[You have successfully picked the A-Grade treasure chest]

[Your lockpicking experience has increased by 4.5%]

[You have obtained 11 coppers]

[You have obtained an A-Grade Rune of Magic Staff Potency]

[You have obtained an A-Grade Rune of Spear Pointiness]

[You have obtained an A-Grade Rune of Greatsword Sharpness]

[You have obtained a Gunner/Thief Skill Book: Rapid-Fire]

'Wow, lucky me,' John thought as he stowed the goods with the rest of his booty. John then immediately fired his pistol. 'Now what's with this guy? Looks like some fun.'

-117

[You have slain a Tainted Rat]

[You have gained 54 XP]

"Okay, okay…" the other player said, terrified. John's level was hidden, but Retzal could tell he was hopelessly outmatched. "I'm sorry," Retzal read John's nametag. "John. I didn't mean any harm."

John squatted and squinted, examining the weary arrival. The player seemed to be another gun-based thief and was in a miserable condition. "Retzal, huh? You sure sounded like you meant harm."

"I was just a bit - err - annoyed…"

"Your 'annoyance' disappeared pretty quickly. Why were you even annoyed? Why can't a man shoot his own firearm? Isn't that one of your amendments or something?" John spouted.

Retzal couldn't believe this guy. Was he really talking about gun laws in a fantasy virtual game?

Well, it was almost one the amendments of Retzal's home country. It really concerned more of the possession and carrying of arms rather than the usage. The Hiar server didn't only include players from Kinas and Trayin but also from the rest of Lansbe, as well as the United States.

"Sure…" Retzal conceded. "But aren't you afraid of the shots attracting the rats?"

"Like this?" Another thundering gunshot fired.

Retzal winced. "Yes!" he shouted then instantly quieted his voice. He concluded the player before him was insane. "Now stop! We need to run before the rats overwhelm us."

"I don't see any problem." Another massive bullet discharged. "Seems like good XP if you ask me."

-50

The shot hit a stray rat. John's aim was getting terrifyingly accurate with practice on the rats. He was at least hitting moderately important parts of the rat every time. John very deliberately readied another shot to finish the crippled tainted rodent.

"Please…" Retzal could feel an aneurysm developing.

Bang!

-63

[You have slain a Tainted Rat]

[You have gained 57XP]

A huge mass of rats appeared at the end of the tunnel where Retzal had emerged from. The angry level four mobs quickly rushed the two players' position.

"I mean you can run if you'd like," John said calmly. "I won't shoot you in the back, pinky promise," John added with a smile.

Retzal's left eye twitched. He didn't move.

John burst out laughing. 'I've really got fix this habit,' he thought.

John's trolling since he was resurrected was getting out of hand. It was just that the newbies were so vulnerable and he hadn't been able to indulge in so long.

John pushed aside the treasure chest. Behind it was a vertical passage and an old ladder heading upwards, just like he remembered. It led to the surface - Retzal could use it to escape if he wanted to.

Instead of taking the ladder, John reached down and lifted up a hidden trapdoor. Below, was another ladder, this time heading downwards. There were similar hidden passages all over the Gyeadian underground, remnants of the old days. John had used this ladder many times before to travel between the near-surface sewers and the deeper ruins below.

John jammed the trapdoor shut behind him. 'Why was that Retzal guy even here?' John thought as he climbed downwards. Retzal hadn't hidden his level. It didn't make sense that a level two would come into a hunting zone suitable for level five teams, and aggro every mob in sight.

Retzal had never one of the famous players of RISE. He had been moderately popular in older games, but he had faded into obscurity with the advent of RISE. However, unknown to the player base and John, he was even more active than before.

'Well, he probably got the underground treasure chests' first openings last time.' John reasoned. Even if one couldn't see it from John's little pranks, John respected Retzal's courage. It took a lot of strength and persistence to explore the sewers and obtain the treasure within. John was certain that Retzal had the ability to get the first openings. But why that still didn't answer why such a good treasure hunter lacked so much discreteness, having so many rats after him in the first place.

'Oh, well.' John shrugged and continued down the ladder.

The B-Grade treasure chest was around two hundred meters below the butte's ground level. John had just obtained the last of the A-Grade chests and he was 6% of the way to level five. This would be his last stop of the subterranean trip.

John's spoils from the six A-Grade chests could be considered excellent. Particularly:

[You have obtained Gunner/Thief Skill Book: Rapid-Fire]

[You have obtained 2 A-Grade Runes of Dagger Sharpness]

[You have obtained an A-Grade Runes of Pistol Muzzle Velocity]

These were the directly usable resources he had obtained. Additionally, there was a total of 89 coppers.

John smiled and learned Rapid-Fire.

[Rapid-Fire]

A–Grade Skill

Rank: 1

Damage: 65% of base damage

Fire Rate Increase: 100%

Accuracy Decrease: 50%

Recoil Dampening: 30%

Duration: 3s

Cooldown: 60s

Notes: Enter a rapid-fire state, dramatically increasing fire rate, reducing recoil, but limiting per shot damage and accuracy; bottomless magazine and no ammo usage during use; each shot is a normal round.

Thieves in RISE could boast incredible stealth capabilities and burst damage with a dexterous dagger. They also had Thief's Wit, which gave them a lot of utility. As a result, for balance, they didn't have any offensive skills to start with. Despite John's phenomenal successes, thieves were considered very weak at the beginning of the game. Their rise to relevance arrived when they learned their first offensive skill.

