NOVEL NEXT Chapter 81.1: 【Lut Gholein】
After confirming this finding, Fei quickly started thinking in his mind.
He was considering how to share resources between the Diablo World and the real world. Although Fei wasn’t sure if there was anything else that could help him bring a lot more resources from the real world to the Diablo World aside from the storage belt, obviously this small pack of winter wheat had opened a bright window that Fei had never thought about before in his chaotic mind.
As he was thinking, Fei walked towards Akara’s small tent.
He found Akara busy composing all kinds of potions in front of the seemingly ragged tent that had a magnificent interior. He took out the pack of winter wheat out of the storage belt and gave it to Akara.
“This is ……”
Akara took the small pack and an unbelievable, surprised expression appeared on her face.
It was incredible; she could feel a thick life energy inside the small cloth pack. Akara was both familiar and unfamiliar with this sensation. It was very deep and distant in her memory.
Long, long ago, 【Rogue Encampment】 didn’t plant their own crops to maintain their survival. However, in the past sixty years, along with the slow passage of time and pollution and corrosion of rogue continent by Diablo’s evil hell force, the majority of crops and plants were damaged by the dark force. Seeds with this purity and amount of life energy in them were extremely rare to find. That caused the production of crops and food in the camp to lower and lower, and ultimately they stopped producing crops. For a long time, the residents in the camp had to rely on breeding some chicken, ducks, cattle, and some other poultry and a type of wild plants called Bracken Roots that couldn’t be massively planted to struggle to survive.
Akara clearly felt that the small pack of winter wheat seeds that Fei brought weren’t polluted by the evil force at all and could be successfully planted and grow well in the Diablo World. Due to the quality of the soil in the Diablo World, the quantity of production might be lower compared to normal…… but compared to letting young rogues go into the dangerous moor which was dominated by monsters and demons and find those Bracken Roots that tasted very bad, even though the production would be low, it would still be a great light and a huge hope for 【Rogue Encampment】.
“In my world, this crop is called winter wheat. It has a strong vitality and is ideal to be grown on Rogue Continent where it is cold and humid…… Akara, you can ask people to try to plant it in small quantities first. If it is successful, I will bring more seeds to you and it can perhaps ease the food crisis that is happening at the camp currently.”
“Ah, that’s awesome…… Thank you so much, Mr. Fei. I can feel the purity and liveliness from these seeds. You have brought hope of survival to the camp.” Priestess Akara changed her usual profiteering face and solemnly bowed to show her thanks.
“Eh……You don’t have to thank me. Hehehe, if you could provide me with some free potions, items or scrolls, perhaps it would better than thanking me with words.” Fei put on a “fake” friendly smile.
“That’s impossible!”
Instantly, Akara’s profiteering character returned. Mr. Fei, as a leader you should be setting examples for everyone in the camp; you absolutely can’t get stuff for free without doing any work. Plus, the number of potions and items I can make are extremely limited. It can barely provide the rogues in the camp with the necessary protection. Mr. Fei, your demand is too much. Even if I produce free potions for you every minute, it wouldn’t be enough for you.”
Fei was silent.
A greedy profiteer would always be a greedy profiteer.
But then again, what Akara said really was the case.
Fei extinguished his idea of getting stuff for free. He turned around and saw the bottles and jars that Akara was using to make potions and smelled the pungent air. He suddenly thought of something and smiled as he asked, “Akara, why didn’t you find a helper to assist you in making potions? That way, you could increase the production, hehehe!”
“Do you think I could configure the potion out of thin air? Every potion takes a ton of precious and rare raw materials and herbs. They don’t grow in the camp and can only be found in places such as the moors and other extremely dangerous places. To collect and harvest these herbs and materials, the rogues can only go to those extremely dangerous and evil places when Diablo’s powers on Rogue Continent is at the “low tide”. I’m not exaggerating. Every potion I make is saturated with the blood of the poor children……” Akara was suddenly saddened when she spoke of this.
Fei smiled as he pointed at himself with his thumb and said, “Hehehe, Akara, don’t you think you have a perfect candidate standing in front of you for that job? Hehe, perhaps I could help you collect and pick these herbs and materials. In return, my request is very simple. You only have to teach me the names of each herb, how to identify them, and the formulae for making the potions. Hehehe.”
“You?”
Akara raised her eyebrows and was instinctively about to bicker with Fei, but she suddenly realized something as her eyes shined. She observed Fei closely as she glanced through Fei’s body and felt a suddenly realization. “Hehe, you are absolutely right. Come here. Hehehe, let’s start now. Hahaha, let me tell you how to identify each raw herb ingredient, their rating and their level!”
