Dungeons are hidden areas with a high mana density or natural treasures. In these areas, groups of single or multiple monster types reside. Some dungeons are even known to inhabit only a single powerful monster. Dungeons are places of extreme wealth as they are filled with monsters that will nearly always condense a core after death, and many other riches grow inside of them like rare herbs, mana-infused ores, crystals, and even equipment from fallen adventurers. The high mana density will attract or even form new inhabitants over time and represent a great source of power.

Nations in control of multiple dungeons will naturally amass great wealth and grow powerful individuals over time. As the resources and monsters inside need time to regrow, dungeons are often sealed off for longer periods before being reopened and cleaned again. Dungeon reopenings are great events that attract many adventurers in search of power and wealth. But opening a sealed dungeon after many years can be dangerous.

The best example is the great dungeon of Asmador that was reopened after two hundred years in the kingdom of Salstan. Today Salstan is nothing more than a monster-infested ruin.

Lena was kind of bored. After her glorious start into adventure a week ago she hadn´t seen a single monster or other living entity. The fact that she hadn´t encountered other travelers was expected as she wasn´t traveling on a road. But the fact that even birds seemed to avoid her wasn´t nice. They could probably sense undead beings or some other natural racist shit that existed only to hurt her feelings.

"Damn be those stupid animals, I don´t need them to enjoy traveling." she said to a rock beside her.

"Stop looking at me like that. I´m not lonely." as the rock didn´t seem to believe her she punched him into dust.

It was true so, she was bored, the changing landscape around her wasn´t really fun to watch either. The endless trees and bushes had only been replaced by endless grass, rocks, and small hills. In the end, it was all the same. Lena needed something new, something with lots of action. She wanted a good fight. The problem was that everything she could fight was fleeing before she could even see it. Looking down on the innocent once-rock-now-dust at her feet she let out a sight.

"The faster I reach Knightfall the faster I get something to fight." she continued her travel North, trying to avoid the innocent murder of rocks on her way, and dreamed about how she would be fighting mighty foes.

The next day Lena was rumbling about a coward deer that she had seen that morning and that had fled the moment it saw her when she heard a powerful roar. Within a second, mana rushed through her entire body and she dashed towards the monstrous roar, swords in hand. Her entire body brimmed with mana as she pushed her body to move as fast as possible, rushing towards her target. Who cares about a deer, that sounds far better. She thought after another monstrous roar echoed over the fields.

A few moments later she stood before a crack in the middle of a wide field. Like a scar, the large crack split the ground open and gave way to a dark passage that lead deep inside the earth. A third roar thundered up from the crack and Lena grinned under her mask. Maybe she didn´t have to wait until she reached Knightfall to have a good fight. She didn´t think twice before jumping down into the dark. After all, it was time to hunt.

Soon enough she was running through dark corridors leading deeper into the crack. The walls seemed to be carved into the rock, forming clear and flat corridors leading in multiple directions at once. After another roar thundered towards her, Lena heard the sound of distant battle. Unimpressed by the darkness around her she followed the sound of clashing steel, turning left and right until she suddenly stood in front of a massif wall. The corridor just stopped.

"Is this a labyrinth?" she was about to turn around and search for another way when she noticed something else. The silence. The sounds of battle had stopped and not a single monster roar could be heard.

"Did I miss it?" she asked into the darkness. After more than a week of constant boring travel, she couldn´t have missed such a chance.

Lena decided that she wanted to know what exactly she had heard, and so she made her way back and took another corridor. It turned out that it actually was a labyrinth. After reaching another dead-end she decided that she hated labyrinths as much as being dead. Running in circles for hours without finding anything relevant was the worst thing that she could think of. At this point, she didn't even know how to get back to the entrance anymore. How was she supposed to ever find that monster if she didn´t even manage to get out of these corridors?

In the middle of the dark, surrounded by dark stone and silent corridors Lena had an idea. Every monster had at least some kind of mana sense as it was necessary for their survival, but undead often had an additional detection ability. Life sense. Undead monsters were feared for multiple reasons, one of the most important was that they were often attacking humans apparently due to their natural ability to sense living beings.

There were many theories why undead possessed this extra detection ability. Most people thought it was their natural hatred against humans as they were rejected by the gods and condemned to eternal death, or some other widely exaggerated things. She herself had believed many of these things but thanks to Eshen´s library she now knew better. Most of the stories about undead were overly dramatic and told to scare children. That didn´t mean that they were innocent misunderstood monsters. No, the undead were dangerous and they were the cause of many massacres, but their ability to sense living beings wasn´t there to enable them to better hunt humans.

Undead didn´t have great vision aside from dark-vision and many types of undead were even completely blind. It was only natural that they had extra senses in order to find mana. In fact, many monsters had an extra sense to find prey or detect threats. Lena found it ridiculous that many humans were more afraid of undead than other monsters. Undead were far from the most dangerous monsters in the world.

With a long sigh she sat on the hard ground of the corridor and closed her eyes. Lena had never tried to actively sense other living beings because she simply never had to. Right now it seemed to be her only chance to find her way through this labyrinth however.

