The two great swords. (2)

Eli appeared in an unfamiliar part of the forest. He felt quite light headed but other than this he was fine. After pulling himself together he looked around to familiarise himself and noticed an entrance that didn't fit in with the forest.

"What you seek Eli is beyond that wall."

"Oh..." and at this Eli made his way to the entrance.

To most his attitude towards a forest spirit was unacceptable. But to Heidi, she didn't care she was only disappointed that she couldn't help Eli further, as Eli approached the entrance where a massive door sat. The entrance was plastered onto the face of a giant rock that seemed to be sat besides the base of a hill.

Eli placed his palm on the entrance pouring mana on-to the door. The door-way shook and with a groan it moved to let him through into a pure dark cave. As he entered he looked behind to find Heidi gone.

He turned to focus on the task at hand but was met with darkness as the doorway closed behind him. As if on cue crystals lit up the area around him. "Oh... what a welcoming sight." Eli muttered to himself when he could finally see. The walls were littered with crystals as though they had simply sprouted and grown from the walls. If he didn't have a task at hand he would have stood to gaze and appreciate the beauty before him.

He walked on-wards for what seemed like an eternity and on his journey encountered 6.. no 7 doors in total that each required him to contribute mana to get past, but no traps, no monsters; maybe the information he was told really was accurate: he hoped it was, for his sake... Whilst he walked he remembered what Heidi had told him.

The actual trails in place that people had to overcome were purely based on mana. As soon as u went past the first gate-way it would close behind and it wouldn't open again. Each passed gate would close behind u forcing u forwards, each gate-way also required a significant mana contribution that seemed to get higher and higher the further u went.

All of the trails seemed to be designed to leech mana off you. This would mean progress was slow. Once a person run out of mana they would have to replenish their mana pool, however the dungeon played dirty, recovering mana was asking for the impossible as it somehow restricted people from doing so, unless you had potions on you which seemed to be the only solution available to people.

For those who didn't have potions they would die first, for those that did they will die later as you wouldn't be able to keep progressing since you would sooner or later meet your limit, once you did you would be trapped in that specific room with no way forwards nor backwards, this what was assumed were the trails in place.

Each room Eli was in seemed to have its own play sets of trophies, as he encountered skeletons of people/animals who seemed as though they had underestimated their limits. He did come across a cloak that he liked, he immediately wore it on himself. It was the right thing to-do as its owner was no longer needing it.

He further went through a few more doors losing count by this time. What he did notice however was the sight of death was retreating, the sight of skeletons had long stopped appearing in the rooms he traversed through.

When he looked around he found this room was unfamiliar compared to the others, after walking around for a while he couldn't find the supposed gate way that should have been there for the next room.

"Have I simply not noticed it?" he asked himself. He walked around further more, following the route of what appeared to be a tunnel, but he just seemed to end up back to his start point.

He was now well aware that something was amiss and this particular hurdle in place wasn't like the others. No matter where he walked he would always find himself back where he started.

Eli started to get irritated. Eli stood still for a while as the gears in his brain churned to find a logical explanation, a way out from this set back.

Eli started thinking out-loud "I wonder where the mana that's paid and absorbed from me actually goes?"

The fact that the challenges seemed to be aimed at draining a person's mana made getting the two swords seemingly impossible... But the question now was where did this mana go to? It had to be going somewhere and that would mean there had to be a gathering of huge amount of mana. Find where the mana gathered, find the swords.

Eli using a spell 'mana seer', this ability allowed a person to view any huge mana sources. At this moment through the wall that was infront of him he could see at a distance quite a substantial amount of mana.

Eli had officially found his target, he then built up a distance between him and the wall. He prepped himself, for a few seconds nothing happened till Eli's fists started to glow and he charged at the wall infront of him, as he connected his fist onto the wall the mana that got in contact with the wall shot-out like a shotgun. It was a low level close ranged spell.

To his surprise the wall actually did fall away. Which was welcoming to his gaze, maybe this was how the rooms were meant to be traversed in the first place. Had he used `mana seer` he would have noticed this, the fact that they were so weak as to allow him to burst through them with a low level spell further proved this. He had though of using mana seer but in the end he chose not to because he would rather just follow along for the ride than overexert himself, but now he had no choice.

His shotgun of a spell was made short work on the wall in-front of him. With just one blow he broke the wall in-front of him but he didn't stop there every single wall that he approached became his victim.

"Boom....Boom....Boom....Boom...."

The sound of walls meeting their demise was quite rhythmic. As the constant sounds of what appeared to be walls crumbling filled the dungeon.

As he broke through a wall infront of him he found himself in a much larger room and noticed he had finally arrived. Though he noticed their were two mana sources and one of them was radiating from a body of what appeared to be a dragon.

The dragon 'Dalzrenth' a dragon had been waiting for Eli.

At first he was aware that someone was in the dungeon but dismissed keeping track of them. Since it had been years before people had gotten past the first few trails. this person however was different because he noticed a spike in his mana output and it never seemed to waiver at all. This of-course was very abnormal the next thing he noticed was there was another spike in his mana output.

The mysterious challenger then started moving making a B line straight to his location, never seeming to slow down one step either. The dragon thought of this as impressive because to over come such trails in the dungeon he would have expected his progress to be slow. Further more he was the first to have been accepted by the dungeon.

The fact that it allowed him to willingly take a B- line straight to the heart of the dungeon showed that he met its requirements.

Yes the information, the stories, the rumors, regarding this dungeon were wrong. It itself would change what challenges each person faced till it met the right one. So whilst the information that was given to Eli was right, it was also wrong. Yes it was widely believed that the challenges that were in the dungeon were said to test a person's mana. This was true, however this didn't mean the trails in place were as simple as paying each door mana to open for you. Some would face countless monsters till they were eaten away, others would die to traps that were in place and no-one from the outside would know because none would survive the challenges in place. So for Eli to simply traverse each room, by simply paying mana was the dungeon itself guiding him, to where it wanted him to go.

He grew in excitement. Just as he was in deep thought the walls to the heart of the dungeon exploded but he was immediately alarmed by what he saw.

His eyes! The dragon recalled seeing such eyes years ago. The red crimson eyes possessed by this abnormal challenger were the same eyes that he had once seen on a demon lord, but weren't the demon lords sealed away? As this mysterious person approached him.