The others agreed with this and shortly headed back to their respective villages to report. This was Mathias Calypses' first small win against the Devil's Gamble. The fact that he was able to achieve this pointed to a flaw within the Heavenly Tribulation's power:

It was not capable of convincing others of something if it went directly against their point of being there. There are a lot of ways that logic can be warped yet there are also certain situations where logic cannot be reasonably twisted.

Mathias Calypses aimed for creating as many of these situations as possible. There are a lot of theories sorcerers created about the Devil's Gamble, why it happens, how it works, and what it actually is.

Among the sorcerers of the Lunar world, it is commonly accepted that the Devil's Gamble is a consequence of trying to ascend, trying to become greater than the universe deems you.

There are some who theorize that the Devil's Gamble isn't just time restricted but energy restricted as well. Meaning that there is only a certain amount of metaphysical influence it can exert against an ascender, break that limit and it fails to function.

There are even some crazier individuals who believe that if you can outright deny the Devil's Gamble the ability to influence situations, like Mathias had done, it actually loses its power faster.

Mathias Calypses didn't necessarily believe such a ridiculous notion but he thought it could be true and hence tried it because even if it wasn't true, stalling time still held merit.

The golden barrier shattered under the condensed sunlight,

Bam!

It broke into a gray area filled with countless illusory clones of Mathias Calypses all intertwining aether with each other into a net of starlight.

Reaching this net, the domain amplified sunlight caused it to fracture and break,

BOOM!

The concentrated energy present within the interconnected aether loops all detonated at once into a series of controlled explosions, breaching through the entire subterranean area beneath Hua Tai village in the form of very small tunnels.

These tunnels then instantly collapsed upon each other, creating a mass deformity. This caused the collapse of the entirety of Hua Tai village into a gigantic sinkhole.

Inside the top of his wooden pagoda, the attacking Ascetic threw his table to the floor, he was upset that inside the rubble it was nearly impossible for a Solaris cultivator to accurately locate anybody, even if they were a mortal.

Geo is the number one counter to Solaris, even without a Geo sorcerer, this relationship can still be utilized.

What made the Ascetic even madder is that he didn't sense the trap nor the foe. He was certain that somewhere underneath the earth below the former Hua Tai village existed the perpetrator of his clansmen's replacement. He did this by sending sunlight through soil and permeating the earth, the problem with this technique is that it can't run through solid rock well.

In other words, he was certain that the Daoist was within that golden shell and he was right. Mathias Calypses was always within the golden shell.

When stealing aether from a target equal to yourself with no resistance from the other party, there is a one hundred percent success rate and it can happen almost instantly. Normally a sorcerer has to be close to the target in question to perform such an act but by using the unique traits of Astris, a real body double of Mathias Calypses had stolen the remaining aether held by the soul core and all of Mathias Calypses' aether.

Mathias had chosen to wake up an iteration and transfer the aether instead of trying to escape by himself because he had considerable fear that escaping would be detected by the Ascetic breaching in.

Opting to end his life in the explosion, the 314th iteration of Mathias Calypses met his end.

With Mathias' philosophy and methods so detached from the conventional norm, the Ascetic, despite his countless years failed to realize what Mathias had done. This caused him to think in a direction that helped Mathias Calypses' agenda.

This again, was something that went against the Devil's Gamble.

The 315th iteration of Mathias Calypses sat below the earth in an area away from the site of rubble.

He had been there absorbing aether for a little while now and according to his calculations, there were now only 6 full hours until the absorption would be fully completed.

Mathias Calypses himself was fully aware that as time decreases the influence and ridiculousness of the Devil's Gamble increases. The six hour mark was now another benchmark for this.

So he completely understood that things wouldn't be so easy from here on out.

But he also wondered what type of bullshit that the gamble would be on to hurt him now, who could it actually send?

The Devil's Gamble at the level of an Adept ascending to an Ascetic can only influence people up to an Ascetic and even when it does, there must be some underlying logic or reason behind this influence. Although it can pretty much direct anyone Adept and lower without major preconditions.

Now calmed down, realizing that it would be impossible for him to find the preparator with Solaris, the Ascetic decided to walk in a specific direction with his true body. Knowing that the enemy was going under heavenly tribulation, planning to just stumble upon them.

Surprisingly, such an stupid and brainless action would eventually hold true.

Although the Ascetic was wrong in one regard, the level of control held by the six hour stage is not yet ridiculous enough to have actually caused the Ascetic's absurd plan to work instantly. He would actually have to wait until the five minute stage to instantly stumble upon Mathias with 100% certainty.

But since not everything happens with 100% certainty, the Ascetic had a real chance of finding Mathias Calypses before then, but even still, he had to wait at least an hour before his plan had any real chance of success.

During this, Mathias Calypses continued to concentrate fully on absorbing and transforming the aether for another 30 minutes.

Suddenly, he felt like he couldn't breathe!

Mathias, being as astute as he is, instantly grasped the problem. The oxygen supply was cut off somewhere at the top of the cave. Since he examined this small cave before and all its supplies of oxygen he knew that this came from a problem that the gamble seemingly manifested into existence.

This was the main difference the stages have,

At the 12-hour stage low probability events start rapidly appearing where they can.

At the 9-hour stage surrounding people gain a tendency to do things which go against the ascender.

At the 6-hour stage it gains the ability to force things with 0% chance of occurring. In other words, it creates problems which never existed to begin with. Although it does so sparingly.