……
“Zealand Grass, Lantern Core, White-Strange Leaves, Magic-Chaos Ratten, Star-Light Grass, White-Bone Vine…… Eh, no, no. Blood-Bone Vine…… What else? Fire Roots? Poisonous Spiders’ joint bone?”
After an hour.
Fei was contaminated with a pungent herb smell. He continuously spat out something from his mouth as he stumbled and fled from Akara’s mysterious small tent. He was murmuring a series of herb names. His distracted expression looked as if he had been severely ravaged by a Tyrannosaurus.
“Hey……Mr. Fei. Don’t run. I have forty other raw materials and herbs for you to taste. Relax, these herbs aren’t bitter like the other ones. They don’t taste bad……” Akara had a reluctant and gloating smile on her face as she yelled and waved her hand at Fei.
Fei didn’t dare say a word back; he just continued to flee.
He passed a few wooden fences and several tents as he spat a few more times to get rid of all the bitter herb debris in his mouth. He then suddenly remembered something else; he walked to the centre of the camp and found the old man Cain, the “Free human scroll identifier”. He took out a few armour pieces and a silver storage ring from his storage belt and gave them to Cain. “Wise Cain, these items are from a mysterious place. I’m not sure if you could identify them for me.”
In fact, these pieces of armour were picked by Fei from the silver masked knight’s corpse, and the silver storage ring was from the poor four star mage Elvis. Fei put those stuff in his Barbarian storage belt before; when he was taking out the small pack of winter wheat seeds, he saw them as well. However, the status on the items were unidentified, therefore Fei wanted old Cain to help him identify them. Perhaps once Cain finished identifying them, he could ask blacksmith Charsi to modify them so that no one in the real world would recognize them again.
“Huh? These items are very strange….. Eh…… Weird, I have never seen anything like this before…… Let me take a closer look…… God! These are completely different magic engravings and patterns, and unheard of enchantment methods……” The white-bearded old man took the items from Fei’s hands and took a detailed look. Quickly, he was fascinated by them, just like an old archeologist that just saw an ancient treasure. He was stunned a little bit; he didn’t bother to acknowledge Fei anymore and just said, “The identification process might take a while. Come back in three days……” Then he turned around and walked away as if he was holding his baby.
“Damn, if you can’t identify the items, just tell me. What’s the meaning of the excuse……”
Fei opened his mouth as he “scornfully” looked at the old “obscene” Cain’s who was walking away and pointed out his middle finger.
Since the identification didn’t go as he planned, he decided to slay some monsters and demons to level up.
However, this novice map 【Rogue Encampment】 wasn’t effective for Fei to level up in anymore. A few days ago, he swept out all the monster and demons in the entire map again and made sure that not a single monster nor a crowd of demons could threaten the safety of the camp. At this point in time, the moor was more than tens of times safer than before. With the unique Big Bosses being slayed by Fei already, 【Rogue Encampment】 and its subsidiary maps weren’t challenging to Fei at all.
At this time, Elena was still in the real world. Fei thought about it for a while and finally decided to find NPC Warriv – the caravan leader, who was in blue. For the first time, he chose to head to the East. He decided to proceed onto the second big map in the Diablo World – a more dangerous and challenging town -【Lut Gholein】.
【Rogue Encampment】 was quite far from 【Lut Gholein】. If an ordinary rogue started traveling from the camp, it would take her about a year or two to get to 【Lut Gholein】. Fortunately for Fei, this travelling process for him was very similar to the actual game. Suddenly, the view in front of his eyes started to get foggy and blurry. Then as if he travelled through time and space, he felt and experienced the weightlessness and zero gravity. When he opened his eyes again, he had arrived at 【Lut Gholein】.
Everything around him was in a khaki color. This was a city that was located between deserts.
If the prior map 【Rogue Encampment】 was a little ragged temporary camp site, then 【Lut Gholein】 was a magnificent and vast desert city. Although it didn’t have the steep terrains and picturesque landscapes like Chambord, there were tall, solid defensive walls, beautiful fancy palaces, even safer inner city, two story luxury hotels and pubs, and a wide natural pier that was full of parked boats and ships…… It was impossible to find all these things and structures back in Chambord.
But for some reason, luxurious 【Lut Gholein】 gave Fei an extremely strange feeling – this seemed like a ghost city. There wasn’t any liveliness; there were barely any pedestrians on the road, and it was absolutely silent. Wind blew up sand into the air, and despite being autumn, there seemed to be an unspeakable chill.
Fortunately, there were still NPCs.
As soon as Fei stepped onto 【Lut Gholein】, a NPC approached him.
