Dyne appeared in the soul space. He knew that the people outside would have a lot to talk about, so Dyne pretended to fall asleep. He was ten. They wouldn’t mind.

"Jedo.” Dyne called out.

Jedo appeared as well.

“Alright. Now’s a good time to do this. I know you were avoiding it because you were having difficulty gauging my stats.” Dyne smiled.

“It is as you say. I was having difficulty figuring out your stats since you also had a Brimstone Soul Seed.” Jedo answered back. But in reality, the skeleton Jedo felt pain in his kidney from Dyne’s blunt words.

“Well, no worries, kid! The problem was that my body Brimstone Soul is just the element that resists your darkness ability. And since it is strong, it prevents you from checking on it. But check out this Spirit Stone!” Dyne raised it up.

“What is it? Is this object similar to the Soul Stone?” Jedo wondered as he couldn’t help but see some familiarity in the stone.

“It is a rather interesting thing… It has some things that naturally overlap with the Soul Stone, but it’s different. In my game memories, two things surface to be related to it. The green stone used in Star Ocean 2 transformed the good friend of Rena into an ogre-like creature, much as this creature did… The second is the Spirit Stone that the Bishop said this is. And that only exists in one other game. Grandia! Am I right, Strafe?”

“It seems you get what that is. But that’s incomplete. Otherwise, how would it explain how it made Bishop Chrone become a hulking, demonic Ogre?” Strafe laughed.

“Oh, I’m not done, Strafe. I did put that into consideration. This is the answer to how you do ‘that’ in the future Breath of Fire games! Ryu finds crystallized forms of dragons and somehow gains their power! So I thought of it in this way. The Spirit Stone is similar to what it is in Grandia. It contains the will and power of another creature or race. In Grandia, it was the Icarians, but here it could be any other race. The result is Star Ocean 2. It controlled the Bishop and became a Demonic Ogre. I remembered that Valkyrie Profile had an Ogre, and, interestingly, a Soul Stone for one of the characters that Lennet can recruit. But I doubt this is connected to this Spirit Stone. Then that’s when I realized it!” Dyne paused for dramatic effect.

“Realized what?”

“Legend of Dragoon! The objects that contain the Dragoon Spirit! This Spirit Stone is something like that! In the Bishop’s case, this Spirit Stone is made by the Spirits of demonic creatures. It allowed them to create a transformation just as how the characters in Legend of Dragoon transform into those beings because it has the essence of a Dragon’s soul! So the Soul Stone contains the actual soul, which makes it superior to the Spirit Stone, but a Spirit stone contains the essence of a soul. The will of another creature and can commune with its wielder and affects it!”

“Correct. Impressive as always.” Strafe sighed and gave up. Of course, he wanted Dyne to be wrong once in a while, but he managed to figure out his plans once more.

“But what I want to do is something rather peculiar. This Spirit Stone can exist here in your Soul Space! Therefore, it's something that is like a Seru! And if I’m not mistaken, Serus ought to use Spirit Stones as a base. While Ra-Seru’s use Soul stones.”

“Correct again…” Strafe sighed.

“But this is an interesting Spirit Stone! It can think. So I’m guessing that this is a more advanced Spirit Stone! But this also gives me hope in transforming Grim into something far stronger than what it is. And this inspires me to experiment on this Spirit Stone.” Dyne smiled.

Jedo felt a slight chill on his spine as Dyne said this. There was something nefarious behind Dyne’s smile.

“That Ogre took over the Bishop and mind-controlled it when the Bishop placed it in its Mind Palace. It was thrown out earlier because it lost all energy and got weak, and the Bishop managed to expel it. But sense it! It’s Earth! This Spirit Stone is of Earth Element!”

“It is Earth. So?” Jedo asked.

“I remembered your unusual state in the Forest. For darkness to be present, you had to create an environment of Ice and Earth! It created some sort of link so that darkness could thrive. What if we do the same thing?”

“The same thing?”

