Chapter 1089: Ancient Saint Altar

"Ancient Saint Runes!" Lei En's mind buzzed.

Suolim was clearly describing a "Creator" race that came from the distant void, created many races, sowed the spark of civilization, and then hurried away; these keywords reminded him of the "aliens" from his past life!

Lei En has always known that the Ai Lun E Si world is a planet. At least, the Prime Material Plane takes the form of a planet.

This point has the most straightforward proof:

From the Oriense Empire heading east across the Wu Jin Zhi Hai, one can reach the western coast of the New Continent; conversely, if one goes west of the Empire all the way to the far western edge of the Old Continent, the elven homeland Aoroan, then crosses the Fallen Star Sea, one can also reach the eastern coast of the New Continent.

Moreover, the Prime Material Plane also has climate differences caused by varying latitudes, regular movement of stars in the night sky, the curvature of the sea level, and so on.

All these prove that the Prime Material Plane is a planet!

However, aside from the Prime Material Plane, Lei En cannot determine the forms of other planes, such as the bottomless Abyss; layer upon layer of Abyssal Planes are like continents floating in the endless void, forming a spatial system with natural passages between them.

The Heavenly Realm is similar to the Abyss, also composed of many planes forming a massive spatial structure.

Then, the Prime Material Plane lies between the Abyss and the Heavenly Realm, like a bridge between them, while the Star Realm is the ocean beneath the bridge; through the Star Realm one can travel to the Abyss and the Heavenly Realm. Around the Prime Material Plane are many attached planes of various sizes, the most famous and largest being the Four Great Elemental Planes, collectively known as the Outer Plane.

The Prime Material Plane, Outer Plane, Star Realm, Heavenly Realm, and Abyss together constitute this vast world.

Lei En's mobile library contains hundreds of millions of books.

But until today, he had never heard of or found any visitors from outside this massive world; aside from himself, all races, beings, and deities were born within this world, and he was the sole exception.

Now, he knows he is not the only one.

Moreover, a group of "aliens" had come to the Ai Lun E Si world; not only could they enter, they could also leave!

This means there exists a way to leave Ai Lun E Si!

Lei En's emotions surged.

Although he knows hope is extremely slim—just leaving, and it is very likely that outside the Ai Lun E Si world is still the endless void, perhaps billions of light‑years from Diqiu—but at least there is a sliver of hope; the chance of returning home is no longer absolutely zero!

Yet, he is also unsure whether he truly wants to go back.

If an opportunity were placed before him, and simply saying "I am willing" would instantly return him to Diqiu, would he speak it?

Lei En hesitated a moment, shaking his head inwardly.

No!

I probably don't want to go back.

On Diqiu, he is merely one among the myriad beings, working as a library administrator—a hopelessly ordinary job—seeing no future, destined to live a life of quiet obscurity.

Here, however, he wields unrivaled mortal power, controls countless wealth and authority, and his status places him atop mortals, revered by billions.

In his past life he was an ordinary person; in this life he is an emperor!

Such a massive disparity…

Lei En knows he could never accept it, but that is Diqiu; even though he has been here for almost twenty years, many memories of his past life have faded, yet some things grow clearer with age, and he often dreams of them as if it were yesterday.

Has Cyberpunk 2077 been released?

It should be fun, right?

Half of the Avengers members are dead; how did they turn the tables on Thanos?

When will the 003 aircraft carrier be launched? It should be nuclear‑powered! I wonder which province gets the ship name this time…

Trump surely got re‑elected; suddenly I want to see him play the accordion.

And those silly netizens…

Lei En's thoughts drift farther, his mind soaring to his distant past life; many scenes flash before his eyes, his vision suddenly blurs, and he thinks silently: "If there were a choice to keep everything in this world yet also return to Diqiu as an ordinary person, that wouldn't be bad."

"Your Majesty."

"Your Majesty!"

Suolim called twice in succession, and Lei En finally snapped back to attention.

"Sorry, this secret is truly astonishing; even now I find it hard to believe," Lei En said, his face showing shock as he concealed his daze.

"Indeed…" Suolim, without doubt, sighed: "Back then, when the previous elder told me this secret, it took me a long time to believe it. After all, in our understanding, it was the Heavenly Father Annam who created the giants…"

The Titan Elder fell silent, his expression becoming inscrutable.

