[…

Weight: 400/100

*The weight limit exceeds 150%, so movement speed is reduced by 75%.

The body is heavy and cannot exercise any skills.

The probability of receiving the ‘weakened’ state if attacked is high.]

*

‘Hurgh! This way, it will take a year to climb this mountain.’

When Kaizen arrived at the icon with the pickaxe indicated on his map. The young man found that the place mentioned was not the iron mine, but the warehouse of the mine owner, where he had to spend a considerable amount of twenty silver coins to have the right to use the mine.

Furthermore, the warehouse and smithy were located at the mountain’s base, and the iron mine was near the top. Kaizen would have to climb it with an inventory full of ropes and heavy picks.

‘I spent 20 of the 100 coins I got from Therkara, but I can’t afford to spend any more money while I don’t even have enough to buy an armor.’

Since the mine owner did not agree to let Kaizen use only the pickaxe delivered by Therkara, he had to buy two ordinary iron pickaxes, each worth eight silver coins. That was almost a robbery.𝞸𝐕𝐋xt.𝗰𝒪𝔪

“Anyway, there is no reason to keep whining. I’ll just keep going.” Although tired, Kaizen was still not thinking about going back.

Kaizen then slowly made his way toward the mountain. The distance between the smithy and the hill was not huge. There were only twenty minutes from the mountain’s base to the mine entrance at the average human speed. For Kaizen’s weight thought, since he had already exceeded 100%, it took him an hour to reach the halfway point.

The mountain path was well constructed, and the incline was not as steep, but it took even longer to reach the final stretch of the path.

“Ahf, Ahf…” Kaizen was panting, even though he was walking slower than anyone who had climbed the mountain along with him.

By the time Kaizen finally got close enough to his goal, to see the light from the mine entrance, it was already at night. He was wrong about his perception when he left the Spider Den; it was not morning but late.

“Just a little more… I’m almost there…”

The moment Kaizen reached the entrance to the mine, a screen appeared before him.

[Your persistence increased. The number of ATTACK attributes you will receive when you ascend to the next level will be higher].

Kaizen was confused for a few seconds, not knowing whether to laugh while looking at this notification or to try to recover from fatigue.

He got the feeling that he had finally understood a little why users could not upgrade attributes on their own when evolving in Rise Online. The answer was more straightforward than he had expected.

Kaizen realized after these two days of playing that the increase in stats when he leveled up was based on specific behaviors.

For example, if Klaus fought for a long time using a weapon instead of his fists, his strength attribute would rise more than the others. It also applied that if he experimented with running for hours and hours, his speed would increase as well.

His theory supported the absurd gains in the Intelligence and Agility attributes he had after defeating the Scarlet Demon Spider. Since these were the two attributes, he mostly used to be able to defeat this Boss.

When he searched tirelessly for facts about Rise Online that Friday night, he couldn’t find anything that even mentioned anything of the sort on the Webnet. This meant that this mechanic was probably something few people had ever realized, or nobody could stand to keep farming attributes and experience points like this.

‘So, if I keep doing repetitive processes to increase stats, I can increase my earnings even more? Is there a limit?’

Luckily, he was facing the perfect place to test this theory.

Kaizen then entered the mine and happily sat down to rest. He took a break and consumed bread and water, slowly restoring his stamina.

‘I guess I was lucky there was a warehouse down there. My food and water had already run out.’

After judging that he had rested enough, Kaizen pulled out the old pickaxe his master gave him and used the <Evaluating Eye>.

[Item: Therkara’s Pickaxe.

A pickaxe that once belonged to Therkara Ironstone. It was used by Therkara to develop her mining skills.

Class: Primal.

Item Level: 1 of 1

Attack: 7

Durability: 9/19

Fitness Level needed: 2.]

Kaizen’s mission was to mine 50 iron ores, which would take some time, but he had a parallel goal of testing the theory that the more effort he put in, the more his attributes would increase when he evolved. So, he looked around the mine with the pickaxe in his right hand and saw bright red dots all along the walls. All the other users present, who were also mining there, were hitting these red dots.

‘I probably have to hit in those places too. Well, at least that’s intuitive…’

When Kaizen moved to a red dot that wasn’t being hit by anyone, some miners who were resting next to it spotted him.

“Hey, rookie, why are you holding a pickaxe in your hand? Surely, you’re not thinking about mining, are you?”

“I am.” Kaizen replied simply.

“What? Puahahaha!”

The miners laughed until they rolled around on the floor with tears in their eyes. Another person frowned and said:

“Don’t talk nonsense, noob! Making your avatar with big arms doesn’t increase your strength. You know that, don’t you? You can wield the pick all day long, and you won’t get even one single iron ore. It will take at least five points of strength for that.”

The other men beside him agreed as they recovered from their crisis of laughter.

“You should be happy if you don’t hurt yourself or dislocate your shoulder.”

“Don’t get us wrong. We are only saying that because we are concerned, just go home, new… bie.”

Kaizen didn’t even bother to answer them. He preferred to show it with actions.

*Kaaang! Kaaang!

Kaizen hit the red dot two or three strong times, and suddenly an iron ore emerged. The miners were stunned by the sight.

[Iron ore acquired].

…

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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

More character images in:

https:///bpqq9u4gS8

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