Rieze Maxia

Rieze Maxia (リーゼ・マクシア) is a continent in Tales of Xillia and Tales of Xillia 2. During the events of Tales of Xillia, Rieze Maxia is separated from the rest of the world via a powerful arte known as the 'schism'. In Tales of Xillia 2, the barrier that separated it from Elympios is gone and the continent is in the middle of cultural change along with Elympios.

Geography
As mentioned above, Rieze Maxia is a continent which in comparison to known Elempios has a size of a very large island. Through the course of two games, roughly 60% of the continent is available for exploration, all around a large bay where in the middle lies the mining island of Leronde. While the continent is mostly covered in mountains, there are several open plains. Of particular interest is Nia Khera, a village whose residents are followers of Maxwell, the Great Spirit who created Rieze Maxia; Milla's Shrine, where Milla Maxwell, an incarnation of Maxwell resides, and Nia Khera Hallowmont on top of which lies a portal to Temporal Crossroads, a realm between Rieze Maxia and the Spirit Realm. The Fezebel Marsh is also an important location due to the events that happened there twenty years before the events of Tales of Xillia known as Battle of Fezebel. The Fezebel Marsh is also considered by Rieze Maxians a land border of sort between the Auj Oule to the north and Rashugal to the south. There is also an Elympios ship, E.S.S. Zenethra, from where Exodus commands their agents working on their way back home.

Birth of Spyrix
After the creation of the world, humans and spirits coexisted together, humans unaware of the latter. However, there were legends which spoke of being able to commune with spirits to use abilities known as 'spirit artes'. The spirit artes were not really effective in people's eyes as their power and the time taken to cast them was variable due to the mana lobe in human brain. In time, humans invented technology known as spyrix which bypassed the limits of mana lobe allowing people to wield the same power indiscriminately. There was a drawback to using spyrix technology: its usage killed spirits. Maxwell saw it and contacted Kresnik whom he informed about the matter. Despite Kresnik informing her people of spirits, few people believed her and the usage of spyric continued. After some time, Maxwell decided to create a sealed world where there would be no spyrix technology so the spirits would not die. He gathered his believers, animals, and spirits which he hoped to use to repopulate the world after Elympios would die out. This resulted in creation of Rieze Maxia and creating a protective barrier called schism.

Trivia

 * Rieze comes from the German word Riese which means "giant". Maxia is of Gaelic origin and means "magic".