As his head was severed, Loki's consciousness began to fade. But even with a flickering consciousness, he continued to experience a tremendous amount of pain that made him roar in anguish.
His roar was a silent scream of pain, though. His larynx had lost access to his lungs, so he couldn't force air through his mouth and produce the appropriate amount of sound needed to express the pain he was feeling.
Fortunately, his death triggered his newly acquired ability. Once he activated the Rewind Ability, his consciousness detached from his body and anchored itself to the Fenrir Metac within him. This caused his pain to cut off.
Activating Rewind also made the world fade, and a colorful river appeared around the Fenrir Metac. Since he was the Fenrir Metac, it looked as if the whole world had been replaced by the colorful river.
On closer inspection, he noticed the river was made of tiny, colorful strings. The strings' colors varied, and some even held hues he had never seen or could name.
Each string didn't even have one color. The strings' colors changed along their length. The color changes were chaotic, but the river as a whole had a beautiful, kaleidoscopic appearance.
He was mesmerized by the river's appearance. Thanks to his innate understanding of the Rewind Metac that he gained after consuming it, he knew where he was and what he was looking at, so he didn't panic.
He knew the colorful river of nets to be the river of time. He also knew that moving forward with the river was the right way to go, and how everyone else moved in relation to it.
However, despite knowing how things should move in the river, he didn't panic when the Fenrir Metac began to flap its wings and swim upward against the current. In fact, he cheered the Fenrir Metac on.
Of course, his cheer was silent. After all, he still didn't have a body. He was only a consciousness trapped within Fenrir.
Unfortunately, no matter how he cheered Fenrir on, Fenrir couldn't resist being eroded by the river. The friction produced from moving against the current wore Fenrir down. It quickly became clear to him that Fenrir couldn't keep going upstream forever.
Aside from the friction, there was also the need for energy. Flapping his newly acquired crystal wings consumed a lot of energy. So even if there was no wear and tear from the friction of moving upstream in the river of time, Fenrir would still have to stop at one point in time.
Without experiencing it, he could still guess what would happen if the River of Time destroyed Fenrir. It wasn't particularly difficult, since he was seeing firsthand how Fenrir was worn down.
He felt like a man trapped in a wooden barrel floating in a lake of lava. As time passed, the barrel caught fire and slowly turned to ash around him, so it wasn't hard to guess what would happen if he fell into the lake of lava.
His guess changed how he saw the colorful River of Time. It no longer seemed harmless as he once thought.
Fortunately, Fenrir was able to arrive at the point in time when he awakened it. It didn't stop here because it ran out of energy or because the river of time wore it down. It picked this spot because it was as far as it could go.
Loki wasn't sure why Fenrir couldn't go past this point in time, but he guessed it was because Fenrir didn't exist beyond the point at which it awakened, so it couldn't exist beyond it by moving backward in time.
He didn't mind anyway. Besides, he had a more important matter to deal with now that Fenrir had arrived at its destination.
After Fenrir reached its limit, it plunged into the portion of the string that contained the scene of his awakening. This caused it to descend from the river of time into reality.
The Fenrir from the future entered his energy well and fused with the Fenrir in it. The two Fenrir merged and became one. This series of events shocked Loki.
Loki had just awakened and created his energy well when another Fenrir suddenly appeared inside his body. He was understandably surprised by this. But his surprise didn't last long, because his future consciousness fused with his past consciousness.
The fusion of the future and past versions gave Fenrir the Rewind ability, while Loki gained memories of the future.
This changed his shocked expression into a smile. He was so happy, he had to fight the urge to shout. He could only grit his teeth and clench his fist with subdued excitement.
As he did these things, he thought to himself, "Nothing can stop me now. Not Slav or his father or anyone else."
The people standing around him noticed his excitement. But they thought it was normal because they thought that he was happy with what he had awakened.
Most thought he had awakened with good potential, while a few thought he had awakened with an excellent talent. But no one could ever imagine the true cause of happiness, no matter how wild their imagination may be.
Loki himself hadn't displayed any outward sign that he had awakened during his first life. But what happened since then was enough to break his composure.
To make sure that he hadn't hallucinated the whole thing, he decided to use the Power Identification on himself to see if he had truly changed.
Age: 19/77
Race: Human
Energy Quantity: 77 × 2 = 154
Energy Density: 1.
