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

by Alex Oakchest

  However, in that short space of time, Gill poured five pints of beer into his belly mouth. His posture and words became increasingly unstable, to the point that when I was finished, he said nothing.

  “Gill?” I said.

  Snores came from the opening in his stomach.

  “Thanks a lot, Gulliver. The guy’s drunk himself into a stupor! I can’t have this man being an overseer in my academy. Look at him. He can’t even stay awake. I can’t have him teaching cores, can I?”

  “Beno…you aren’t really opening an academy. It’s just to get into the tournament.”

  “Still, think of all the prestigious academies that will be in the tournament. They are already going to look down at me, especially when Tarnbuckle spreads the word about my core quality test, and whatever else he slanders me with. Can I turn up with this guy stumbling around, burping out of his gut? What’s next? We recruit an overseer who talks out of his arse?”

  “I thought you already asked Bolton, and he said no?”

  I laughed. “Seriously, Gull. I don’t doubt that this man was once a great overseer. But right now…”

  “Gill said he can pull strings and get his license back without taking the full test. Plus, all he wants is beer money. What other choice do you have?”

  I thought about it. Gulliver had a point. What option did I have? I already did my best to persuade Bolton, but the man didn’t want to go back to his overseer life. I didn’t blame him. He’d earned his retirement. And none of the other retired overseers would come anywhere near us. I either accepted this drunk belly-snorer, or I gave up.

  “Gill,” I said.

  Snores came from his stomach.

  “Gill?”

  He didn’t stir.

  “Free ales all round!” I shouted.

  Gill coughed from his belly and bolted upright. “What was that, now? Where am I? Oh, it’s you. The core. So are we agreed, then? Am I to become your new master?”

  “That’s not what we discussed, is it?”

  “Ah, yes. An overseer at your academy, is what I meant. We are agreed?”

  I paused for a second. Gulliver gave me a smile that was half an apology, half on the verge of laughter.

  “I suppose we are. Welcome to the academy.”

  Chapter 9

  Back in my dungeon the next day, I floated through the passageways and tunnels until I came to a chamber with a nourishing, fragrant smell. Heading in, I saw purple leaves and vines spread all over the walls.

  The room throbbed with heat, and even standing there for just a second, I felt the vines begin to nourish me like a warm shower. They replenished my essence no matter where I was in a dungeon, of course. But the feeling was always stronger when I was in the cultivation chamber.

  At the far end of the room, a kobold was kneeling beside a wall and pruning the leaves. He wore a white cultivation suit splotched with purple stains, and oversized mittens covered his hands. He was singing to himself as he worked.

  “Morning, Tomlin,” I said.

  He didn’t answer, consumed by his labors. I admired Tomlin. He might not have been the bravest of kobolds. If I gave him a sword to fight heroes, he was more likely to stab himself with it by accident.

  But he’d found his passion in life, and that was something that I couldn’t help but respect. As a bonus, his passion just happened to help me, because Tomlin was in charge of cultivating my essence plants. They were the building blocks that allowed me to create monsters. Tomlin didn’t have much confidence in himself, but my dungeon wouldn’t function as well without him.

  “Tomlin?” I said again.

  He didn’t hear me, so entranced was he with the vines.

  I floated quietly through the chamber until I was directly behind him.

  “Boo!”

  Tomlin jumped so high that he almost hit the ceiling. “Dark Lord! Don’t do that!”

  “Busy?”

  Tomlin took a moment to gather his breath. “Tomlin has almost made a breakthrough, Dark Lord. See the essence vines? Some have four leaves, some have two, or even one. The ones with four replenish Dark Lord’s essence at four times the speed. Some cultivators think the amount of leaves is random, however, Tomlin has discovered a way to nurture leaf buds to increase the chance of getting four. Sometimes even five or six leaves.”

  “That’s excellent, Tomlin. But why stop at five? Why not ten? Twenty?”

