25 Utgard Stronghold

I looked all around me, but the old man was nowhere to be found. There wasn't even any tracks left by him, it was as if he never was here in the first place.

With my suspicions growing, I decided to look at the player leaderboards, maybe I'd find him there. However, no matter how much I scrolled, the name "Caster" did not pop up. After reaching below #200 on the leaderboards I gave up on looking, it was obvious that he was, in some kind of way strong- with this in mind I know he wouldn't be that low on the leaderboards.

I closed the status menu and looked back toward the snowy mountains. Well, no matter what I think of him, whether I should trust him or not doesn't matter, at the end of the day what he said is the only lead I have. I then cast the spell "[ Greater Teleportation ]".

***

I teleported back into the mountains, in the center where the checkpoint was located. I then cast the flight spell and begin floating in the air. Without wasting any time I started my search looking around at the farther mountains that were covered by the fluffed clouds.

I searched these mountains with double the effort. I made sure not to miss any spots, I had all the time in the world so I didn't rush through anything. Everything was smooth sailing honestly, however after I changed course and started to travel in another direction through the clouds, I started to encounter monsters- more specifically giant birds.

This world housed a lot of giants. I knew a little about Jotunheim's mythology somewhat due to my studies in my last life. It was the reason I wasn't surprised to see so many giant creatures. But these giant birds were truly vicious. It's not like I could see them coming either, the fog from the clouds made sure of that.

As I traveled I kept my guard up, I tried multiple spells I thought would work to clear the foggy clouds, however, it was honestly no use. Each time I cleared the fog, it would come right back in only a matter of seconds. The birds, in particular, looked like huge hawks with enormously sharp talons. You may think that the bird's talons did not have any effect on me, but that's where your wrong. They're talons was infused with magic properties, allowing them to be able to attack me. Fortunately, I had the { Six Eyes } equipped, you see the way I designed the six eyes, was mostly as a defensive item- and an overpowered one at that

I put most of the offensive abilities into the flavor text, but essentially the six eyes I created had a base state called 'Infinity' that ran passively nonstop. It was an impenetrable barrier that basically stopped any attack from injuring me. In the flavor text it's explained more in-depth as an barrier that didn't exactly stop anything from entering- rather, it slowed things down to an astronomically low speed making it impossible to hit me. It operates the same way convergent and divergent sequences do in mathematics. The Infinity is the convergence of an immeasurable series, anything that approaches the infinity slows down and never reaches the user. This is because it takes the 'finite' amount of space between the two subjects and divides it an infinite amount of times.

In mathematical terms, no matter how many times someone divides a number it will never be reduced to zero. Instead, they will be left with fractional units so infinitesimal it would become immeasurable to their eye. This did not mean that I was invincible though, the devs would not allow such a item to exist. The barrier could obviously be bypassed by world items, and depending on the circumstance, it was possible for another World Champion Item or Guild weapon could bypass it as well. But that all depended on what abilities those items had. With all of this in mind, I still couldn't shake my uneasiness. It's probably because of the weird occurrences that have been happening since I've been here.

After a few more hours of flying around, I finally started to see the fog from the clouds clearing up a little. It was easier to see further in the distance. Moments later I came face to face with some kind of path that was connecting the frozen mountains beyond the clouds. Seeing this I knew I had to be heading in the right direction, I landed and began walking along the path. The ground was built using some kind of cobblestone- similar to the material used to build medieval castles.

After a couple of mins of walking, I found that the path I followed was leading to a dead end. In front of me was a huge glacier, I honestly questioned how this route was even standing strong. Seeing this glacier, I did not stop walking, this was the only path I saw that was actually taking me somewhere, even if it wasn't going to lead me to Utgard, it would definitely take me to some hidden area. I knew that the devs did not put all this here for nothing, they were 100% hiding something here.

Due to my ghostly traits, I walked straight through the glacier appearing on the other side of it. I was right! The path continued beyond this glacier, and further down the path, I could clearly see some sort of castle. As I walked along the path I looked at my surrounding. It snowed heavily this high up on the mountains, I'm sure if demi-human or human players were up here they would get some sort of freeze status if they weren't properly geared for this place, compared to the other mountains further back, this place was more like a blizzard. To the right of the path I was walking on, there were some woods- similar to the woods that were by the lake down at ground level, however, these were drenched in snow, I couldn't see any green on these trees due to each tree being drowned in snow. I could hear the loud roars of creatures inside of the woods but I wasn't interested in any of them. The castle in front of me was more important.

The left side of the path was more dangerous in my opinion, there was a deep trench that I saw no bottom too, it looked like if a person was to fall in there, they would continue falling forever. The deeper you looked, the darker the trench got.

I finally made it to the walls of the castle. The walls were enormous, and it was obvious that they were thick as well, maybe 4-5 feet thick? The gate was already open, making me feel as if someone was welcoming me to enter. (Image here Possibly lol)

As soon as I entered and took my first step inside the gate I received a notification from the quest.

[ You have entered Utgards Stronghold! Skrymir is waiting for you...]

*Ding*

[ Due to being the first explorer of the dungeon { Utgard's Stronghold }, You have received a bonus 10% boost in EXP gain as well as treasures! ]

Hm? So this is a dungeon? I didn't expect that, usually Class Advancement Quests require a player to do specific things depending on what the class is oriented in. For example, a production-oriented class would have to create a certain item with a specific Class rarity depending on the quest's difficulty, and/or if the Class was warrior/Magic oriented the player would have to fight some sort of area boss monster. This quest is taking me into a dungeon, but I guess it's fair considering the reward for this quest will most likely be a rare class.

I began walking through the stronghold, it didn't take long before I met the first monsters of this place. They were giants comparable to the ones in the woods by the lake, however, these were covered in thick white fur. The monsters names appeared in my field of view.

[ Frost Giant ]

***

This is such a big dungeon, I've been moving through here for about 30 mins now. The monsters have gotten much stronger since I first arrived. One thing that has been making me uneasy is the fact that each time I kill one of these giants when they die the normal death animation doesn't happen. Instead, they disappear the way an illusion clone would, I've used the sell many times so I am familiar with its effects. These guys are illusions, nevertheless, they are still strong. They also dropped items of their own, not only weapons but also materials like [ Tooth of A Frost Giant ] or [ Liver of The Frost Giant ], It most likely useful for an alchemist but I will still collected these items since everything has there worth.

Right now I am finally in front of the castle doors, this whole time I was only traveling towards the castle I still hadn't made it. Directly in front of the giant double doors were two Frost Giants guarding with large sticks in their hands. Through my time here I experimented with many spells to see which one were more effective and it was obviously fire.

I walked causally towards the doors and chanted "[ Twin Magic: Fire lance ], This easily got rid of the two giants in front of me. I walked pass the disintegrating two Frost Giants and pushed the door open. As soon as I walked in a shadow jumped out and attacked me, it's speed was so fast that I only could catch a blur. The attack hit against the infinity barrier, not making contact with me at all, even if it did it would simply just go through my body. I moved to rearrange myself so I could get a better view at what was in front of me.

As I finally got a clear look on what I was facing, I saw whiskers, a tail, it was on four legs. Immediately I understood that this was a cat of some sort, and just like everything else in this place, it was enormous. The creature's name appeared in my field of view as I read it in my head.

[ Útgarða-Loki's Cat ]