Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

"What could this place be? Did I just find a secret area or something?" Kaizen wondered as he surveyed the area from the top of what appeared to be a small hill.

The area around him was somewhat mountainous, just like the Hokku region, but the mountains in this new place were certainly smaller. Moreover, unlike Hokku, the mountains here were covered with trees in various shades of orange and yellow, which reminded Kaizen a bit of early autumn, when the trees in Center Park look like this.

Even after analyzing the situation he found himself in, Kaizen still had many questions, but the one that bothered him the most was how in the world a place as vast as this, whose trees stretched as far as his eyes could see, was inside a valley, or rather inside an invisible wall that was inside a valley.

"Pocket dimension? No, that would be too science fiction, and as far as I know, it is not possible to travel to other worlds unless you are an Evolved..... So the wall would be an illusion spell?" Kaizen thought about this possibility for a few seconds and looked up at the sky.

A few gray clouds were gathering in the area, but blue was still the predominant color, and from the position of the sun, it was still morning while it was afternoon in Rokku.

"No, it\'s definitely not an illusion spell to hide this place in the valley. It can only be a teleportation spell that was in that dark place for some reason. Maybe someone from there wanted to get here, or someone from here wanted to get to the Rokku region easily. Kaizen said to himself, looking at the large fortress in front of him.

The Psyker was undecided whether to explore this new region or return to the Rokku region and his goal of getting more levels. He was certainly curious about this new place and didn\'t want to leave it for later, just like he had done with Lord Arkin, only he had to get many levels and fast. Besides, it seemed that whenever Kaizen wanted to focus on just evolving, he would find new things to do, so deciding what to do was a difficult choice.

After thinking about it for a while, Kaizen decided to explore the new region. There would be no problem exploring such an attractive new place as long as he didn\'t get involved in any missions, right?

Kaizen was excited to find out what was inside the fortress and see if he could find anything that could help him on his journey to become stronger. When he decided what he was going to do, he opened the map to see exactly where he was, and found that he was south of the nation called Vrikhodour, more specifically where Ryeis and Teshi came from.

"This is good. I always wanted to see this place, but the journey was too long for me. Maybe it\'s worth staying here for a few days now."

Now that he knew roughly where he was, Kaizen began walking toward the fortress, taking in every detail of his surroundings so as not to be surprised.

The orange and yellow trees were beautiful, but the forest floor had turned to mud, and the dry leaves falling from the trees only made the situation, shall we say, more sticky. It had apparently rained in the area recently. Despite this, Kaizen managed to approach the fortress in just a few minutes.

The building was huge, with tall towers and thick walls. The Psyker could not tell the origin of the fortress, it did not seem to belong to any of the nations he knew, but there was a red flag with an unknown symbol flying at the top of the fortress. Kaizen wondered if this place belonged to a player group that had built this fortress to control this region, or if it had been taken over by a guild. He knew that many groups of players banded together to dominate certain areas in order to gain special benefits, such as access to exclusive equipment and extra experience points.

Still, Kaizen had some doubts about whether this was really the case, as the fortress was dilapidated and too quiet to belong to any players.

Kaizen approached the main entrance to the fortress and saw a large iron gate locked with rusty padlocks and chains. He tried to pull the gate just as a test, and as predicted, it was useless. The chains were not just there for decoration, and it looked like someone had locked this gate tightly enough to make sure that no one could get in or whatever was inside could get out.

Kaizen looked around, looking for a way to get into the fortress, and after a while he realized that there was no other way but through the main gate. He knew that he could destroy those chains and the gate with <Psychokinesis>, except that the sound of the metal being twisted would make so much noise that it would probably draw attention if anyone was inside the fortress. With that in mind, Kaizen looked up and saw that he could get in if he could climb or jump over the walls.

"It can\'t hurt to try." Kaizen said, shaking his shoulders.

[Activating Class Skill <Psychokinesis>]

Instead of using this ability to burst the gate, he used it to lift himself into the air. It wasn\'t like flying, but it was very close. This way, Kaizen was able to climb up the walls of the fortress without making much noise. He made an effort to control his breathing and movements so as not to attract the attention of any guards as he slowly climbed.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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