Receiving the aether directly from the Ascetic's soul core, the illusory clones headed down below the rock by utilizing the same method as before.
Approaching the golden barrier, one of the clones began to fuse with it; if this clone had a consciousness, it would have screamed in pain. This action established a link between the Mathias Calypses' aether and the aether inside of the barrier.
Since the Ascetic was of a higher realm than Mathias he couldn't forcefully commandeer control of this golden barrier like he previously did to the elders' barrier. He needed to opt for a more gentle approach of slowly convincing the barrier of his authority.
If at all possible, he wished to conserve this barrier and use it for himself in case the surrounding Ascetics decided to push into the complex before he assumed they would.
This technique of commandeering by convincing could only be used by Mathias due to the similarities between Astris and Solaris. If he was trying to convince a barrier made by a Geo Ascetic it wouldn't work, even if he did have the soul core in hand.
As he began monitoring the progress on convincing the barrier, Mathias realized that it was going to take too long, 4 days to be exact. So he immediately changed his plan, instead of trying to commandeer control of the barrier and allow himself to phase through it, he would fuse his through the barrier while forgetting about convincing it. This would cause the clone to fully be integrated into the barrier and pass through it.
The clone, which would now be on the other side of the barrier, would change its form into a structure that Mathias Calypses could teleport to easily.
Mathias couldn't teleport into the barrier originally but he felt that with a teleport beacon inside the barrier, such an act wouldn't be so impossible anymore.
7 hours later, the clone completely phased through the barrier. Mathias had to supply it with more aether from the core occasionally, since the barrier would pull in the Solaris aether embedded into the clone at an ever-increasing rate.
Now inside the confines of the golden barrier, the clone transfigured itself into an Astris beacon designed with the sole purpose of teleporting Mathias Calypses to it. It could do this because Mathias had already embedded the sorcery required.
Mathias then looked down at the ground, with his aether-infused eyes he could barely discern the clone's relative position. He then began to chant various incantations of sorcery in preparation for the teleportation. These sorceries included ones that would teleport him out of danger if this place was a trap.
It took a full five minutes before Mathias Calypses was ready to teleport. Activating the sorcery, he found himself in a place he didn't really expect.
The inside of the barrier reeked with death and desolation. The gray walls pervaded his soul and a certain stench came from the black upper console where a coffin laid.
Approaching this coffin, Mathias had a disheartening thought, "Please don't let this be a sentimental thing."
Mathias himself had wished for a cool weapon or something, seeing a coffin made him suspect that the Ascetic was guarding it for purely emotional reasons.
Moving the coffin with a simple spell, he looked at the rotting corpse, he could tell by the energy that it was giving off that it was a mortal's corpse.
A certain cliched scene then materialized inside Mathias Calypses' mind.
Shaking his head in annoyance and slight disgust, he turned to his left to look at a leather-bound notebook.
Thinking he knew exactly what type of story was described in the notebook he chose to read it anyways. He of course knew what kind of lunatics write in notebooks around rotting corpses so he opted to use sorcery to flip the pages.
It read, My near niece how I have failed you so-
Sensing the story, Mathias decided to flip to a more interesting part.
By offering all the souls of the Hua forest to a grand demon, you shall be revived once more!
Mathias contemplated this term, he believed it might either be the mythological creature from his storybooks or a high-level sorcerer. He was banking on the second option.
He didn't believe that the writer, who he assumed was the Ascetic's plan to work. From what Mathias was reading he believed that the plan entailed a mass offering of aether to a high-level sorcerer.
From Mathias' knowledge, complete resurrection of the soul is impossible beyond a certain point. Copies of them can be made, but that probably wouldn't suffice for the author of this notebook.
Also, the highest level sorcerer who would accept that mass of aether to do something had to be an Apostle, the level above Ascetic. Aether of that amount is pennies to a Sage, nevertheless an Evangelist or God.
To his knowledge Apostles, while being unrealistically stronger than Ascetics, are not capable of breaking the absolute principles. A precondition Mathias discerned as being necessary to achieve such an impossible feat.
Julien Watson, the Alchemist of Law, once told Mathias Calypses that he could in fact break the absolute principles. Although he never did so.
Sighing, Mathias Calypses, using the excess aether at his disposal began the construction of multiple real body doubles.
Seven of them were of himself. He planned to place them in stasis and then put them away in appropriate places, having them wake when he doesn't send a signal to them in three days. The reason he opted to do this rather than when he died was because if he was placed in an eternally sleeping state they would be unable to be deactivated from the stasis.
The other 28 body doubles were of the clansmen Mathias had killed, which he had infused with Solaris aether from the Ascetic's soul core.
Two days later,
The bright sun shone on the Hua Tai clan. Their members were in the pavilion training, brandishing their new qi techniques.
The elders were having a meeting on political jargon and appropriate responses. Although their clan leader was nowhere to be seen.
A man approached the walls of the clan from the village and one of the clansmen in the courtyard pavilion went to meet him.
He spoke of relations and righteousness. Asking about finding a missing clan member. The Hua Tai clansman spoke back to him with a delighted smile on his face, he wholeheartedly promised to find the missing man.
The Hua Tai clansmen went to find him and soon did, bringing the distraught man to tears, it was truly a miracle.
Upon arriving back to his village the formerly missing man had a delighted smile on his face. They welcomed him back in open arms and he soon played with the younger disciples, showing off that blissful grin.
A few peaceful days passed and eventually one of the young disciples also had a delighted smile.
Despite tensions between the villages, certain clansmen had an extremely pleased look, it made others wonder what they were so happy about and before they knew it, the corners of their mouth also lifted up in a delighted smile.
Their happiness was so pure and wonderful that it was contagious.
A certain clan leader was pleased with how happy everyone was now for some reason, it made him feel like he was doing an amazing job. Although even with those feelings, he never felt as happy as they looked.
Despite this, he still enjoyed the wondrous atmosphere and bathed in the small security it brought.
Deep below the earth in a dreary sanctum of grey, a beautiful blue haired boy started to laugh dangerously. It seemed that doing all of this was too much for Mathias Calypses' sanity, he felt it all ludicrous, all ridiculous. He felt feelings of elation but also felt feelings of terror and slight despair with himself.
He quickly whispered, "Julien must have had so much fun."