So the question Rowan needed to know was the limit to how much Vitality he could burn to be an effective asset to him, and what better way was he going to channel this strength than by opening the earth.
Rowan did not hesitate to begin this experiment no matter the danger it might pose to him, as he knew it was one of his unique abilities that separates him from anyone else, and so, he burned.
one percent…
Three percent…
Ten percent…
This was his current limit. Unlike before, when Rowan burned his Vitality to power the weapon Envy, he had only been burning the vitality in his arms alone, so when he burned twenty percent of his vitality then, he was using less than two percent of what he was burning now.
Because Rowan was burning his Vitality from his entire body!
A golden light that was almost solid began to sheath his entire arm, and Rowan began to grow. He had the presence of mind to quickly keep the hairband Diane gave him into his Spatial Bracelet which was floating in the air being held aloft by his Telekinesis, but his clothes crumbled to dust.
He became a giant, twelve feet tall, his thick blond hair resembling golden wires.
He channeled all the energy he was generating into Strength in his arms, and his total strength attributes began to rise like a rocket, it doubled, then quadrupled, and kept increasing.
Maintaining this state strained all of Rowan’s two pillars of consciousness in order to keep his vitality burning at a steady pace because it wanted to escape his control and gallop ahead, ever-increasing the amounts he was feeding the unceasing flames, also he had to channel all the energy he was receiving into Strength.
It was like juggling seven sharp knives, while dodging a hail of flaming arrows, blindfolded!
But the results… were spectacular
First there was a loud crack as if from a thunderbolt and a low crashing sound that began to increase in pitch as Rowan applied more force. A hill in the distance began to tilt before crashing to the ground. .
The ground began to shake as the crack on the ground began to widen. Rowan was pulling the earth apart!
He could have used easier methods to reach underground, but all he was doing was experimenting with his power, and the act of him pulling the earth apart with his bare hand seemed to satisfy a desire of his bloodline.
Pushing more force into his arms, the weapons began to scream a metallic screech as they were placed in forces beyond their structural integrity, and they began to bend, even with the Telekinesis braces he had on them.
Rowan was moving millions of tons of weight, almost as if he were pushing a mountain.
When the weapons snapped, they detonated like a bomb, a bit of metal sliced across Rowan’s face but could not penetrate the force field around his body. He did not blink.
There was now enough gap for him to see thousands of feet below the ground, and he dropped into the gaping chasm he created, while reducing his size.
As Rowan fell, he opened his hands, releasing grains of Aether that created black sealing ice behind him, and when his feet reached the cavern, he had sealed the chasm he created with miles of black ice.
There was no light underground, but to his Empyrean sense it was brighter than a thousand burning stars. Different colors erupting from all corners of the cavern brightened the area, and he was able to see hundreds of marine life inside the water, with a brush of his will, Rowan drove them away to swim deeper into the connecting waters, he did not expect any mortal life to survive his experiments.
He was pleased with the amount of strength he could call up while burning his Vitality, now he only had to refine it to the extent he could hold it safely while performing other actions.
Inside his Mental Space he had gathered 124,765 Soul points and another 303,987,776 energy points. The energy points were enough to activate the Chaos Engine in another Serpent.
Two down, four more to go. They were almost done with clearing the second Continent.
He had all the Soul Points he would need to awaken his first Angel, and he called up his Avatar of Eve bloodline.
Rowan totally called upon the full scope of his Avatar of Eve bloodline. The entire cavern was frozen in black Ice including the small stream and the entire cavern was sealed in black ice.
His Palace of Ice appeared in reality as the underground cavern seemed to darken and expand, almost as if Rowan had been transported to the void of space.
The Palace of Ice appeared around him, and his Throne at his back, looking over the rows of the 101 kneeling Angels of Char, he would swear there was an air of expectation as if they all knew one of them was going to be brought out from the darkness to worship.
The First Angel to be born.
Rowan sat on his Throne, and his naked body adjusted itself, so he would be comfortable, he saw a brief flash by his side and the black shadow presented to him a cloak of ice and darkness.
Rowan paused and accepted it, and she draped it over his shoulders, a brief purple flash cinched the robe of darkness around his body and he leaned his head back, and he rested.
There was something deeply comforting about this throne that seemed to soothe an ache in his body.
Before he knew it Rowan rested his head on a single fist, and he slept a dreamless sleep for the first time in months.
It was not a short sleep, as he rested for seven hours, waking up far more refreshed than he thought possible. His perception instantly zoomed to outside his Palace of Ice, where a third Pillar of Consciousness was beginning to appear.
It was still hazy and seemed to be in a state between real and unreal. Rowan stroked his jaw, was there a connection between his sleep and the appearance of a new Pillar of Consciousness?
The shadow figure shook, and His bloodline knowledge activated, and he understood what occurred. Every Pillar of Consciousness was created by him accumulating experience of reality itself.
His actions of keeping his Empyrean senses opened had contributed a lot in building his Consciousness Pillars, and showed him the way forward to revealing and understanding more secrets of the world that would grow his Palace of Ice, enriching it with all the knowledge of the physical world, and all these would contribute to his Pillars of Consciousness.
Rowan smiled, this was a perfect synergy with his plan to become a mobile Alchemy Forge. He would be building worlds, if he could not get the experience of realities from such an exercise, nothing else would.
He brought forth his will and the Soul Points rose from his Throne of Ice. A purple moon that shone with so much potential, and Rowan realized with the manifestation of the Palace of Ice in the physical world he was able to manifest Soul Points also in the physical world.
He gestured to the purple moon, and it floated down and settled on his palm, where he began using his Empyrean sense to investigate its structure and got nothing.
Whatever the stuff Soul points were made of, he could not yet pierce the veil, but a new excitement was building in his heart knowing he would be revealing all the unknown mysteries of the universe in time.
He sat up straight, keeping the purple moon in his left hand, he opened his right hand, and a closed eye rose from his Throne and settled upon it.