“Yes. We consolidate this Spirit Stone and convert it! It is Earth. A neutral Element. So I’m guessing that this little guy may be able to turn to our side with the right persuasion. I can sense the spirit of this being has been turned into evil. But if we use this Earth Spirit Stone as a bridge to help us both understand each other, we may be able to finally have a means of not only gauging each other’s power but even using each other’s power at will. Well, mostly you using my powers. I can already use yours. But you can’t even use a bit of mine. Such a pity.”

Jedo felt like his skull-like ribs just fractured from that comment.

“But… how do you do it?”

“Oh, it’s simple, really. I see this little Ogre in here, similar to a Seru. I just have to bond with it and control it… forcibly.” Dyne laughed, and suddenly a powerful force exploded inside the Spirit Stone.

The cry of the Ogre could be heard inside.

“You mind-controlled a Bishop? Want to try me?” Dyne laughed.

“AHHHHHH!” The Ogre kept crying in pain. It was no match to Brimstone.

Jedo then sensed that a spirit was quivering and glanced at the Afarit’s soul. While it was still very weak, it was already conscious.

“Oh? You’re already awake. You may look like the devil, and I look like a reaper, but he’s the real devil here.” Jedo pointed at Dyne.

“Burn for me! You Spirit Stone! MWAHAHAHA!” Dyne laughed sadistically as the Spirit Stone trembled.

Dyne had been using Brimstone to purge but also to reconstruct the Spirit Stone. Slowly, the green stone was becoming more and more yellowish.

After nearly fifteen minutes, Dyne won.

The Spirit Stone had submitted to it.

Dyne was cruel. It didn’t kill it but kept using the power of Brimstone to purge the darkness out of it. Slowly, the cruel power of wickedness was being purged out. In the Spirit Stone’s weakened state, Dyne finally manages to initiate a soul-bonding technique.

The entire soul space of Jedo flashed a bright yellow light.

“… Master…” The weakened and reluctant voice of the Ogre was heard.

The Afarit was shocked at what it saw. They were the race that enslaved these sprites to do their bidding. But now, their powers were easily undone.

“Oh wow… This is fun. And this is easier. Grim has a physical form, so combining is naturally more difficult. But you, you don’t even cost a sing Rune Power. And now I can truly see what you are. I get it. You and Grim are similar creatures. Grim is a soul creature that focuses on the physical. You are a Soul creature of the Mind.” Dyne guessed.

“I serve you, master!” The Ogre continued to answer.

“What are you? You are no longer an Ogre. I sense an ape?”

“An ape?” Jedo wondered.

“Yes. This power is different from the Serus. While Serus have physical forms, this one is something that uses Mind magic. Just like the Ogre before, allows me to assume the form of this Ape.”

“It’s not an ape… it’s a monkey. Another clever trick that the Sovereign is giving you.” Strafe added.

“I can turn me into a powerful monkey?” Dyne murmured at first and tried to connect the dots.

And then, he realized it…

“Monkey King… This is…? Saiyuki: Journey West!” Dyne explained. One of his fonder memories was playing Tactics-based games on PS1. From the Mech world of Front Mission 3 and Vanguard Bandits, he also loved Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, and one of the eastern-inspired game, Journey West.

“I have the power of Monke!” Dyne shouted in glee.

This was based on the very same story of Journey to the West, which tells the epic of a monk who journeys with Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.

“Then that means… I can have allies that can transform into those wereforms!” Dyne shouted in glee.

“Wereforms?” Jedo was confused.

“You haven’t seen it in his dreams yet? In the game, the main character allies with several other monster-kin similar to Sun Wukong. The other characters, except for the monk, can transform into a monster during battle to make powerful attacks.” Strafe explained.

“Amazing! I can now have my group of monsters! Strafe! You got to help me!” Dyne pleaded.

“I’m sure you’ll meet them. With how things have been turning out, I’m not even surprised if you end up bringing a Zenith Rev to war with the gods…” Strafe recalled the mystery of the hidden mechs of this world and found it strange how everything was arranged for Dyne.