Mathias, despite being in the shade, realized that he could not use his teleportation. This circumstance meant that things were different than before.

Originally, Mathias Calypses had got around this by having his clones go in the shade before initiating the teleportation sorcery.

But now it seemed that he could not teleport while even in this shade. Mathias assumed that was because the Ascetic deepened the control his domain had over the surrounding area. How he did it exactly Mathias had no idea, after all, he was not an Ascetic.

Instead of the sun shining down on me with its influence, it's like it's literally on top of me now, Mathias thought.

It was at this point that Mathias realized that his protections were no longer worth the aether expenditure and cancelled his heat and light dispersion sorcery.

The danger that was held back by the sorcery instantly erupted in the form of golden flames which aimed to incinerate Mathias' body.

Beneath the marble jade sanctum, the seven illusory clones, which had one with a weak consciousness, ventured further into the rock below until they came to a golden barrier.

These clones instantly knew through the information and common sense embedded into them by Mathias, that trying to phase directly through the barrier would be disastrous for them.

They quickly conjugated around an illusory clone and turned him into aether, using this aether, they, through instructions embedded in their information, started to cast a sorcery of triangulation and came to the consensus that this barrier was a perfect sphere, they couldn't get in without additional aether.

Giving up on this plan the clone with a limited intelligence transcribed two of the sorceries his intelligence came with into two separate illusory clones, with each clone having a different sorcery.

These clones immediately headed to the surface of the marble jade sanctum upon the intelligent one's request.

In the sanctum the Ascetic was impatiently waiting with a visible frown on his face.

Sensing the clones approaching the surface of the sanctum, the Ascetic put his hand downward, preparing to smite the clones the very second they appeared from beyond the rock.

If he had concentrated his domain more he could have destroyed the illusory clones even when they were phased into the rock but doing that would make it impossible for him to suppress Mathias Calypses' teleportation.

The Ascetic feared that if Mathias could teleport he would leave and contact the other Hua forest clans, in which case they would say he killed his own clan and both surrounding Ascetics would siege him.

This would make it impossible for him to keep what he wanted safe.

Hence the Ascetic's domain covered the maximum distance possible where the Ascetic could still restrain Mathias Calypses.

The illusory clones then immediately appeared beside the Ascetic. This gave momentary shock to the Ascetic, he had seen the clones travel in a straight line so he assumed that they would continue in this direction.

But instead, just before they got to the surface they decided to teleport 6 feet. The Ascetic had seemingly forgotten that the actions of Mathias Calypses cannot be predicted with common logic.

Within that same instant beneath the marble jade sanctum, the intelligent illusory clone activated a sorcery he had primed.

Mathias Calypses' sun-charred body then replaced one of the illusory clones!

This sight truly shocked the Ascetic, he had absolutely no idea how Mathias had done this!

Mathias had relied further on the principle of 'under the sun'. Since it was no longer working above ground he'd do it below ground, in the ground.

By implanting a teleportation marker connected to him in a certain illusory clone and having another illusory clone activate the marker from the confines of rock, Mathias had subverted the restrictions present within the sunlight and surface of the domain.

When Mathias Calypses swapped positions with his illusory clone his body and hand were already in an appropriate position.

Mathias' formerly feminine face was severely deformed from the power of the Ascetic's blazing sunlight. His dark blue eyes being the only defining feature left.

On the other side of the Ascetic, Mathias' illusory clone made a matching hand gesture.

Below the rock, roughly half a moonshine beneath the Ascetic, the illusory clone which Mathias Calypses had given intelligence to activated one of the sorceries ingrained within the illusory clone along with a matching sorcery Mathias Calypses had imbedded in himself and had given the right to activate to this illusory clone.

He had chosen to do this because he suspected that around the Ascetic he could not cast sorcery himself. Mathias was certain any attempts to cast sorcery in front of him would result in the Ascetic changing the rules that his domain restricted to prevent the sorcery from being casted.