Energy Rank: 1.
Body: 0.6.
Soul: 1.5
Will: 4.
Skill: 10%.
Fenrir (Divine): Power Identification. Tracking. Seal. Devouring. Rewind.
Fenrir could display more information about himself, with greater quantity and accuracy, than he could about others. This wasn't surprising to him because his body wouldn't resist the Power Identification Ability, while others' would.
He also knew, without being taught, that how much information he could gain about other people depended heavily on his strength and the strength of the target he was using the Power Identification Ability on. Even so, he was still surprised by the information Fenrir provided about his state of existence.
He was so surprised by what he saw that his eyes widened. This was because he had not only confirmed that he had truly gained the Rewind ability from Slav, but also gained something else he hadn't expected at all.
His surprise was his energy quantity. He had checked it when he awakened in his last life, and his energy quantity was only 77. But after devouring the Rewind Metac, his energy capacity had doubled. He didn't know this was possible, hence the surprise.
When he looked inward, he sensed that Fenrir had space for energy. This space was exactly the same size as the energy well containing Fenrir. That was why he had twice the energy capacity he should have.
This made him ask himself, "Is the extra capacity specifically from Rewind because the Rewind Metac is special, or will Fenrir gain an extra space for each Metac that it devours?"
He didn't know the answer to this question, but that didn't stop him from smiling.
As he smiled, he said to himself, "Fortunately, there is a way to confirm which is which."
He smiled because he could easily confirm why he gained extra energy capacity by repeating the actions that led to it in the first place, and because it was something he found pleasurable.
It was even easier for him to confirm because he had the resources nearby to repeat the experience. He only had to look around him.
Based on his observations in his last life, three other people awakened besides him. So he had three choices, but he still looked toward Slav first.
Slav would always be his first choice to devour. This was because of his immense hatred for Slav and the great present Slav gave him in his last life.
His hatred for Slav had cooled down somewhat after he killed Slav in his last life, and because killing Slav now was only a temporary death.
Since he can rewind time, he couldn't kill Slav permanently. His effort to kill Slav would be a waste of time, but no matter how unpleasant it was, he still looked forward to gaining another boon from him.
But as he turned his gaze to Slav and used the Power Identification Ability on him, he saw something that surprised him for the second time in a row.
Race: Human
Energy Quantity: 95
Energy Density: 1.
Energy Rank: 1.
Body: 0.4
Soul: 0.9
Metac: Danger Sense (Divine)
So not only had Slav awakened a new ability, but it was also very powerful.
What he saw made him open his mouth in shock before he asked himself, "How? Why?"
Specifically, he wanted to know why the Rewind Metac disappeared and why Slav had awakened a different ability. He also wanted to know how abilities awaken and what determines which abilities awaken.
But no matter how curious he was, those questions were too far ahead of him right now. Besides, he still had more pressing matters to deal with.
He still had to answer the previous question about how he gained extra energy capacity. So the shock on his face morphed into a grin as he said to himself, "No matter. I'll just take this one too and see if I gain extra energy capacity and if he awakens a new divine ability."
He planned to do the same thing he did in his last life. But just as he thought of this, the Danger Sense Metac within Slav sensed the danger and activated.
The Danger Sense Metac alerted Slav to the danger and even pointed out its source. This made Slav turn to look at him with surprise on his face.
In the last life, Slav had been smug when he awakened. He had thought that the entire world was his to ride on, however he wished, so he had looked down on Loki. But this time, he knew that Loki was willing to disregard the rules and kill him, so he couldn't be careless.
After the surprise, he grew wary of Loki. Loki saw how he was behaving and knew why Slav was acting this way, but he still couldn't stop thinking about killing Slav.
His face became grim as he thought to himself, "Damn it. He already knows that I want to kill him. I want the Danger Sense Metac even more."
He knew he shouldn't think about killing Slav because of the Danger Sense, but it only made him think about it more so he could get the Danger Sense Metac. This made Slav increasingly wary of him.
Loki even thought about killing Slav now, right in front of everyone. With the Rewind Metac, he thought he had nothing to fear. If he failed, he could just restart.
But the Danger Sense Metac sensed his thoughts, so Slav took steps to avoid danger. He moved closer to the front of the room, where Muni was standing. As he did, fear filled his face.
