Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series)

by Alex Oakchest

  But it was with Jahn’s intelligence in mind that I didn’t feel positive as I waited for an answer.

  “I trust Beno,” said Jahn. “If he thinks this could greatly help our chances, then why not at least try winning the tournament?”

  “Jahn,” I said out loud. “I always said you were a genius. Now, let’s get started.”

  Chapter 2

  This decade’s Battle of the Five Stars was to be held far north of the wasteland. That was further than I had ever traveled. In this life, at least. I may have traveled the whole world when I was a man, but I couldn’t remember it. That was one of the drawbacks of being forged into a core - your past life was gone.

  Before we could begin training for the tournament, we had to register. This meant that Gulliver, Shadow, Bolton, Anna, and Jahn, and I journeyed out of the wasteland in a hired mana–driven carriage. The trip would take a normal carriage two weeks. It would take six weeks for someone to walk. It would take maybe a few hours for the crow to fly.

  In a mana-driven carriage, it was a two-day journey. Anna, the teenage witch who saw Overseer Bolton as a father figure, spent the journey sitting on the end of the carriage, staring out. She hadn’t seen much of the world and was very excited to watch the landscape pass by. Gulliver had spent his life as a scribe and had seen more of the world than any of us put together. As such, he spent the journey scribbling in his notebook.

  You’d think that Overseer Bolton would have experienced more of the world than Gulliver. After all, he was on his third resurrection and had already lived two full lives.

  The problem was that his second life was as a dungeon core, and this meant he couldn’t remember his first. As a dungeon core, he had spent much of the second life underground, spawning monsters and battling heroes. He hadn’t had have time to see much of Xynnar.

  He had lately decided to live his third life as best he could, while still serving Jahn’s mission. This didn’t just mean taking up the habit of smoking a pipe. It meant that he joined Anna on the end of the carriage, marveling at the beautiful scenery that passed by.

  “I see it!” said Anna.

  Ahead of us was a city built on a great sloping hill, leading up to a mountain. The mountain rose to the heavens, culminating in a strange, bowl-shaped peak. That couldn’t have been natural. Someone must have shaped the mountain itself to make an arena. It was astounding what people could do when they bothered.

  “You can’t see it from down here,” said Bolton, “but a big pit has been excavated at the top of the mountain. That is where the main arena is. This is why the city of Heaven’s Peak is the home of the Battle of the Five Stars. The city’s entire commerce is built around the tournament.”

  “Even though it only happens every ten years?” said Anna.

  “The tournament will draw spectators from all over the world. There will be merchants, weaponsmiths, beer vendors, alchemists, potion makers. Many of them will have spent the last decade building up a stock surplus just so they can travel to Heaven’s Peak and make a fortune.”

  “Why do they care so much about a battle between a bunch of stupid dungeon cores?” said Anna. Then, she looked at Jahn and me, and said, “Offense intended.”

  “Anna...” said Bolton.

  Anna shrugged. “Gladiator tournaments happen all over the world. If you visit Damerel, you can pay five coppers to go in the arena and watch mercenaries get disemboweled by enraged rhinos. I don’t see why a bunch of stupid stones conjuring stupid monsters is so special that people should prepare ten years for it.”

  “The tournament goes back a long way,” said Bolton. “To when the Empire first officially recognized and licensed the forging of dungeon cores. Forging a dungeon core used to be forbidden, you know. Not a surprise, given how dangerous they can be.”

  “Dangerous? Pah,” she said.

  I tried to hold my metaphorical tongue, but something about this girl wound me tight. “I seem to remember capturing you, Anna, and imprisoning you in one of my cells. If it wasn’t for Bolton coming to rescue you, you’d still be there.”

  “It was all part of my plan. I was just biding my time.”

  “Stop bickering,” said Bolton. “Anna, you said you would try to behave like a Chosen One.”

  “I’ve been studying and training!”

  “A Chosen One doesn’t just have to develop their powers. They also have to act with decorum. Listen to an old man, will you?”

  “Sorry, Overseer Bolton,” said Anna. The words sounded like glass in her throat.

  Bolton nodded. “The empire had brought almost all of Xynnar under its flag. That left the Shielded Republic, the last territory in Xynnar holding out against unification.”

  “The empire was getting its arse kicked, wasn’t it?” said Gulliver.

  “It depends on what you read. Some of the more pro-empire scholars would say otherwise. I agree with you, Gulliver. By then, the empire had been warring for twenty years. Their troops were tired, their numbers stretched. The Shielded Republic had bided their time, building their armies and erecting defenses. The empire was getting its big, flabby arse well and truly kicked.”

  Gulliver closed his book, his eyes sparkling with interest. “If I was a good little boy in school and remember my lessons, the Shielded Republic was one battle away from bringing the empire to its knees.”

  “A house is at its most vulnerable when its foundations are still wet.”

  “Who’d build a house on wet foundations?” said Gulliver.

  “Can I not say something that sounds vaguely wise without it being picked apart? I swear, you people…”

  “Sorry, Bolton. Go on.”

