enemies?"

"...Not... your... people."

’What a... simple and unadorned answer.’

Allen continued his questions. "Target the distant Factory Servant. Prepare for a long-range attack."

"Calculating parameters. Target distance: 50 meters. Movement speed: 3 meters per second. Crosswind: zero. Calculating lead for shot."

"No firing module detected. Requesting assistance."

Allen rubbed the bridge of his nose. Its logical processing was decent, but it didn’t seem very smart. ’With this level of intelligence, it’s less like an ape and more like a bear.’

"From now on, your designation is ’Xiong Er.’"

"...Xiong Er... acknowledged." The voice from the metal box was completely devoid of emotion.

Allen sighed. ’Did I make a mistake? Did I delete too much in one of the steps and screw up the CPU during formatting?’

Refusing to believe it, he decided to run the experiment again.

This time, he deliberately slowed the process, preserving more during the "emotion wipe" and "memory stripping" phases, even tolerating a certain degree of "data corruption."

He wanted to see if preserving more "humanity" would result in a smarter core.

The result...

"Your designation, Xiong San."

"Yessir."

Allen finally understood completely.

’It wasn’t a problem with my technique; the raw material itself is flawed!’

Volcanic Fierce Apes—the name had both "ape" and "fierce" in it, and their combat instincts were indeed top-tier, but their intelligence was a serious weakness.

Their intelligence was probably on par with a bear’s. Among Magical Beasts, they had some intelligence, but they were a far cry from being true "sapient beings."

’So be it.’ Allen quickly accepted this reality.

He hadn’t expected these cores to be able to think like humans in the first place.

What he needed was a "combat unit" that would obey commands absolutely, possessed powerful combat intuition, and could make autonomous micro-adjustments based on pre-set tactics.

’If intelligence is lacking, programming can make up for it.’

As long as the combat instinct remained, the remaining logical reasoning could be fully compensated for by the tactical plans he wrote into it.

In a way, lower intelligence was actually more stable and less likely to develop unexpected "free will."

Having figured this out, Allen no longer hesitated.

He took out the most important Soul Container. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Sealed inside was the soul of the Volcano Tyrant Ape Leader.

This Soul Light Ball was a size larger than the previous two, and also more ferocious, filled with a primitive savagery.

’Good stuff!’

Re-energized, Allen began the third and most important round of soul processing.

With the experience from the first two attempts, he was much more proficient this time. Stripping, cleansing, reshaping... the series of operations flowed like water.

After testing, this one’s intelligence was indeed a little higher.

Finally, he named this meticulously polished Soul Core "Xiong Da."

It would become the pilot for the first prototype of the "Pacifist" series, PX-0.

A machine spirit—absolutely loyal, fearless in the face of death, and possessing the combat intelligence of a leader.

After properly storing the three freshly-made Control Cores, Allen let out a long sigh of relief.

The most critical technical bottleneck of the PX-0 project had finally been overcome.

The next step was to adapt the "Xiong Da" core to the machine’s body, perform deep debugging, and write in the multiple sets of tactical modules he had prepared long ago.