After a simple routine conversation, Fei had received the first quest in 【Lut Gholein】 from Atma, the owner of a public house – Head to the sewers under Lut Gholein and kill the boss 【Radament】 who occupied the sewers for a long time.
According to his prior memory, Fei found the entrance to the underground sewers and entered it to start the quest.
However, during the process of accepting the quest, Fei found something strange – It seemed like the NPCs at 【Lut Gholein】 didn’t like him very much. Their facial expressions and voices were very dull and lifeless. Compared with people such as Akara back at 【Rogue Encampment】, the difference was huge; it almost felt like he was talking to wooden dummies when he was interacting with them.
“Weird, why is that?”
It didn’t matter if it was the whole city or the NPCs in it, they all gave Fei the same feeling – that they were dead. The place was lifeless, as if it really was a ghost city.
With a ton of curiosity, Fei seized the moment and started his bloody massacre of the monsters and demons in the sewers.
Chapter 81.2: Little Black House
……
……
Two hours later.
Fei had cleaned out all the monster in the sewers easily with the strength of the level 20 Barbarian and killed the boss – 【Radament】, completing the first quest in 【Lut Gholein】. His Barbarian Character was very close to leveling up to level 21. He returned to 【Lut Gholein】 and got his reward – one 【Skill Point】. He thought for a while and converted some potions from the cold and mysterious voice. Then, he directly exited the Diablo World through the portal and re-appeared in King’s Palace.
The timing was perfect.
Coincidentally, the guards on the outside yelled to report that Warden Oleg was seeking permission to enter the palace. Fei sat back down on his throne, stretched his back and said, “Let him in.”
Quickly, Warden Oleg walked in humbly.
The fat flatterer kneeled to the ground and saluted sincerely. He then smiled fawningly and said, “Supreme King” Alexander, all the prisoners in the Iron Prison – Water Dungeon have been transferred to the new prison according to your command. Ms. Elena is still visiting Iron Prison – Water Dungeon…… Your loyal servant Oleg is here to report.”
“Eh, you did a good job, I’m very satisfied,” Fei smiled as he praised.
“All of this is what I should do. To serve Your Majesty is my greatest honour!” Warden Oleg bowed humbly. He flatteringly smiled, “Your Majesty, the new prison hasn’t been officially named. All your loyal subjects passionately wish for you to personally visit the new prison and give it an official name. It would be an honour for Chambord as a whole.”
“Oh?”
Fei was intrigued by what Oleg said.
Due to his recent workload, he didn’t have time to go to the new prison that was built and expanded on top of the old healing facility. He wasn’t too sure how Oleg fixed and renovated it. In terms of naming the prison, Fei laughed as a great name appeared in his mind.
“This is your reward. After taking the potion, lead me to the new prison.” As he spoke, he gently pushed his palm, and half a bottle of 【Hulk Potion】 slowly flew towards Oleg. The potion shined a mysterious green light. This was the dose that Fei prepared for Oleg. It was tailored accordance with his own strength: not too much, not too little, just enough to stimulate all of the Warden’s potential.
“This is……”
Oleg was stunned.
Not even in his wildest dreams would he have thought that King Alexander’s reward was this half bottle of an unknown potion. From the faint green color, it looked like some kind of deadly poisonous potion…… But at this moment, Oleg demonstrated his cleverness as he figured out the king’s intentions. He didn’t even ask what potion this was; without any hesitation, he put on a trusting face, opened the bottle and chugged the green potion down his throat.
The next second, 【Hulk Potion】 came into effect.
An unprecedented painful sensation came from the deepest part of his body – every bit of bone marrow in his body started to heat up. Although the pain was tearing Oleg’s fat body apart, what surprised Fei was that this greedy Warden who was super afraid of death gritted his teeth and endured the severe pain throughout the body transformation; he didn’t even let out a single groan. Until the efficacy of the potion gradually diminished, he was covered in sweat, as if he just got out of a swimming pool. With a pale face and bite marks on his lips, he slowly recovered.
Such a hard and sturdy performance surprised Fei.
Unconsciously, his impression of the fat and bald warden improved quite a bit.
After feeling the great increase in strength and the huge change in the energy channels in his body, Oleg who was initially scared finally knew what kind of magical potion King Alexander rewarded him with. He kneeled down, opened his mouth and wanted to compliment him. However, the words and sentences that he was so familiar with got stuck in his mouth, and for some reason he couldn’t utter a word……
His mouth started twitching as a touching feeling bombarded his mind; he felt like crying. Oleg tried hard to hold it back, but ultimately he wasn’t able to stop it and cried out loud, “Your Majesty…… Thank you, Your Majesty……I…… To the God of War, Oleg…… Swear with a warrior’s dignity, pride and soul, that I shall stay absolutely loyal to the great King Alexander and never betray him……I……I know many people at Chambord look down on me……Although Bazzer desperately wanted to draw me to his side, I could tell that in his eyes, I was only a dog that had some value……Your Majesty, you have given me…… dignity…… dignity of a man……I……I……”
For a moment, Oleg was crying so hard that he couldn’t even speak.
