Chapter 1022: Pushing Through The Darkness With his senses trapped inside this mortal flesh, Rowan could not truly ascertain what was happening outside, but he was not focused on knowing what was happening outside, for he finally had time to breathe without the fear of being crushed in the next second. Although he was in the stomach of a beast, this was the least danger he was in since he had awakened. He was not out of the woods yet, death was at his doorstep, and what held it back was a flimsy door with a broken lock, only a slight breeze would crush the door. Rowan closed his eyes and tried to shut out the world. He tried not to think about the fact that he had another chance at life. He should not be alive. The weapon that killed him was a Primordial weapon, and although Rowan suspected that the unique nature of his soul might have kept a part of him alive, the only reason he could imagine for his survival was that his killer could not control this weapon effectively. That mad creature had somehow gotten his hands on a Primordial Weapon, but it had used one of the most powerful weapons in existence as a glorified spear; he had not even activated any of its powers. Perhaps he might have thought that Rowan was not deserving of such considerations, or like he suspected, that creature was the Will of the World, but its consciousness had been fractured into many pieces, and if at its full power, he was equal to an eighth-dimensional entity, he would be able to squash old man seed like a bug. Although Rowan understood this clearly, a part of him was still annoyed that he was killed with such a method. It was like using a nuclear missile as a hammer in order to kill an ant. The ant would be crushed to pieces, true, but the effect was drastically different than exploding the nuke directly on the ant. With a primordial weapon, he should have been able to direct every single bit of force, heat, and radiation on that single ant, and no matter how powerful the ant was, there would be nothing left of it, but the action of this mad Will had left traces of Rowan in reality, and that was enough to bring him back from death. 'It was not enough... Something.... Someone called me back.... Which of my children survived my doom?' He could not find answers anywhere but inside himself. Accessing his consciousness was far more difficult than Rowan anticipated, previously with his tremendous consciousness it was as if his entire body was made from the stuff of thought. His dimensional flesh had seamlessly blended all his powers and bloodline, and he was as much flesh as consciousness. This not only made accessing his Mental Space effortless, but it also granted him a tenacity of spirit that made his willpower unbreakable. Without such willpower, there was no way the fragments of his consciousness left in reality would have been able to reawaken. It would have just drifted for eternity, alone, until the end of time. In this mortal body, he had less consciousness power than what was available to him when he entered Doom Star. Barely stronger than an adult mortal. However, this did nothing to deter him from pushing into the darkness of his mind to find his Mental Space. His consciousness might be weak, but its quality after all the repeated tempering was extremely dense. Rowan's frail mortal body although squeezed in an uncomfortable position was still growing stronger, it was as if every breath he took filled him with vitality, but he did not know if this effect was due to the constitution of this body or if it was the effect his consciousness had on the body after possessing it. However, this process was incredibly slow, it was enough to maintain the fragile flame of life inside him, but it could not give him the strength he needed at this time. Around him, there was a hissing sound as if he had been dropped inside a vat of hot oil. The digestion process of the beast must have begun, and his time was running out. Shoving that thought away from his mind, he sank deeper into himself. First, he isolated all the surface layers of this body. The tiny lungs that calmly drew in the last few air that was left inside this ball of corpses, the frail heart that struggled to beat, the two cracked ribs, three dislocated fingers on the right hand and a bent thumb on the left, the eyes that were filled with yellow pus and dozens of tiny worm-like parasites swimming in them, and dozens of other maladies, from diseases, parasites, and bodily trauma that would kill a healthy adult... Rowan acknowledged all of these parts of the body and pushed them aside, going deeper into himself yet still holding all this surface layer of his body in a part of his consciousness. It was difficult, but one thing that was not denied him despite his frail consciousness was the tenacity born from challenging the impossible, over and over again. This task was not impossible, just difficult, and like every difficulty he had faced in the past, it would not break him. Nothing can. In his frail perception that had gone deeper into his consciousness, everything went dark, and he did not stop, he pushed into the darkness, he was accessing the unconscious thought of this body, it was empty, as an infant, there was nothing inside here, no experience built up. This child had been destined to perish but was brought back to life by his consciousness, a blank book. This made it easier for Rowan to punch into the darkness, with his weak consciousness and the limited time he had to work with, if this child had been even a few months old, it would not have been this easy. With an audible snap that made blood run down his nose, eyes, and ears, he broke through the darkness. A portion of his brain was damaged, but nothing that he needed critically, a sense of taste and the ability to feel a portion of his toes were parts of his body that he could do without for the moment. Beyond the darkness, Rowan saw light. Tiny pinpricks of it were zooming past at ridiculous speeds, but inside this place, speed and distance had no meaning, and he could easily trace the paths of the light, although they seemed chaotic, there was an overall pattern here that revealed the order within the chaos. This was a Nascent Mental Space, all sentient and sapient beings in creation had one, but usually, they needed to walk on a Path of power to be able to access them. With his experience attaining the Supreme Circles, Rowan was able to reach this place using his frail consciousness alone. Rowan sighed, reaching this place was just the first step, this Mental Space was unformed, and without cultivating a path of power it would have otherwise been impossible to actualize this place, but Rowan did not need to take that route when he could just mold this mental space with his consciousness. The only problem was that with his weak consciousness, this would take him at least a year, but he did not have an hour before he was killed inside the stomach of this beast, and instinctively he knew that if he died this time, it would be his last.