Seizing Fate

What Raphael saw right now could only be described as absolutely unfathomable and utterly ridiculous. The words "too crazy to believe" could hardly explain what lay in front of him. The Fate tab showed him the fortune, misfortune, chains and destiny of living beings. How it worked was the panel showed him the name of a sentient being and a blue orb surrounded the name of the person. Currently, it only showed him the fates of people in floating cloud city but he could 'zoom out' and see the fates of people in different places as well. The size of the orb differed for different people but from what he understood, people with greater fortune/luck had a bigger orb when compared to people with lesser fortune. The average orb was as big as a fingernail and Yun Che's orb was as big as an arm. Meanwhile Xia Qingyue, probably the most tragic character, had an orb so small it was basically microscopic.

".....," he was lost for words after seeing this.

He saw his own name which had no orb around it. It made sense, he had no fate at all. No fortune, no misfortune, no destiny, nothing.

He started playing around with the fate orbs of randoms who had no consequence to the plot. He could swap the fate of different people with each other. However, he couldn't change fate itself. For example, let's say there are 2 people with an apple each. He could swap the apples of the 2 people but not change the apples into mangoes or bananas. A sad fate would still be sad, he could just give it to someone else without tampering with it. 

That said, it was still one of the most ridiculously busted powers in existence. The fate that the Ancestral God herself couldn't interfere without consequence was something he was freely playing around with. It was an intoxicating feeling. 

"This means I can...give myself Yun Che's fate..?" he thought to himself. But that would open up another can of worms in itself. Yun Che was the Ancestral God's favorite which was a problem. Changing Yun Che's fate would not only alert the Ancestral God but would also draw her attention to the one with his fate, himself. At that point, she could probably end his existence before he could say please. Maybe she ran out of power? Probably not considering the fact that she remained awake until she told Yun Che the whole truth by using the Recollection of Nothingness. She had the power to do that without much issue so dealing with a mortal soul with no cultivation should be easier than flipping her palm. Maybe she doesn't care about Yun Che? That was literally impossible because Xiao Lingxi's will is her will. It was also explicitly mentioned in the novel that she was deeply concerned about Yun Che's well being simply because of Xiao Lingxi's will. The only plausible way for him to survive changing Yun Che's fate would be that she is deeply curious about my existence and since what's done is done, she'll quietly observe because she shouldn't have enough power to redo Yun Che's fate-flipping process since it cost her 600 out of 1000 reincarnation cycles the first time. He was really playing with lava here. 

Xiao Lingxi would also commit suicide if Yun Che dies so....

Wait! Xiao Lingxi killing herself because of Yun Che! This might be a way he could potentially save himself if he plays with Yun Che's fate. Because the moment Xiao Lingxi dies, her next reincarnation cycle starts. Her will would be awake in her reincarnation and it would take time for her to reach him for vengeance even if she could in the first place. And time was exactly what he needed. Time to grow stronger. There was also the chance she would reincarnate into something ridiculous like a rock or plant which would have no chance of eliminating him. At least in that cycle. And a rock or plant could exist for around a few decades depending on many conditions. Although it would be unlikely, her next reincarnation might not be an existence that could cultivate because she was a human in this life. Considering the fact that he would have Yun Che's insane luck in that case, there was a very good chance the Ancestral God wouldn't be able to do anything consequential to him for about a few decades or even centuries. 

Even if she could, at most it would be events happening earlier than canon because she wants to smite me. 

With that settled, he now prepared for what could be called the greatest "heist" in human history. 

His eyes turned towards Yun Che's gigantic fate orb and moved it towards his soul which had no fate. 

"Hm?" He questioned after looking at Yun Che's fate orb. The massive fate orb was now already linked to his soul. However, Yun Che's soul seemed to have different "layers" of fate, so to speak.

There was another fate orb beneath the massive one which was smaller than the average fate orb.

Raphael immediately deduced it to be Yun Che's original fate before Xiao Lingxi gave him the hacks. This meant that he was going to die like he did in his first life, so Raphael didn't make any further changes with him. 

However, something else changed as well. 

The Chain of Fate linking Yun Che and Xia Qingyue broke and her fate orb grew much, much larger, almost reaching half the size of Yun Che's stolen fate orb. This made sense since she no longer had any link with Yun Che's soul and thus, the great misfortune that was supposed to befall her was averted. 

Raphael then decided to look at all the characters in Floating Cloud City with multi-layered fates, maybe he could find something useful. 

Since Xia Qingyue's link with Yun Che was broken, she could no longer be considered the 'Artifact of Fate'. So Xia Yuanba is no longer the sibling of the 'Artifact of Fate' which made his fate orb also grow much larger. The Ancestral God said that that as a sibling, Xia Qingyue's brother would go through grave danger again and again, which was also averted by the severing of the Chain of Fate.

He took a look at Xia Yuanba's 'previous' fate orb, which was large, about equal to the size of Xia Qingyue's 'new' fate orb. In that life he was supposed to completely fuse with all the primordial energy from Yue Wugou and awaken the 'Divine Body of Great Rage', a never-before-seen physique since the decline of the Primal Chaos. It was also a vastly unexplored physique in the novel since it was hardly ever even mentioned. 

The only thing the readers knew about it was that it gave the user an imposing body with little fat and high muscle along with very high aptitude and appetite in the early realms when only one-tenth of the primordial energy had fused with the bearer. 

So, Raphael made the decision to pull Xia Yuanba's 'previous' fate orb towards himself. This way he would have the Divine Body of Great Rage in the future. Xia Yuanba's old fate orb had linked with his, fusing with Yun Che's stolen orb and increased in size once again. However, Xia Yuanba still had the same dual-layered fate. Xia Yuanba's old fate had indeed already linked with his, then why was it still present in his previous life? And it had no changes either. 

Raphael then decided to test something out and split Yuanba's old fate orb in half. Since it retained its original state, it meant he could experiment with it. Raphael theorized that since this fate existed in his previous life and not anymore, it would be different from fates that existed in the current world. 

Raphael took one half of the split up orb and linked with Yuanba's new fate, making it grow larger again. This way he would have half of the primordial energy to fuse with, most likely improving his Tyrannical Emperor's Divine Veins. According to Jasmine, Xia Yuanba's veins were much superior compared to others with the Tyrannical Emperor's Divine Veins, which was because of fusing with one-tenth of the primordial energy from Yue Wugou's Divine Stainless Body. If he fused with half of it then what would the result be? This was the reason why he gave Xia Yuanba half of his old fate orb.