The glow of the magical array flared, and the gold atop the pedestal began to dissolve at an astonishing speed.
Countless lights and shadows flickered into existence, resembling a series of film reels depicting various angles of the Alchemy City. Among them, numerous blurry figures continually formed and dissipated.
Harvey exclaimed with excitement, "It's working! I've connected to fate!"
Indeed, Harvey had made significant progress, but controlling such a powerful array still stretched his abilities.
As the lights and shadows emerged, Harvey felt as though an immense weight had settled upon him. The pressure was overwhelming, his heart raced, and his body trembled as if crushed by an unseen force.
Amberxiu quickly warned, "Don't resist. You're capturing fragments of the future, not struggling against destiny. Didn't you say you believe in fate? Death will come eventually—why worry about it now?"
Harvey forced a wry smile. No matter how much one accepted fate, it was impossible to be indifferent to the prospect of death. Though the concept sounded easy, the reality was much harder to bear.
He did his best to focus, attempting to extract something useful from the ever-shifting visions before him.
"The secret of the sewers…"
As he whispered this, the images began to slow. The city scenes faded, giving way to the damp, shadowy tunnels of the sewers that gradually dominated the vision.
"Well done!" Amberxiu complimented.
The boy certainly had talent. He couldn't help but wonder who his teacher was. It was rare to find someone so gifted, especially since entering the school of prophecy was notoriously difficult. What a waste to have him as an advisor to some destitute minor lord instead of properly nurturing his potential.
As Harvey focused, the images began to slow further, the shifting lights finally freezing into a shard of blue light, shimmering with energy.
Harvey, elated, declared, "I've succeeded! This is fate!"
The shard seemed like a small piece torn from the river of time itself, continuously replaying the same scene.
A blurry figure appeared within the sewer, holding a glowing artifact. A tremendous force descended from the heavens, piercing the surface of the earth, and enveloping the figure. As divine energy began to coalesce, countless ethereal gods appeared, surrounding the mortal who was about to ascend to divinity through their blessings and curses.
The vision was incredibly detailed. Apart from the blurred figure and the unclear nature of the divine attributes, everything else was remarkably vivid, as if this were an event set to unfold.
Just as Harvey was about to dispel the magic and conclude the ritual, Amberxiu intervened. "Don't relax. This is a false fate."
"A false fate?" Harvey asked, taken aback.
Amberxiu explained, "Yes, the madmen of Alchemy City created a false destiny, misleading all those with prophetic abilities. I once encountered a group of Druids and a ghostly hag in the sewers—they had all been lured there by a prophecy."
"Prophecy is merely a glimpse into fate. You can't expect every seer to witness the same thing through the same window, unless someone is deliberately fabricating it."
Harvey had never considered such a possibility—creating a false future to deceive all who could see it? What kind of magic was this? Surely it surpassed the limits of legendary power.
"What should we do now?" Harvey asked, still struggling to differentiate between true and false prophecies, let alone uncover the hidden truths.
"Use your power—the power of the school of prophecy! Don't tell me you've prepared nothing in these past few days. Whether for an escape or to kill me, you must have envisioned multiple futures by now!" Amberxiu ordered.
Harvey felt a sharp pang of embarrassment. All his little tricks had been under Amberxiu's watchful eye.
The idea of preparing for the future was as abstract as it was practical.
A mage of the school of prophecy could manifest destiny through meditation, turning it into something tangible—like a twenty-sided die.
Before the future arrived, they could cast the die and fix the outcome.
Then, by using the die's roll, they could exchange the future's result. Larger rolls could change a bad future into something favorable, while smaller rolls could turn luck into misfortune.
Even more extraordinary, the Destiny Die wasn't limited to one's own future—it could also alter the fates of others.
When Amberxiu encountered the ghostly hag in the sewers, it was this very method that had been used to replace her randomly shifting fate, trapping her in an endless loop of teleportation to nearby locations, forever unable to escape.
This was the power of the school of prophecy: the ability to alter outcomes as though one were a god.
No one could say for sure whether this act of substitution was a true alteration of fate, or if the act itself was already predestined.
Amberxiu had conducted many tests in the past, but each time they had only led him astray, offering no answers.
Now, however, Amberxiu needed Harvey to use his own die to alter the future.
If this was a false prophecy, the Destiny Die could shatter it.
Harvey took a deep breath and began to gather his energy.
One by one, dice glowing with the brilliance of distant stars began to materialize, swirling around him. These were the physical manifestations of his prophetic power.
Upon witnessing this, Amberxiu's mood soured. He thought to himself, *Tch, only five dice… In my plans, at least seven are needed to safely shatter this false fate.*
Harvey, unaware of Amberxiu's thoughts, was completely focused on his task. He guided the power of the Destiny Die, attempting to modify the prophetic fragment before him.
One die flew out, landing within the shard, causing only a faint ripple.
The image within the shard remained unchanged—still the blurry figure ascending to divinity, as though nothing had shifted.
Seeing this, Harvey steeled himself, and with a swift motion, hurled the remaining four dice into the fragment.
This time, the false prophecy shattered. Countless cracks appeared, and then the entire shard exploded.
Amberxiu sighed deeply, and dozens of dice from his own collection materialized, scattering the fragments of the broken future into even smaller pieces. The entire laboratory was bathed in a shower of shimmering light.
As the light dissipated, it reformed into seven tiny crystals, each reflecting a different future.
Amberxiu sighed again, knowing that once again, he had been the one to intervene.
Though he had long abandoned the path of prophecy, every use of the school's power made it harder for him to walk a new path, forever keeping him a mere subpar legend.
But now that it was done, he couldn't afford to dwell on regrets. Amberxiu quickly turned his attention to the new futures before him.
The first crystal revealed a small mountain of gold—over a million gold coins materialized in his laboratory.
Very good, excellent, it seemed the will of fate had decided he should become extraordinarily wealthy!
But what did this have to do with the sewers?
The second crystal revealed a strange, noble woman with skin as pale as paper, holding Amberxiu's severed head—just the head.
The worst possible future had come to pass.
For favorable futures, fate seemed to favor him, but for those that brought harm, did it mean that his life was no longer ruled by fate?
End of Chapter