Liz returned to the dungeon a day later. Equipped with a backpack filled to the brim with broth, now with even less garlic, various other implements and the entire set of arrows. She wanted to test each of the types, especially the experimental ones, against a moving enemy.

Liz stopped in the antechamber. She placed the heavy backpack near the ramp. The cats did a short patrol of the rotunda before making themselves comfortable around the backpack, without direction from Liz. They seemed to understand Liz and her intentions more with every passing day.

And so Liz started the 'training'. It was to be limited to one part of the round room, exactly opposite the entrance. When Liz wanted to drag the remains of the previous two undead to said part, she found one of them missing.

'What the fuck? Did it reanimate again? But where is it?'

After a quick search of the whole room yielded no results, how could it if the cats had done the same just minutes before, Liz just shrugged it off and continued with her plan.

'I will probably encounter it again at a later stage. I don't think this tomb is so big that I will not cross paths with it.'

She started by freeing the first undead. She didn't charge it with any mana. Keeping things slow at first. For now, she tried to defeat them with normal, hopefully retrievable, arrows. Liz just wasn't sure what made the animation perish and wanted to find out. Although she saw little chance of success with the normal arrows, with them only piercing and not actually taking out chunks of flesh.

Surprisingly the mundane arrows worked. The emphasis had to be on arrow'S', as it took an entire quiver of forty arrows to make the undead drop down. To be fair, only 18 even hit the warrior. Still, nearly all of them went through the mushy flesh like butter, now buried deep in the rib cage, neck and even eye. Nothing a living human would survive for as long as the zombie.

-- You have killed a [Lost Warrior - lvl 32] --

Liz retrieved the arrows, and tried again with another.

-- You have killed a [Lost Warrior - lvl 32] --

And another.

-- You have killed a [Lost Warrior - lvl 32] --

And a lot more afterwards.

Until she felt a second notification after another kill.

-- You have killed a [Lost Warrior - lvl 32] --

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 21. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

'YES! So it works for leveling the class. I guess it's time to spice things up a bit!'

The two new points were automatically distributed in Dexterity and Perception. The other three, Liz spent on Vitality, bringing her health even closer to its former glory.

By now, about a dozen kills in, Liz had steadily improved her handling of the bow and anticipating the slow movements of the zombies. It still took around 17-20 arrows to fell each, but Liz now only missed around 10-15 arrows and hit her desired target area more often.

The next few dozen of undead she started to imbue with more and more mana stopping once she started to struggle with hitting them. While it didn't yield any more level gains at first, Liz still continued improving her use of the bow.

Sometime in between she retreated to the ramp and 'ate' another one of her meals.

When she started to feel tired, she stopped. She had accumulated quite a pile of bodies. It was true carnage. While Liz herself had little of the black blood or flesh on herself, it still covered most of the ground. That was something she had discovered with the mana imbued undead: they would bleed black blood when struck. At first Liz had considered it a fluke, but after ten bodies in row had released the black liquid, she had realized the correlation with the mana. Why it happened, she had no idea. Just that it was disgusting.

She decided to call it a day and return to the fort to meet her need for rest and cleansing agent.

-- [Arcane Blast] has reached level 11 --

-- [Spell Channeling] has reached level 8 --

-- [Call of the Hunt] has reached level 6 --

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 22. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

Looking through the notifications and missing a level-up from Mana Draw, Liz was reminded of her initial goal of gathering crystals.

'Maybe deeper in the walls give way to natural stone with crystals growing on it! I hope. Only one way to find out!'

Her somber mood of the previous weeks had finally gone. Instead, she anticipated the next day, hopefully just as fruitful as this one. The previous weeks, she had never gained so many levels in just one day. And without a single injury.

Happy about her achievements, Liz went to sleep after washing the stench out of the armor.

The next morning she was up early, getting ready for another day in the dungeon.

After a quick bath and meal, she descended into the dungeon once again. The cats didn't even bother to accompany her.

As she reached the round room, Liz realized that this might be a mistake, as she heard noises from deeper in the tunnels. Cracking and crunching sounded from the darkness. Additionally, the heap of her carnage from the day before had reduced severely. Dozens of dead undead were missing.