Assuming this, Mathias had the sorcery already cast within him, only waiting on activation. The reason why he had not just activated the sorcery himself instead of relying on the clone hidden in the rock was because he was afraid that the Ascetic would somehow prevent Mathias from activating it.

With other certain schools of sorcery, the Ascetic could still have intercepted any signals to activate a sorcery in his domain from outside of it but by utilizing the space and position aspects of Astris, Mathias' clone was able to instantly teleport the activation signal from his position directly into the sorcery, rendering the Ascetic unable to intercept it. For the second it was sent it had already reached its destination.

At this point not even 0.1 seconds had passed. Even with an Ascetic's enhanced speed of thought he was still in some level of shock from Mathias' sudden arrival.

Energia Furari!

Mathias and his illusory clone attempted to perform aether theft on each other. Mathias did this to establish a line of connection between him and his clone, completely piercing through the Ascetic.

This was another technique of Mathias Calypses' own creation. An augmented version of Energia Furari aimed at dealing direct damage. Out of all of Mathias Calypses' offensive techniques, this technique, rather than an actual offensive technique, had the highest amount of penetrative power.

With his aether pool constantly being drained by his tricks, Mathias Calypses chose this strategy. The specialty of this augmented technique was that it uses very limited aether, this is due to the fact that he was just sharing aether with his clone.

If both recipients of Energia Furari fully accept their aether being stolen, there will be almost no resistance and the stream of transfer would be fortified by each person's soul each time the circuit would be completed.

Causing the stream of aether to become more and more unmoveable as time passes. Mathias Calypses believed that eventually even an ascetic would not be able to take that energy flow.

Through the use of the unique traits of his branch of sorcery, Mathias Calypses shortened the distance between the ends of the circuit; this was done by altering Astris' law of position.

This was a power belonging to Adepts. Ascetics, through the use of a domain, can extend this power to laws not directly embodied by their affinity. The Ascetic striking Mathias Calypses' true body through the destruction of his illusory clone is one such example of this.

Mathias, as an Adept, cannot perform this feat as it doesn't directly and completely utilize the concepts of light, darkness, space, position, orientation, hiding or wonder.

Mathias' alteration to his sorcery caused the fortification of energy within the spell to multiply extraordinarily fast. Of course, like all sorceries, this modified form of Energia Furari is not without its drawbacks.

This sorcery relies on 2 souls, either illusory or real, to form a closed loop of aether transfer that exceedingly gets harder to break. The principle behind this fortification is the power of the intertwined souls, meaning that if the loop does break that spells annihilation for both of the souls.

This is due to the fact that the fortification of the loop is equal to the soul itself.

When clones, either real or illusory, are created they take on the status characteristic of the sorcerer who cast them. This means that illusory clones casted by an Adept level sorcerer are Adept level clones.

This is not something that can be changed. The great Mathias Calypses, being a sorcerer, is also subject to these rules. A sorcerer also can’t create clones at a stronger level than themselves.

This meant that the illusory clone had the illusory soul of an Adept level sorcerer. If this were not to be the case, this sorcery would instantly collapse.

0.2 seconds.

That was the time before the Ascetic realized the danger that he was in, with Mathias Calypses' unusual sorcery aimed to pierce his heart.

Sorcerers, no matter what their regional name may be, are human practitioners of the aetherous arts. They are first and foremost, still human. This only changes at the Sage stage. This means that, even at the level of an Ascetic, he can not take a prolonged time without a physical heart.

They would have to either completely regenerate it to working order within 40 seconds of losing it or manually circulate their blood to their brain. The reason that 40 seconds is the cap on the amount of time any sorcerer beneath Sage can lose their heart without manually circulating their blood to their brain is because beyond that timeframe it becomes relatively impossible to concentrate hard enough to perform sorcery.

A sorcerer could, of course, set up a sorcerous sigil on one of their rib bones that regenerates their heart as soon as such an action couldn't be obstructed, such as the blade still being in their heart but not every sorcerer thinks that far ahead.

There are also certain sorcerers who feel repulsed with the notion of placing a sorcerous sigil inside themselves.

