After five months of undisturbed isolation, Rio has broken through and become a 3rd Rank Mage, it seems each month of absorbing mana in the array gives you ten mana point,s and luckily due to no interruption during the last five months, Rio was able to breakthrough smoothly.
it seems nobody apart from us three landed in this section of the realm, however, this doesn't mean people won't migrate from other parts of the world
After Rio opened his eyes and felt a comfortable and smooth sensation revolving around his dantian clearly showing his improvement over the past months, Rio checked his status to see the improvements
'system'
[Ding!]
Name: Rio Casmir
EXP- 38,000
Class: 3rd rank Mage
Subclass: 1st Rank Hachidan Martial Artist
Strength: 54.6
Agility: 57.8
Endurance: 52.0
Mana: 200.0
There is one more month to go, Rio canceled the protective array and walked downstairs to a putrid smell, Rio instinctively puckered his lips and used his hands to cover his mouth and nose, Rio looked in the direction of the smell to see the decomposed body of Role Maxar.
Rio ignored it and walked out of the building, getting away from the bad smell and finally breathing some fresh air, and due to the environment of the region, Rio was currently in, the fresh air seemed very mind-calming and relaxing.
Rio closed his eyes thinking back to the birds' eye view Rio had to see the place he wanted to go next and decided to go to the volcanic region which Rio just had to keep going north.
Lush fields like these would probably have good resources, however, it's common sense that the most dangerous places had the best loot, and Rio could probably find something fire-related which would sync with Rio well.
After about a day of using a wind chaser, Rio got to the border of the volcanic region, which was literally separated by an invisible line, a step over and the temperature would increase by three folds, Rio stepped one step back and the temperature returned to the cool, breezy temperature it was before. Fortunately, Rio has an affinity with fire, so being here is more beneficial than harmful.
'How interesting, this place is truly mysterious I wonder how it came about, did someone make it, or did this naturally form?' as questions kept piling up in my head Rio stepped over the boundaries and started making his way towards the giant mountain that although it was in sight it was nowhere near him.
Whilst continuously using a wind chaser to get closer to the mountain, about an hour passed and the temperature became even hotter that even I started to get bothered a bit by the heat, however, I kept going. Around ten minutes later Rio started seeing skeletons, which must've been people with a weak affinity with fire, and collapsed slowly letting the heat melt the flesh.
Rio paid it no mind and continued going for another hour, Rio was near the base of the volcano and sweat was continuously flowing out of his pores. The urge to take clothes off was there but could be easily dismissed.
Several piles of bones were on the path toward the base of the volcano, and Rio stepped on some carefully, trying not to trip up from slipping from a fibula or something.
Rio reached the base and looked up to see a pathway leading to the top of the volcano. 'Why does the pathway not start at the bottom?' Rio sighed as he readied to start climbing the volcano.
Rio put his hand on the volcano for not more than a second, before his body reflectively pulled back his hands as soon as he felt intense pain, Rio looked at his palms to see the top part of his fingers with second-degree burns.
Rio took out a recovery potion from his space ring and drank it, after 5 minutes neither the pain nor the burn was there.
'How am I supposed to get up there when I can't even touch the surface.' Rio thought whilst thinking how a flight spell would come in handy once again
After a minute of thinking an idea came into mind, though it may waste mana, once Rio got on the pathway, Rio could use a mana potion to regain it back.
Rio summoned a fire spear and plunged it into the volcano and pulled himself up whilst summoning another one into my other hand to pull himself up, this process happened to like one hundred times before landing on the pathway
However, once Rio landed on it Rio's problems continued as his shoes started sizzling, the way it was looking, Rio had around three seconds before his feet started roasting, frantically thinking of a solution to overcome this obstacle he finally had an idea and
Rio sees why there are so many bones remaining on the grounds, they must've tried attempting to climb the volcano but couldn't see a way to get past this obstacle.
Rio could continue using his fire spear however above was blocked by the upward path, so the only way was to go up the curved slope normally.
Whilst Rio was thinking, the bottom of his shoes melted and Rio could feel a slight pain on the sole of his feet and reacted by summoning a spear, plunging it into the ground, and standing on it, which created an idea of him using two fire spears to walk up the slope.
Rio summoned another spear and proceeded to try to walk; this would normally require a massive amount of upper body strength for the average human however this level of Calisthenics was easily achieved by a 1st Rank Hachidan Martial Artist.
Whilst going up the hill, Rio let out a joyful scoff remembering a game called "The Floor is lava" in my previous life, guess it was more useful than Rio thought.
Rio eventually reached the crater and looked below at the huge pool of black magma, well it's a good sign it's not going to erupt anytime soon.
Rio continued looking down to see if there was a place he could go further, Rio doubted this was the end of the journey, and after close inspection, he found a little, hardly discernible cave about twenty feet above the black magma.
'Well, it's going big or go home' Rio drank a recovery potion and shadow shift and Octane movement art to slingshot his way into the cave whilst being as careful as possible not to let anything enter the magma, who knows what could make it erupt.
When Rio reached the cave, Rio was greeted with pure darkness, Rio cast a tiny fireball to brighten the cave and let me be able to see the surroundings. Rio walked forward slowly whilst looking around to see anything out of the ordinary.
After walking in a straight line for about ten minutes before Rio saw a fluorescent blue light ahead of him, Rio inched closer to the light, being wary of anything that may suddenly jump out and attack him
After entering the room and concluding that no sneak attack was happening, Rio slightly lowered his guard after realizing there was no immediate threat but was still very wary.