Chapter 79
Chapter 79: Ancestor's Altar and Three Legendary Miraculous Skills
...
What surprised Fei was that the altar from the ancestors of the camp was not in an obvious location in [Rogue Encampment]. Under Akara's lead, Fei and other locals arrived at her small tent that was located on the southwest corner of the camp.
Fei had been here numerous times.
Cracked and broken bottles and jars that had moss and vines growing on them were laying around everywhere. The air close to the tent smelled pungent; it was the smell of incomplete potions. Akara's tent was very small; it was even a little ragged. Fei had questioned how this small tent could accommodate one person more than once, even if that person was someone small and thin like Priestess Akara.
However, this time he was stunned.
Fei's mouth opened wide after he saw Akara, Kashya and Cain bending their backs and walking into the tent one by one. He was extremely curious, "Is there a secret underground cave in the tent? If not, how could the small tent fit so many people?" Soon, almost everyone at [Rogue Encampment] had went into the tent, and Fei's mouth opened to its max.
Elena poked Fei with her cold little hand, "Mister, we should go in now."
Fei had to go in there; he was even planning to crawl in if there wasn't enough space... However, after he bent his back, entered the tent and looked up, he was extremely shocked. How could someone call this place a tent? It was definitely a magnificent grand palace. There was an open view; Fei was now in a huge hall, and a long corridor that Fei couldn't even see the end of was connected to it. Chairs and tables were set up orderly in the hall, and there were a lot of doors along both sides of corridor; Fei's couldn't count how many room there were.
"This... This is... Spatial magic?"
After the short moment of shock, Fei quickly understood what was going on. It was crazy; Akara's ragged tent was the entrance to an unrivaled huge space. Through this small tent, Fei entered a space that he never seen before.
But after some deep thinking, it was only normal for [Rogue Encampment] to have such a mysterious place. After all, the camp had existed for more than millions of years. It was even here when the war millions of years ago between heaven and hell had begun. After the accumulation throughout history, if the camp was as shabby as it seemed and only had that little power and means, then the camp would've been razed to the ground by the demons and monsters on the moor; there was no reason why [Blood Raven], [The Smith], [Griswald] and the final boss [Andariels] couldn't wipe out this place.
There was only one reason why this camp could survive throughout the wars, battles and historical events– power.
It was obvious that [Rogue Encampment] had an unknown power that Fei didn't know about.
As everyone walked further into the palace, they all passed a hall that looked like it was for meeting. Fei still couldn't see the end of the corridor. Akara and Kashya were at the very front of the crowd; they were walking extremely slowly and Fei wanted to catch up. But at this moment, something strange occurred. He unbelievably found out that the faster he ran, the longer the distance between him and Akara and Kashya got. Soon, he could only see Akara's vague figure.
"What's going on?"
Fei was perplexed.
"Mr. Fei, the time and space in this place is reversed... The slower you go, the longer the actual distance you will travel. You don't have to walk so fast." Elena was always beside Fei as she whispered to remind him.
Fei was surprised, but he finally understood the secret to this space.
Fei gave Elena a thankful smile and started to walk slowly.
He found that he was actually going faster than when he was running. Although he was only taking small steps, the doors and rooms were passing him by like wind; he felt like he was walking on a fast moving conveyor belt going in the same direction. Fei slowed his steps down even further as if he was moving at a snail's pace, but under the rules of this mysterious space, he moved even faster. In an eye blink, Fei had magically caught up to Priestess Akara who was walking slowly and leading everyone at the front.
"Wow, such a magical space... Hehehe, where are we going?" Fei tried to start a conversation.
"Ancestor's altar." the Priestess' response was concise.
"Eh... how far do we still have to go?"
"We have arrived."
Akara paused her steps as she said.
Fei looked ahead and his weak little heart was shocked again.
At the end of the corridor, a huge and wide mysterious space appeared out of nowhere. A thirty or fourty yard (m) tall altar made from black stone stood quietly in the middle of the space like a skyscraper.
The diameter of this altar was longer than fifty yards (m), and it was layered with an unknown black stone. There were a total of nine levels, the further up the level, the smaller the space; it almost looked like a black wedding cake. There were a thin set of stairs on four sides of the altar that led to the highest ninth level; only about four or five people could fit on the ninth level. Looking at the altar from afar, stones on every level were fully engraved with mysterious and profound magic patterns and symbols. They looked like spreading vines and words of an unknown language. Except for the magic patterns, there were also countless ancient paintings. The content was all different; there were hideous demons, howling monsters, battling warrior and chanting mages.
The entire altar was black. It stood in the space quietly and created an ancient feeling around it, as if it was silently telling the mysterious history that was buried in the dust of time, but also as if it was showing the ruthlessness and terrifying nature of time. Fei could clearly feel a hint of mythical pressure emitted by the altar and filling the entire space.
