Chapter 1197: Leveling The Board In the realm of time that higher dimensional beings played with, a second could be as long as years, and Rowan in these short seconds had shattered the body of the Eye, tens of thousands of times, and in all that time, the Eye had never ceased its attempts to communicate with him, but Rowan seemed to have become possessed, shattering the mortal shell of the Eye of Time, over and over again, even though this act seemed to be costing him, but if there was one thing that Rowan had never lacked, it was energy, he could do this forever. His actions were not reckless, they only served to pursue his agenda, and with Rowan's character, he had reviewed these next series of events carefully before acting on them. Rowan would always do this if he was given the opportunity to deliberate on any issue, and it would always be a mistake to give him more time to clear his mind, the Eye of Time had made a costly mistake. When he began shattering the body of the Eye using the Will-based attack of Shisu as a primer, the Eye of Time had been surprised at first before it became annoyed at the ceaseless destruction of its shell as its rage was drawing pearls of thunder from the sky and the space around was beginning to distort under its unreasonable rage, but Rowan knew this was all an act, because the Eye should be very clear about Rowan's character before now, and it would expect this outcome as one of the many directions he was going to take, after all, it had been leading Rowan down this road. The Eye of Time would have most likely drawn out various outcomes for this confrontation with Rowan, and the challenge that Rowan had to win against was to ensure he was following one of the set-out paths laid out by the Eye without suspicion while still ensuring that it was still serving his own purpose. He had used the knowledge of his previous self as a baseline. With his previous temperament and the greed of his Ouroboros bloodline, there was no way in hell Rowan would ever accept such a bargain, and the Eye of Time knew this. The Anima of the Primordial of Time was an asset so powerful that Rowan would never give it up, even if the Eye promised him a thousand boons. However, with the Eye of Time, there was always another hidden agenda, and that was what had delayed Rowan for so long because he could not make any move without knowing what the Eye was truly after, and he had finally launched his retaliatory plan when he found it, and the answer was truly a surprising one. R The search for the answer was rooted in one query, and the question that needed to be asked was why the Eye of Time came to Rowan with this deal when it knew that he would never accept it. On the surface the answer was easy enough, Rowan thought there were several reasons, the first was obviously to manipulate him with the secrets of the past. Unlike any normal immortal, Rowan had intrinsic connections with the Primordials and other higher powers that most would search for throughout all their lives but would hardly be able to find scraps. In fact, 99.9999999 percent of every living immortal in existence would never have the chance to touch the issues concerning Primordials and the ancient Eras, but everything about Rowan was firmly tied up with these enigmatic and powerful entities. He thirsted for the knowledge of the past, because only then could the mysteries that worried him could be solved, and the direction for his future unveiled. The Eye knew that if it wanted to influence Rowan, this hidden knowledge was its best bet. However, this was only the surface, to understand the true reason behind this farce, Rowan had to go deeper, and the chief reason he felt the Eye was making this move was simple, it knew that Rowan could not access the Anima of the Primordial at this time! Everything it had been telling Rowan was cognizant of this important factor. Instead, it was planning to leave a seed of doubt inside his mind, that seed would fester and then when Rowan had no choice but to succumb, it would capitalize on it, and the terms it would impose on Rowan would be ten times harsher. All this while Rowan had been searching for a way to reach the place where he had seen the Anima, all to no avail, and then it occurred to him that this Anima was most likely the Bloodline Source of Time that was left behind. Rowan could recognize this to be the truth because he was sure that besides Chaos and maybe any unknown higher power he might not have come across, there was no one else who knew more about Bloodline Sources than him. As a living dimension, he also contained Bloodline Sources and for Time, its Bloodline Source had become dormant with no descendants fueling it. He recalled that the state of the Anima had been desiccated, and at first, he could not tell the reason for this, despite the fact that the Primordial of Time was not around, his Anima should last forever with no sign of damage by the passage of Time, but the truth was that he was not looking at an Anima, but at the Bloodline Source of Time. These were two entirely different concepts, and if it was the previous Rowan that the Eye of Time knew, he would never be aware that what he was looking at was a Bloodline Source because all his experience would tell him it was an Anima, he was even deceived for a while until he took the time to reason out the truth behind the lies. The Eye of Time had made sure that he had referred to the Bloodline Source as an Anima, this would have further cemented this wrong notion in Rowan's reasoning. With all these in mind, if Rowan had not transformed into a being that could know the difference between a Bloodline Source and an Anima, the Eye would figure out he could not find the Anima because it would be expecting Rowan to be trying to figure out the location of the Anima, it was the reason for its grandstanding and delays, it was waiting for Rowan frustration to rise, because there was no Anima, and it knew that the method of locating an Anima was different from the method of locating a Bloodline Source, but Rowan obviously should not know this difference. What would it expect Rowan to do when he could not find the Anima, well, the first thing it was counting on was anger, but it knew that Rowan was too smart to be swayed by anger, and knowing how rational Rowan could be, the next option for him would be to fight for more benefits since Rowan would need to ask the Eye the method of reaching the Anima, and Rowan would be expecting that the Eye would use the opportunity to bargain for a more favorable term. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺 Following this thought process the only direction Rowan could make was to increase his bargaining chips so this negotiation would not fall flat. The Eye of Time felt that everything was proceeding in the direction it wanted. Rowan had been exposed to a great secret that would benefit him, but for some reason he could not access it, and the hunger for power was the fuel that would drive him deeper into the traps that the Eye was crafting for him. The problem with this plan was that Rowan could as well be reading the mind of the Eye.