At the 3-hour stage it creates these problems rapidly.

At the 2-hour stage it causes the manifestation of the worst thing the ascender believes could impossibly happen. As a consequence, this is the only event that will occur within this stage.

At the 1-hour stage it causes every single concept in the immediate vicinity to go against the ascender, as long as it doesn't affect an Apostle or severely hurt an Ascetic.

In the final 5 minutes the ascender experiences a ninety-nine point nine percent chance of death.

Mathias himself believes the 2-hour and 5 minute stages are most dangerous since they are essentially unlimited. He can name every concept in his immediate vicinity but he can't name nor prepare for every idea in creation. Something necessary to fully counter the 2-hour and five minute stages.

Losing oxygen, Mathias Calypses decided to leave the cave via teleportation. He chose this action because he believed that if he stayed in the cave his problems would be exacerbated.

He first teleported one of his iterations to him and gifted him the soul core and aether by transfer using Energia Furari. He then teleported out.

Mathias' thinking was that the gamble would alter his teleportation and bring him to a place that wasn't good for him. So he opted to teleport himself and leave the core and aether to the 316th iteration.

By doing this, Mathias Calypses could confirm where he was going to be teleported to. Since he was using his true body all the effects of the gamble would be placed on him. You may think that the gamble might trick him but the Heavenly Tribulation is an event, not a person. It doesn't possess that kind of intelligence. To the Devil's Gamble, all Mathias Calypseses are Mathias Calypses.

Arriving at a green forest, the 315th iteration of Mathias Calypses found himself staring down a cultivator draped in golden robes with shining yellow hair.

Shocked, Mathias opened his mouth to speak, "Hi, my name is Mathias Calyp-"

In the oxygen deprived cave, the other iteration of Mathias Calypses realized something, the 315th iteration had died.

Realizing that any teleportation meant him meeting something which instantly would kill him, something he believed was one or more of the surrounding Ascetics and that exiting the cave on foot would be impossible because oxygen couldn't get through, with any attempted to break the confines of the cave most likely causing it to collapse, Mathias Calypses decided to slowly siphon air into the cave with very small teleportations.

He did it this way to reduce the chance of problems arising from mass teleportations, such as randomly happening to teleport a roaming Ascetic directly to himself accidentally.

Siphoning the air like this, Mathias Calypses continued for a while longer. Before he even knew it, an hour and a half had passed, causing Mathias Calypses to arrive at the 4 hour and 30 minute mark, an hour and a half before the 3-hour stage.

It was at this point that the cave started to collapse. The small minute problems the gamble had created caused the collapse of a previously stable cave system, a cave system that stood stable for thousands of years and would have probably stayed stable for a thousand more.

Knowing that teleporting out with his usual method was a death sentence, Mathias Calypses decided to wake up one of his iterations with a hidden signal and have that iteration teleport Mathias Calypses to him.

This was a type of targeted teleportation that had its baseline established before the beginning of the gamble. Therefore making it significantly harder for the gamble to effect. This did not mean that the gamble could not affect this method though. In actuality, this action carried a certain degree of risk.

If Mathias was past the 1-hour mark he wouldn't have dared to use this method.

Upon activation, the coordinates deviated slightly from the intended value but this was corrected due to the combined realization and efforts of the 316th and 317th iterations of Mathias Calypses.

Arriving at this iteration of himself Mathias was hit with a ridiculous idea. He planned to share the aether which still needed to be absorbed with his iteration and give one of the iterations all the aether at the end of absorption.

This was a technique encountered before but due to the sheer insanity hidden within its mentality, every other user of this ascension boosting method died to the rebellion of their iterations.

Mathias quickly awoke 3 extra iterations, 318, 319 and 320 respectively and had them teleported to his location, combating the interference as he did before.

He then divided the Ascetic's soul core into fifths using the unique traits of Astris and then had one fifth given to each iteration. This would effectively cut the time needed for ascension by five. Turning 4 hours and 5 minutes into less than 50 minutes.

This did not mean that Mathias Calypses could now avoid the negative effects of the gamble, even if he spread it out between his iterations, they are still counted by the universe as one, since their aether holds the same signature.

But this does mean that Mathias can skip the 2-hour stage.

The stages are named after hours not because actual time is a constraint, instead it's just because of closeness and proximity. The gamble's power matters how close you are to ascension not how much time you've been ascending for.

In other words, if a sorcerer lost progress in their ascension, the degree of influence the gamble held over probability would also decrease.

Mathias went from 4 hours and 5 minutes from ascension to 50 minutes from ascension instantly. In the eyes of the universe he got extremely close to ascension so the gamble reflected that, instantly switching from the 6-hour stage to the 1-hour stage, skipping the middle stages.

The five iterations of Mathias Calypses then teleported away to equally separate underground locations located using the unique abilities of Astris.

Mathias did this because this way the effects of the gamble would be present throughout the entirety of the Hua forest, thereby effecting the Ascetic and decreasing the gamble's strength.

Mathias planned to use the rule of not causing serious damage to Ascetics as a suppressing factor for the gamble!

Within each of the caves the iterations were in, all the pent up gases that weren't there before instantly reacted and detonated, causing each cave system to explode.

Each clone teleported away from the explosion after shielding themselves with Astris barriers. The 319th iteration was then met with a yellow-haired man in a golden robe.