Kaizen's hint to Jayaa about forcing the body beyond its limits fascinated the bard, who had never thought about this possibility. It was a strange way to specifically evolve one attribute more than others, but it had a physical logic to it.

As they rummaged through the bodies and the thieves' camp for useful items, Jayaa asked:

"Dude, I was thinking about something and was trying to resist the urge to ask you about it, but I can't anymore..."

"Go ahead." Kaizen replied while analyzing the statistics of the sword of one of the thieves.

Stopped in the middle of the silent woods now, Jayaa took a deep breath before finally questioning.

"What is your class?" he was serious and convinced that Kaizen would not answer the truth.

"Psych." The black-haired man answered simply.

The bard smiled as if he had heard a joke, took off his beret, and began to clean what little dirt was on it. "All right. If you don't want to talk to me, I don't see a problem... Wait, what did you say?"

Kaizen stopped analyzing the sword, turned to his group partner and repeated more clearly:

"I received the Psych Class. I hadn't told you about that yet? How strange. Well, now you know."

Even though he wasn't sure if Kaizen was making a joke or being serious, because he was a walking mystery almost impossible to read, Jayaa's jaw dropped.

"Vo-are you telling the truth? Are you the sole carrier of the Psych Class that was in the news last week?"

"Erh? That was in the news? Journalists don't have anything else to report on, do they? Even after the police started using drones, there's still a lot of crime going on out there!" uttered Kaizen with a grimace.

"You're running off the subject again." Jayaa pointed at Psyker and said. "If it's really you, tell me the day and time of when the Psych Class appeared in the game."

"Friday around nine o'clock at night. Did I get that right?"

"It's my fault. I made it too easy by forgetting that there is a worldwide warning about it." spoke Jayaa as she bit her nails and tried to think of a better way to test.

"Look at my stats screens."

As Kaizen slid his finger in the air to open the system interface, Jayaa approached and when the bard saw with his own eyes that what Kaizen claimed was true, he was stunned.

Jayaa had never in all his playing time seen the bearer of a unique class in person. Having a unique class within Rise Online was much rarer than having a mythical weapon or even a legendary one, and classes like Psych, which were much more mysterious than the common ones like Swordsman, Warrior or Wizard, made it even more exciting.

"Y-you're amazing, Klaus!" Jayaa exclaimed.

Kaizen would hate to admit it, but whenever someone complimented him, he was very happy, so he looked away when the blond boy exclaimed.

"Don't talk nonsense. I just got lucky. Besides, you also have a class that I've never seen before."

"Ah, the Bard Class is only in the unusual rarity rank, yours is many rarity ranks above, even the legendary ones... Wait, your ability to see people's stats is a Class Skill? And the way you stopped the arrow in mid-air? Ow! Now that I thought of it, Psych references psychic powers! Can you read minds?"

"Read minds? No, that's impossible and would be too overpowered, but you're right about everything else. Anyway, there is nothing good about these thieves' items. Are you sure they're the ones who killed you?"

"Um... I'm sure they did. I distinctly remember that the archer was the one who killed my girlfriend first and then I was surrounded by the others. If there's nothing with them, they've probably sold out."

"Take this. I managed to loot some silver coins from them." Kaizen said and tossed a bag of coins to the bard, who caught the bag in the air.

"Are you sure? Don't you need as much money as possible to pay your medical bills?"

"It's just a small payment to pay you for the support." smiled Kaizen and lightly touched Jayaa's shoulder as he began to walk back to the road. "You still have some time today to hunt some monsters today, right?"

Looking at the lower right corner of her vision, Jayaa checked the time and replied:

"I have another hour and we're pretty close, so that's fine with me."

"Then let's get on our way. By the way, you passed the test." Kaizen gave the bard a weak slap on the back.

"What test?"

The Psyker, surprised that Jayaa didn't notice that he was tested, preferred to stagger the subject so as not to bother him.

"It's nothing. Just something I had in mind."

When the pair returned to the route they had been following previously, it wasn't long before they reached the Light Lands.

The hunting ground was incredibly fantastic. Apparently, a gravitational disaster had long ago occurred in this place of rugged terrain, which explained the crazy gravity of the region. Finding columns of rocks and whole chunks of earth floating around was not at all unusual, as if any rule of reality did not apply in the Light Lands. In addition, the region was rocky and filled with black stones, like a mining biome.

"Ooh!" expressed Kaizen in front of such a magnificently beautiful region.

Beside him was a cluster of small stones. He touched one of the stones which, with a domino effect, pushed the others. The objects in this region of low gravity moved slowly and although it was for a few miles like this, the low gravity did not apply to Jayaa and Kaizen, nor to the banjo that the bard carried.

Moreover, the region became even more beautiful at night, because violet aurora borealis filled the sky.

The strong winds moved large and small rocks, and it was not uncommon to hear some rocks banging or even moving. The Light Lands were constantly changing and transforming thanks to this constant movement.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa treon.com/NandoFalske

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