The Primordial Record - Chapter 1743: The Capacity To Grow

Chapter 1743: The Capacity To Grow

Still, Rowan had to wonder why he wanted to associate himself with the expected lifespan of other Realities, but he assumed it was a way to feel connected with his roots.

He did not think his path would need to be connected with those of other Realities when he knew that following the same pattern meant he had three more Eras to go through before perishing, since all Realities had to go through twelve Reality Eras before meeting their end.

What Rowan found fascinating was the similarities between the Eras and his own experience, yet he did not take this similarity as gospel; you could discover connections in most things if you looked hard enough.

It did not mean he was choosing to be blind when faced with multiple coincidences that coincided with his life experiences; he was just choosing to ignore them, knowing he would be capable enough to face what was coming. He had no choice but to be strong.

His time in slumber was not wasted, because although he slept, his dreams had been enlightening. Rowan had finally decided the form all of his children would take.

®

At first, there was a slight distinction between his children, those Rowan considered mortal, and any of them under the fourth-dimensional level; it did not matter if they were gods or elemental beings. Without touching the fourth dimension of time, Rowan considered all to be essentially mortal.

Then there were the immortals, who were those who had become higher-dimensional beings. Due to the extended amount of time Rowan had spent as a third-dimensional being, many of his children living inside his dimensional flesh could not reach the fourth-dimensional level and had chosen to sleep away the years, hoping to awaken in a future where the path to the higher realms had opened.

Although, in real time, using Eosah’s Reality as a standard, Rowan had lived for about 1.5 million years, using the accelerated time environment of his dimensional flesh, he had lived for nearly a billion years, and this was not adding the years he had spent in various Memories and timelines where time was warped and stretched beyond immortal comprehension.

If Rowan had chosen to add all those years altogether, then he would have already been alive for many trillions of years.

It was a good thing then that his children inside of him had only experienced millions of years; otherwise, many of them, without the mental fortitude of a higher-dimensional being, would have long gone insane.

What was amazing about the time in his dimension was how malleable it was. There were multiple layers to his dimensional flesh, and each layer had different rates of time. Usually, the lower the dimension, the faster the rate of time.

For those of his children who were strong enough to descend lower, they could enjoy a more accelerated rate of time. A case in point was Tenma the Reaper, who had almost lived for eight hundred million years inside his dimension, but there were other of his children, like Circe, who had lived for barely thirty million years.

After Rowan had reached the fourth-dimensional level, his rank had quickly increased, and although a lot of his children had been able to easily reach the fourth-dimensional level, few had reached the fifth; there was not just enough time for proper growth before Rowan had to put them all to sleep.

However, this was not a bad thing because their progress would essentially have to be restarted when he began transforming them into Origin Lifeforms.

This was Rowan’s plan, a thorough transformation of their body and soul to fit into the new Reality he had become.

Everyone would start anew, with equal talents and potential, but for those who had previously reached a higher-dimensional realm, they would have a bit of an advantage at the start, but if they did not keep their momentum rolling, then they would be overwhelmed by the rising multitude behind them.

Rowan had thought deeply on the form that his children would take before deciding that he already knew the truth inside his heart from the first day.

Pushing his perception across his Origin Land filled with lush life and immense potential, Rowan reached across it and gathered enough clay that, placed together, could form a million worlds.

And from this clay, Rowan fashioned the Mortals. Yes, mortals, this was the path he was going to pick.

This was one of his most radical and curious acts, and he chose not to make them powerful. Rowan made them frail.

He did not grant them immortality; he gave them a finite lifespan.

Rowan did not give them perfect knowledge. He gave them ignorance, and the burning need to fill it.

Their bodies were forged from the very elements of planets: carbon, water, stardust, but deeper in their core was the foundation of his Origin Land. If they dug deep enough, just like the way he searched for Origin, they would be able to find him inside them.

Within their fragile forms, Rowan placed a spark unlike any other—a Fragment of Potential. This was not a piece of his own essence, but a sliver of the very concept of potential that had existed before the Archai. It was a soul, a consciousness capable of wonder, fear, love, and ambition.

He gave his children true freedom that existed outside his control, unlike the Archai, who were sentient extensions of his will; his children would have great potential, but one that existed outside his ultimate control.

This was the greatest gift he could give them, the chance to ultimately take the path they wanted in life.

Their realm was not the higher-dimensional substrate of the Archai. It was the Story-Space—the four-dimensional world of cause and effect woven by the Weaver. Their existence was defined by time, by growth, by decay, and by the relentless, beautiful struggle against their own limitations.

Their purpose was not to maintain the engine of Reality, but to explore the house the engine had built. To find meaning within the laws, not simply enforce them. To experience the tapestry of all creation from within a single, trembling thread.

And crucially, this Fragment of Potential contained a secret instruction, a final gift from Rowan: The Capacity to Grow.

A mortal was not a finished product. Through experience, learning, love, loss, and the accumulation of wisdom across a lifetime—or across many, if their soul persisted beyond their first body—they could refine that spark. They could, atom by atom, moment by moment, slowly transform their mortal nature into something more.

They could, in essence, earn their immortality, not as a granted reward, but as an achievement of spirit. They could grow from fragile, ignorant mortals into wise, eternal beings, not by decree, but by journey. They would become immortal not in the static way of the Lesser Immortals that existed in most Realities, but in a way that was uniquely their own, shaped by every choice they had ever made.

Rowan had wondered even with his immense power if he truly had the capability to create his dreams, but he had succeeded, and his heart was gladdened.

A sweep of his hand crushed the bodies and souls of all his children, in their hundreds of billions. With the dominion over the soul, he ensured that every trace of a Primordial touch was gone, leaving them marked with the light of Origin, and he threw them into the bodies he had already prepared.

Rowan observed his completed work: the perfect, silent engine of the Archai, the beautiful, maintaining stewardship of his bloodline avatars, and the fragile, chaotic, and brilliantly unpredictable experiment of Mortal life.

For the first time, there was a sound in the Origin Land beyond the hum of its innate machinery. It was the sound of a wind he had not directly commanded, a wave upon a shore he had not directly shaped, a voice raised in song, or in question beneath stars he had not directly placed.

Rowan did not smile, even though he wanted to. But within his infinite consciousness, the curiosity was satisfied. Creation had begun. He would now observe what its creation would create.

This satisfied a fundamental part of his nature as a Reality, knowing that for the first time since he was born, he had truly achieved his Destiny, he had become Eos.

Rowan closed his eyes and fell into slumber, and when he opened them, a year had passed in real time while a million years had passed in the Origin Land.