Darius inspected the newborn carefully and smiled with pleasure. Not because it represented the birth of new life, but because this child possessed what its parents had lacked, a soul!

He

/she would be like a normal person outside, able to use magic, Spark, Awake, or whatever else this mental world had available to them. Not only that, but they would also be able to give birth to enhanced offspring once they grew up.

Pleased, Darius had the two parents hand over the baby. They no longer had to handle raising it and were to get back to mating. Now, Darius needed an increase of soul-born offspring.

As for the first generation of humans without a soul, they numbered around 200 at the moment. They were set to mate crazily and some would also be giving birth in the months to come.

Darius brought the newborn to his lab and placed them on the table. He then gazed outward using his Psychomancy to see that the area outside his settlement was lively as hell.

Birds chirped, insects buzzed and wolves barked. Predator and prey could be found chasing each other, one in a bid to keep its life and the other in a bid to take it.

About 60% of all first-generation animals of all types and breeds had already perished naturally, allowing their soul-born offspring to continue on. The forests had also expanded beyond the range of his senses, forming savannas and grasslands that stretched for as far as the eye could see.

Darius had permanently terraformed this mental world, and it would only continue to develop from here.

Now, it was time to talk about that epiphany Darius had and what it meant for him going forward. The trigger of this realization was the comparison between a soulless being and one with a soul.

As Darius stated, a soulless person was not a mindless idiot who could only respond to stimuli passively, but was actually a sentient and sapient being with full functions that would be able to learn and grow on their own.

What differentiated them from a person with a soul and spirit were three things; Will, Affinity, and Emotions.

Will; the capability of conscious choice, decision, and intention. What we humans lovingly called 'free will', that largely separated us from animals that were stuck following nature's law in the form of instincts.

Affinity; the ability to feel kinship with the world. This manifested in a variety of ways, but to name a few it would be the ability to reincarnate, to have an afterlife, to utilize magical forces of the world and special energies naturally, etc.

Emotions; The feelings of life. Anger, hate, love, lust, greed, envy, joy, excitement, satisfaction, sadness, regret, despair, grief, and more. What people lovingly referred to as being 'human'.

However, that was wrong. These traits were not exclusive to humans but any and all beings with souls had them. Once an entity was in possession of all three of these, it had both a complete and functional spirit as well as the soul.

Missing one made one deficient as an existence.

How did this benefit Darius? Well, when he left here, he would be able to pull his resources to bear and create artificial souls!

He could create flesh and bone, then, instead of waiting for a next-generation, he could infuse them directly with custom-made souls to create genuine life!

However, that was only the basic use.

What Darius really wanted to use it for was to create his three children on Faust!

He could create bodies for Miranda, Martin, and Solena, then give them souls to make them more than just digital AI confined within his Supreme Portal.

Darius figured that if he became powerful enough and reached the level Vena wanted him to, he might even be able to dip his hand into the pool of souls and pull the real souls of his children over.

But that was far into the future. Right now, what Darius was focused on was nurturing the new life that was brought to him. He personally cared for the child, feeding it and monitoring it as it grew.

Soon, more were brought to him at different intervals from different births all over. This continued over the span of the next 10 years, during which Darius spent raising the children, teaching them everything they needed to know manually.

He provided the best resources he could make without Transmutation and made sure that they were perfect enough to carry this new world to its limit.

As for the original first-generation humans, Darius had retired them from breeder class to worker class entities who maintained the settlement in his stead.

The new kids all assumed that Darius was their parent, and were referring to him as 'Father'. Though they didn't know who their mothers were, Darius told them that it was the world itself, which was not wrong.

They viewed Darius like a god and worshiped him. He trained them until they reached the age of 20, meaning that another 10 years passed since the first birth.

Now, the youths were adults ready to create the next generation, with a variety of talents they had developed. Darius made sure to infuse them with all his knowledge when they were 18, so they were like walking libraries of Krona.

The wealth of information would be able to tide them over in any situation, and they also had the ability to pass it down the same way Darius did. A powerful civilization could be built from here and it was all up to the natives themselves to carve out their path.

As for Darius' participation in their journey, it had come to an end. It had been a more than 27 years inside this world that was within his mind.

From an endless desert, it had changed into a lovely biome where all sorts of species could live in harmony, with space to be expanded into more.

Darius gazed at the walls of the settlement one fine day as the sun was blazing hot, before turning and walking towards the forest nearby, vanishing before he even took a step within.

The Test of Mettle was over!