The first thing she could feel was her core. As always it shone in bright silver, brimming with energy and power. The small silvery orb inside her chest pulsed in a regular manner, almost like a heartbeat except much slower, sending waves of pure energy through her body. To be able to peer inside her chest and to observe her new heart had been strange at first, but over the years with Eshen she had learned to enjoy it. To be able to sense her very being whenever she wanted, watching the strange orb had a soothing effect on her mind.

Right now however she needed to extend her perception outside of her body. Contrary to what she had expected it was relatively simple, after a couple minutes she knew that there were no living beings larger than a bat a hundred meters around her. The further out she tried to sense the harder it got, and she could feel that she started to use more mana than before. Lena didn´t stop however and after several hours she finally sensed something large. Like a lit torch in her mind she clearly felt a large living being several hundred meters behind her.

"Well, let´s see what hides in here." she said. Gripping her swords with a wicked smile she made her way down another dark corridor and towards the large being.

Even with a clear direction, navigating through the dark corridors wasn´t easy. Lena still faced more than one dead-end, but having a general direction still helped a lot and prevented her from running in circles for hours. She could feel that the large being was nearby, once she had actively detected it she was able to track it easily.

After a few more turns she noticed that the corridor was slowly getting larger and larger until it turned into large cavern. A moment later Lena stopped and looked at the massive structure that emerged from the cavern in front of her. A hundred meters before her stood a giant stone gate that seemed to be carved right out of the cave walls. With over ten meters in height the gate would probably even dwarf a giant. The two stone wings of the structure were covered in complex runes and stood wide open giving sight on a large hall.

Lena knew what this place was. She stood right in front of a dungeon entrance, and she intended to explore it.

Before she could step through the giant door however she heard a dull scratching noise from the ceiling. Without the time to even look up her body was smashed to the ground and Lena found herself face-first on the cold stone. Something heavy had fallen onto her head. She was rapidly getting up and looking at what had hit her from above. Beside her stood a large circular rock with a diameter of around fifty centimeters.

"Well, I guess that´s what you get for killing innocent rocks." she said. As she looked at the rock she saw a large black stain on it.

With sudden panic, she raised a hand to her head and felt that she had a large dent in her skull. The circular rock had fallen right onto her head. If she had still been a human she would have been dead on the spot. But now she didn´t even feel it, the deadly wound nothing more than an annoying fact.

"I guess that's the advantage of being undead." she mused uncomfortably and pushed more mana into her head in order to regenerate her deformed skull faster. She turned her back to the stone and made her way towards the gate. Another scratching noise made her stop and she turned around just in time to see the strange stone jump at her, impacting her chest a moment later. Lena was pushed back a few meters and was impacted by another large stone from the right. Thankfully her armor absorbed most of the impacts.

"What the hell are these?" she asked confused.

Before her stood two normal-looking circular stones. The new one was as large as the first but was covered in little stone spikes. They seemed to be normal rocks and she couldn´t feel any mana or live energy from them. But clearly, they had attacked her.

In the middle of a cave in front of a dungeon entrance, Lena had a showdown with two rocks. None of them moved. Swords in hand she faced them, ready to defend against any incoming attack. She tried to think of what these things were, but all she could think of were golems. But clearly, these things weren´t golems.

She was about to move closer to the stones when the spiky one moved. Slowly the large stone scratched over the hard cave ground, only a few centimeters but it was clearly moving. If these damn things hadn´t crushed her skull a few minutes prior she would have found them cute.

They both started to make their way towards her at a slow pace and Lena finally knew what they were. With a small sigh, she gripped her swords tight and rushed forward. With a single elegant slash, she cut the spiky one in half. Grey liquid splattered over the ground as the halved being seized to live. The second stone came flying towards her and she simply kicked it away. The dark stone cracked a little and revealed some soft grey mass beneath. Before the monster could jump at her again Lena put her armored boot onto the circular stone, holding it in place.

"That's what you get for attacking me." she said and stomped the stone with all her force.

Like an egg, the outer stone shell cracked and the slime beneath was splattered over the ground.

"To think that a stupid slime managed to injure me. I can´t let Eshen know that otherwise, he will laugh at me for days."

Well, it hadn´t really hurt her, it had only damaged her body. As long as her inner mana or core wasn´t damaged it was nearly impossible to hurt her. The fact that these slimes could hide from her sense was interesting however and she was eager to see what the large being inside the dungeon could do. Without further sneak attacks, she made her way towards the gate and stepped through.

As soon as her core passed the entrance she felt the heavy mana around her. Normally the mana in the air around her would be nothing but a wage feeling, but here, the mana hung around her like a thick mist. It wasn´t enough for her to live without other mana sources but the extra mana density was nonetheless nice. The mana strain on her core was significantly lower. It was a good feeling.

Her injured skull was completely healed, the sole indicator of the former wound was a patch of sticky hair with black blood. But Lena didn´t care.

She stepped into a large hall of pure stone and made her way towards the large monster that lay behind the next carved doorway. She wasn´t sure if it would give her a challenge but she was only at the beginning of the dungeon. Whatever lay deep inside this dungeon should be ready to face the greatest undead of all times.