After spending close to a century trying to observe the effects of ' Chaos ' energy, Max gained a ' Passable ' understanding of the element.
Learning how to predict chaos was like learning how to predict how many fragments a glass cup would break into when smashed at a particular angle.
It was next to impossible to account for all the large fragments that it would break into, but to account for every last speckle precisely was outright impossible.
Even if one somehow miraculously learnt as to how they could account for every last speckle for a particular angle and throwing force, to do so for an infinite amount of variations was impossible.
The unpredictable nature of the chaos element made it that much more difficult for Max to study as there was nothing tangible about it for one to understand.
There was no consistency to Chaos, there was no pattern, no rhythm, no secret to decode.
Every attempt at understanding Chaos was like studying a completely different sample from the previous attempt which made Max wonder if mastering Chaos was even possible?
Every few years of not progressing Max felt like calling it quits and stepping out of the trial for good, however, it was partly the threat of the celestial to kill him if he quit and partly his own intense desire to walk completely on the path of the perfect warrior till the bitter end that made him reluctant to quit.
Then one day, Max suddenly felt enlightened!
It was as if all the fragmented puzzle pieces that he had been trying to connect since ages suddenly started to form a pattern and Max was able to make great strides as he realised a fundamental concept about Chaos!
Since Chaos energy was unpredictable, since its nature and characteristics were impossible to study, it meant that the Chaos energy could become anything that Max wanted it to be-
If it was everything and nothing at the same time, if Max could only shape it to obey his will, and use its power to shape ' his ' reality, he could potentially make use of Chaos to create order and harmony.
This moment was a big breakthrough in Max's approach to understanding the Chaos element but he had no idea what altering reality could result in.
In his very first attempt to alter just the constitution of a rock using chaos energy, Max felt the surroundings tremble violently as he blacked out and was trapped within his own soul-space for a while.
Max could not understand what just happened, however, how could he?
Altering reality resulted in fractures in space-time continuity and had unforeseen effects on the entirety of the universe.
For one to wield chaos energy and will for an individual to be erased from history was possible, however, the difficulty of this job depended on how much ' Karmic ' value that individual possessed.
The rock whose constitution Max tried to change was a rock that had survived a celestial war, to alter its constitution through conscious effort would result in its entire history being erased and if the impact of its constitution change was too large for the space-time continuity then the caster would suffer significant backlash and pressure on their soul.
Max who understood none of these facts was shocked at seeing his soul vessel lose close to 10% of its lustre as all of his primal instincts screamed ' Survival ' to him.
He had been particularly unlucky this time around in his attempt to influence a rock as the rock he was trying to change was a rock fragment of a much larger piece which had been disintegrated by a celestial attack.
To change it's history meant changing how the fight between two celestials with MASSIVE karmic value played out and it wasn't a pressure Max's soul could bear.
Chaos was the power to influence reality, it was ' Fate ' itself in a way and every profession that claimed it could peer into one's fate such as ' prophet ' or ' oracle ' was a profession that learnt how to navigate through the uncertainties of chaos.
Hazriel, Max's biggest benefactor was a prophet and so was Odin the soulmancer of the perfect warrior.
Hazriel was able to use the power of chaos to send Max's soul back the river of time and Odin did the same for Rudra, however, the reason they were able to do so was because the karmic value of their souls was very small at the time of their deaths.
The first life lived by Max and Rudra was ordinary and the transmigration of their soul was possible, however, had they been an influential figure in their first lives and not trash, the two of them would not have been given the chance to re-do everything.
The potential that Hazriel and Odin saw in Max and Rudra was significantly greater than the mundane lives they lead as the two of them knew that if some initial circumstances were changed the two brothers had the potential to reach the very top.
As Max slowly stepped onto tier4, his Karmic value increased rapidly and Hazriel was no longer able to peer into his future, which was why she could only provide him help at one last critical moment during his coronation as a lord.
As Max stepped into the realm of god's, his karmic value exceeded the threshold for even Celestials to directly peer into his future.
The ' Chaos ' energy surrounding him and his soul thickened and his karmic value had far-reaching consequences.
Unfortunately, despite his entire second life being based on the powers of Chaos, Max was still unable to understand the true nature of the most powerful element.
Although he was on the right track, the mastery of Chaos was still a far-cry away for him and studded with unbelievable difficulties.
But having understood the true nature of Chaos, Max now held a sliver of hope that if he experimented with his newfound insights in a careful manner he might be able to derive meaningful inferences from the process and thereby unveil some secrets of the chaos element.
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