"This is our ancestors' Covenant Altar." Priestess Akara said with a rare solemn expression on her face; it had a bit of holiness, as if the altar was the shrine in her heart. She said to Fei, "After you climb up the altar through the stairways on the east and reach the ninth level, by praying devoutly, God will gift you three miraculous abilities. Go ahead, Mr. Fei.
After she said that, she and other residents of [Rogue Encampment] kneeled to the ground and started singing a song in a mysterious and ancient language very deeply. A holy natural atmosphere surrounded everyone; visible holy energy emerged from their bodies and slowly injected itself into the black altar like meteors, dragging out a long tail behind them.
Fei walked up the altar step by step on the thin stone stairway that was located on the east side.
When he finally arrived on the ninth level, the black altar under his feet seemed like it had finally absorbed enough holy energy coming from the rogues' bodies, and gradually new changes occurred. From the very bottom level of the altar, every level started to rotate and turn under a strange inexplicable pattern, as if it was a precise instrument that was calibrating to match a mysterious waveform.
The sensation of ancient atmosphere emerged again and it was even stronger this time.
Fei forced himself to endure the huge shock and watched everything that was happening calmly.
All the things happening in front of him were completely beyond his imagination. These incidents never occurred in Fei's most familiar game on Earth. At this moment, some things were developing in a direction that was outside of Fei's memories.
Suddenly-
"Boom!"
An earth shattering noise sounded, and the black altar under Fei's feet finally stopped turning.
Everything in Fei's sight changed, as if the altar was teleported somewhere else. People like Akara who were beside the altar had all disappeared; it was as if the entire altar had moved to the space among the stars by someone who had unlimited powers. Fei looked around and found bright stars everywhere. There were no directions of north, east, south, west, or up or down. Fei felt like he was in a cosmic vacuum.
Before Fei could be surprised...
Suddenly, a beam of white light shined out of nowhere and covered his entire body. It felt similar to the beam that shined on him when he leveled up, but the power and pressure of this beam was far greater than the white beam of light he experienced when he was leveling up. For a moment, all of Fei's senses went black, and only a cold and majestic voice echoed in his mind–
"Supreme God, endless years, infinite space, time of eternity... According to the Blood Oath of Covenant from the Rogue's ancestors, weak human Fei, you have killed Anderial, one of the four gurus from hell, and you shall receive three miraculous skills from the mighty gods. These three miraculous skills are– [Learn], [Give], and [Summon]!... Human, prepare to accept the gift from the gods!"
As soon as the cold majestic voice finished, the white beam of light started to surge and wash Fei's body over and over again. This process was like being anesthetized during a surgery; Fei didn't feel any pain or itch, but he could clearly feel the incredible changes undergoing in every single cell in his body...
...
Below the altar.
"Ms. Akara... He... Could there be any accidents? Three hours had passed by already..." Seeing the huge altar completely buried in the milky white light sphere, anxious and worrying expressions appeared on Elena's face; she couldn't help but ask the spiritual leader of the camp impatiently.
"Elena my child, don't worry... This is our ancestors' and god's decree."
Akara looked at the [Flower of Rogue] who was a little restless beside her and a smile came on her face. She comforted Elena with a kind expression that Fei never saw before, "In the legends on the Rogue Continent, every [Flower of Rogue] would encounter the man who would change her life forever. Anderial met Diablo and you met Fei. This is what the Wheel of Fortune had already prepared for you guys. Elena my child, I can foresee your future, you all..."
"Boom!!"
As Akara was speaking, loud noises sounded beside her ear. She paused and looked in the direction the noise came from with everyone else. The white light flame sphere that embedded the altar was slowly disappearing. They could finally see everything on the altar again. On top of the thin stairways, Fei who just finished the whole ritual was coming down step by step.
An excited expression appeared on Elena's face as she rushed towards Fei. After observing Fei carefully and making sure that Fei was unscathed, her fast beating heart finally slowed down and she sighed in relief. A faint smile also popped on her white, smooth and spotless face.
"I'm alright, relax."
Fei felt the girl's worry and laughed as he held on and squeezed her cold little hand.
Elena was extremely embarrassed. She blushed as she struggled to escape from Fei's big hand and quickly lowered her head and returned to the crowd.
...
After taking the same route back out of Akara's magical space tent, there was only about less than half an hour of gaming time left for today. Fei didn't rush out of the camp onto the moor to kill more monsters. Instead, he stayed at the camp and chatted with Akara, Kashya, the two leaders at the camp and the white bearded "obscene" old man Cain.
No one knew that they talked about and no one knew what kind of three miraculous skills Fei had acquired. More or less, when Fei left the Diablo World again, the residents of the camp saw an unprecedented relieved expression on Ms. Akara's face.