Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

As the Cursed Spirit tried to explain himself, Kaizen put a hand to his chin and began to analyze him closely while circling around him.

The ghost's appearance was like that of a teenager between the ages of 15 and 18. His robes were like the robes of a simple peasant, and semi-transparent like his skin, but what really caught Kaizen's attention was another detail.

The nameless NPC soon could no longer ignore Kaizen's different reaction.

"Sir, I know that you must be very strong and that you shouldn't be afraid of me, but if you kill me, I will.... Wait a minute, what are you doing?" Ghost had to ask.

Psyker was no longer emanating the frightening aura of a few seconds ago, nor did he seem frightened either, so he answered casually:

"I'm looking at you, isn't that clear? Your feet... can you step on the ground normally?" Kaizen inquired, interested, as the Cursed Spirit was levitating.

So the ghost looked down and gradually decreased the height his feet were at until they finally touched the ground.

"Oh!" Kaizen expressed.

"Sir, you will neither attack me nor run?" The Cursed Spirit inquired.

"Um. It depends on what you will do. You're the one who's getting in my way, aren't you? Your ability <Spirit Prison> sounds a lot like something that would make me have illusions or get stuck in a long corridor that doesn't seem to have an end. If you free me without any problems, there's no reason for me to kill you."

The ghost's eyes went wide as he heard Psyker say the exact name of one of his abilities. Immediately, he knew that this black-haired man before him was not just any person, yet there was a lot of fear in his expression.

"I-I don't know, sir. She has forbidden me to talk about it.... So, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going now." The ghost gradually began to back away. "I'm really sorry, sir. I need to help her, otherwise she will kill me, and dying hurts so much..."

"Wait!"

"No, sir, please!" The ghost exclaimed and then shone brightly, thus filling the entire darkness of the corridor with its radiance.

The glow emitted by this ghost boy was able to make Kaizen's vision burn so much that he had to close his eyes for a few moments and put a hand in front of him. So that when he opened his eyes, the Cursed Spirit had already disappeared again and this time Kaizen didn't feel that it was watching him closely.

"I was naive, I judged him by his low level and now he has escaped. Shit!" Kaizen shouted and after a few seconds he sighed to try to calm himself down. "It's okay, it won't do any good to complain. I already know I'm in some kind of prison and no matter how much the chandelier keeps guiding me forward, it probably doesn't matter how long I walk, I'll never get to where it's trying to take me. So I have to think of something else..."

After almost five minutes of thinking about what he should do, Kaizen remembered something Nairo had told him while they were walking to the village. He remembered about Slayer Fryft, the woman with paranormal talents.

'How did Nairo describe what Fryft did to see everything?' Kaizen struggled to begin to remember. 'The feeling of being able to circle your eyes? What was that supposed to...?'

As soon as he wondered about that, he automatically remembered an extremely familiar sensation to the one highlighted by Nairo.

'Of course! The same feeling I get when I use <Analyzing Eye>! It must be something like that!'

Kaizen quickly opened his right hand, stretched it forward and used <Analyzing Eye>. His pupils were surrounded by a golden energy, and at the same time, he internally began to wish:

'Please allow me to see what is really happening around me. Make me see what the real world is like, without illusions or distortions of reality.'

His pupils gradually began to emanate an even greater amount of energy, and the level of his mana bar began to drop rapidly. Suddenly, the hall in front of him began to tremble, and his pupils began to adopt another color. An intense shade of purple took the place of the faint gold in Kaizen's eyes, and from one second to the next everything stopped shaking.

The Psyker fell to his knees on the ground as his pupils turned purple, as the amount of his mana dropped too fast.

Of Kaizen's 400 Mana Points, there were only 50 left after the color change. And that amount only continued to decrease.

40.

30.

20.

And the moment he was left with only 10 MP, the whole corridor finally began to collapse piece by piece, like a collapsing puzzle. Then a series of notifications appeared before the Psyker.

[You have reached the condition necessary to evolve the Class Skill <Analyzer Eye>.]

[The Class Skill <Analyzer Eye> has evolved.]

[The description of this skill has changed, click here to check it out.]

[Class Skill: Analyzing Eye.

Seeing beyond what the eye can see is crucial for those who want to become strong, and for the Psych Class bearer it is necessary to see much more than just the essence of every living thing, one must also see beyond what any normal person can see.

Not only will you now also have the ability to read the Status screens of all those who are up to 50 levels above you, you will also be able to resist any Skill, Curse or Effect with illusory ability.

(You have reached the maximum level of this ability, it is not possible to evolve it beyond that.)]

[Because you now have the ability to see Paranormal Distorted Regions, your Charisma has been halved.]

[The effects of the skill <Spiritual Prison>, which are afflicting you, will be removed.]

The illusion structure of the <Spirit Prison> skill was not very complex as the Cursed Spirit was not high level, but this was a tough skill as it was a very rare and unwieldy skill.

Still, for Kaizen this was no longer so threatening. He was able to completely resist this skill.

However, he paid a price to be able to do this. Losing most of his mana was not something that was in Kaizen's plans when he tried to use the <Analyzer Eye> to do what Fryft was doing. However, he had already predicted that sooner or later the time would come when his mana bar would come very close to being depleted, so he had already prepared for a situation like this.

Before trying to get up or do anything else, Kaizen opened his inventory and clicked on the icon for a mana potion.

A vial of a bluish liquid appeared in his left hand, and he took this liquid as all the layers of illusions around him collapsed. He drank the potion eagerly, as if he were very thirsty, and his mana bar began to gradually increase.

Soon, he felt that he was well enough to get up again.

"Heh... looks like I can finally see everything now..." Kaizen said to himself, looking around him.

He was still in a hallway, only this one was much smaller than the one shown in the ghost illusion. What's more, this time Kaizen could see the whole backdrop of the house as it really was.

The walls around him were basically what you would expect from an abandoned manor house. There was no wallpaper, just a lot of wood and mold. However, this was not a paranormally distorted area for nothing. There was some kind of red liquid oozing out between the wooden planks of the walls and this liquid oozed slowly, like a slimy mayonnaise and the smell was devastating.

"UH! That thing stinks worse than horseshit!" Covering his nostrils with one hand, Kaizen stated. "Is it blood?"

He didn't know what this liquid was and didn't even want to touch it, but he didn't feel like ignoring it either. In fact, it seemed that the more he looked at the liquid, the more attracted to it he felt. This feeling of attraction was so strange that within a few seconds Kaizen already began to think that the idea of touching this goo didn't seem so bad.

"Just a finger to experience what the actual texture of this thing is like won't hurt." He thought and moved a little closer to the wall.

Looking closer, it was possible to see that the liquid was not only oozing, but also pulsing. Among so much red, there were darker areas that were shaped like veins.

Contrary to what one might expect, Kaizen's desire to touch this thing only increased upon noticing it all, and when he moved a finger closer, the liquid moved slowly to meet his skin.

'Fascinating...'

Kaizen was about to touch this thing when something pulled him forward, interrupting him and causing him to wake up from his hypnotic trance.

He looked at the thing that pulled him and realized that it was the candelabra that was in his left hand, the same candelabra that he had picked up at the cottage. Immediately, Kaizen turned away from the strange walls, still a little confused, and decided that it would be better to follow the path that the candelabra was pointing to now that he could, after all that would probably be better than staying in this place with the walls filled with this gooey red liquid.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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