This scene surprised Fei again.
“Human nature is so damn hard to predict……. However, hahahaha, so this flatterer Oleg has been influenced and touched by my great character? And wants to start a new life?”
Fei didn’t really acknowledge Oleg who was kneeling down faithfully and crying as he declared his loyalty. He sat on his throne, and narcissistic thoughts flooded his mind like a tsunami.
……
After about ten minutes.
Under the lead of Warden Oleg who was now very grateful, Fei arrived at the former Healing Facility on the west side of Chambord Castle.
This was the new prison of Chambord that Oleg constructed.
The exterior walls of the prison were made from firm white stones, with the stones piling up to four yards (m) high. Inside the wall, the original tattered healing facility had been turned into about a building with about two dozen cells. Every cell had good ventilation and light, and they were all warm, dry and comfortable to stay in. They were all sealed off by iron bars on the windows and a movable iron door. The sixty or so prisoners that were in the Iron Prison – Water Dungeon were transferred here.
The new prison looked completely white from a distance. The two dozen cells could only hold up to about two hundred prisoners; although it was significantly smaller than the water dungeon in the underground cave maze, it was enough for Chambord’s use. After Fei’s revamp of the prison, there weren’t many prisoners left. Plus, Fei’s command to reconstruct a new prison was just to deceive the public and find a reasonable excuse to completely seal up Iron Prison – Water Dungeon containing the underground cave maze. After all, there hid a secret that could turn the entire Azeroth Continent into madness – the Mythical Ruins.
Two ten yard (m) tall statues of two warriors resting their hands on swords stabbed into the ground stood in front of the gates of the new prison. The statues were vivid and looked very majestic. They weren’t made by Oleg; after hearing that the King was planning to build a new prison, the citizens were overjoyed and took the initiative to donate the funds to create them. The creators of the statues named them [Pillar of Justice] and [Pillar of Repentance], symbolizing the justice of the trials and prosecution, as well as hope for the prisoners to repent.
In between these two huge stone statues, there stood a big black rectangular stone. This was the place that Oleg prepared to write the prison’s name. At this time, the new prison was surrounded by numerous citizens. They were all waiting and looking forward to the King officially naming this new prison that symbolized forgiveness and mercy.
“My respectable subjects. I sincerely hope that not a single citizen from today onwards will end up locked behind these gates due to their choices and mistakes.”
Fei stood in front of the huge stone and said loudly.
He withdrew Oleg’s sword from the scabbard that was hanging on Oleg’s waist, flipped his wrist and started slashing on the stone. “Tink! Tink! Tink! Tink!” With loud screeching noises, numerous stone chippings rustled off of the stone as many sparks emerged. Three words were deeply engraved into this extremely firm stone –
Little Black House!
“Little Black House…… Haha, this will be the name of the new prison. I promise all of you that from now on, anyone that is sent to Little Black House will be penalized and have the opportunity to repent. Their freedom may be temporarily stripped from them, but they will never lose their precious life here.”
Fei held onto the sword as he spoke loudly.
“Hail the king!”
“Long live King Alexander……”
“Merciful King Alexander, may the God of War bless you!”
Although they didn’t know what “Little Black House” meant, the crowd cheered on one after another in waves.
Such a scene was quite strange.
Originally, building a new prison wasn’t something to be celebrated by the citizens of a kingdom; after all, a prison wasn’t a mall. It represented the dark and dominant ruling from the upper class……But this time, due to the previous experience with the bloody cruel, hell-like Iron Prison – Water Dungeon, the new prison had a new and special meaning to every citizen in Chambord. From today on, they at least didn’t have to be timid and afraid of offending a noble or a high class citizen accidentally or negligently, and get locked up in the gloomy Iron Prison – Water Dungeon and lose their life. From what the king promised, the people had understood the underlying meaning. They once again confirmed to themselves that King Alexander was a gracious ruler.
Perhaps unprecedented prosperous days would arrive in Chambord once King Alexander would formally be crowned by the Zenit Empire’s Royal Canonization Legion in eight days.
The crowd was cheering wildly.
At this time, the Military Guru of Chambord Gordon-Brook squeezed his way past the crowd and rushed to Fei. He whispered something into Fei’s ear.
Fei’s expression suddenly changed.
“Finally here? Hehe, these motherf**kers, I’ve been waiting for them for a long time……”