The Primordial Record
chapter-950

"We are here!"

The sound of Old Man Seed's voice was like a thunderclap and Rowan shivered, he could not help it. Those simple three words carried a sort of power that reached Rowan's bones and revealed a portion of the might of this old man, this was a being that was ancient beyond reckoning, and yet it would seem that the time period he was bringing Rowan to was one that was even older than Old Man Seed.

The true weight of this moment settled in his bones and Rowan purged all distracting thoughts from his head, he freed his spirit and opened himself, something told him that what he would discover here would play a large role in shaping his path forward, even with such a thought in his mind, he was not ready for what he met.

Looking back at this moment, how could he ever be?

Old Man Seed tore a hole in the walls of the Passage of Time and brought them out, their bodies were covered by a translucent dome of force that rippled in patterns that made perception of Rowan freeze when he tried analyzing it, he was becoming more familiar with the traits of higher dimensional energies.

One of the primary traits was that in whatever form it took, he could not understand any of it. This dilemma did not frustrate Rowan, it only excited him.

Rowan peered outside and for a moment he could not understand what he was witnessing… it was as if his entire perception had been dropped into a vat of boiling acid that was somehow filled with pyrotechnics, everything he could sense was just pain and chaos. Sounds that stretched farther than they should with unknown notes that made no logical sense, exotic lights and colors that even he was not familiar with, and trillions of other sensations that were too alien to figure out, and wrapped around all this was the constant sharp pain like his mind was slowly shredded.

There was too much information at once, and everything was jumbled, he was witnessing infinity but at the same time he was witnessing nothing, and no matter how much he reached for a common thread among the chaos so he could begin unraveling the chaotic information, he was left with nothing.

Rowan was confused but he did not allow his frustration to grow, he kept seeking for what felt like an eternity until Old Man Seed's voice entered his hearing,

"I can see that your Spirit and perception are extraordinarily powerful, but it would not help you here, in fact, it is nothing but a hindrance, there is something I failed to tell you; this war is being waged on every single dimension at the same time, and in this position we are standing, we can see all of it. If you try to understand everything like you have been doing for so long, you will do naught but fail."

"Do not broaden your perception like you are used to, instead focus it on a single spot in front of you, grab a single moment in time in this battle, find the dimension that you can comprehend, and from the chaos filter the sight that only you can see, for in this battlefield, every comprehension you can collect is unique to you alone. This would be a test and a reward for you if you can succeed in this."

Rowan nodded and focused, although he was used to seeing visions of grand events in the past, this time it was different. He was playing on a different stage and his lack of adaptability was proving to be a detriment to him.

Every time he had viewed scenes of great power in the past or a possible future, it was always a vision that had been filtered by the Primordial Record in such a way that he could understand it. This alone made the Primordial Record an unparalleled treasure, but there was a limit it could reach before its aid became a crutch to him.

Rowan had seen some of the greatest powers in reality, but he had never truly seen them, all he had glimpsed was what the Primordial Record had been able to filter and transform into a coherent series of memories that he could understand, and even then he could barely say he could comprehend all the visions with a hundred percent certainty.

With the training wheels off, it was evident that Rowan was struggling, everything cake with ease to him and it was the reason he had not considered that he could have ever failed to comprehend the scene before him, but to be fair, Old Man Seed held back an important detail and did not tell him that what he would be witnessing was multiple dimensions at the same time, but Rowan could not really fault him for this, as he felt that he should have realized this fact from the little clues he had been given before now.

For the first part of his test, Rowan considered that he had failed it, what was left was not to make a mess of the rest.

Now he was going to be pushed to the limit, his Primordial Record would no longer be the one filtering this event for him, and everything that he could hold would have to depend on his strength. Rowan found that a part of him was incredibly excited by this prospect, up till this moment, there were few things that could truly push him to his limits, he was a giant living in a world of ants, and now he was the ant in a world of giants.

Failure was turning out to be a great teacher and motivator to him, who could have known?

Focusing his Perception turned out to be harder than he thought, not because it was inherently difficult for him to do such a thing, but because whatever was happening here had attracted his Spirit like iron filings to a magnet, his Spirit had been submerged into the vision of battle, and although he could not understand what his perception was witnessing, it had already held him bound.

Rowan nearly cursed aloud, Old Man Seed had not warned him of such a devious side to this process, and he was in danger of madness.

If he had delayed this process in focusing his energies, then whatever he was witnessing would stretch his mind to the limits and shatter it, leaving bits and pieces of his perception shattered into a trillion pieces in every dimension in existence.

Such a blow would not kill him, unlike those with a soul, his Consciousness pillars would simply regrow new consciousnesses, but that part of his secret he was not ready to reveal, even to his grandfather. It was unlikely that he would ever reveal this secret to anyone else, ever. As one of the foundations of his existence, there was no way Rowan would ever reveal this secret that could be used against him.

He was sure there must be certain disadvantages of having a Consciousness Pillar instead of a soul, and he would rather he would not find out what those were from his enemies.

For a crazed moment, Rowan wanted to simply sever all his consciousnesses that had been assimilated into the various dimensions. If this was the past what would happen if he left portions of himself inside of it?