Chapter 1179: Time Vault Rowan had been slowly exploring the path from the first to the third dimension, enjoying this new method of advancement, the fourth dimension of time should have been more pleasurable as he unwrapped the mysteries of time, yet in his irritation, he had gained the answers just like that. Rowan did not care if his present attitude would make every genius in existence who had fought, sweated, and died for the opportunity to touch the fourth dimension but never could, cough out blood in anger or the countless more who spent eternity searching for Will, what he wanted was to experience life and existence as he was never able to do in the past, and it vexed him that this opportunity was rudely taken away from him. Hoping to gain back this enlightenment process when he shot for the fifth dimension, Rowan began to quickly engrave the understanding he had gained inside his soul. That understanding was leading to a new and profound technique that he had already figured out, like knowing the answers to a complicated equation he had not even begun to solve. That ability for others would be Time Hold. Rowan was finding out that every other Will Holder had only a single stream of Time inside them which was not strange because they could only control Time because of the Will Chain that bounds it, and that Will Chain was linked to the dimensional Will they had unlocked. Since everyone else had access to only one Will, they had only one Will Chain which could only bind one stream of Time. Rowan's control of Time was different, he could not only stop time by pausing one of the Time streams he controlled, but he could use the various time flows of all his 33,000 time streams and affect reality around him. His ability was not Time Hold, it was called Time Vault. The application of this power was endless, both for offensive, defensive, and everyday uses. Time Hold could be used to stop time in a limited area for a while, but the way this worked was simply the higher dimensional user would bring out his stream of Time that was bounded by their Will Chain over onto reality and superimpose it on the surrounding area. Time was not truly stopped, but the surrounding area was now in a domain that was controlled by the Will Holder. Inside that domain Time was their slave for a while, and except for going into the future, the Time stream they controlled could be reversed, slowed, and halted. Time Vault was the same, although it carried several other quirks that made it more powerful than normal since Rowan also discovered the greatest advantage of this power was its reach. One of the greatest drawbacks of the Time abilities that were shared by all higher dimensional beings was the range of their Time stream was limited, and as they grew more powerful and gained higher control of their Will, this meant their Will Chains became easier to manipulate, granting them higher control of their Time Streams, but it did not stop the range limit that made it impossible for them to exert their Will on a large amount of area. Rowan had access to 33,000 streams of Time, each of them far more powerful than any fourth-dimensional time stream of an average Will Holder, and if he wanted he could spread out all these Time Stream to cover a massive area or superimpose it on a single location to achieve a state of Time Control that was so powerful, it might be able to affect the real flow of time, but this was something that he would have to experiment with to find out. The disturbance that made him annoyed occurred once more and Rowan sighed and brought himself out of his meditative state while effortlessly stacking a thousand streams of time around himself. The entire continent of Trion grounded to a stop and he opened his eyes. A burning claw was a few inches away from his face. Rowan lazily traced the claw to the hand and up to the face of the Shiik, whose feature was contorted with rage and a weird form of pleasure. He sighed and felt the beginning of a headache and he rubbed his forehead. No matter how annoying he was beginning to find the Shiik, at least it was able to help him understand that although the entirety of his consciousness had been poured into his soul without reservation, a part of himself would instinctively sense that something was wrong and he would be awakened. Even if the Shiik had succeeded in touching him, it was impossible for her to harm him in the slightest, so he was never in any danger, still, it was assuring that even negligible changes like this in his environment could wake him up. "Why do I even need a dumb child like you?" Rowan groaned and he was about to tap the Shiik on the head when he realized that perhaps this might just be his fault. When he had created the Shiik he was soulless. He has mostly been operating with a sliver of consciousness and the Consciousness Node he had created along his spine. The Aural signature he gave off that the Shiik had learned to identify as him was different than the current soul because of his bloodline of Time. This change was not so drastic and if the Shiik had a more discerning personality she would have noticed the similarities between her Creator and the figure of light sitting beside her, also Rowan could have merged their minds as he usually did when he was just a sliver of consciousness, but he feared that with the state of his soul, the Shiik despite her powers could not handle sharing his consciousness with him. All of these made his irritation lessen a bit, she might be a fully grown queen, but the Shiik was among the youngest of his children, and Rowan sighed again as he began to simulate the Aura of his sliver of consciousness paired with his consciousness nodes that the Shiik was familiar with. He felt the stream of time he had imposed around the Shiik vibrate a little, and he smiled with pride. If she could still fight under a thousand stack of time stream imposed on the area that meant she was nearing the peak of the fifth dimensional level. His dominance which had been lost for a short while was beginning to return, and the bridge that separated Rowan from everyone else had begun to lengthen once more. Using only his soul he had mastered just the Will of Time to the fourth dimension he had suppressed a powerful fifth-dimensional entity like the Shiik. He was using only a thousand stacks of his Time Stream, what would it mean if he unleashed the entirety of the Time Stream in his blood? This was using a singular Will, and Rowan still had three more powerful Wills that he needed to bring to the fourth dimension before he could begin summoning the final part of his body. A truly awakened Rowan with his dimensional flesh and soul merged as one, and all his Wills at the fourth-dimensional level would be a presence that was so powerful it would not make any sense. "It is no wonder that Nemesis wanted to kill me before I achieved the fourth level of Will. Even I am beginning to understand how frightening I would become."