Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

It was the first time in a long time that Kaizen had seen his MP bar completely reset to zero. This was alarming and, at the same time, understandable.

Although he had worked hard in the last few to become someone powerful, that didn't change that there were many other powerful things scattered all over Midgard.

The proof of this thought was the very Possessed Tree of the Woods that he just faced. This monster was not very fast compared to him, nor was it on a very high level. In fact, the tree-monster was a creature only of Mutant Classification, the second weakest type of monsters.

After all, why did Psyker have such a hard time with such a weak monster if he had managed to defeat Taznaar the day before and long before he had managed to defeat the Druid Centaur, a mythical creature? The answer to this was simple.

Just as Kaizen was able to match Taznaar's strength, even though he was many levels below him, using attribute boosting skills, skill copying and optimal equipment, the monster-tree also used everything at its disposal to be able to match the duel against Kaizen. Also, of course, obviously the monster-tree was not just any mutant creature and this was clear from its amount of attributes and size.

For Psyker it was already clear from the first day he played Rise Online that the levels and stats of someone or something were not all that mattered, at least not yet.

Just as there are opposing elements that naturally overlap with another, like water puts out fire, there are ways of battling that outweigh an advantage of statistical numbers, not to mention that a huge creature will always give you a lot of trouble, regardless of its level or Rating.

However, winning with so much sweat from a simple Mutant Rank creature was like a warning to Kaizen.

Although the Possessed Tree of the Woods had numbers as good or even better than his in some specific attributes, the difference between their strength was minimal, so Kaizen would possibly have a lot of trouble dealing with stronger Epic Rank monsters.

Now, the truth was only one: as Kaizen advanced in the game, his unique way of playing would no longer be enough to gain an advantage over his enemies and secure his victories.

'I need to keep getting stronger and learn more about this world.' Kaizen thought, looking at a crack in the ground formed by the falling tree.

Even for someone who just wanted to make money in the game and have a little fun maybe, it was crucial to keep evolving. With evolution, he would be able to find increasingly rare items and produce equipment so good that he could charge whatever price he wanted. This was the first step towards him being able to become someone rich.

While Kaizen was thinking about this, four of the Descendragon men approached him with their sword, meanwhile the other two, who were in the battle, ran to support the Descendragon watchman.

At that moment, the Psyker looked up, still on his knees, and the light of the full moon illuminated his face.

Surprisingly, a descragon with larger horns came closer than the others and extended a hand to help him up. Help this Kaizen gladly accepted.

"Why did you help us?" The same dragon-man asked the player.

Kaizen stretched both shoulders and answered:

"Why shouldn't I?"

"You are a human and we are Descragons. It wouldn't be strange for you to watch us fight to the death with a smile on your face. Not to mention our encounter in the forest a few minutes ago."

"In the forest, you attacked me first and I defended myself, that's what happened. And if you are confused by the fact that you were helped by me, know that I did that only because I am crossing the forest to get to the other side, nothing more."

The Descragons were upset at the circumstance they found themselves in. All their lives, they had been taught that humans were enemies to be avoided at all costs, because any human who saw them would try to kill them or kidnap them to sell them as slaves. This was the reality of the Descendants since the very beginning of their origin, a race despised by humans just for being out of line.

Ignoring all teachings, the Descragon who helped Kaizen to his feet gave a loud laugh after Psyker's response.

"HAHAHAHA! You are... really special." He said, smiling, and put a hand against Kaizen's shoulder. "It's a pleasure to meet you, man. What's your name?" He held out his right hand to the player.

"You can call me Kaizen. What about yours? What is it?"

The man closest to Kaizen shook his hand. "My name is Narghull. That one over there is Zorvroth, the other one..."

The descragon with the larger horns pointed to each of his companions, counted out the names of each of them, and finally said:

"I don't know if you have heard of us or not, but we are the infamous dragon riders."

"Oooh!" Kaizen expressed.

"Do you know us?" A younger Descragon named Zorvroth asked excitedly.

"No." the Psyker replied. "I was just struck by the name of yourselves. It certainly is a name that commands respect, that I must confess. What do you do? Do you hunt dragons?"

"No! Absolutely not! The blood of dragons runs in our veins, why would we hunt them? What we, the dragon riders, do is basically explore new regions where our village can settle in the future."

"Village?"

"Hey, Zorvroth..." Narghull stopped the young Descragon from talking any longer than he should, and then smiled at Kaizen in a relaxed manner. "Human Lord Kaizen, we are very grateful for your help. This is the first time we have spoken to a human who is not out to kill us or that we are not torturing. Although our meeting was brief, I bet that it was fate that had this in store for us, so it will bring us together another day. When that day comes, we will repay you for what you have done for us today."

Kaizen was surprised that he had not received a hidden mission or at least a gift as a thank you. However, there was nothing he could do to change that, so he just nodded and watched the Descragons begin to retreat from the clearing.

'As I thought, their race's relationship is very difficult with other races.' Kaizen concluded.

After Kaizen had read about the Descragons in the Library of the Magi, he also did a little research about this race on the webnet. Although he did not find any relevant information about the specific race he researched, he did find an article that explained the race mechanics in Rise Online.

Currently, there are five main races that players choose the most, and they are: Humans, Elves, Orc's, Tritons, and Drows.

There are over a hundred other races available for players to choose from, but it is not advisable to choose any outside of these five.

If you ask me why this is, the answer is: difficulty balancing.

Imagine you are a player who has chosen to be a Fairy. Of course, you will have a great advantage over several other races, because the thin wings on your back allow you to fly short distances. Now think about what your encounter with a human player would be like.

There is no peace treaty between the human race and the fairy race, as there is between humans and dwarves, meaning that the human might choose to kill you to gain a lot of XP, as he would with any other monster he encounters in the forest.

In RO, when you kill a player or an NPC of a similar race, you are not rewarded for it. For example, if a human kills another brother, he will gain a paltry amount of XP, only 100, which is practically nothing. Furthermore, if this becomes a frequent occurrence, you can earn the Title of Assassin, which includes various debuffs, such as difficulty forming relationships with NPCs and so on.

However, if you are a player of one race and you encounter another player of a strange race, who does not have an alliance with your race, there is no risk of gaining a negative title and no risk of gaining little XP. In fact, the amount of XP you gain will be proportional to the rarity and strength of your enemy, as with monsters.

Simple to understand, isn't it?

With this race system, the developers of Rise Online have managed to create an environment where the advantages of some races are calibrated by the difficulty of playing them, which is also why most users end up choosing Humans, Elves, Orcs, Tritons or Drows.

After all, there is little reason for a player to choose to be a Goblin if he will be hunted as a common monster, and the same applies for all the rarer races.

Perhaps for all these reasons that small band of dragon riders were so surprised that Kaizen didn't try to kill them. It was not hard to imagine that their previous encounters with other human players was not as peaceful as the one with Kaizen, who was not greedy enough to think only of the four or five levels he could have gained by killing all those Descendragons.

As such, Kaizen's clemency was rewarded when the one who appeared to be the leader of the dragon riders, Narghull, said to him before leaving:

"Hey, Kaizen! I know you're pretty strong, but be careful as you walk through this forest. We are ruling out this region because there is some bloodthirsty beast living around here and we don't know what it could be."

Kaizen swallowed his saliva dry, because while listening to Narghull, he saw Klank's life bar drop by at least 30% in an instant.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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