Chapter 292 - 286 : The White Altar

"That's about it." Sato stood up from the stairs and dusted himself.

After a 20 minutes break, Sato had recovered about just enough stamina to make it to the top. Currently, he could be said to be at peak form, if his losses were to be ignored. Having to his peak, Sato decided it was just about time to see what laid at the top of the altar. He hoped that he was right and that his final challenge was related to this altar else, he would have to wander the entirety of this grey land. It should be known that it took him more than 2 hours to get from the edge of the gray land to this white altar.

The white altar was very huge. By width alone at the base, it was about a kilometre wide. Lengthwise, it was 2 kilometres long. The altar was made of white metallic ceramics that had runes engraved on them. Sato couldn't notice it from far out but now he was right on top of it, he discovered the glistening deep-blue little lines that snaked around the altar. Sometimes, these runes would form symbols and writings. Other times, they looked like drawings and carvings of certain beings. The runes also gave off a mysterious feeling to anyone who stared at them and they seemed to be enticing to one's soul.

"Hmph." Sato harrumphed as he stared away from them. 

'That was close.' Sato sighed.

He noticed that just then, he had slowly fallen into an illusion just like in the Entry trials. However, after experiencing the illusions in the game, he could easily separate himself from them. This was because the game developers and the controlling system didn't make the illusions so realistic as they did with the game or else, even the greatest of players wouldn't be able to separate themselves from it.

At the 4 sides of the structure were 4 stairs that lead to the top. Compared to the size of the altar, these stairs were small as they could only accommodate 2 people walking side by side; 3 people could also walk side by side but they would have to squeeze in together. In terms of measurement, the stairs were around 2 or so metres wide. The place Sato stood at was the staircase facing the east side.

As the stairs lead up to the altar, the overall size of the altar began to decrease till it was only 200 metres in width and 400 metres in length. Nonetheless, this was still an impressive size. In terms of height, the white altar easily dwarfed any 60 storey building. Sato estimated it to be about 700-800 metres high, rivalling some of the tallest buildings from the Old era(our time). without an elevator, it would take him a long time to get to the top.

'I'm already at least 3 kilometres off the ground. This means I'm already in the domain of the clouds. A few hundred metres up more would make things a lot worse.'

Looking up to the top, Sato noticed that there were a few white lumps beside the altar. These white lumps were actually clouds. 

With the grey 'island' floating at a height of an estimate of 3 kilometres, it was already within the area of clouds and an added 700+ metres would send it deeper in. While it was indeed amazing to see the clouds close by, it made things a lot worse for Sato. This was because, at this height, breathing would become more difficult for Sato. Even if this was just a game, the game tried to copy every feature of reality. In other words, the possibility of Sato losing consciousness here due to the low concentration of oxygen was very likely.

Sato frowned at this thought but couldn't do anything about it. He didn't prepare any respiratory equipment as he never thought he would need it, neither did he prepare any heat supplying one. After all, at this altitude, the temperature was already cold much less a few hundred metres up.

'I just hope my body can handle it.'

While VR gaming sounded fun, there were still its dangers. Since to mimic reality properly in a game, not only were amazing graphics designing skills necessary, but the equipment used by players would have to be able to provide the accurate feed and reaction to a specific action or stimulus. Take for instance, when a player is stabbed, say in the chest, the game would replicate the sensation of pain through the aid of the equipment(either VR helmet or cabin) and send the information to the brain through the connection with the nervous system. The information would be well detailed such that the brain would read it and presume that the player was truly injured in the chest. However, this injuring is only limited to the in-game body and not one's real body but the brain reads it the opposite way. Simply put, VR games aimed to fool one's brain into perceiving fantasy as reality.

The dangers associated with this were obvious. If the sensation of pain is too much for a player to handle, they could lose consciousness. There was also the problem Sato faced, where the game would replicate the feeling of one having trouble breathing. If Sato couldn't handle it, he would lose consciousness and possibly die in reality. 

Of course, to avoid this, a few safety measures were put in place by the game developers, one of which was the option that allowed players to control their body's pain sensitivity. There was also the fail-safe feature that would automatically shut a player's body down(in real life) and also log them out from the game. At the same time, if one was using a cabin, it would inject them with nutritional fluids and try to stabilize their body's conditions. This was one of the reasons VR cabins were expensive and but still desired by a lot of players. Compared to VR helmets, the compatibility ratio, miscellaneous and fail-safe features were a lot better.

With his safety in mind, Sato reduced the body sensitivity to the lowest possible which was about 30%. He also adjusted his breathing using a few breathing exercises he learnt from his grandfather. Sato intended to try and minimise the amount of air he gave off in one respiratory cycle while also making his breath last longer. That way, he wouldn't easily get tired on the way.

'I can only keep this up while walking but if it's a fight, then effects would lessen.' Sato analysed.

Once he was done making his preparations, Sato began making his way to the top of the white altar.