"What is it?" said Li. He looked up to Asala with immediate concern and then followed the direction of her serpentine gaze. His senses were currently tuned down because he was not in combat, but even then, nothing truly important should ever slip by him.

"I see," said Li. 

Up ahead perhaps twenty hundred meters, the end of the Midpath bridge stood. Twin pillars of obelisk stone stood from each other, carved in with countless light runes that channeled the mighty power of the Midpath from one end to the other.

Beyond it, there lay a gigantified forest. Trees that towered over a hundred meters tall that grew in such clusters they would quickly begin to blot out the sun entirely. This, Li was not surprised about. He had seen it coming from far ahead, of course. 

But what he did note was that there seemed to be a ripple in space flowing from the obelisks marking the end of the bridge. A very faint, almost imperceptible ripple. 

"I am surprised you even caught that. You have sharp eyes," said Li to Asala.

"Not mine own," said Asala. "But when I am in the presence of the magics of mine goddess, these senses of mine are greatly sharpened." 

"Hm." Li scrutinized the end of the bridge as the Vukanovi neared it. He did not stop the party yet. This ripple was not at all like the strange dimensional rift that Lira guarded.

No, this was entirely different. In feeling, primarily, for this ripple did not emanate with a deadened cold. But in basic shape, too. The spatial distortion seemed to have an even, flowing pattern resembling a spiral instead of a chaotic mess of twisted and warped space. 

From this spiral, Li by heightening his senses could feel normal Elden World magical energy emanating from it. He remembered too where these spiral spatial patterns formed from. 

He of all people would have been incredibly familiar with this.

"This is an entrance to a dungeon," said Li. 

"Thou doth know of dungeons?" said Asala, surprised, though quickly, she grew calm, knowing that nothing about Li should truly surprise her for long. Still, she peaked down to her tablet and scratched a note in it. 

"Yes. But I had not expected to encounter any. I have not seen any so far," said Li. "And no records or books that I have read seem to ever mention them. Do any of you other than Asala-," said Li as he turned to the rest of the party, his eyes flickering green. "Know anything about dungeons?"

"Nay," said Old Thane. 

Mason and Mercer shook their heads.

Vilga narrowed her eyes to signify she did not know and that she was listening, and Sheela cocked her head like a confused cat.

"Dungeon? Sounds like a bad place!" said Tia as she tugged at Li's sleeve. "Are-are we going to bad place?"

"Let me see," said Li. His eyes flashed even brighter green, and he analyzed the density of magical energy coming from the spiral of warping space. 

In Elden World, Spiral Doors indicated the presence of hidden dungeons, and using a general [Sense] skill could yield the average level of monsters in a dungeon, though some dungeons were impossible to use clairvoyance magic on. 

Thankfully, this dungeon did not seem hidden. 

The approximate level of monsters in this dungeon ranged from 30 to 50. Li put a hand to his chin, assessing this information. Tia could survive on her own in this dungeon, as could Asala. Old Thane, Vilga, and Sheela could probably manage by working together.

Mason and Mercer, though, well, they were basically just ants. They were level 19 and 17 respectively. Even these levels were a result of having leveled 3 times since the beginning of their adventure with Li. 

They would need Li's support.

"Well, not too bad," said Li. "Most of you can handle passing through to the dungeon. You two-," Li pointed to Mason and Mercer. "Will have to stay beside me to be in range of my buffs. Otherwise, you will die."

"I will never leave your side, good seer," said Mercer as he kneeled, and Mason looked awkwardly at his younger brother for a moment before kneeling with him. 

"Okay, we do not do that here," said Li as he beckoned them up. "Instead of kneeling, think about how to fight and survive. You two will have to leave my side and fight, I will not entirely be a babysitter. Again, I might be the seer of a divine entity, but I do not want fanatical worship that relies entirely on me.

That said, I will not let you two die, I did promise to let you reach the main camp in the Hinterlands, but if I see you two are not trying particularly hard, well, I cannot promise my healing will be prompt to heal wounds from mistakes." 

"Understood," said Mason, and his brother nodded along. 

Li did not mention it, but he was also curious about the concept of leveling. With Hollow Branch items, every single person in this party would possess items that grew with their own levels.

But how did leveling itself work? This was a seemingly fundamental question that Li had completely ignored because he was far too strong for it to matter and because until now, he never really cared much about leveling those under him. 

Was it the same as the game? Killing a monster to gain experience? It did seem so. After all, the brothers did level up. But they leveled at a rate far slower than they would have under Elden World game mechanics. 

Simply being in Li's presence as he smote down mighty creatures would have given them residual experience.

But it seemed unless they were the ones to fight and put down a creature with their own effort, they received little to no experience.

The same followed for Tia, hence why Li allowed her to fight so much by herself now. 

"That being said, let me familiarize you all on what a dungeon is," said Li. He put a didactic finger up. "Anything past that spiral door leads into what is essentially an entirely different space. A whole new dimension, if I remember correctly.

Once you enter, you cannot exit the same way. There will be exits, but only further in the dungeon. Or you can simply traverse the entire length of the dungeon and find an exit that way. Traditionally, dungeons will be layered.

Spaces stacked upon each other. So you reach the end of one layer, and then you find another Spiral Door to the next layer, and so on. At certain layers, there may be strong monsters you must defeat to progress, or in some cases, you may simply evade them.

Every layer of a dungeon can be highly distinct from each other with different environments. It is therefore extremely difficult to completely prepare for a dungeon, requiring a diverse party with diverse equipment. In our case, however, you have me, and I can easily take the role of an entire one-man party."

Everyone nodded along to Li, taking deep interest in his words. He felt odd explaining what a dungeon was this far into his stay in this world.

Why was is that there were no dungeons? Li had once thought they simply did not exist in this world. But then again, he had not left the bounds of Riviera, so perhaps he was simply not traveled enough. 

"Anything you wish to add, Asala?" said Li, seeing whether she knew more that he did not. 

"That is quite an apt explanation, O seer," said Asala. She paused for a few seconds, putting her stylus to her red lips as she thought. "Dungeons are records of near myth. Many there were following the Convergence, but many did the gods seal with their might.

That the Gigant be a dungeon doth vex me. The records hath stated that the Gigant a space that mortals traveled through well in times past with the guardian of the Gigant, the primal spirit Skadi, leading the way for mortals through her blessed waters. 

For those that eschewed her blessing, they were left to challenge the harsh Gigant with their own might, and thus far, there hath been none but Lira the Seeker who hath truly traversed the Gigant without the aid of Skadi."

"All the more reason we should be ready to fight," said Li. "Like undead gatherings that tend to center around a single entity, Spiral Doors are often linked to a powerful monster. In this case, I suppose it is this Skadi that Asala speaks of." 

"Tis quite odd, though," said Asala. "Skadi, daughter of the primordial giant, was much unlike her father, favoring the lives of mortals. She wouldst never have closed her home from the world like this."

"Much time has passed since the last time anyone has come here," said Li. "Who knows what it is like now. Regardless, we will find out. I figure that will give you something to write about, no?"

Asala smiled, readying another tablet. "I doth suppose so." 

The two spoke to each other with a light air even as everyone else in the party grew serious at the prospect of fighting a Primal Spirit and a whole host of monsters. Asala was fearless because of her devotion to recording even that which was dangerous, and Li was fearless because of his might.