Xianxia protagonists are always vain, they always have a pretty face, sword-like eyebrows, whatever that means, and jade skin, no matter how little talent they have. To make them stand out even more, they most of the time have a fat and ugly best friend who would die for them.
Those fatties often deserve golden fingers more than them. They are fiercely loyal and would not only sacrifice themselves for their best friend but also his women, yet they are often treated like shit and only get tossed leftovers.
Sometimes they also have some luck and have some hidden physique or bloodline specialized in brute force or defense, which often only leads to them better protecting the protagonist's women.
While I empathized with the fatty's fate, I was currently more interested in Lin Fan. The more I followed them around and asked around, the more Lin Fan fell into the category of a top-grade son of destiny.
He used to be the son of the Lin family head but after he was born with a defect that made it nearly impossible for him to cultivate, his father searched for a cure everywhere until he was one day severely hurt by some powerful beast and his cultivation fell.
With his father's cultivation continuously falling, family elders scheming to overthrow his father, and his mother disappearing right after his birth, his father sent him to the Divine Yang sect for safety.
His mother's disappearance hinted at her being from some powerful background and a hidden bloodline.
Lin Fan was barely at the 7th stage of the first realm, not even qualifying him to join the sect. Even his status as a slave was only obtained by his father using his connection and pulling some strings and yet the treatment here was better than what he would get in the Lin family.
Even the slaves got some resources and a body cultivation technique, allowing them to barely survive the daily beating.
Since he obviously did not get any life-changing opportunity, I followed Lin Fan for two whole days when he finally got the opportunity that would jump-start his journey to the peak.
It was already the middle of the night when he decided to sneak out to observe the night sky because he couldn't sleep. While he was looking at the stars, wishing for a better future, one of the stars seemed to be growing bigger, approaching him at a fast speed.
He couldn't react to the comet's speed but I did, after a quick glance, I saw that the comet was actually some strange fire. I had the feeling that this fire would be very useful to me, so just before it was about to hit Lin Fan, I caught the fire and refined it despite its struggle. It wanted to submit to Lin Fan but suddenly some powerful bad guy caught it and refined it.
Lin Fan was stunned, just when the comet that he thought might change his life for the better was within a few meters of range, it disappeared. Before he could even understand what happened, a small earthquake appeared and the ground beneath him collapsed and he fell into a seemingly endless chasm.
I watched in amazement as destiny immediately did its thing and gave him a new opportunity after his original one was stolen. It would allow him to not start on his great journey, so no matter how many opportunities I stole from him, it would immediately give him new ones.
As Lin Fan was falling into the deep with no end in sight but an eventual gruesome death by gravity, I inspected the fire I just refined. It was called the True Sun Fire, it was one of the most powerful fires of this reality, capable of alchemy, body cultivation, extreme destruction and heat, and capable of absorbing other special flames. It would serve me well.
Just as Lin Fan was about to meet his end by turning into paste, an unusually elastic spider web caught him and gently lowered him to the ground using his weight. I was already exploring the cave system before he got the webs off his body and could look around.
He didn't have any source of light with him, so he could only blindly stumble through the caves as all dangers miraculously avoided him. Sadly for him, I found his next fated encounter before him.
It was a weird giant stone that pulsed with light as if it was alive. I had a feeling that this was just what I needed to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage. I wasn't planning to steal all opportunities from him, just those I needed, he could have the ones I wasn't interested in.
The moment I refined the giant stone, another small earthquake appeared and an absolutely massive worm shot through the ground, swallowing Lin Fan in one bite before leaving with speed unbefitting its size.
Destiny wouldn't give up until Lin Fan had his opportunity, sadly for it, neither was I.