'Oh shit! Did they also resurrect? Why did I have produce so many unsealed bodies yesterday? Now they are all let loose! I am an idiot! Or is it some other monster?'

Before Liz took another step into the room, she drew her bow and nocked the most powerful explosion arrow she had. Additionally, she started charging Arcane Blast, to be let loose on whatever hid in the darkness.

Tense, she started advancing on one of the corridors emitting the strange sounds. She entered it while covering the light-orb in her sleeve, dampening the light to a minimal intensity.

The corridor went in a slight curve and as Liz rounded the sharpest part of it, on her toes without making a sound, she saw the source of the noise.

Occupying the middle of the corridor was massive monster who reached just shy of Liz's shoulder. It was with its back towards her. Around it, undead bodies were strewn, most missing most of their limbs, an injury not caused by Liz's attacks.

[Grave Mole - lvl ?]

In the same moment, Liz's hold on the light-orb lapsed, letting it slip free of its cover. The mole instantly turned its head towards her. As soon as it saw Liz, purplish white runes dimly covering her arms, it stopped munching on the severed arm in its mouse-like snout, dropped it and uttered a squeaking sound, displaying a maw filled with rows of terrifying teeth.

But instead of attacking her like all other creatures in this realm so far, it turned and ran into the darkness, propelled by two incredibly bulky hind-legs and shovel-like hands, with a speed Liz just couldn't match.

'Huh, a carrion eating mole? Yuck! At least it doesn't seem to be inclined to attack the living, those teeth may be good to grind bone, but they don't look like fun to living tissue either'

Liz returned to the round chamber and moved towards the remaining corridors emitting the crunching sounds. This time she didn't hide her light. Even before she entered most tunnels the crunching stopped and Liz only ever found heaps of half-eaten undead.

'Guess they don't reanimate. They were all just eaten.'

Again, Liz wasn't inclined enough towards the deceased to carry the remains back or stop the mole from treating them as their food. If her observations were right, the moles had done this long before she came around. Their legs were just the right size to destroy the stone sarcophagi. And Liz had no delusions, that they would stop when she was eventually gone. And she didn't plan on uncovering all undead, just enough to get to level 32 as she concluded that afterwards their efficiency for leveling would wane considerably. Right now she likely had just provided the moles with an easy-to-access feast.

And so she continued with the undead in the round room. Around a quarter of the former amount still remained, sealed in.

Today, Liz decided to test the different arrow types, as she now possessed enough accuracy to hopefully not miss with the rare arrows. She wanted to stay as far away from them as possible, the labels on many arrows sounded very gory.

And they were gory. The worst offenders were: Flesh-eating, 'Blood boiling' and the worst yet 'Flames of Annihilation'. As it turns out undead burn very well.

Luckily the undead going up in flames had distanced itself from the carnage corner. And so only it burned up in an instant.

Liz immediately stowed all fire arrows as far from her reach as possible. She wasn't going to risk setting fire to the dungeon.

Now equipped with the knowledge of the different 'modifications' by Wulfram, Liz continued with normal arrows and mana-charged undead. To do so she needed to leave the antechamber and enter the corridors.

Until she reached a second room. This one was square and held rows upon rows of sealed undead. It had a vaulted ceiling similar to the corridors.

In the room she started 'fighting' two and eventually up to 4 at the same time. Until she became tired again and rested in the tower on the surface.

This continued for another three days until Liz became tired of it and instead decided to explore the dungeon without killing everything in her way first. During the three days she had encountered the moles several times. They would always run away before Liz neared any of them. They all also had similar levels of forty to forty-four. A number she was now able to see, as Arcane Mage had leveled to level 29.

-- You have learned the skill [Archery] --

-- [Arcane Blast] has reached level 12 --

-- [Arcane Blast] has reached level 13 --

-- [Spell Channeling] has reached level 9 --

⋮

-- [Spell Channeling] has reached level 10 --

-- [Call of the Hunt] has reached level 7 --

-- [Archery] has reached level 2 --

⋮

-- [Archery] has reached level 5 --

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 23. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

⋮

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 29. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

Her stat progress was astounding as well.