He might have come from a powerful family, but he had never faced danger, and he wasn't strong. So he was very afraid of death.
He even had more reasons to be afraid after knowing that Loki was willing to sacrifice his life to kill him. After all, the worst enemy is someone who is not afraid of death and is willing to sacrifice their life to kill.
But amid his fear, he also felt confusion. He couldn't understand why Loki would act this way.
As he stepped away from Loki, he asked himself, "Why would he throw his life away now that he has gained access to the Four Directions sect? Does he hate me so much, or does he think that the Four Directions won't kill him if he kills me?"
Loki's intentions to disregard everything to kill him were perplexing and incomprehensible, to say the least. It could even be called stupidity. But no matter what he thought of Loki's intention, he breathed a sigh of relief when Loki stopped looking at him and stopped trying to kill him.
Loki had indeed given up on killing Slav. It wasn't a ruse to deceive the Danger Sense Metac.
He had no way to deceive the Danger Sense Metac. As soon as anything could endanger Slav, the Danger Sense Metac would notify him. So instead of wasting his time dealing with him now, he decided to grow stronger.
The quickest way for him to grow stronger now is to devour another Metac. So he began checking out the two remaining people who awakened an ability.
The first one was a young man with the Sword Heart Metac. The second option was an older man with the Beautiful Woman Metac. He already knew what the Sword Heart Metac does, so he focused on the Beautiful Woman Metac to see what it could do.
After learning what the Beautiful Woman Metac could do through the Power Identification Ability, he decided to give it up. This was because the Beautiful Woman Metac would turn the user into a beautiful woman.
He didn't care for beauty, and he definitely didn't want to turn into a woman, so he decided not to bother with the Beautiful Woman Metac. He decided to focus on the Sword Heart Metac and acquire it as soon as possible.
With his decision made, he left the awakening room with the others. Then he listened absently to Muni's speech about what they would learn during their one-year initiation.
After Muni finished his speech and led them to their accommodations, Loki followed his new target to his place.
As for Slav, he decided not to live in the dorms. He felt that he couldn't rely on the rules to keep him safe, so he decided to stay in the city, where it was safer.
A city lay beyond the sect grounds. This city also belonged to the Four Directions Sect. In fact, the entire central plain, an area that was ten times the surface area of the Earth, including its oceans, belonged to the Four Directions Sect.
The sect ground the initiation program was held on was just one of the Four Directions Sect's many outposts, and the city it stood in was also one of the many settlements under the sect's control in one way or another.
As for the core of the Four Directions sect, that place was still too far away. Loki could never have reached it alive with his current level of strength. He could only reach a nearby outpost of the sect.
The proximity of the outpost of the Four Directions sect to where he was living as a slave also means that the Rein Family, the family that used to own him, is close by. So it is easy for Slav to return home.
But Slav isn't going home yet. He decided to stay in the city with his elder brothers. Only someone like them, who is powerful and will always protect him, can make him feel safe when he is up against someone willing to sacrifice their life to kill him.
Of course, staying in town is a privilege not everyone can enjoy. He can enjoy this privilege only because he is here to gain strength, not to buy his freedom, and because he is rich enough to pay for the permission slip to leave the sect grounds.
People like Loki, who are former slaves, don't have the opportunity to leave the sect grounds at all. They will have to earn their freedom by becoming members of the Four Directions sect, or they will be killed.
The best that can happen to anyone like Loki who fails to join the Four Directions sect is to be enslaved by a cultivator. But that rarely happens because no cultivator will want to enslave a useless person who couldn't even pass the initiation program.
What is most likely to happen is that he will be killed and his corpse will be butchered and used to feed the beasts and pets that the true disciples of the sect raise.
While Slav escaped, Loki continued his hunt like a wolf stalking prey. He hasn't forgotten about Slav. He has just decided to let Slav go until he finds a way to deal with him.
This time, his prey wasn't aware he was being hunted, so he wasn't wary or careful about who approached him. In fact, his designated prey let just about anyone approach him, and many people did.
He had awakened an innate Metac, and some observant people noticed this. Since some people knew, everyone else might as well. After all, something was only a secret if only one person, or no one, knew about it.
The people who discovered that the young man had awakened an innate Metac told others, so nearly everyone now knows he is incredibly talented. This made some people jealous, but others tried to approach him to win his favor.
