Option 1 but skim CoT. That book is terrible. Just skip anything with perrin or the little tower and you'll be fine... or anything else that bores you really. Nothing of note happens in that book except for at the very end with egwene and also mat's stuff is pretty good tbqh.
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His mind finally snapped and his rage boiled over. Like a slavering beast it consumed him destroying reason. He gazed upon the innocent, and they knew pain.