Lei En, however, understood.

Clearly Suolim was withholding something about the giants; among the many species created by that great race, giants were likely included. Yet this contradicts the giants' paternal creation doctrine and is a grave blasphemy against the giants' god, which the giants could never accept.

"Elder, what is that race called?" Lei En asked.

"Ancient Saint."

Suolim whispered, "Our lord Anhelez discovered some clues in this altar, deciphered a few fragments, but could not trace their origin. At that time, the trolls referred to them as the ancient sages, that is, the Ancient Saints."

Lei En had already guessed; since they're called Ancient Saint Runes, they must be the script created and used by the Ancient Saints.

"Your Majesty, please follow me."

Suolim's body shrank to two meters tall and stepped into the temple atop the pyramid.

The temple is not tall, at least not as tall as the Storm Temple; from ceiling to floor it is about ten meters, overall square, its interior spacious, with the floor and walls covered in Ancient Saint Runes, plus some scattered murals, but those murals are extremely abstract, resembling enlarged combinations of Ancient Saint Runes, their content indecipherable.

Judging from the temple's dimensions, the Ancient Saints are unlikely to be a towering race; they are probably similar to humans, perhaps even shorter.

Lei En's eyes fell on the center of the temple, where an energy conduit guided from the Titan Furnace pierced the ceiling and connected here with the altar.

The temple is likely the core of the entire altar.

A square platform about three meters on a side and roughly one meter high sits at the temple's center, densely etched with Ancient Saint Runes, leaving almost no blank space; countless runes form regular zones and etched lines that spread outward, merging with the temple floor.

Lei En had already activated the All-Seeing Eye, seeing through the platform's interior.

Instantly, he saw that the platform's rune formation extended downward; his gaze followed its path, scanning the ground beneath, seeing through the massive stone slab.

The interior of the entire pyramid is divided into eight levels, and with the temple makes nine levels total.

Between each level are stairways; the deeper the lower floor, the larger the space, much like the temple above. Every floor and wall is etched with countless Ancient Saint Runes, clearly embodying profound rules and principles.

The nine‑level structure is both independent and tightly linked, ultimately forming a massive whole!

Lei En saw such a complex rune formation for the first time.

He can build Star Destroyers and Annihilation Cannons, and also construct countless Magic Torchlight formations, yet none can match this Ancient Saint Altar, even though the altar's size is far smaller than the Magic Torchlight, not even one‑tenth of a Star Destroyer.

It should be noted that Magic Torchlight is a Ten‑ring Spell, and the Annihilation Cannon even reaches the eleven‑ring level.

Yet compared with the Ancient Saint Altar, it's like a minor sorcerer before a great one.

It's not even in the same order of magnitude.

If one must judge, the knowledge, principles, and difficulty of this Ancient Saint Altar are at least equivalent to a spell of thirteen rings or higher—fourteen rings, perhaps even fifteen.

Lei En stared intently at everything about the altar, yet he didn't recognize a single Ancient Saint rune and couldn't understand the purpose of these rune formations at all. It was like a mountain of treasure laid before his eyes, but without any tools he couldn't take a single piece, leaving him frantic and scratching his ears and cheeks.

"Elder, do you understand the Ancient Saint runes?" Lei En turned and asked.

Suo Lim replied, "I understand a little bit."

His expression turned slightly embarrassed, and Lei En saw a hint of insecurity, instantly thinking something was wrong, and pressed, "Specifically, how much do you know?"

"Only a few dozen characters."

"Uh…" Lei En glanced at the countless runes around him, speechless. He had just realized that the repetition rate of Ancient Saint runes is extremely low; the altar contains millions of runes, and even after removing duplicates and dropping two orders of magnitude, there are still tens of thousands of characters.

But a few dozen characters are less than one‑thousandth of that—what use is it?

Such a low recognition rate is far from enough to decipher the Ancient Saint rune script, and it can't even guarantee those few dozen characters are correct.

Lei En hadn't forgotten his "translation dictionary".

After numerous upgrades, the translation dictionary on his phone had become a language translator; as long as a certain proportion of data is collected and copied into the phone's library, he can quickly master the language and script, and with a bit more time become proficient.

Based on his past experience, that proportion must be at least one‑tenth.