  “Dark Lord is never happy…”

  “On the contrary, Tomlin. I just think that if you reach for the stars enough, you’ll grab one. And when you do that…well, you’d die. Stars are suns, you know, and quite capable of boiling you alive. In any case, I’m so happy with your work in the cultivation chamber that I’ve decided to reward you.”

  “Reward?”

  “You are a better cultivator than many of the chumps who work at the dungeon core academies across Xynnar. Yet they are more recognized than you, simply because they have licenses. I have decided to allow you to go to Tavercraig, where you can visit permit office 237, and take the test to earn your F class cultivation license.”

  “Test? License?”

  Tomlin backed away from me as if I was a hero ready to decapitate him or something.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Tomlin shook his head. “Tomlin doesn’t want to earn a license.”

  “Whyever not? A license is merely a recognition of your skills as a cultivator. You can even pin it on your chamber wall for everyone to see. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “No, Dark Lord. Tomlin wouldn’t like that.”

  Something was wrong here. I was sure that Tomlin would be excited at the chance of earning a license and being recognized in his profession. It was his life’s work, after all. No, there was something amiss.

  “You aren’t been straight with me, Tomlin.”

  “Tomlin is just too busy to take the exam.”

  Unlike many dungeon cores, I liked to allow my monsters as much autonomy as possible, situations permitting. However, my status as a core, and Tomlin’s status as a monster I had created, meant that my will overrode his. I could command him to do whatever I wished. I rarely used it, but I didn’t have much choice today. The deadline for registering my academy was getting closer.

  “Tomlin, I command you to explain your true reasons.”

  Tomlin sighed. “Tomlin loves studying and loves cultivating essence plants. But he doesn’t think… he’s unsure of…”

  I thought I understood. “You’re doubting yourself, aren’t you?”

  He gave a sad nod, and I felt bad for him. When I first joined the Dungeon Core Academy, when I was newly forged as a core, I remembered feeling overwhelmed. Especially when I saw all the other cores in the academy. They all seemed to know so much more than me.

  As it turned out, I was probably right about myself. I hadn’t known it back then, but my core quality was the lowest in the whole academy. This, on its own, meant I fully understood Tomlin’s worries.

  “I won’t force you to do this, Tomlin. I could, but it wouldn’t work. To pass the exam, you need to be committed by your own accord. Motivation earned by the rod snaps under the slightest pressure. But remember this: this is important. We need you to do it for us.”

  Tomlin thought about it for a moment. “I am sorry, Dark Lord. I cannot.”

  Why is it that time seems to speed up when you have a deadline approaching and are nowhere near prepared for it? After I met with Tomlin, the day seemed to fly by. I spent it trying to figure out how to get around my problem.

  One option would be to create a new kobold, designate him as a cultivator, and send him to Tavercraig. The problem there was that it had taken Tomlin a long time to build up his expertise. The F-class license for cultivation, according to my research, was no joke. Creating a kobold and just assigning the cultivation class to him wouldn’t cut it. It would be like plucking someone from the street, giving them a sword, and naming them a dragon slayer, then wondering why the first dragon th
ey saw burned them to a crisp.

  I thought about sourcing a cultivator from outside the dungeon, but the problem was the same as with the overseers. Essence cultivators were often trained in-house by dungeon core academies, and thus were loyal to them.

  Sometimes gardeners and horticulturists were cross-trained to cultivate essence, but people like that would command a high wage. Besides, my experience with Gill had burned me on recruiting people from outside the dungeon. I would do that as little as possible.

  I was still brooding on this into the evening, when someone knocked on my chamber door.

  After I commanded it to open, Overseer Bolton strode in. He was wearing a full set of combat leathers, complete with a sword tucked into a sheath on his belt.

  “Taking it up a new vocation? You’re rather old, Bolton, but I suppose the heroes’ guild would still have you.”

  “Try anything-”

  “… once. Yes. And what exactly are you trying today?”

