Yet more thoughts on this story... Might as well document my whole thoughts on it.

I like the idea of there being spirit guides more than the idea of there being elders. They're so much more parental and gentle - nudging you you softly into the next lifetime, rather than the elders ordering you to do something. It's strange to think that such a heavenly place has beings who dictate what you can and can't do. I would have liked to think that at some point in existence we wouldn't be controlled and be...free.

It is quite like a dictatorship - potentially what the elders say goes and if you disagree...well, they threatened to wipe his soul of all memories pertaining to his soulmate. I literally can't even perceive this as a punishment because it is so immoral. Terrible.

What started out as this amazing idea of reincarnation has vastly turned into Erubus -- hell. I mean, you spend lifetimes being reincarnated where you find your soulmate and learn all about the essence of life and what not, blissfully ignorant of the elders who at a whim can yank you out of the cycle and place you in an absurd place in the universe away from everything and everyone you know without your choice in the matter. Talk about a question for the would you rather game: would you rather not see the woman you loved for a thousand years or have all memories of her wiped from your mind?

I guess it's a little hit and miss for me. If you take away the elders and their seemingly useless role than this idea of reincarnation is intriguing. One aspect that I like the most is that when the soul gets reincarnated, they take on human form again, but the soul becomes unconscious - almost silent - and the human mind is a clean slate meaning that they have to go about re-discovering their soulmate and other souls they are fond of. Knowing that their are souls on Earth who you're close to, even if you're a lonely human, is quite comforting.

As the story moves on to chapter five, Zarad's spirit guide not only confesses the barbaric memory wipe the elders threatened but his own secretive thoughts on whether or not he trusts the elders - something fishy is going on. I'm also super excited that his guide said he would break the rules and help him get into contact with his soulmate and his soul friends when he's cast away.

As far as my thoughts on reincarnation go, this is the last of them! I'm just going to enjoy the story now.