Chapter 22: Breaking The Universal Laws He pushed a single Soul point first into Ouroboros, that act holding great significance for him. What was that saying again, a tall tower begins with a single brick or that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step, or something related to that. For him, the journey of a thousand-soul points begins with one. See what he did there? No? Never mind then. Well, let this first Soul Point be his foundation, and on it, he would build a tower that scrapes the sky or at least he hopes so. Too many things could go wrong, it would be easy to have the mindless optimism of youth, but he was a grown-ass man and maturity brings the knowledge of your limitations. Maturity was the acknowledgment of that awful fact in life, that you were not invincible. You would soon reach your peak, and you would not exceed it, and slowly you would decline. Your skills had a limit, and your growth too, and as you reached the limits of your capabilities, the only thing you could do was manage your expectations. He would argue that youth was the best moment in the lifetime of a man, where you could do anything, and touching the skies was possible only if you strived, and life seemed oh so simple. His youth was not the best. Poverty, backbreaking work, and an awful incident that broke his body and a better part of his mind, sliced off a considerable portion of any great experience he might have had. He still kept the memory of the best times dear to his heart, but he tempered it with understanding and acceptance. His list of glasses was never full, yet he wanted to avoid adding more. His youth would tell him, he could fight this setback, he only needed to believe in himself, but the benefit of youth was time. Time to make mistakes. Time to be laid back and relax. Time to be foolish. Time to fail. Maturity told him to make do with the little time he had, and so he began to build his Tower. He felt no changes after the first point, and he kept pushing Soul points into Ouroboros, when he hit the ten-point mark, he reached a threshold and his body began to change. At this moment, the golden liquid in the shell had reduced, but it still filled the egg, and because the egg was shrinking the liquid had always enveloped his entire body. With ten points inside Ouroboros, his body began attracting the golden liquid into itself far too quickly, and his body came to be extremely hot, almost exceeding 200° degrees Celsius. His body drank the entire golden liquid and the Soul Point he pushed inside Ouroboros displayed its uses when out of thin air, more of the golden liquid was created and his body began a new wave of absorption. His body vibrated as he grew another half hairsbreadth and his feet touched the bottom of the shell, as there was no more liquid to absorb. He felt his frame condensed as more muscles were added to his bones, and his ligaments and tendons became stronger. Well, we are going for broke here. No need to hold back. Rowan dumped the remaining eighteen points into Ouroboros and his body accepted it like a greedy desert receiving the first rainfall for decades, and more Empyrean essence materialized inside the egg. The instinct of his bloodline was going insane. It was not supposed to be fed this amount of Empyrean essence inside the shell, and this event was unprecedented. Rowan had unknowingly broken a balance that regulated his growth. The material universe had a fixed amount of Empyrean it could hold, and from its birth to its demise only a limited number of Empyrean were permitted to be born. There were reasons why there was a limit. Chief among them was that an Empyrean was too powerful, each of their movement held the might of stars, and the area which they could affect with their activities was not measured by countries or continents or planets or even solar systems but by galaxies. An enraged Empyrean could cause the demise of an incalculable amount of life in the Universe and battles involving Empyrean were incredibly rare using the timescale of the Universe, but the possibility of terminating the material universe was an option during such conflicts. So, their numbers were kept very low. Some Universe opted for not creating Empyrean at all, but those universes no longer existed. It was the normal state of affairs where the territory of an Empyrean was a galaxy or multiple galaxies. The second most important reason was that on the creation of each Universe, there was a fixed amount of Empyrean essence that could be produced. A universe would keep yielding a limited amount of Empyrean essence until the final moments of its lifespan. When an Empyrean was to be born, the universe allocates the essence that was its due, and depending on the bloodline of the Empyrean it could be in differing amounts, it could give no more or less, it was a fair amount that could not be changed. This essence would only be given once at the birth of the Empyrean, and it represented the growth limit of that Empyrean. Although the Universe needs Empyrean for its defense, it would not make them more powerful than it could contain. Rowan had used his Soul Point to break a balance that has existed since the birth of this Universe, he produced more essence for his growth that surpassed the limitations imposed by the Universe and his bloodline was going crazy. A series of events had led to this moment. If Rowan had activated Ouroboros without any concern for his lifespan, then he would be in deep sleep for at least a year, slowly absorbing the Empyrean essence and growing at a fixed pace. But his mind was unsettled and the addition of an Abomination had disturbed his slumber and he was fully awoken. His Soul Seizer bloodline allowed him to contain the Stuff of creation itself, and the Primordial Record permitted him to execute that power into a bloodline of his choosing. Normally, he should have begun cultivating his bloodline after he had left his shell, he should be entering his growth phase and this change would not have been possible. So, even if he had used soul points for his growth, he would not have produced any Empyrean essence. An unknown mutation therefore occurred, his shell was supposed to dissolve the moment it finished its stores of Empyrean essence and prepare the bloodline to enter the next phase of maturity but with the addition of more essence, the shell did not dissipate instead snapped, and covered his body like a skin-tight suit. Of course, Rowan knew none of the reasons why this just happened to him, he only panicked, as he could not breathe, or see, his bloodline seemed to know it would have more essence and forcefully kept the shell, turning it into a second skin for Rowan But the shell was not meant to be his skin, it shielded him from light and the feeling of touch, it kept him in darkness darker than the deepest night, and even though he was a Nascent Empyrean, he was still a mortal, and he could not breathe. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢 He did not know how long he flailed around on the ground, but he later settled when the pain from his growing lungs served as an anchor for him. The pain was familiar, so he took it and made it his own. He had been so ingrained into his flesh that he ignored his spirit, the peculiar characteristics of his soul took over his consciousness and his perception flew out of his body and finally, he could think clearly.