147: Chapter 144 Brutal Connection
Michael Carter's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.
The hideous scar on his face seemed less frightening against the backdrop of his rigid expression.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but his lips trembled twice without a sound coming out.
A word was jumping crazily in his mind.
The mysterious Fate Master of the Yanhuang Civilization?
How is that possible?
The master behind the Fate Platform?
Could the person in front of him be—
The one who constructed the Cause and Effect Fate Platform, bestowed the magic sea compass, Numerical Panel, three-colored life spring, food god shrine, Karmic Trading Realm, and Causality Enhancement Realm upon over a billion Yanhuang Survivors—
The one with 29 billion in Individual Merit Points, ranked first, crushing the second place by over a thousand times—
The one who achieved 662 consecutive victories in one hour during the Individual Sequence Contest—
The Fate Master.
Standing less than two meters away from him.
The one who just personally put a wristwatch on him.
Michael felt his knees go a bit weak.
Although he hadn't confirmed the other person's identity yet, he had an inexplicable feeling that this person was indeed the legendary Fate Master of the Yanhuang Civilization.
At this moment, there was shock, panic, excitement, and fear.
This overwhelming shock caused his brain to briefly short-circuit.
It was like chatting on the side of the road with a young man who looked completely ordinary, only to discover that he was the very god you prayed to piously every day.
Yang Hang watched the expressions changing like a revolving lantern on his face, neither urging him nor saying anything more.
He silently gave him time to calm down.
About ten seconds passed.
Michael Carter took a deep breath. Then another.
He suppressed his surging emotions. Those feelings of shock, awe, excitement, nervousness, and slight fear—he shoved them all into a corner of his chest.
He was an adult who had been mingling in society for over twenty years before his Transmigration. He knew that losing one's composure in front of a big shot was the stupidest thing to do.
He straightened his body, subconsciously puffing out his chest.
"Are you the Fate Master?" he said. His voice still trembled slightly, but overall, he had steadied himself.
Yang Hang did not deny it, and seemingly to ease the other's tension, he smiled gently and nodded.
"Yes. I need your help with a favor, would that be alright?" Yang Hang asked.
Michael was stunned. The surprise of confirming the identity left his whole body tingling, and then, almost like a conditioned reflex, he nodded: "Please tell me! Any favor is fine!"
Yang Hang raised his left hand and pointed at the black wristwatch on Michael's wrist.
"This thing on your hand, I call it the Life Platform Peripheral Terminal," Yang Hang said. "There is a button inside called the magic sea compass. Open it now and use it."
Michael looked down at the watch on his wrist.
A black dial, a matte metal casing, and a few numbers flickering on the screen. It looked like an ordinary smartwatch, and compared to the various items found in treasure chests on the Magic Sea, it was so plain that it was unremarkable.
But since the Fate Master told him to use it, it was definitely not ordinary.
Michael did not ask any more questions.
He raised his right hand and swiped on the watch screen twice.
The words "magic sea compass" appeared in the function list.
He tapped on it.
He waited for a second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Nothing happened.
The "magic sea compass" button on the screen lit up once, then went dark. No interface popped up, and there was no feedback. It was as if he had pressed a broken button.
Michael pressed it again.
It was the same.
He pressed a third time.
Still no response.
Michael looked up at Yang Hang, his expression somewhat uneasy.
"Fate Master... there's no response. Is there a problem with how I'm operating it?"
Yang Hang's expression did not change.
He stepped forward and took the watch off Michael's wrist.
Looking down at the watch in his hand, he fell silent.
It failed.
The method of displacing space-time did not work.
The 60/40 success rate he had estimated previously was now verified—the line of Karma he had moved from the future did not produce an effect within the consciousness space of the Sequence Battle. The function's execution still occurred on the external Fate Platform terminal, not here.
In other words, the ability of the magic sea compass was indeed activated, but it manifested on the watch on his actual physical wrist outside, not on this virtual copy materialized in the consciousness space.
Furthermore, because he had not provided the line of Karma required for the magic sea compass to function to the external watch, it ultimately just displayed an error code.
It seems.
To want to execute Fate Platform functions within the virtual consciousness space of the Sequence Battle, simple time-line coincidence still had too many unknown variables.
Perhaps space-time displacement wasn't impossible, but it required other methods to reduce its unknown variables. However, the complexity and consumption would skyrocket, making it not worth the gain.
Yang Hang thought for a moment.
About one minute.
Michael Carter stood in place, not daring to breathe, his hands hanging by his sides, not even daring to move an inch.
He didn't know what the Fate Master was thinking, nor the reason for the failed test, and certainly didn't know if he had done something wrong.
He only knew one thing—the person in front of him was the Fate Master, and what was running through his mind right now was likely something he would never be able to reach in his lifetime.
Silence.
There was no wind on the black sea surface.
The pale sky was reflected in the ink-black water.
Yang Hang and Michael stood facing each other like this, silent between the two vastly different ships.
Then Yang Hang moved.
He put the watch back on Michael's wrist.
Michael felt the cold metal touch his skin, subconsciously glanced at it, then quickly withdrew his gaze and continued to stand obediently.
Yang Hang closed his eyes.
His consciousness sank back into the Karmic Void Realm.
The River of Causality was still surging.
He found that thin line of Karma from before—the one connecting "watch button pressed" and "magic sea compass function execution."
He untied it.
If space-time displacement didn't work, then he wouldn't take shortcuts.
He directly and brutally redefined the two nodes.
The first node—the "magic sea compass" button on the watch is pressed.
This is the Cause.
The second node—in an offline state, the full capability of the magic sea compass is executed within the space where the presser is located.
This is the Effect.
It wasn't displacement, it wasn't moving the timeline, and it wasn't borrowing from the future.
It was directly using the Power of Causality to forcibly lock these two events into a pair of causal relationships.
In an offline state, pressing the button activates the magic sea compass.
No matter where you are—in reality, in the consciousness space, or anywhere else.
As long as this causal relationship exists, the moment the button is pressed, the capability of the magic sea compass will be forcibly executed.
No intermediate process is needed; the execution of the Cause immediately yields the Effect.
What is the cost?
Every time it is pressed, every time it is executed, the line of Karma requires a significant amount of energy to maintain this "forced connection" law of causality.
The consumption is much higher than when using Fate Platform functions normally or when this Life Platform Peripheral Terminal is online.
Each item, executing offline functions through the finalized Life Platform Peripheral Terminal, might need to be repriced.
But these are problems to be solved later.
Now he only needs to verify one thing.
Whether this method can actually take effect in the Sequence Battle consciousness space.