A soul was the totality of a living being’s life, all their loves and losses, pains and sorrows. He got to know and understand them more than anyone else they would ever know even their friends and lovers would never know the person as deeply as Rowan would.

But the question was how was he going to break down a gate of this size with his puny perception?

Rowan’s perception reached the gate and an unknown force pressed down on it and his perception was molded into the form of a body.

It turned out to be his main body. He stood at eight feet tall with golden waist-length hair, his serpent-like eyes blazed with golden flames as lightning wandered through them.

“Interesting.” He muttered and brought his hands forward and rested them on the gate. He gathered his strength and he pushed.

He could as well be a fly that was trying to shift a mountain.

Rowan was not used to obstacles he could not move while he was an Empyrean, having limits or planning about problems was only necessary with him because he was fighting gods when he was still less than a year old and he was still far from that level.

Rowan had faced epic setbacks and tough choices, but in the area where physical and mental strength was to be called upon he had never faltered, he did not intend to start now.

He set himself to the task and began using his Mental Power to assert dominance over his perception. He told himself he couldn’t fail, he had crushed bigger mountains before as a side note, and this would not be different.

Push!

The gate did not budge and neither did he. He kept applying more pressure as he called upon a seemingly infinite amount of perseverance and strength.

The muscles on his entire body bloomed up. Every vein in his body stood out as thickly as snakes and his teeth were clenched so hard he could chew through diamonds.

I will not fail in the first great task I applied myself to in this new body.

Rowan from somewhere deep inside of him drew more strength and he yelled, but his shout did not overshadow the mighty crash that came from the gate, as a spider web of cracks spread out from beneath his hands and began to ascend through the gate.

The cracks spread for hundreds of feet and then it stopped.

Rowan had failed.

As always when Rowan faced a challenging situation he did not get flustered or hyperactive instead went the opposite route and became cold and logical.

He retreated from the gate and his head bowed in thought. It would be impossible for him to push through this gate, except his main body was here with him.

He was a Reflection of Rowan, and he possessed just a small fraction of his entire consciousness powers.

Just a single Consciousness Pillar of Rowan was ten times stronger than what the Reflection had to work with, and Rowan still had multiple consciousnesses, and by the time he woke up that number would have surely grown.

He would not succeed if he tried going through this task believing he had the same capacity for power as his main body. What then was he missing?

He placed his hands back in the gate, not pushing, he was just thinking.

It may seem like he had all the time in the world but he knew that he was on the clock. The new body of Andar was amazing but even it could not hold on for long as his perverse talent began to fill his body with Aether.

Soon he would return to the same situation the previous owner of this body had encountered, and the gate to Spirit Matrix would be covered under an endless wave of Aether.

What am I missing? Could I be wrong and the nature of my Soul Seizing bloodline has blocked any chance for me to open the Spirit Matrix gates?

Rowan reflected with no panic in his eyes even as the gate began to fog up, as the Aether inside Andar began to fill his body to the brim.

It could be observed outside the prone body of Andar, that small streams of silver Aether had begun to escape from his nose as he was breathing.

He was running out of time.

The fog had covered half the gate and Rowan still had no solution, and as it grew closer and covered ninety percent of the gate, Rowan paused and looked at his hands that were touching the gate, and he almost grinned as he figured out the answers.

I am no longer just the Reflection of Rowan Kuranes, I am here for a new start, to create a part without any visible ties to myself, and yet I have already begun failing.

The fog was now close to his hands and he would soon be rejected from the gates in any second. But slowly, that hand began to change as Rowan began to retreat and allow Andar character and consciousness to take the driver’s seat.

His body shrank, and his massive muscles withered away, his golden hair turned white and faded, pouring down from his head like ashes, and Rowan was no more.

Andar stepped forth, and his hand pressed the tiny part of the gate where the only three people he had ever known were embossed, and except for the image of the Alchemist that held for a few seconds, the gate crumbled beneath his hand.

The collapse began to grow, as a massive hurricane of wind and stone thundered around him, as a gate tall enough to scrape the heavens began to collapse.

Beneath the mighty devastation, Andar appeared to be so small, as he peered at his single right hand that had collapsed the gate that would hold back a god.

He chuckled dryly, “Turns out, I’m my weakness.” He looked up into the darkness of this consciousness space and sighed, “To become something new was harder than I thought. Rowan is no more, now I am Andar. Until when the time comes and Andar becomes Rowan. I shall wait and watch for am I not a reflection?”