In other words, he needs to collect or learn at least several thousand Ancient Saint runes before he can decipher and master the language.

What's more aggravating is that runes are not the same as characters.

Runes are a form of magical knowledge; they contain techniques for applying magic and energy, profound and obscure. Though they originated from characters, they are even harder to comprehend. Mastering Ancient Saint runes does not guarantee mastery of Ancient Saint characters; the two share commonalities but also a gap.

This further raises the difficulty of mastering Ancient Saint knowledge; otherwise, much of the information recorded on the walls by the Ancient Saints would remain undecipherable.

The walls likely contain analyses of the principles behind the rune formations.

"Your Majesty," Suo Lim said, his face slightly embarrassed, "over ten thousand years ago, our lord Anhe Luozi discovered these Ancient Saint altars, then built a temple above them, channeling energy from the Titan Furnace to activate the altars."

"Our lord found that Ancient Saint runes were linked to Giant Demon runes, so he secretly gathered various Giant Demon runes and texts."

"However, the Giant Demon Empire has been destroyed for far too long."

"Our lord spent years collecting every Giant Demon script he knew, and eventually discovered that, although Giant Demon script appears linked to Ancient Saint runes, the gap is enormous. When the Giant Demon runes were destroyed in the First Era, they had already evolved independently for millennia, undergoing at least three major transformations; the vast majority of the script's meanings are now completely distorted, unable to be traced back to Ancient Saint runes."

Suo Lim gave a wry smile, "The few dozen characters I have mastered are the least changed, which is why our lord could successfully decipher them."

"I see," Lei En said after listening, helpless.

The Giant Demon Era is truly too remote—over thirty thousand years of history—and the fact that an Ancient Saint altar has survived intact to this day is already a miracle.

Now, where can we go to find someone who understands Ancient Saint runes?

There may be only a handful of people worldwide who even know the Ancient Saints existed; even the deities are unaware that a great race once visited Ai Lun E Si.

Lei En was silent for a moment, then asked, "Elder, how do you plan to rebuild the altar?"

In other words, you don't even recognize the Ancient Saint runes—how can you rebuild it?

"Copy it exactly," Suo Lim laughed. "Although I can't read the Ancient Saint runes, I can discern the altar's composition. The construction material is actually an alloy similar to Titan Blue Iron; we can build while engraving identical runes, and I'm confident we can finish it."

Lei En ran his fingers over the temple wall, which looked like stone slabs but was actually an extremely sturdy magical alloy.

Moreover, protected by rune formations, it can withstand the erosion of time.

The Ancient Saint altar isn't huge—only about a hundred meters tall, with a high proportion of interior space—but it still requires a massive amount of Titan Blue Iron. However, compared with a Star Destroyer, it's an order of magnitude smaller, roughly one‑tenth, so Suo Lim is confident he can construct it.

"The Storm Plane has a total of six Ancient Saint altars."

Suo Lim continued, "The one we are on is the main altar; the other five are ordinary altars, each slightly smaller in volume."

"The Ancient Saint altars beneath the Northern Temple and Eastern Temple are intact."

"The Western Temple is the same."

"Only the Southwestern and Southeastern Temples suffered; when the temples were destroyed, the underground Ancient Saint altars were damaged and almost completely collapsed."

"Therefore, I only need to rebuild two Ancient Saint altars," Suo Lim said confidently, "Once the altars are built, we erect a temple on the surface as a cover, then install a Titan Furnace to supply energy to the altars; I can then activate all six Ancient Saint altars and fully control the Storm Plane!"

The Titan Elder's expression grew excited, as if he could already see himself becoming the master of the plane.

Lei En then realized that the six Ancient Saint altars form a complete system.

All six altars must be activated simultaneously for it to work.

He asked curiously, "Elder, besides sealing the plane, do the Ancient Saint altars have other abilities? What does activation look like?" Such a powerful race, their altars should have more functions than that.

"Your Majesty will know once you feel it."

Suo Lim's face broke into a mysterious smile; he walked to the platform in the temple's center, placed his hand on a standing stone slab, and lightning burst from his palm.

Boom—

A thunderclap echoed down the energy conduit; after a half‑breath, surging energy poured into the platform, instantly spreading throughout the entire pyramid!

(End of Chapter)