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*****
The wooden house wasn't large, but it was fully equipped with daily necessities, even down to the small decorative ornaments Fini had imagined.
However, these items had a tendency to vanish if he lost focus for even a second. This was the current drawback of the Ars Magna's creation ability: it relied entirely on the strength of the user's thought. The more complex the object, the more unwavering and singular the focus required. A single stray thought could cause the entire creation to blink out of existence.
"Where did all this come from?" Red Skull marveled as he drifted into the room, scanning the interior.
He had seen Fini arrive here alone. While the armor could be hand-waved as advanced technology, a wooden house and fully-formed furniture appearing out of thin air wasn't something "science" could easily explain.
"This is my power," Fini replied casually. He didn't care to explain himself to the Soul Stone, but his impression of Red Skull wasn't terrible so far, so he gave a brief answer.
Looking around once more, Red Skull's desire to recruit Fini into Hydra intensified. He feared that even without Steve Rogers, any version of Hydra that made an enemy of Fini would eventually meet its end. He truly did not want to see his organization vanish.
Despite the massive power boost to Ars Magna, the created objects still couldn't exist permanently. After pushing himself to the limit for three hours, the wooden house finally dissolved into nothingness.
Even so, Fini was ecstatic. The only downside was the short duration and his lack of technical knowledge regarding spacecraft; otherwise, he could have simply manifested a ship and flown back to Earth.
Having discovered the wonders of his empowered skill, Fini stopped worrying about a place to sleep and began tirelessly testing the true limits of Ars Magna. He found that simpler, more resolute ideas were easier to manifest and maintain. Furthermore, the more he understood the structure of the object and the more confidence he had in the creation, the less mana it consumed.
Fini was having the time of his life, but his constant tinkering began to irritate the Soul Stone. It had been watching him for a long time and still couldn't see through Fini's "system."
Suddenly, clouds gathered in the sky, and lightning snaked through the air. Amidst a low rumble, the Soul Stone—shimmering with an orange glow—manifested physically before Fini for the first time.
Red Skull watched calmly from the side. After his earlier shocks, his mental fortitude had reached new heights. Forget the Soul Stone appearing; even if Captain America walked up to him right now, he wouldn't bat an eye.
Fini, however, felt no joy at the Stone's arrival. Instead, he took several wary steps back, keeping his distance. His curiosity had already cost him dearly once; he wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.
"Your body is too weak!"
Just as Fini was wondering what the Stone wanted, this sentence echoed in his mind, causing his face to darken.
"It's plenty strong for Earth standards!" Fini retorted. To be fair, his physical body was relatively fragile—it probably couldn't even stop a bullet. Up until now, he had relied almost entirely on Incursio for protection. But compared to an ordinary human, he was still a powerhouse.
"And why do you care if my body is weak or not anyway?" Fini snapped back. Based on the Stone's tone, was it actually planning to offer its services?
"It is nothing. I simply feel that even if you obtained me, you would be unable to exert my true power."
Fini's expression stiffened. These damn stones were all the same. The Space Stone was unreasonable enough to teleport him here, and the Soul Stone wasn't much better. He wondered what kind of personality the Time Stone in the Ancient One's possession had.
What Fini didn't know was that the six Infinity Stones had almost never communicated with anyone since their inception, let alone displayed their sentience. Fini was essentially the first person to engage in such a direct dialogue with the Soul Stone. Even Red Skull had only been "assigned" a duty without any real conversation.
"I don't even want you! You're just a glorified pebble, what's the big deal!?" Fini blustered, his words belying his true feelings.
If there were a way to get the Soul Stone without paying a price, would he take it? Of course he would. He'd have to have been kicked in the head by Thanos to refuse. In fact, he wanted the Soul Stone quite badly right now because it might solve a problem he was desperate to fix:
Separating the souls of Hulk and Bruce Banner.
The Soul Stone was the ultimate authority on souls. If even an Infinity Stone couldn't solve it, then separating the two might truly be impossible.
"There is something in your soul that does not belong to this universe!" The Soul Stone made this observation after carefully scrutinizing Fini. This discovery piqued its curiosity. As one of the six singularities that existed since the dawn of the universe, if there was something even they couldn't comprehend, it could only be something from before the universe's birth—or something from outside it. The Stone concluded Fini was the latter.
"Hah! No I don't, I'm not, don't talk nonsense!"
Though surprised, Fini didn't panic. He calmly denied it. It didn't matter if the Stone was right; as long as he didn't admit it, it didn't count.
Back when he had asked the Ancient One about "cheating" the system's extraction process, he realized the system's power stood above the Infinity Stones. This was his confidence in denying the Stone's claim—he was certain the Soul Stone couldn't perceive or affect his system.
The Soul Stone went silent, seemingly lacking the evidence to refute his denial.
"Speaking of which, we haven't discussed the matter of compensation yet," Fini said, immediately pivoting the topic. He didn't want the Stone peeking into his secrets.
"Compensation!?" The Stone pulsed with orange light.
"You don't think I came here by choice, do you? To spend time in this godforsaken place with a rock and a skeleton!?"
"But I was not the one who brought you here!" The Soul Stone sounded strangely aggrieved.
"But it sent me here because of you, so you're responsible!" Fini glared at the Stone, debating whether to summon the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. If he couldn't take a bite out of the Space Stone, maybe the Soul Stone would taste alright.
Ultimately, he held back. Now that he knew the Stones were sentient, he didn't hold much hope for the Dragon to simply "eat" their energy anymore. Still, he intended to settle the score with the Space Stone once he got back.
"What do you want?" The pure-hearted Soul Stone yielded. Its "soul for a soul" rule proved that, at its core, it was the most reasonable of the bunch.
"What do you have?" Fini asked, his eyes lighting up with surprise.
The Soul Stone glowed faintly, seemed to adjust its "angle" slightly, and finally faced the direction of the Red Skull.
Red Skull: "???"
(End of Chapter)