After what felt like an eternity to Alex, Reprise finally stopped her experiments, and he found himself back on the same chair, good as new.
But if someone looked at him by any measure other than his physical body, they would see he wasn't even a match for the original Alex.
"Well, that was disappointing and a massive waste of my time, wasn't it?" Reprise said, puffing her cheeks like a kid who was denied her favorite candy.
"What... what did you do to me? I feel like I am myself but at the same time... not myself?" Alex asked.
"Nothing much, really! Looking through your memories, the best way to describe it is to think of your soul as Lego bricks—I just rearranged a few things here and there, you know. It was a very hard job since those soul bricks are stuck together very tightly and break easily; it's totally impossible, even for someone like me, to put them exactly back—but I did a good job if I do say so myself," she said, sticking out her chest in pride.
"Don't worry, you are totally fine. I would say you're more than fine, seeing how you are now able to talk to me without fear or going berserk. Give it some time and you will feel bet—" She stopped mid-sentence as she saw Alex start foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling back. He started bleeding from his nose and then all his orifices.
"That's not good, is it?"
She snapped her fingers, transporting them underground to a small lab. This was the lab she created to house Khos.
Khos was floating inside one of the tanks filled with a strange clear liquid. Multiple cable-like structures were connected throughout his spherical body. He was around the size of a football—his original size compared to the small marble-size body he used during his time with Alex.
She put Alex in a similar tank, and immediately his condition began improving.
Due to the soul modification, his body was no longer able to contain the soul and was breaking apart rapidly. But due to the world's rules inside her domain—which do not allow any living beings to die—his body was being rebuilt again and again, continuing the cycle of breaking and building. If it was just a small issue, he wouldn't even have any symptoms or pain before healing automatically.
Inside the tank, his body was receiving nutrients required to sustain the repeating cycle; hence symptoms were no longer visible, but once outside it would go back to breaking apart.
Reprise went to the back of the lab, leaving Alex and Khos. She reached another section where books were arranged—in shelves and some lying around on a table and cozy sofa. She sat down and lifted her hand, causing one of the books to fly into her hand automatically. Taking a deep breath, she opened the book and started reading the section on how to make the body compatible with a modified soul.
The book, when she opened it, was already on the correct page, describing how demons were first created and how their bodies were made to adapt to their souls.
After reading a few more books, she threw the last one aside and stood up.
"This is not going to work."
The fundamental difference between souls was too vast; with only one soul in my hand, it's impossible to identify the exact pattern that will allow the modified soul to stay contained within the body without issues.
Demons are too versatile; they can adapt to multiple bodies. They can even take over human bodies and adapt to them in little time.
She came back to where the containers were kept and started tinkering with the makeup of Alex's body—making small changes and changing the conditions to mimic the outside world to verify if it was more stable or less. A few hours passed as she went through millions of changes. With her speed, it was no problem for her to work fast.
Finally, giving up, she sat down, bringing her comfy couch with a snap and throwing herself onto it.
She started looking at the two beings in her domain—two visitors after a very long time.
After staring for a while, she suddenly noticed a strange link between Khos and Alex.
It seemed Khos was truly playing with fire, giving his all on a bluff and the naivety of Alex. With how little knowledge Alex had of systems and magic, he was not able to understand how much power he had over Khos due to the blood ritual he performed.
She knew she was getting bored with these two and soon she would definitely throw them outside her domain and get back to observing various worlds for fun things out there.
For a final try, she thought of using her last resort. As an entity, she did not want the merit of killing a human inside or outside her domain, and in the current condition, Alex would surely die once outside.
For a few days, she continued her experimentation while setting up her last resort—merging Khos, a naturally awakened life, with a human—also a naturally awakened life form—to form something similar to demons: a life with the status of a semi-artificial soul.
As Lord of Reprise, it was not difficult for her to peer through time and see how they created demons—not just demons but 90% of all life soul blueprints were created artificially by gods to increase their worshipers after humans kept repeating things like rebellion, killing gods after gaining power through those same gods, creating technology that made even magic and divinity powerless, and many such things.
Souls with artificial blueprints have rules embedded, allowing gods to have a small degree of control while still maintaining the free will required for beings to generate faith and divinity for those gods.
After working for a few days, she was ready to start the final process.
She had already forgotten the requests Khos made. With so much data she kept in her mind and her habit of living like a freeloader who watches movies all day (in the name of watching over the world), things like being a responsible adult were not something she was aware of.
Alex and Khos were now floating in one larger tank. Once the process started, Khos began breaking down, and parts of his crystalline structure moved toward Alex, merging inside his body and forming intricate patterns on it.
When Khos's conscious soul started dissolving and merging with Alex, Reprise had a feeling something was not right. The amount of soul power Khos had didn't seem right for a newborn soul to possess.
"Oh well, it is a new life form, nothing I haven't seen before" she thought, letting the process continue as she left to watch her evening show. A demon lord was going to fight a hero and her party in a world far from her domain. She was interested to see it, mostly since female hero makes up only 0.001% of all existing heroes in the worlds using demon hero systems to maintain balance.
The only twist was that even the demon lord was female, increasing the hype even more.
It was lucky for Alex because if she was paying attention to her lab where Alex and Khos were, she would definitely have figured out what was wrong with Khos and Alex and why it was not a good idea to go ahead with her experiment.