Vitality: 24 (+7)

Endurance: 23 (+8)

Strength: 22 (+9)

Dexterity: 27 (+4)

Perception: 31 (+4)

Wisdom: 33 (+4)

Intelligence: 31 (+4)

Now there was no single stat below 31. Yet the effects of more points in each had diminished accordingly. It really felt like Liz neared some unknown ceiling. Whether she would reach it or if the power increments would lock in on some lower value in the future, she had no idea.

But the biggest wonder had been the acquisition of [Archery]. It had presented itself shortly after starting to 'fight' with three undead at the same time. It acted just like all other skills, suddenly giving a slight boost to her capabilities. In its case, it had slightly improved Liz's aim, an instinctive subconscious nudging towards correctly handling the bow.

It caused her failed shots to decrease even further. But what was most interesting was how Liz understood her equipment a bit better. At lvl 3 of the skill she had realized that the string could be tensioned a bit more. Adjusting the bow according to her hunch, made the shots so much easier to control.

The Shadownyx, especially Nick, had occasionally visited, sometimes watching the shows, other times only to remind Liz of feeding time. When they were present they could detect the arrival of a Revenant early.

Revenants were a true nuisance. Every now and again one would simply materialize and attack Liz. While they were all dispersed with a single Arcane shot, their random arrivals often came at the most unwanted moments.

But now, bow in her hand, Liz casually strolled through the dungeon, no felines by her side. On the second morning she had started making a map on a bit of paper. She was now adding the bits and pieces still unknown to her.

Her early assumption of this being a small structure had been proven untrue. It was massive. There was a extensive ring of rooms connected to each other in a circle. There had to be at least a dozen rooms. Liz couldn't say for sure as only seven rooms were accessible to her. The rest was obstructed by cave-ins in the tunnels. But there were still dozens of smaller rooms connected to the circle. Not to mention the corridors every three rooms towards the center of the circle, also buried in rubble.

Right now, Liz was looking for an unobstructed way into the center of the structure.

'That's where the loot always is'

She was promptly distracted when she heard another of the moles and went to investigate the small side-room the sound came from.

The way was obstructed with immense amounts of rubble, the likely reason why Liz hadn't searched the room before. After climbing through the corridor, Liz was presented with a surprise.

In the corner of the room a small nest was made out of fine rubble. In it three small, barely knee-height moles looked up at Liz. But that wasn't what left Liz mouth-wide open. The floor and walls of half of them room were missing, giving way to a massive ravine. Covered with clusters of crystals.

Liz had long ago made the decision to ignore the moles. No matter how funny or cute they looked, they were still carrion eaters and just stunk to hell. Nothing Liz wanted anything to do with. Although she could afford more bonds by now. But not with these skittish grave robbers. Therefore, she left the three pups to their own devices and instead neared the steep drop in the floor.

This was a mistake. It turns out that, while grave moles ran from Liz in the open tomb, they defended their litter ferociously. Before she realized what happened, Liz was tumbling down into the ravine while a mix of a growl and squeak came from behind her.

'Oh fuck!'

On instinct, her hands reached out and managed to grip a ledge just underneath the floor. Her body weight caused her arms to stretch taut. Yet her increased strength let her manage to barely hold on. From just above her the parent mole was still madly squeaking at her.

She was dangling just out of reach of the angry beast. But also out of reach of any other way up besides the floor ledge occupied by the massive maw filled with grindstone-like teeth.

Her only way was further down, as she couldn't hold on for much longer. Below her the ravine continued for about fifty meters before reaching a deadly jagged floor, littered with stalagmites ready to impale any body coming from above.

The best option was another small ledge a few meters beneath her and on the opposite side of the ravine. With as much force as she could muster, Liz pushed herself of the wall and reached for the opposite ledge.

She barely managed to get hold of it, before her body weight again slammed into her arms. She lost some grip and slipped to the point, that only her fingers were still clinging to the ledge desperately.