Awakening an innate Metac meant he would likely be strong and survive the initiation program. So if they could win his favor or become his friends, he might help them survive the initiation program. So their quest was a matter of life and death.
At the very least, as long as they were not his enemies, he wouldn't go out of his way to make them fail. He might even spare them when he didn't need to kill them. So they all came to him to congratulate him and give him gifts.
Some people also wanted to chat with Loki to confirm if he had awakened an innate Metac. They had witnessed his emotional outburst during the awakening, so they suspected he had awakened an innate Metac.
He lied to them all and said he hadn't awakened any innate Metac. His attempt to get close to this talented young man also made his lie more credible. They thought that he, too, was trying to ingratiate himself with the talented young man.
Unfortunately for Loki, he was just one of the many people who wanted to meet the young man, so he had to wait his turn. But he didn't mind the wait.
Instead of being anxious or impatient, he smiled to himself and said, "I have all the time in the world."
No one knew what he truly meant. They thought he was being humble, saying he could wait as long as needed.
Just like that, Loki followed the tide of people who came to befriend the young man without being suspicious. Like everyone else, he brought the man a gift. But unlike their tangible gifts, his gift was secret information that only he knew.
To receive this gift, he asked to be alone with the young man. The young man felt nothing amiss, so he agreed.
After all, killing was forbidden, and a secret is only valuable when few people know about it, so he didn't think that there was anything to worry about. He thought that the request for a private discussion was perfectly normal.
Unfortunately for him, he realized just how wrong he was two seconds into their meeting. Loki moved close to him as if to speak into his ear, then he stabbed him in the throat with his wooden knife.
He always keeps his wooden knife with him because it is his only weapon and means of self-defense. He uses a wooden knife because he can't afford a metal one. That's how poor he is.
But his poverty is perfectly normal for a slave. After all, a slave is not allowed to own anything and doesn't have the money to own anything, even if they were given permission to own anything.
What isn't normal about all of these is killing someone on the sect grounds. And even more abnormal is that Muni was able to notice the transgression and appear at the scene of the murder a few seconds after it happened.
Fortunately, he had devoured the Sword Heart Metac before Muni appeared. The new Metac also changed Fenrir in a way the Rewind Metac had.
The Sword Heart Metac was a round, white, silver ball. It seemed to be made of metal because it had a metallic sheen, but it was also light and felt hollow to Loki.
After devouring the Sword Heart Metac, it fused with the white wolf and settled in the center of its chest. Fenrir's entire body also took on a metallic sheen after the fusion.
Loki savored the change when Muni appeared. Muni appeared behind him, looked down at him, and took in his bloody handiwork.
This time, Muni was confused. His confusion was obvious in his tone as he asked, "Why did you kill him? Did he offend you somehow? Were you jealous of him?"
"But why would you be jealous of him? Did you not also awaken an innate Metac? Was his innate Metac better than yours? Or did you do this because you are just plain foolish?"
He chuckled and said with derision, "Or maybe you thought that because you awakened an innate talent, I won't kill you for breaking the rules. So you thought that you had the right to eliminate a competitor. If you thought so, then you must be more foolish than I thought."
As he spoke, he became angrier and angrier. This was because a talented person had died on his watch. He didn't like this at all.
His inability to understand Loki's motive for killing the talented young man, combined with his anger, was like fuel on a fire. He felt Loki's actions were unreasonable, so he grew even angrier.
His anger made him gaze coldly at Loki and say, "You think you are the only one who can be unreasonable. I'll show you that I can be unreasonable, too, when I make you wish for death."
"You will beg me for the sweet release of death, but I won't give you the privilege. Let us see if you can remain unreasonable then."
As he said this, he waved his hand at Loki four times. Each time he waved his hand, the blue crescent mark on his hand lit up and produced a sharp, curved water blade that shot at Loki.
The curved water blade struck Loki in four places with extraordinary precision, ensuring it didn't cut anything too important to Loki's life. The four blades of water struck his limbs and severed them at the joints, which caused Loki to scream in pain.
It was clear Muni didn't want to kill Loki, and if his words were to be believed, he didn't want Loki to die easily either. This made Loki decide to activate the Rewind ability now instead of letting death force him to rewind.
Activating the Rewind ability caused the Fenrir Metac within him to flap its large crystal wings and ascend from the physical plane of existence into the metaphysical domain of time, the river of time.
