Tutorials/Exploring an ancient city

Ancient cities are among the most challenging structures to be in the game. There is very little light throughout the place, and the cities are home to Wardens, which can easily smother players, even in full netherite armor.

Why bother?
There will be several benefits to go to an ancient city:


 * An easy way to obtain Sculk Blocks without a Sculk Catalyst.
 * Obtaining Soul-related blocks and Basalt without going to the Nether.
 * Easy way to obtain Skeleton Skulls.
 * Chests with "unique loot" inside.
 * The loot is intended to be items that cannot be found anywhere else, and that provide unique abilities and mechanics to players that weren't possible before and are not attainable by other methods.
 * Has the completely blast-resistant Reinforced Deepslate.

What you might need

 * A full set of Netherite Armor with Protection IV.
 * At least 25 Golden Apples if you get hurt.
 * 5-10 Milk Buckets for curing the Darkness effect if you step or alert a Sculk Shreiker.
 * At least 5 Night Vision Potions so you don't need to place Torches.
 * Multiple Swiftness II Potions to escape the Warden.
 * Elytra is recomended for quick escapes in large cave systems.
 * 1-3 stacks of Rockets to use with your Elytra.
 * 3-4 stacks of Snowballs to distract the Warden.
 * 1 stack of Torches in case you really need light.
 * A Bed so you can set your spawn point if you die.
 * A couple of Pickaxes.
 * A Shovel and Axe incase you need to mine any Wood, Dirt, or Gravel.
 * A lot of Food, mainly Steak, Cooked Porkchops and Enchanted Golden Apple (if possible).
 * A couple stacks of Cobblestone or Cobbled Deepslate to be able to build if anything wrong happens.
 * A Water Bucket to both put out fires and to stop fall damage.

Starting Out
To prepare yourself for an expedition to an ancient city, there are a few things you will need to do.

Finding a City
You will first need to go to the Deepslate layer, nearly to the Bedrock level. If you mine into it from a higher height, there is a higher chance that you will mine into the city and likely die from fall damage. Once you get somewhere around Y -44, begin strip or branch mining. This will give you the highest chance of finding a city. The ancient city will also be more likely to spawn under the new Mountains biomes.

What not to do

 * Try not to build or destroy anything. This will alert any Sculk Sensors, which then will alert any Sculk Shriekers.
 * Try not to take any damage, keep your health bar at full.
 * Try your hardest to avoid alerting Sculk Shriekers or Sculk Sensors, so do not step on them.
 * Do not try to fight the warden in any circumstances. instead, try to be as far as possible, because it may sense your presence the closer you are to it and be able to track you down.