  “I’ve always been an academic, Beno. Apart from when I was a dungeon core and lived a life of murder and slaughter, of course. Even then, I never got my own hands dirty, it was always my monsters who did the fighting. I thought it might be fun to learn how to use a sword properly.”

  “Well, if you’ve come here to challenge me…”

  “Gulliver said you’d been dwelling in here all day. Nothing more pathetic than a dungeon core moping around his core chamber.”

  “It’s Tomlin. He’s an excellent cultivator and getting better by the day. But he doubts himself too much, and I can’t persuade him to take the F-class license exam.”

  Bolton sat down on the chair and peeled off his leather chest piece. “So? Just order him to take it. You’re his bloody master.”

  “That wouldn’t work. He will need to study to get the license and will need to do so in record time. It normally takes academy-educated cultivators months to prepare for the exam. He will have days, at most. For that kind of task, he will need complete motivation. A core order might override his free will, but it won’t replace his natural motivation.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Bolton. “You know, back at the academy, there was a core we once forged. I took a special interest in him because I had a hand in choosing his human soul to be put into a gemstone. I didn’t often do that. I expected great things of him, but when he was forged, he was unconfident. Doubting himself so much that it affected his performance in tasks and practical exams.

  I thought of all kinds of ways to give him some confidence. I tried praising him. I tried setting him extra work. I tried changing the way I taught, in case I was the problem. Nothing worked. Eventually, I did the only thing I could. I showed him some tough love. Kicked him up his core arse. And you know what? It did the trick. He became one of the best students in the academy. Shame about his graduation, though.”

  “You’re talking about me.”

  Bolton simply smiled, stood up, and left the chamber.

  I knew what I had to do. If Tomlin needed tough love, then I would become the toughest lover he had ever had.

  In any case, I headed through the dungeon and to the cultivation chamber, where once again Tomlin was hard at work and didn’t seem to notice me.

  “Wylie?” I said, using my core voice. “Join me in the cultivation chamber.”

  Soon, Wylie scampered into the room. Seeing this, Tomlin finally paid attention.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Need Wylie, Dark Lord?” said Wylie.

  Wylie gave me a salute. I had never asked him to do this, but Wylie had been to Hogsfeate on one of his free days recently. He had seen the guards saluting each other, and he liked it so much that he’d adopted the practice.

  “Wylie, I decided to make you the head cultivator of the dungeon. Tomlin, you will now take Wyllie’s job as dungeon enforcer,” I said.

  Both kobolds blurted out at once, “What?”

  “Tomlin,” I said, “Give your cultivation gloves and pruning shears to Wylie, please.”

  Tomlin looked like he was on the verge of tears. It made me feel bad to be doing this. That was a wonder in itself, given I didn’t use to care how my actions as a dungeon core affected my underlings. But I had to see this through.

  “Why?” said Tomlin.

  “Because I don’t think it is doing you or the others any good to stick to our rigid roles. Why trap ourselves on one path? Why worry about exams and so on? No, from now on we will not have set roles. Nobody will be a master of one job. Instead, we will all learn multiple jobs. Everyone will pitch in on everyone else’s tasks. No specializations whatsoever.”

  Wylie seemed inexplicably happy at the turn of events and reached out for Tomlin’s shears. Tomlin snatched them away.

  “Tomlin doesn’t want to be a dungeon enforcer. He only wants to be a cultivator. It is his life, what he wants to do. He’s the best in the dungeon at it!”

  “You’re the best cultivator in the dungeon?” I said.

  Tomlin nodded. “Nobody comes close to Tomlin.”

  “Then why don’t you take the F-class exam and prove it?”

  Tomlin nodded even more eagerly. “I will! Dark Lord will see. Tomlin will start studying today and pass the exam with full marks!”

  Chapter 10

  Dungeon cores used to be a rarity in Xynnar. The reason is that it’s difficult to make a being like myself or Jahn.

  First, you need a corpse with a core inside it. That isn’t especially difficult. Even if you don’t want to get your hands dirty digging a grave, you can usually find a corpse or two in some of the seedier alleyways and rogue-filled streets of any big city.