Fenrir took his consciousness with it as it ascended into the river of time. Once it reached the colorful river of time, it made its way upstream into the past with his consciousness.
When it reached its limit in the river of time, Fenrir plunged back to the physical world. During this process, all Loki saw was darkness. He was a little bit disoriented, but everything was mostly fine.
A while later, he woke up at the moment he had just awakened the Fenrir Metac. But this time, only the Fenrir that had devoured the Sword Heart Metac descended from the river of time and fused with him.
After absorbing his future memories and getting his bearings, he quickly used the Power Identification Ability to assess his situation.
Age: 19/77
Race: Human
Energy Quantity: 77 × 3 = 231
Energy Density: 1.
Energy Rank: 1.
Body: 0.6.
Soul: 1.5
Will: 4.
Skill: 10%.
Fenrir (Divine): Power Identification. Tracking. Seal. Devouring. Rewind. Sword Heart.
After seeing the result of the Power Identification Ability, he clenched his fist and grinned as he said to himself, "So it is confirmed. This means that the sky is the limit."
Seeing his power, especially the part that showed he now had three times the energy capacity he should, made him elated.
But it isn't the extra 77 units of energy that made him so happy. It was the fact that he now had a verified method to increase his energy capacity in the future that made it difficult for him to control his emotions and hide his happiness from others.
The people around him noticed that he was usually happy. This made them guess what made him so happy. Most guessed he had high potential, while a few thought he had awakened an innate Metac.
Loki didn't care about what they were thinking or that they were looking at him weirdly. He kept focusing inward on the Fenrir Metac and saw that the two extra energy spaces were within Fenrir.
So the extra energy used Fenrir as its foundation, not his body. He didn't understand the significance of this arrangement, but that didn't stop him from thinking about increasing the extra energy capacity. So he turned his predatory gaze to the people around him and began plotting how to hunt and devour them.
The first person he eyed as a possible candidate for devouring was Slav. But, as in his last life, Slav had awakened the Danger Sense Metac and could sense his ill intent.
Slav glanced at him in surprise when he sensed the danger from Loki. This made Loki grumble before looking away.
This time, Loki had only briefly entertained the thought of killing Slav, so Slav only sensed that Loki wanted to kill him. This made Slav sneer in disdain after he overcame his surprise. He was both surprised and disdainful that a slave would think of killing him.
On the other side, Loki had turned his predatory gaze to the young man whom he killed in his last life. What he saw overturned what he had experienced so far.
Race: Human
Energy Quantity: 54
Energy Density: 1.
Energy Rank: 1.
Body: 0.5.
Soul: 0.6
Metac: Sword Heart
This made him ask himself in confusion, "Why did Slav awaken a different Metac while this guy only awakened the same Metac? What's the difference between them? Is the difference between Slav and this young man, or is the difference between the types of Metac that they awakened, or both?"
Fenrir couldn't tell him why the young man had awakened the Sword Heart Metac in this timeline while Slav awakened a new Metac, so he could only figure out the reason himself.
As far as he could tell, the difference between Slav and the young man was their talent gap. The young man has a potential of 54, while Slav has a potential of 95. That's a massive 41-unit difference.
They also differ in the types of Metac they awakened. Slav awakened a divine Metac in every timeline, while the young many awakened a normal Metac.
The difference in potential could be why Slav awakened a different Metac. Still, he didn't believe that was the case because he only awakened a different Metac after his first one was devoured.
Slav didn't awaken a different Metac when Loki left him alone, so even if having a high potential means that the kind of talent that one can have isn't fixed, Loki is more inclined to believe that there is something special about the Rewind Metac that made it impossible for Slav to awaken it after he had taken it.
At the end of the day, he shrugged and said, "I've only reversed time two times and experienced three timelines, so I don't have enough sample size to draw a conclusion. For now, I should just eat what I can eat and see where it leads me."
He decided to hunt the young man and eat his sword heart again to see whether the young man would awaken a different Metac or keep awakening the same Sword Heart Metac. So he did the same thing that he did in his last life and followed the young man until he killed him.
After a series of identical events, he activated Rewind and returned to the point in the past where he awakened. The first thing he did was to check his power. He did so with excitement and anticipation.
Age: 19/77
Race: Human
Energy Quantity: 77 × 3 = 231
Energy Density: 1.
