GEMS

When it says, SOUL TRAP FOR # SECONDS. That means the target must die(doesn't matter how they die) within that time for their soul to be trapped in a gem.

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How the soul know which gem to fill is it will go to the smallest gem that it can fit in. a great soul will not fill a empty grand soul gem if a empty greater soul gem is in your inventory. If there are no empty great soul gems in your inventory, then the
greater soul will try to find a empty gem soul of the next size up, which will be the empty grand soul gem. so if you got a bunch of empty petty soul gems, and your trapping petty souls, then they will go to the petty soul gems, UNLESS you run out of empty
petty soul gems, then they will start filling up the empty lesser soul gems, and then common once lesser soul gems are all filled and so on.

You only need to trap souls to fill your own Gems. If you are charging or enchanting items with Gems, then those Gems are full. An empty soul gem has no function at all other then the ability to hold a soul which then makes it able to be used in Enchanting/Charging.

To fill a soul gem, you need to kill a target that's under the Soul Trap spell and have an empty soul gem in your inventory. The gem must be large enough to hold the soul, so if you kill a Tiger which is a common soul and the only empty gem you have is a petty
or lesser gem, you will not be able to trap the soul. You cast the soul trap on the creature, then you kill it before the spell wears off to capture it's soul. A much easier way though is to enchant a weapon with Soul Trap on hit, this captures the soul on
death.

Both filled and empty Gems can be purchased from vendors, so filling your own Gems is not necessarily, it's just cheaper as Empty Gems cost far less then filled ones. Once the Gem is used to enchant or charge an item, the Soul is consumed and the Gem is destroyed.
Enchanting and Charging items with Soul Gems is how you increase the Enchanting ability. The higher your skill and the more powerful the Gem, the better the items you can make. I hope that helps, let me know if I missed any of your questions.

Save Grand soul gems filled with "Grand" soul. Use the other soul gems to fill weapons or sell them to make money. Grand soul gems filled with Grand souls are the highest soul gems for enchanting.

gems or points? 10k gems is an xbox x

Petty Soul Gem = an empy Soul Gem.

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Petty Soul Gem (Petty) is a Petty Soul Gem filled with a Petty soul, the best it can hold.

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Grand Soul Gem (Petty) is a Soul Gem filled with a Petty Soul, which is not ideal because it can hold more.

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You use Filled Soul Gems to enchant new items or recharge enchanted weaponry. You can fill a Soul Gem by killing an enemy with a weapon that has Soul Trap on it, provided it has charge itself and you're holding an empty Soul Gem, or by hitting an enemy with
Soul Trap, the spell, and killing them in any way before the spells wears off, as long as you have a Soul Gem that can carry the soul.

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A character race soul (Anything you can choose to be) can only be captured by a Black Soul Gem, or the Black Star. They're souls that are automatically at a Grand level.