  Getting hold of a gemstone that will allow itself to be bound to a dead soul is more difficult, however. Not any old gemstone will do. You can’t just take a lump of quartz, glue it to a corpse, and expect to have yourself a dungeon core. At best, you’ll have a very fancy-looking dead body.

  No, the hardest part of creating a dungeon core is the forging. The transition of the core from the dead body and into the dungeon core. It is a dangerous process, and it can go very, very wrong. That is why few places are licensed to forge dungeon cores, and most are part of a dungeon core academy.

  But just because something is rare… doesn’t mean people don’t do it. After all, the law depends upon the existence of criminals. Without them, guards and inspectors wouldn’t have a job. No matter what guards say, they love crime.

  And if there is a law for something, then there is also some willing to break it. As such, the more well-known the existence of dungeon cores became, the more rogue alchemists, mages, and artificers tried to learn the secrets of creating one.

  This would help me with a requirement of creating a dungeon core academy – having a dungeon core as a student. I had no hope of trying to obtain a dungeon core from an actual academy, created by a fully licensed forger.

  My only chance came with the existence of rogue core forgers. When people like this were busted, the cores they had forged were usually put up for auction. After the Empire’s army took the most capable ones, of course. This meant the cores been put up for auction for private bidders were often subpar.

  Then again, who was I, the core with ridiculously low core quality, to judge? The fact was that I needed a core who hadn’t yet studied at an academy to enroll as one of my students. A rogue core would be perfect for that.

  So, I pulled some of my more presentable monsters away from the dungeon duties and sent them to Hogsfeate, where they would ask visiting merchants and mercenaries for rumors. Gulliver also reached out to his contacts, and Overseer Bolton, when he wasn’t drunk or doing some ridiculous thing, got in touch with his old friends.

  We asked everyone the same question: have you heard word of any rogue core forgers?

  In this way, we got leads on several undertrained, rogue cores. But every time we tried to get one, the empire or another academy beat us to it.

  “This is useless,” I said.
“Before we even get a sniff about a core, they get snapped up.”

  “Why not just have you or Jahn enroll in your academy?” said Gulliver.

  “That wouldn’t work. The requirement is to have at least one core enrolled, and it must be a core who has never previously been a student of a dungeon core academy.”

  “What about that weird old core that you keep in the sublevels? Namantep?”

  “I don’t keep her in the sublevels, Gull. She just prefers it down there for some strange reason. We can’t use her, either. She isn’t an ancient core. She is very old, yes, but she was once a student at an academy, hundreds of years ago.”

  Gulliver drummed his fingers on his notebook. “So we have to get to the next core before anyone else. How to do it…”

  An idea occurred to me. “Maybe isn’t about beating the academy to it. It’s about sending the academy on the wrong trail. You must have contacts in city newspapers, yes?”

  “A few. Some of the people I studied with at the scribe guild went on to become editors and so on.”

  “Can you pull a few strings?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “The next time we get a lead on a core, we find out where it is. Then, I want you to get your newspaper friends to circulate a rumor that a core has been found on the opposite side of the country. That might buy us enough time to get to the core first.”

  And so it proved. Through an old overseer that Bolton was friends with, we learned that a rogue core forger in Besteck had been busted. The empire had already picked the best of his cores, leaving just one available for auction. All we had to do was get to the auction and win it before the academy got word of it.

  Bolton, Gulliver, Jahn, and I headed to Besteck, this time in a regular carriage, since this whole create-an-academy business was proving very expensive.

  The auction took place in an old flour mill. The organizers had set out fifty chairs, no doubt expecting various academies to send their representatives to purchase the core that was for sale.

  Unfortunately for them, Gulliver had planted one rumor that a powerful rogue core had been unearthed across the country. He had planted a second rumor that the core discovery in Besteck was a lie. The various academies would learn the truth, of course, but they would be too late.