  “Given how desperate they were, the empire decided to forgo its moral stance toward dungeon cores, in favor of how useful a core could be. When properly instructed and controlled, of course. After all, a dungeon core can convert essence into the very fabric of life, conjuring monsters from the ether. Name an army who wouldn’t want that? Cores were brought into the empire’s forces, and they helped turn the tide against the Shielded Republic. That was that.”

  “Ah but people weren’t so happy to have these magical blocks of stone floating around, were they?” said Gulliver.

  I bristled at the insult and was about to correct Gulliver on his terminology, when he winked at me.

  Bolton nodded. “Quite so. Despite their victory, the people were still suspicious, of course. Hence the Battle of the Five Stars. It originally began as an exhibition. A draw for the crowds, where the cores would fight each other to provide entertainment. It was a way for the Empire to get the public used to cores. To see them as an interesting diversion, instead of masters of death. In other words, to stop people from being so suspicious of them. But the tournament proved to be a fertile breeding ground for core talent, vital in developing the powers of the best cores. As such, the event has carried on long after cores have become an everyday part of our existence.”

  I found it strange to hear cores beings talked about this way. As dangerous freaks that people should be suspicious of. That people should be tricked into getting used to us. I didn’t like it.

  “Perhaps we should arrange an overseer tournament,” I said. “Put a dozen jumped up overseers into an arena, and get them to battle each other using the sticks that are usually shoved firmly up their arses.”

  “Oh, don’t be so sensitive, Beno.”

  It was then that I realized Anna had been following the conversation with unusual interest. She normally ignored anything that wasn’t a discussion on how to hurt things in various ways.

  “Yeah, well, I heard that the Shielded Republic still exists,” she said. “And if they do, maybe they’ll come back and stick a shield up the emperor’s fat bum.”

  Bolton scoffed. “Impossible. They were wiped out.”

  “I don’t know,” said Gulliver. “I’ve collected a few legends about it over the years, and you’d be surprised how many people think they are coming back. Course, the probl
em with legends is that they are usually lies told in fancy words. But who knows? Stranger things have happened than for the remnants of an old republic to be lying in wait somewhere.”

  “Fanciful thoughts for people dissatisfied with the empire. When a farmer’s cows get sick and he loses his farm, he dreams of the Shielded Republic changing his fortune. I don’t believe a word of it,” said Bolton.

  Chapter 3

  Vike

  After yet another set of bruises from his father’s fists, Vike Alby had finally had enough.

  In his room, he took the leather satchel his tanner uncle had made for his birthday just months before he died. Vike filled it with anything that would be useful. Changes of clothes, his flint stick, his pocketknife.

  Sneaking downstairs, he raided the pantry for as many dried foods as he could, stuffing raisins, nuts, and beans into his sack.

  Outside, he took one last look at his childhood home, and he left it for the last time.

  His lonesome journey took him across fields and pastures. Through forests and alongside rivers. He trudged up mountains and hiked through valleys. He built up a wealth of survival knowledge as he went, learning how much the world of Xynnar offered to those who only knew where to look.

  One day, months after any thoughts of his father’s fists were just memories, he came to a set of ruins.

  Now, this was a sight to see. He looked at the broken stone podiums, each of them etched with rune marks. He wished he’d stolen a rune book from the shop in the last town he’d visited. He would have loved to have known what the runes meant.

  He approached one rune and kneeled beside it, trying to imagine who might have built such a place. Who had erected these stone pillars? Had they left here of their own accord, or had a brutal war forced them to leave it behind, until it fell into disuse?

  Something metal pressed into his neck.

  He wanted to turn around and look, but a voice soon put paid to that.

  “Don’t move a muscle. A person’s neck is a tender thing. Very easily cut.”

  Was it a bandit? Vike had seen plenty of bandits during his travels. He normally fled from them. But sometimes his father’s temper came upon him. As much as he hated it, he had inherited that from the man.

  On those occasions, he’d let the bandits approach, and then he’d pray to the God of Fate, gripping his knife or whatever weapon he had handy. When the bandits were close, he let his rage free.

  If the people holding a knife to his neck were bandits, he was sure he could find a way out of this. But what if his new friends were the ones who had built the ruins, perhaps? That would make them an entirely unknown proposition.

  There were three men and a lady, he learned as he listened to them bicker. Two of the men argued that Vike should be killed for entering the ruins. The third was undecided, while the woman argued for blindfolding him, binding his arms and legs, and taking him miles away from the ruins and leaving him.

  “That’s as good as killing him,” said one.

  “It’ll do the same job,” said the woman. “Only we won’t have any blood to wash from our palms.”

  It seemed like a very good idea to the others, so that was what they did. They wrapped a smelly cloth around his eyes and tied something around his arms and ankles so that he could barely move. One of the men slung him over their shoulder and they took him far away from the ruins. After hours of traveling, they threw Vike onto the ground.

  Alone and tied up, Vike felt the night steal upon wherever it was they’d left him. The air turned cold, and he began to hear noises.

  The sniffs and cries of animals. The sound of footsteps crunching over twigs. Finally, the howling of wolves.

  He realized that unless he got free, he would be blinded, unable to move, and soon surrounded by a hungry pack of wolves. They would no doubt be searching for meat to fuel their bellies against winter.

