@ooPh9quu
Maybe he would have survived without the machine. I mean, we would never know how though. Let's say he survived.
He would be a crippled prince with "commoner" blood. probs go into hiding or something or just live as a crippled prince. LIkely be used as a pawn either willingly or unwillingly. Then one day in the future, his ancestor, in a horrible condition scraped enough money or did something so that they could travel back in time, allowing him to become someone strong, someone, that people thought ancestor-nim could never be.
It's not a loop, rather, hopping into a previous timeline and "correcting" it. It's a back-to-the-future type thing. It's not a loop, they just went into a different path from the moment he intervened. He just went back to his original timeline, which would now be altered due to him altering it.
edit: this makes as much sense as it doesn't