Spiritual Puppet

The world believes that sentient puppets arose from independent ingenuity, yet little do they know that I have merely borrowed the wisdom of the ancients. An alchemist must be both knowledgeable and fearless... The essence of a sentient puppet lies within the word “sentient.” All know that the path of the soul has always been a realm of mystery coveted by both mages and alchemists, but it is said that only those who break through the third tier and step onto the path of the demigod can transcend human limits to touch upon the soul’s domain. Yet fortune is ever unpredictable. My first encounter with the soul’s mysteries came not from curiosity, but from necessity forced by circumstance; only later, when I looked back, did I realize the innocence of those days…
—Excerpt from “Theresa’s Alchemical Notes”

When news of Theresa’s disappearance reached Stormhold, Joans was in the midst of breakfast. Hearing the report from the scout, he froze, then leapt to his feet, exclaiming, “What did you say? An ambush?”
His abrupt movement overturned the table before him; the feast spilled onto the floor, various liquids pooling beneath his feet, and his clothes were instantly soiled with scraps of food, making his already foul mood even worse.
The scout, cowed by his outburst, bowed even lower and reported in detail: Theresa had been attacked, her three guards slain, and the scene left in utter chaos. His report only served to make Joans’ expression all the more menacing, his bravado a thin veil over his anxiety. He paced the room in agitation, mulling over the events repeatedly, but could not bring himself to admit one thing—he had been used.
It was not until ten minutes later, when the scout returned with new information, that his anger truly erupted—
The operatives had vanished without a trace! He, Joans Hack, had been set up!
“Damn it!” Joans, shamed and furious, lashed out with a kick, sending the solid wood table flying into the wall with a tremendous crash.
The noise eased his rage slightly. Lowering his head in thought, he finally issued a grim command, “Since they’ve disappeared, act as if they never existed. Erase all other clues—consider this matter never ordered by me!”
The scout bowed and retreated silently. Joans, face dark, surveyed the wreckage of the room, his heart filled with frustration. He recalled that when he first arrived at Stormhold, his father had specifically summoned him to the study, warning him that the castle’s relationships were tangled and complex, urging him to keep a low profile and avoid trouble. But how could he have guessed that he merely wanted to teach Theresa a minor lesson—one that should not have threatened anyone’s interests—yet this “lesson” had turned into an ambush, costing three lives.
Irritated, Joans felt a fire burning inside him, reddening his vision. With a furious roar, he stormed out of the room like a whirlwind, heading for the training grounds…

Theresa, meanwhile, had no idea she was caught in such a web of schemes. She fixed her wary gaze on the now less-adorable golden spider, her mind on high alert. The moment she sensed a faint mental impulse, her body tensed, and she marshaled all her mental strength to guard against any possible psychic assault—
“Master,” came a thin, delicate whisper, repeated over and over. The pure kindness and dependence conveyed on the level of pure thought were utterly unfeigned; it was this that allowed Theresa to relax—if only slightly—even as her curiosity grew. Who was this, and why did it call her “master”?
Mental communication was nearly instantaneous; barely had she formed the question when the answer arrived. Within seconds, Theresa understood the entire course of events, and a faint smile played on her lips at her own good fortune—
It seemed she truly had found a blessing in disguise this time…
The golden spider was still her alchemical automaton, but now there lingered within its body several fragments of soul. This allowed it to assess her condition and act accordingly—bringing water, seeking fruit, and so on to aid her recovery. The soul fragments within the spider, being incomplete, could only convey vague, jumbled information. Yet, piecing it together, Theresa deduced the crucial points—chief among them, the credit owed to the wolf fang necklace that had already saved her life once, and the strange blue light that had drifted at the base of the cliff.
Probing into the golden spider’s body with her mental power, Theresa saw a new, spirit-infused magical totem within—a simple sketch of a howling wolf, head raised high. This, she realized, was the key to the automaton’s evolution: the totem came from the wolf fang necklace, and the soul fragments from the strange blue light.
The soul is a forbidden domain! Both Carol’s teachings and Mu’s answers had emphasized this point. Thus, though Theresa was immensely curious about the soul fragment, she dared not act rashly, instead directing it to gather fruit and scout the surroundings for a way out.

The situation was even worse than she had imagined. First, her body was weaker than she thought; worst of all, her meridians were blocked, preventing even a spark of magic, leaving her unable to cast even the simplest distress spell. Second, though the golden spider searched in all directions, it found no path upward; she was left with one choice—she would have to seek an exit downward.
After the day’s light faded and returned four times, Theresa, with her limited medical skill, had managed to stabilize her injuries. She began the descent, step by step, along the path the golden spider had scouted.
She had deduced from the sound of water that the river below could not be far, yet the actual distance was shockingly short—a mere hundred meters or so from top to bottom. If she had not managed to halt herself at the last moment, she would surely have plunged into the river and met her end.
The river at the bottom was not swift but bitingly cold. Theresa dared not approach, standing instead on a rocky outcrop two or three meters above the water, already chilled to the bone. When the golden spider brought her a leafful of water, she discovered it was below freezing, yet showed no sign of turning to ice.

Cautiously, Theresa reached out to touch it, but even before her finger met the water, a jolt like electricity shot through her, making her shudder so hard the leaf slipped from her grasp. When she finally came to her senses, her finger throbbed with pain. Bringing it to her eyes, she saw a patch of blackness, split open in the center and oozing blood.
Collapsing helplessly to the ground, Theresa dared not test the strange river again. In despair, she pounded the rock in frustration, then sat in silence, considering her next move. In her distress, she failed to notice that the residue on the discarded leaf was turning to wisps of smoke. Some seeped into the golden spider, revitalizing it despite its depleted magic, while the rest curled through the air and silently entered her right hand. There, a simple ring, dormant for who knows how long, began to emit a faint yellow glow.

The warmth at her fingertip drew Theresa’s attention. Only then did she realize that the spatial ring, which had been inert due to her lack of magic, was now responding.
Not pausing to consider the source of this sudden magic, Theresa immediately sent her consciousness into the ring. She remembered it served not only as storage, but also held a fixed spell of Lightburst.

At midday, the sun blazed down, the canyon drenched in blinding light. Nevertheless, when a burst of Lightburst magic erupted within the gorge, it was immediately noticed and the news swiftly relayed to Betty. After three days and nights of fruitless searching, Betty was as sharp as a drawn blade. She rushed to the scene, ignoring all protests, tied herself with a rope, secured two scrolls of Levitation and several potions, and personally descended the cliff.

At the bottom, Theresa watched as the Lightburst spell detonated far above her. She sighed softly, twisting the inert spatial ring, then turned her attention to investigating the strange new source of magic.
“Master, water,” came the golden spider’s tiny voice, tinged with greedy longing.
Water? What water? Theresa’s eyes lit up as she looked at the spider, but the little creature, with its limited intellect, could not explain itself properly. Grinding her teeth, Theresa thought back over the earlier events, glanced at her blackened finger, then gritted her teeth and gave the command: fetch water!

“Therese!” When Betty, guided by the eighth burst of Light, finally found Theresa, she was horrified at the sight. Theresa was sprawled across a rock barely a meter wide, her body trembling, her face deathly pale and tinged with blue. Most shocking of all were her upturned hands—swollen like loaves of bread, blackened and split with countless cracks, blood seeping for so long it had stained the moss beneath her a vivid, shocking red. (To be continued)