I read this novel where the different sections of the game are closed off until a player or a party clears a route to them, I also remember a sky section where they had to build skyboats to travel there . Thanks .
They climb a cliff but they never mentioned any "skyboards" in Only Sense Online(Up to volume 10)~ BOFURI on the other hand they can buy those at the shop but they don't really need to build one of those~ Well Maple got her Machine God Mode there tho~
The novel also had a achievement system , like getting to new area first , or first kill , first clears , exploring etc Mc used these achievements to get ahead of others
No, that's definitely "One Man Army" which you are describing, the same descriptions as where I had stopped that novel.