Energy Rank: 1.
Body: 0.6.
Soul: 1.5
Will: 4.
Skill: 10%.
Fenrir (Divine): Power Identification. Tracking. Seal. Devouring. Rewind. Sword Heart.
His investigation left him disappointed. He even had to check Fenrir's energy chambers to be sure he hadn't seen the wrong thing.
Unfortunately for him, a deeper look at Fenrir's state revealed only two energy chambers. This confirmed that devouring the second Sword Heart didn't increase the number of extra energy chambers he possessed.
This unfavorable situation made him grit and grind his teeth in frustration. His bad mood worsened when he checked Slav and the young man and found their states identical to the previous timeline. Both of them still possessed the same Metac.
As he gritted his teeth in anger and glared at the young man, he thought to himself with immense frustration, "I ate the Rewind Metac, and it refused to appear again, but I ate the Sword Heart Metac twice, and it only provided one benefit to me, so I'm willing to bet that there is something special about the Rewind Metac, or it would have appeared again like the Sword Heart Metac."
The people around him saw the anger on his face and came to a unanimous decision: he had failed to awaken an innate Metac and might even have poor potential.
No one considered that he had awakened an innate Metac this time because he looked angry and was glaring at someone who appeared to have awakened an innate Metac. So some snickered at him, while others felt a kinship with him.
Many of them were sad, and some were even angry about the result of their awakening. But only Loki was angry at other people for having a good talent.
At most, they were jealous of the guy who awakened an innate Metac. The fact that Loki could be angry, and was angry enough to openly show it, could only mean his potential was very poor.
For people with poor talent, Loki's poor talent was heaven-sent. His existence made many of them sigh in relief that someone else was in a worse situation than they were.
Muni also noticed Loki's behavior. So he smiled at them and said, "Just a friendly reminder. Fighting and killing are prohibited on the sect grounds. Breaking this rule will most likely result in the punishment of death. You might even be unlucky enough to be tortured until your mind breaks, and you can't beg for death anymore."
"So, for your sake, I advise you to control your emotions. Don't lose hope because your talent is poor. Talent isn't the biggest determinant of success in the initiation program. There is also hard work and a strong will."
He didn't look at Loki and spoke as if he were addressing everyone, but Loki knew, without a doubt, that Muni's words were directed at him. His confidence came from the fact that Muni hadn't said these words in previous timelines.
But he didn't care about the targeted admonishment because he had more important issues to deal with. After impotently venting about the uselessness of the Sword Heart Metac, he began to consider targeting the Beautiful Woman Metac.
The Beautiful Woman Metac was the only Metac in his vicinity he had never devoured before, and he could devour it now. But he wasn't sure that it was a good idea to devour the Beautiful Woman Metac.
As he thought about this option, he rubbed his chin with his hand and asked himself, "Will the conversion into a woman be immediate, or will it slowly occur over time? Will the conversion be temporary? Will I be able to change back into a man if I deactivate it, or will I remain a woman even if I reverse time and return to the past?"
The thought of turning into a woman permanently made him shudder as if a cold draft had just blown over him.
He shook his head and said, "There is no need to risk it. I'm sure that there are many Metacs out there. There is no need to risk turning into a woman when I can get something else out there."
"Didn't Muni say other people are participating in the initiation program? And there is Muni himself. I can get him when I become powerful enough."
The more he thought about his options, the more he nodded in agreement. Eventually, he declared to himself, saying, "I'll just wait. Waiting is a good idea."
With his mind made up, he sighed in relief. It was as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
This reaction made him chuckle inwardly and say, "Muni was right. I need more dedication. Apparently, I am not willing to turn into a woman to acquire power."
But then, he shook his head and said with a wry smile, "Then again, it is because there are other, more palatable options for me. So I have the right to be picky."
After he said this, he raised his eyes to the roof, hardened his gaze, clenched his fist, and said, "But if I didn't have the option to be picky, I would only hesitate slightly about becoming a woman. After all, being a free woman is better than being a slave."
Meanwhile, the world kept moving around him. His internal conflict and the ensuing resolution were unknown to the people around him. They ignored him as they filed out of the awakening room.
Since he'd decided not to get the Beautiful Woman Metac and instead wait for a better, more masculine option to show itself before he took action, he wouldn't be reversing time any time soon.