Leylines are difficult to track but if my guess is correct then just beyond this bush should be...

  My hand reached out and grabbed the thin stalk of a fern, the fan-like plant took the rest of the shrubbery with it when I pushed it aside and gave me space to look past the undergrowth and into the grove where...

  ... Nothing is sitting. This place is a hotspot for magical energies though and the vein runs for at least a few dozen more feet so if I follow this trail then I should be able to spot the mender's cottage.

  The area is familiar to me now, I've seen it in game. The biggest thing that jogged my memory however was the group of giant boulders that looked like a pair of boobies. It probably wasn't intentional game design, or I guess a natural rock formation in this case, but I still find it amusing.

  I am still eight years old physically so technically I am allowed to laugh at something like this.

  Which direction the cottage is from the rock formation isn't something I remember though so I'm just running around hoping I stumble upon it. I am still using my skills in tracking the leyline to ensure that I do it as quickly as possible but despite that, progress is slow.

  That's fine, I'm now in the general area of where the cottage should be so I'm not worried about finding it.

  Bushes, vines, trees, the occasional rock that I trip over, oh and more bushes. This is what I see most of the time while exploring this stupid forest but since I'm so close to my goal right now, I'm feeling a bit impatient so I can't tolerate seeing them over and over again.

  Leaning against a tree and catching my breath helped with my mental state somewhat, and as I stayed there, frozen in place while observing the forest, I noticed that the area doesn't actually have any mana. Bar the leyline beneath my feet, everything else is devoid of the energy. I don't know why I haven't noticed until now but the plants are pure green with no blue tint over them.

  It's like the filter I have been living with ever since I got my magical awakening suddenly vanished, leaving a relatively normal forest in its wake. The sudden shift made me pause for a second before I got up again and started searching in earnest.

  So that's why I found it hard to find the cottage, the damn thing is hidden from my line of sight!

  My eyes went to the ground and like a pig searching for truffles through the scent of mycelium, I relied on the lines of magic flowing underground to find the cottage. Pattern recognition is incredibly useful in that sense because I soon noticed the strange shifts present within the veins and tracing that led me to the cottage.

  Finally I got it! How long did this take?! Forever or something? No, it's less than that but I genuinely felt that I had spent at least a million years searching for this goddamn thing!

  And like the last one, it's a dome shaped building with moss growing on the roof, unless you're specifically looking for it, you'd find it hard to notice the cottage. If not for its size, the cottage looks just like any other boulder you can find in the forest.

  Soon I was standing on top of the stone path that commonly leads to the entrance of the cottage. I figured that since everything about these cottages will be the same— and what little changes exist are probably minimal. — then I might as well start cleaning up the cottage I will be using during winter.

  A part of me knew that if I don't, I'll lose this location or worse, stumble into a completely random cottage and mistake it as my own.

  Maybe I can add a torch or some other building outside of it? That way I'll be able to recognize it even when it starts snowing. I paused, "will adding torches make the leyline less stable?"

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  There's a decent chance that the answer is yes, I mean, the area surrounding the cottages are always empty, devoid of anything. Even right now, the ground is so spotless that not even leaf litter can be seen.

  Great, guess there goes that plan. Modifying the outside of the cottage isn't a good idea but I'm sure the interior can be manipulated in any way I wanted and it wouldn't do a thing to the leyline, the mender's stuff is all inside it after all!

  ... No, wait! Is that why the cottages are all the same?! Because the mender didn't want... Oh my god! I thought she had some kind of OCD but I guess not? She actually planned the interior down to the smallest item?!

  Does this mean I have to make my own, separate base? Making an igloo for myself isn't impossible and making the walls stick together is as simple as casting my [Freeze] spell.

  Yeah, okay, I think I'd make my own base around here.

  Next up, dungeon searching!

  The cottage I just left is close to the local dungeon, it's why I've been searching for it all this time. All I need to do is just go in a certain direction, walk straight, and then I'd be able to find it.

  "Well... Then." I gulped, knowing damn well that the yawning entrance ahead of me is the source of canon Rontress' insanity. Really pisses me off that I don't know how I became that way too.

  [Humus Dungeon] is, funnily enough, a wizard's tower. It is tall— around 5 stories in height, — and also fairly imposing despite the weathering it has experienced. Erosion didn't do anything to diminish the presence of this thing, if anything, it only made things worse.

  There are two, uneven sized holes on the walls at the center of the tower, they looked like eyes and the doorless entrance gave the impression of a mouth. This thing looked like a beast that would swallow me whole.

  The worse part is, I'm not even sure if that descriptor is even inaccurate. In a sense, this dungeon is technically alive, the core is a living thing and so are the monsters roaming the depths of its halls.

  A frown came over my face, I'm not sure if this is just my imagination or what but it's like the dungeon is beckoning for me to come towards it. My mind feels slightly dizzy and I decided that I had enough, I turned around and prepared to leave.

  Something growled behind me and my gut told me to turn around and cast a spell but I didn't, I ran forward instead, aiming to put a distance between me and whatever the dungeon plans to throw at me.

  The ground started to shake and instead of running straight, I ran to the right and just dive.

  Something blurred behind me, it struck the tree, splintering the wood and breaking the trunk into countless pieces. The crown flew away, the giant bush of leaves, branches, and fruits disappeared into the horizon, or at least that's what I assume happened.

  My face is currently stuck on the ground see, so my only way of recognizing my environment is through my ears.

  A memory flashed, my first ever aberrant hunt, the one where I unknowingly decided to target a bull, back then the damn thing kept lunging at me, it was fast. I think the same thing happened when I fought that other aberrant in the spawning pool.

  Why am I thinking of them now? Well I guess I'd say it's because of comparison, see, aberrants aren't full on monsters, I'd argue that they're about 60 to 70% there. Monsters also have differences, for example, surface monsters are weaker, it's why I'm able to hunt them. Hell, adult Aberrant Crayfish can kill monsters in a one on one.

  Dungeon monsters are a league above them, and god forbid there's a dungeon out there that spawns Aberrant Crayfishes for a living, I feel like if it existed the world would just... End.

  I'm not exaggerating.

  Okay, enough thinking. I pressed my palm against the flat ground and pushed myself up, my body shuddered as I steadied myself, diving forward so suddenly like that caused me to hit the ground chest first.

  My ribs hurt and breathing hurts like hell, I also think that I have a bit of internal bleeding going on.

  Shaking my head didn't help like I thought it would, it made the headache worse and I felt something warm trickle down my nose. I reached up and touched my lips, when I pulled my hand back I saw red.

  Why am I having a nose bleed? The impact from my impromptu fall shouldn't have been that bad!

  Beside my hand, probably a few feet away from me, I saw something else. Something worse than blood.

  Underground monsters are the specialty of the [Humus Dungeon] and among them ferrets, it just so happens to be that this one isn't the size of a shoe and instead dwarfed a mini-truck.

  It had the ferocity of all normal ferrets though, foaming mouth and all.

  My hand tensed when it suddenly stopped shaking, I gripped my wand and inhaled. It started to move but I was thankfully faster.

  "[Water Ball]!" My wrist jerked upward and a wall made of ice manifested in front of me, the ferret struck it head on and shattered it like it was nothing.

  It did break its momentum though, and now it's rolling on the ground, away from me thankfully.