In order to 100% explore Ascension Peak, things should be done in a certain order. I'm assuming that all map edges have been explored, all hidden items found, all chests opened, and all visible ammo grabbed. Also, I'm not talking about random battles, due to their nature. I'm only talking about set battles.

Landslide Path: From Mountain Wilderness to the Landslide. Kill the Rapax group causing the landslide.

Entrance Path: From the Rapax Castle Main Level to the Central Fountain. Kill the Savant Henchmen.

Knowledge Path: Kill Amit and Pee Wee (optional), set enemies in front of the Knowledge Temple.

Chaos Path: Kill Souleater, Quagmroth Ve, and set enemies in front of the Chaos Temple.

Life Path: Kill the Rapax Army (including the Rapax Prince and your illegitimate daughter with Al-Sedexus), Quagmroth Teg, Furor, and set enemies in front of the Life Temple.

Exit Path: From where you fought the Rapax Army to the portal to the Cosmic Circle. It's nothing but random encounters.

This seems to be the way to handle things. Anybody disagree?

Yes.

Life is short, so why should i waste time on exploring the map?

Rapax Ramy, landslide party and the henchmen will only spawn if we enter AP with at least 2 artifacts in inventory,
same for the landslide itself.

There is no need to fight at all on AP, you can pull set encounters and the random ones.

To pull, either cast sonic boom while out of range and run away in the subsequent turns,
this will cause them not to retreat after 3 turns.
Or start combat when out of range if line of sight exists, cancel instantly to only make monsters walk to party.


Knowledge path:
Set a portal close to Amit, before he speaks. Either deny to pay or use sonic boom to make both hostile,
pul lthem down the path and teleport back.
Now set 1 portal before the path turns left and goes straight down to the temple.
Use chameleon to run down behind the rock on the right of that path, set the 2nd portal.
Portal back and pull them all the way up where you set the 1st portal,
teleport behind the rock and run into the temple, inside replace one of the 2 portals
Now go to sea caves to kill marten to get the DD, only attach it to cursor, so charcters dont go insane,
portal into the DD temple and either place it into the chest or where it belongs.

Set encounter at chaos temple only requires to combat run past them.

Life temple guards are tricky to pull, chameleon is probably reqired.
Set a portal left of the rock where the path leads onto the plain,
run into the right corner w active chameleon and let them approach.
(may require to ide behind a tree and repeatedly pull them)
Portal behind the rock and run in an arc to the temple.

At my level (level 36+, pushing level 40), random encounters are more of an annoyance than a threat. Of course, at such high levels, enemies have high magic resistance. Twice, I fought a level 50 ArmeGazer, brought down by ranged combat. Also, for the first time in my life, I witnessed my Valkyrie cheating death, preserving my deathless run.

For most of the game, you can get by if you have good melee and magic, eliminating the need to carry around all that heavy ammo.

This changes on Ascension Peak, at high levels, when you have enemies with high magic resistance. Even having Powercast won't help that much against them. This is when ranged combat really takes over, especially if you have good ranged weapons and ammo from Ferro.

The constant enemy respawns on AP are good and bad: Good because your experience will skyrocket, bad because it's annoying when you're trying to explore the map.

So far, I have killed all set enemies, and I am near the path to the Cosmic Circle.

Check her death counter; I believe it still increases when you cheat death.

(Also, I'm a firm believer that "deathless" is not the way the game is meant to be played; there are multiple revival options for a reason.)

Everybody in my party has 0 deaths on the character screen. The Valkyrie's "death" was superseded by the "cheat death" condition, where she was rendered unconscious. Of course, this was fixed quickly, preserving my deathless run. My party now has a portal in the Cosmic Circle, guaranteeing my 100% run.