Rapid-Fire was one of the essential skills of any DPS gun-based player. It allowed players to inflict massive damage during its activation period and also conserve ammunition. However, it was exceptionally rare for an A-Grade skill, with many players not obtaining it until their first tier advancement. Rapid-Fire was great but it was more suitable for most thieves to get a low-cooldown melee attack skill similar to Sweep or Stab. However, Rapid-Fire was perfect for John's purposes.

In addition to these items, John obtained a plethora of assorted runes and two other skills books.

[You have obtained Optical Elementalist Skill Book: Focus]

[You have obtained Arcane Magician Skill Book: Guide]

These two were fairly common but strong spells.

Focus, like the name implied, converged the rays of wide-range photonic spells of the optical elementalist, reducing the AoE in exchange for increased potency. John could sell the spell for quite a few coppers or hold on to it to barter with someone.

As for Guide, it was a spell that allowed arcane mages to influence the trajectory of their spells to a certain extent. It was a low-tier spell, but it had relevance throughout the entire progression of the game because of the brilliant maneuvers a skilled magician could manage.

In fact, it was Hysterica's core mage's specialty. Chelsea was known not only for her skillful manipulation of the skill but also for her creative applications. For example, she used Guide to time the trajectories of many different spells for simultaneous impact like no other player. Another remarkable thing was the feints she employed using the peerless mobility of her spells.

John had always had her in his mind during his hectic adventure so far. The book further reminded him of her - he could only hold onto the skill book for when she joined. Chelsea entered RISE at the very beginning of the official release.

The ladder ended at around the 150th meter. He had left behind the reeking sewage behind and now entered the top levels of the main ruins of Gyead. It would take a while for the players to find the few secret passages that would lead down here.

One might expect NPCs to have thoroughly explored the lower ruins by now as Gyead was a historical military outpost. But there was a taboo around excavating near the Bulwark. The fear was that the magic formation could be damaged, or a tunnel could be exposed and let the taint in. NPCs also thought the same regarding the base of the butte.

Of course, a taboo was just another reason for players to explore. It turned out that the Bulwark was essentially invulnerable and extended indefinitely underground, leaving only Gyead.

John finally reached the end.

There was another trapdoor at the bottom of the ladder. The exit was on the ceiling, near a wall. John kicked it open and hung upside down from the last rung, examining the area with the light of the magic stone.

[Skeleton]

Level: 37

HP: ???/???

John saw a skeleton and quickly hid the light into his fist.

It was an undead. Like many of its computer game predecessors, RISE also had undead. They were generally very rare, only appearing in ancient areas or shortly after mass bloodshed. Their levels varied, but in the Gyeadian ruins, it was enough to make their health values unknown.

The skeleton seemed to be the remains of an ancient worker. It was unarmed, and the bone structure was poor with a hunched back. The bones themselves were discolored as if the tissues had been stripped of flesh yesterday, rather than the dry brittleness of many years of burial. It was unmoving, in a relaxed position against the wall below him, but John knew it would act when it was awoken.

He activated Stealth and Silent Steps. He dropped onto the ground like a cat in the night. The covert skills were useless in the watery passages of the sewage system, but the stealth was sufficient for the sedated skeletons who thankfully didn't have a sense of smell.

John split his fingers slightly and used the slim ray to navigate the absolute blackness. His memories were refreshed as he got a better view.

The room was a wreckage of bunk beds, collapsed and wooden, but not decayed. There were covers and pillows, dusty, torn and stained red, but still intact. He waved the makeshift flashlight around. There appeared to be rows and rows of bunks which covered the entire room that was so large, the weak stone didn't reach the far wall.

It was an impossibly well-preserved bunkroom of the perished.

John had only visited the ruins after the preliminary Gyeadian player expedition team, lead by a medium guild, had cleaned it out. These skeletons that didn't respawn were long gone when he had passed through.

John would have never have imagined how many there were.

Leaned against their bunks, sprawled against the floor, in their bed in sleep made eternal, the remains of hundreds, maybe thousands, of laborers furnished the way before him. John instinctively held his breath as he stepped over their comatose femurs.

The exit doorway was located across the room and the silent John managed to somehow cross the expanse of bones safely.

There was a long empty hallway, with similar doorways on both sides. John glanced in each one even he knew that there would be the same as the first.

The beam of light surveyed the next room. It was another bunkroom, just like the first. It was full of skeletons. The next room was just as packed. And the next.

John could feel a headache arising. He had been planning on raiding the ruins with some other players. He was fairly confident that if he got Jodie, the pyromancer, maybe a few others to around level forty-five, he would be able to clear it through a slow advance and AoE magic. But he could now understand why an entire level 40+ guild had been required in the past.

This also meant that the moment he was detected, he was dead. Keeping that fact in mind, John crept to the next section of the ruins. He entered from the hall onto a structurally unsound balcony that overlooked a production area.

This was a huge open space, comparable to size with the main arena of Gyead although not as tall. It was like a factory, with huge cranes and massive vats of dried liquid. At ground level, networks of pipes ran around leading to and from industrial-sized furnaces. The light of John's stone was lost by the crazy mess of catwalks and magic conduits that powered the magic machinery.

And again, there was an army of latent skeletons, on a shift they will never clock out of.

John descended a ladder into the manufacturing graveyard. He cautiously circumvented the densest skeleton populations and approached a huge magic formation at the center of the room. It was a colossal circle that powered the synthesis process of the factory. Alluring patterns and runes composed a beautiful melody of magic. Atop it was a humongous magic stone that was still shining brilliantly regardless of the uncounted years that had passed.

John walked towards it, admiring the enigmatic marvel. And then he dived head-first in a chute, disappearing further into the Gyeadian underground.