  When his best efforts to free his hands failed, he became desperate. When the howls sounded even closer, his desperation grew.

  After much wriggling, he realized the only way to free himself would be to dislocate one of his wrists. He dismissed the idea out of hand.

  But then the wolves howled, and they sounded even closer.

  He had no choice.

  He bit the collar of his shirt.

  In his head, he counted to three.

  One…

  Two…

  His cry of pain filled the air, rivaling the sound of the wolves.

  After stealing an alchemical lotion from an alchemist in a nearby town, it took his wrist three months to heal. During that time, Vike also stole a rune book, a crossbow, and a shield. Finally, he stole a shirt, trousers, and as much hay as he could get away with.

  The hay was very important. It would be the key to it all.

  A few nights later, a figure that looked nothing like Vike but was vaguely human, crouched beside the ruins. As before, three men and a woman approached him.

  “Is it the boy again?”

  “Nobody would be that stupid,” said the woman.

  “He’s the only person we’ve seen here in years. He must have made his way back.”

  “Well, we gave him a chance before. This time, we’ll have to kill him. Serves him right.”

  “Needs must, if the Republic is to rise.”

  “The Republic will rise,” chanted all four of them.

  They approached the boy beside the ruins. He still hadn’t turned around to face them. Just like last time, he hadn’t even heard them approach.

  The woman drew a sword silently from a sheath. She raised it in the air and without any hesitation, swung the blade at the boy’s neck.

  His head fell off.

  But there was no blood. Just hay. Lots and lots of hay.

  Vike stepped out of the shadows, crossbow held tight.

  “Well, well, well. What should I do now, huh? Bind your arms and ankles and leave you to the wolves? Tie you up next to a river, maybe?”

  They looked at him in shock.

  This was the first time he had actually seen the people who had left him for dead. They were wearing leather armor that looked ancient. A symbol was etched on the front, though it was too weathered to make out anything except a giant shield.

  The men and a woman stared at him before the woman broke out into a laugh. The men joined in.

  Their laughs reminded Vike of his father. He thought about firing the crossbow but doubted his ability to reload quickly enough to kill them all. It was better to keep it as a threat.

  “What’s so funny?”

  When the four of them finally stopped laughing, it was the woman who addressed him. “Perhaps we had you all wrong, boy. When was the last time you had a warm meal?”

  “A few days ago.”

  “Okay…when was the last time you had a warm meal that you didn’t steal?”

  Vike didn’t have an answer to this.

  “Come,” said the woman, and four of them turned their backs on him and headed deeper into the ruins.

  Chapter 4

  The tournament administration office was housed in a grand wooden lodge that had five black star sculptures perched on the roof. Gulliver, Anna, and Shadow went to explore the city of Heaven’s Peak, while Bolton, Jahn, and I headed inside.

  We were met by a giant owl standing in the entrance. She was as tall as a man yet twice as wide, and she had the disconcerting habit of swiveling her head all the way around.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she said.

  “I’m afraid not,” I answered. “But this is tournament business.”

  “Hmph. This way.”

  We headed into her office, where she settled onto a perch behind a grand oak desk. On the surface were piles of papers, and a little bowl filled with mouse heads. Our conversation was punctuated by her tossing a little rodent head into her beak and crunching its bones.

  “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” she asked.

  “We are here to register for the tourna
ment,” Bolton said.

  “The Battle of the Five Stars?”

  “Of course the Battle of the Five Stars. What other tournaments would we be registering for?”

  She tossed another mouse head into her beak and chomped on it. “There’s also a carpentry competition going on in the city. Soon, actually.”

  Bolton leaned forward. “I am an ex-overseer of the Dungeon Core Academy. With me are two dungeon cores. Do you think we are here to whittle tables and chairs?”

  She crossed her wings over her chest. “Well, you can’t register.”

  “Why not?”

  “Given that you are an ex-Dungeon Core Academy overseer, I thought you would know. For a dungeon core to enter the Battle of the Five Stars, he must get sponsorship from an academy.”

  I should have known that it wouldn’t be so easy. Things rarely are. But I wasn’t about to be turned back by some administrative red tape.

  Well, technically I was being turned back, because we had to get back in the mana- carriage and leave Heaven’s Peak. Metaphorically, however, I would continue undeterred. It just meant that we had to take a diversion.

  So, despite Gulliver’s wish to go straight home and Anna complaining that she was getting carriage sick, we took a longer route, calling in at a place I knew very well. As we got closer, I began to get a weird feeling. Nostalgia, perhaps? I didn’t know. It was hard to place. I have never been good with feelings.

  The carriage pulled to a stop. “Here we are,” I said.

  “Where are we?” asked Anna.

  I put a lot of grandeur into my voice. “Behold... the Dungeon Core Academy!

  Most people, when they think of the Dungeon Core Academy, expect a gothic castle with hundreds of rooms and dozens of towers. Spires and turrets that reach to the heavens, gargoyles perching on roof ledges. That kind of thing.

  Most people haven’t really thought it through. A building created to forge and train dungeon cores wouldn’t be much use if it was above ground.