Mathias himself doesn't have any out of the fear of it being manipulated to kill him. This is also a common reason to not use this strategy.

0.01 seconds after the Ascetic felt the danger he was in the sun above them in the sky immediately vanished.

The scene in marble jade sanctum changed within that instant, the domed ceiling above the Ascetic warped blue into a clouded sky. The walls of the sanctum changed too, forming into a desert of white jade sand. In the distance, suns of countless colors rose from every point in the horizon.

Recovering from his initial shock, the Ascetic had recalled his domain and re-deployed it within the marble jade sanctum!

This was a situation the Ascetic wanted above all else. With the true Mathias Calypses in the room with him, he could recall his domain and re-deploy it here instantly with the heavier restrictions than ever before. This was due to the limited distance it had to cover.

Outside the barrier constructed by the elders, a blue eyed figure smiled and using the authority commandeered by him and entered the barrier without disrupting it.

The Ascetic, realizing the danger of this technique to both his heart and Mathias, found it a reasonable risk.

Heavily restricting Mathias' power of Astris laws, he had all the suns on the horizon concentrate their sunlight above him and then instantaneously struck down on a singular point in the loop at the speed of light.

This attack immediately shattered the sorcery, spelling absolute doom for Mathias' soul but Mathias Calypses' altered spell had already achieved a considerable degree of power,

Backlash!

The spot in the Ascetic's body that Mathias' sorcery crossed into instantly exploded. The heavily injured Ascetic fell to his knees in absolute shock and horror.

Mathias Calypses laid there dead. The Ascetic had won for now but his heart and half of his internal organs were missing.

Mathias had used the Astris' law of orientation to alter the direction of the energy in his sorcery. So instead of spreading in all directions, the energy that dispersed upon the loop's destruction all transferred to an infinitely small point on the Ascetic, causing devastating damage.

The Ascetic had banned Mathias from manipulating the laws pertaining to Astris but didn't account for the laws he had already manipulated. Mathias had long created his augmented Energia Furari with this failsafe; it was already ingrained within the technique.

Suddenly, A white hand ripped the exposed soul core out of the Ascetic's chest!

The Ascetic immediately fell over in despairing confusion, now unable to regenerate his heart. He looked around for the culprit of this act who had obviously been stalking him during the fight somehow.

Feelings of bafflement and rage rose angrily through his body, standing there, was none other than Mathias Calypses!

An unburned and delicate Mathias Calypses. He soon realized what he was looking at.

The real body double technique!

The Ascetic stared up at Mathias and spoke in a broken and raspy tone, "What the fuck! Why! How fucking deranged are you! You know you died right! How. It's ridiculous." He said softly in anguish.

The Ascetic couldn't come to terms with the fact that Mathias Calypses had used the real double body technique to replace himself. To him it seemed alien, strange and wrong. Mathias Calypses had died, this was an immutable fact.

For the Ascetic, doing such a thing was far beyond the realm of reason and sanity. One had to be insane beyond conception to even think about performing such an act. After all you don't live on, you are replaced.

It was for this reason that the Ascetic considered what Mathias did as completely incomprehensible. Although Mathias' himself views his actions as just another one of his uncountable tricks.

This was not the first time Mathias Calypses had died.

The Lone Mother decided to kill Mathias with the rest of his dimension and she did, hundreds of times. Not that Mathias Calypses remembers any of these deaths though. After all, every real clone that Mathias Calypses makes of himself is technically a new person based on him with memories up to a certain point.

He makes it this way to guard against attacks through his memories and to prevent his adversaries from using connections between Mathias and his clone to kill both Mathias and the real body double.

Now marks the 314th iteration of Mathias Calypses.

Mathias uses this technique as a form of technical immortality. Others, such as the Ascetic, may not see this technique as living but Mathias does. For him there is no difference between him and the real body double and from a scientific perspective that is an accurate statement.

From his soul core to his flesh, every enzyme to every organelle, is exactly the same without any deviations. Mathias has to make sure this is the case every time or eventually he believes that he would eventually end up like a game of telephone, distorted and misinterpreted beyond recognition.