The angry squeaks still echoed through the ravine as Liz slowly moved her grip further up the ledge, careful not to slip again. Thankfully the ravine was not damp like the cellars.

Pushing herself up with the elbows, Liz finally managed to crest the ledge. As much as her strength and condition had magically improved with her levels, the unexpected climb left her lying on the ledge exhausted.

With her upwards facing view, she could perfectly see her assailant still stare down at her, moving from one side to the other finding no way to reach her.

But this also meant that Liz had no way to reach it in turn. Her movement was limited to her side of the ravine.

'Fuck! And of course the bond doesn't reach the cats right now'

Under the angry gaze of the mole, she started to take in her situation. The climbing in the corridor had luckily forced her to strap the bow to her back. The backpack was also still there. The only casualty was another light-orb, now adorning the ravine-floor.

The ravine was mostly covered in crystals, only near the open room no crystals grew. Liz surmised that the structure had disturbed its surroundings too much. Thankfully this also meant, that she could see another crystal-free spot just a few meters to her left. On her side of the ravine. Unfortunately the jagged walls and subsequent shadows made viewing whatever caused the bald spot impossible from her position.

Carefully inspecting the wall left Liz in the impression that the wall should hold her, should she decide to shimmy over. The mole still squeaked at her.

"I get it! I disturbed your nest! You made your point!" Liz shouted at the beast grating on her nerves. To be fair she was rather annoyed with her own stupidity leaving her in her current situation. She had been careless in a dangerous dungeon and was now paying the price.

As no other way presented itself to her in the ensuing moment of rest, Liz eventually decided to shimmy her way over to the suspected structure of the dungeon.

It thankfully was part of the dungeon as Liz wouldn't have made it back had it proven otherwise. The only problem was that it was walled off. And the wall looked pristine. Liz estimated her best option to be to blast at it from the small ledge she was standing on. Fortunately there were dozens of mana crystals to draw power from. Plucking the few she could reach, Liz started to wear down the wall of massive stone blocks.

It felt like forever until Liz finally managed to breach the thirty centimeter thick wall. It took at least half an hour more until she had widened the hole enough to allow her to crawl through. The mole had thankfully stopped its agitated show and left Liz to her own devices after about half an hour.

With the hole finally wide enough, Liz crawled through into the unknown. She had learned from her previous mistake and held a dagger in her hand. For good reason, as she was surprised to find the room she was now in to be completely different from the ones she had been in before.

There were still the sarcophagi, but none were destroyed, neither were the walls. New were also the dim lines of light connecting to each of the stone pedestals and bundling in the middle before leaving the room together.

The lines that additionally hurt to look at.

'What the fuck? What is this?'

Careful of anything getting the jump on her, Liz inspected the lines on the floor. They felt like an overcharged runic framework, but she could see no rune anywhere.

'Is this the other kind of enchantment Garuna spoke of? Manipulation by will? But for what?'

Whatever it was, it must have preserved the structure as it was in a truly pristine condition in comparison to the rest of the dungeon. Hesitant to touch the enchantment, Liz moved through the room and towards the exit. There was only one, letting Liz recognize her current location as one of the small side rooms. The exit however was in the direction that led towards the center of the circular dungeon, not the outer circle like the rooms before. So no real exit. Rather an entrance deeper into the dungeon.

'Let's hope there is a secondary entrance to the inner dungeon, else I really have to go back through the ravine'

Liz entered the corridor. Every few meters more lines from the pedestals in the alcoves combined with the bundle. All moving through the corridor towards an unknown destination.

'It connects all sarcophagi? But to what? And for what purpose?'

Liz eventually entered another round room. Just like the outer ring it connected to about a dozen more rooms. Unlike the outer rooms, it was heavily decorated, even marble adorned the walls. The dome topping the room was in pristine condition, displaying a massive mural. It showed an army charging an army of monsters of similar size. In front of the first army, made up of the beings entombed around Liz, a small figure rode atop a two headed horse, a crown cresting its head.

Before Liz could inspect the impressive artwork further, heavy footsteps came from one of the dark tunnels.