Existential Crisis

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After leaving Xing, Edward did not go anywhere specific, he just teleported to his dimension and continued his work. A few days later, while taking a break, Edward sat in a chair in a room with a large screen in front of him.

On this screen, he watched everything that the Elric brothers went through after their last meeting. And to his astonishment, almost everything occurred as it did in the original anime; his involvement had only a little impact on the overall story.

Although this was what he wanted, he felt that something was wrong.

"Morgana, did you discover any [Correcting Force of Fate] like the one in our world?"

"No, master. Everything seemed normal."

Edward frowned after hearing this. This could only mean two things: either there is no power of fate existing in this world and the fact that everything happened like it was supposed to despite his intervention is merely a coincidence.

Or, Morgana is incapable of noticing the power capable of guiding everything back on his original track. Of course, Edward believed that the second option is the best explanation.

The entire Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood anime can be interpreted as a game between God (Truth) and humans (the Elric brothers). Truth believed that humans--or Alchemists--have become arrogant and boastful as they pushed the boundaries of science by conducting inhuman experiments.

Even when they know that Human Transmutation is taboo, many still decide to play God by trying to revert the power of Death. So, Truth always punished these people severely and in an ironic way.

For example, Edward Elric was trying to revive his mother, which was the pillar of their family. So, in retaliation, Truth took Edward's leg or his pillar to stand. Izumi Curtis wanted to bring her child back from the dead, in return, her ability to conceive children was taken away from her.

To Edward, the whole story is essentially Truth trying to see whether humans can learn from their mistakes, acknowledge their limitations, and respect the laws of nature.

And in the end, when Edward Elric chose to sacrifice his Gate of Truth and lose the ability to perform Alchemy to save his brother, he finally humbled himself and accepted the fact that he was just an ordinary human, and should never try to play God.

This is one of the reasons that in the end, Truth told him that he beat him; Edward finally won the game. Meanwhile, Father or the Dwarf in the Flask--who never learned any lessons during the game--served as a foil to the Elric Brothers, and he was punished severely for his actions.

All these thoughts quickly flashed across Edward's mind as he watched the videos. To him, only Truth may be able to slowly control fate to this extent and ensure that things develop as they should.

However, Edward still had many questions; to be precise, his theory still had many flaws. For example, why did Truth allow him to intervene if his actions had no significance whatsoever?

Could it be that it was trying to teach Edward a lesson as well? Or, because he did not intervene that much in the story, his impact was not enough to create large ripples in this timeline?

Thinking of this, Edward quickly looked through the videos, focusing on the things that did change because of him.

The first change was related to the homunculus, Greed. In the original timeline, he was not discovered by the other Homunculi until the Battle of Dublith when he was killed by Wrath after capturing Al.

However, since the homunculi suspected that he was the one to inform Edward of their plans after he was dissected by Edward and released, he was tracked down and almost killed.

However, he managed to escape

Unfortunately, things did not change much after that. Obsessed with finding a way to place his soul in armor like Al as a form of immortality, he still kidnapped him. And in the end, Wrath still discovered and captured him in Dublith. And like the original timeline, he was swallowed by Father and remade into a new homunculus.

The second thing that changed was that after the Elric brothers returned to see their teacher, they learned that their formula for human transmutation was flawed, and what they summoned was not even their mother. According to the original timeline, they learned this fact from their father Hohenheim, then told their teacher.

The third and final thing that changed was after Ed was accidentally swallowed by Gluttony along with Lin Yao, he was not as desperate as he was in the original timeline.

That's because he instantly remembered Edward's little talk about teleportation and knew a way out; however, he was still hesitating on what toll to pay once he opened the Gate again.

After knowing about this, the Xing Prince Lin Yao did not hesitate to ask Ed to use some parts of his body as a toll. According to him, he was completely fine with living with an automail.

In the end, Envy discovered them while they were bickering, and Ed--just like the original--decided to compromise his morals and used Envy's Philosopher's Stone as a toll.

After that, everything was the same as usual; whether it was Lust's death, Scar's meeting with May Chang, and all the political plots involving Colonel Mustang and the higher-ups of the military.

As Edward watched all these happening, a sudden thought came to his mind. He once read a novel in his past life about a place called the God Space that randomly chose ordinary people from Earth and sent them into movies, films, and anime worlds with specific missions.

And after these people complete the missions, the timeline of the world will be restarted and a new group of people will be sent again. One thing that caught his attention about this novel was the reason that the powerful being who created the God Space sent these people into these worlds.

The reason was that by destroying the established plot or destiny of these worlds, these entities could absorb the source of the entire world to increase their strength.

As for how this applies to him? Well, Edward has always wondered the reason he was miraculously reincarnated into the world of Harry Potter. Now, he was wondering if some powerful being was also using him for some purpose and he did not even know about it.

These kinds of thoughts brought Edward a great deal of existential dread, but he quickly placed these thoughts in the back of his head. He knew that he tended to be paranoid, so he did not think about it any longer.

Anyway, if his conjecture is true, there is currently nothing he can do about it now. So, all he can do is move forward and become powerful, then the truth will eventually be revealed.

After that, he ordered Morgana to keep watching these events unfold as he continued his research. He ignored the little elf's complaint that he was beginning to develop some voyeuristic tendencies and took out a special notebook:

It was Scar's brother's notes on the combination of Xingese Alkahestry and Amestrian Alchemy. This book contained how to reverse the control Father had over the tectonic energy which granted him the ability to deprive Alchemists of their powers.

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Next Chapter Title: Fort Briggs