The next step in the process would be carried out by using the method to create this country's take on sentient weapons. One that fully and completely splits the soul from the body resulting in the soul retaining all its life forces and the body collapsing to the floor as now just a lifeless inanimate object. There would be no signs of life within it anymore at all, as they still contain everything else but all signs of life and activity that made their life force now resided within their souls.
Which was in a state where it could be touched normally by anyone. However, the process used to smelt and forge the souls of those that become sentient weapons was missing. Materializing the soul into something tangible was the farthest they ever came. Attempting to forge the soul into a weapon w
