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

by Alex Oakchest

  He had a real family. A family with a history.

  And a grudge toward the empire.

  Vike made a vow. Under his stewardship, the Shielded Republic would grow as powerful as they had been before the empire beat them down. Before the empire had employed dungeon cores to turn the tide of the great battle.

  And he already knew the path to accomplishing this.

  The first step was a tournament. One held every decade, where dozens of dungeon cores would gather, waiting to be destroyed.

  Chapter 17

  The tournament began in earnest the next day. For the opening ceremony, the grand arena at the very top of God’s Fist was opened the first time. It was deceptively big. The arena itself could easily fit several thousand people, and every single seat was filled today.

  Surrounding the arena were 32 flagpoles. Each of them displayed the emblems of all the academies who would compete. The last flag was blank. That was ours, of course. In my rush to register my academy, I hadn’t had time to even think of making us an emblem.

  The crowd chanted and yelled and jeered as they waited for the event to begin. From a recess in the arena, a bard and his band played stirring music. Tense beats, quick strings. Music that made your blood pump. If you had blood, that was.

  I wasn’t even fighting today, yet I felt nervous.

  Gulliver must have sensed it. “Don’t worry, Beno. I used to be a playwright, you know. Occasionally I would stand in for one of the actors if they got sick. Stage fright passes quickly. The waiting is the worst thing. Once you’re fighting, you’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks, Gull.”

  An announcer dressed in golden robes strutted into the center of the arena. Silence fell among the crowd. Four gates surrounding the arena clanked open. When the arena was so quiet that you could have heard a hero sob, the announcer spoke.

  “Ladies and gentlemen from all over Xynnar. I welcome you to this decade’s Battle of the Five Stars. A tournament steeped in the history of our world. Prestigious beyond all other events. An exhibition of legend, where…”

  His opening speech ran for ten minutes, steadily working the crowd into a frenzy until finally, he shouted, “And now, it is time to meet the academies and the cores competing in our tournament!”

  The crowd was so excited that they got to their feet, some of them screaming.

  “First is the Academy of the Arcane,” said the announcer.

  From one of the gates floated a core. Shaped rather like an axe, and pure purple, much like essence vines. Mystical light gathered around it. The core was flanked by purple-robed overseers who strode with dignity.

  The Academy of the Arcane, I knew, was an old institution. They taught their cores to rely on summoning monsters with arcane powers. This would leave them open to attacks from physical creatures, as well as from other disciplines of magic. However, they were so good at their arcane specialization, that it wasn’t as simple as sending the biggest, toughest monster to battle them.

  Seeing the Academy of the Arcane and their core, as well as remembering yesterday’s sparring with the Academy of the Forked Sting, really brought home how impossible this would be.

  Could I compete with these cores? Would I embarrass myself and my friends? All I could do was push my doubts aside.

  One by one, the announcer introduced each academy and its cores. We saw the Academy of the One Red Eye, the Academy of Spun Silk, Fire Embers Academy. On and on they went, 31 academies, each with cores flanked by overseers. Each with history. With prestige. Crucially, with their own fancy emblems.

  And then came the words I had slowly begun to dread.

  “Finally,” said the announcer, clearly beginning to tire, “please welcome, Beno and Jahn’s Dungeon Core Academy.”

  I almost didn’t want to go out. How could I? We had no flags, no emblems. Everyone would look at me and know about the quality of my core. Even if it wasn’t visible in my gemstone body, word would probably have spread. Everyone in Heaven’s Peak probably knew about it, thanks to Overseer Tarnbuckle.

  And not only that. The other academies had overseers who carried themselves with dignity, who practically reeked with expertise. The only overseer who would accompany me into the arena was Gill, a drunken fool with a mouth on his belly.

  I floated at the gate entrance, where I could see the baying crowd beyond.

  Gulliver nudged me. “Beno? They’ve called you.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Then, Overseer Bolton strode past me, wearing…well, something strange.

  Not a floral shirt, not a straw hat, not combat leathers that didn’t fit him. He was adorned in robes that befit an overseer, like the ones he used to wear at the Dungeon Core Academy.

  “Bolton?” I said.

  “I know. I said I wouldn’t be an overseer in your academy. And I’m sticking to that. I don’t want to waste the rest of my years teaching cores. But that doesn’t mean the crowd has to know that. My face is rather well-known among academy circles, and I thought that it might do a bit of good if I accompanied you into the arena. If you’re happy with that, of course.”

  A strange feeling hit me. A rather overwhelming one. If I had eyes, they might be watering. I didn’t like it. I hesitated in shutting off my core feelings, however. I would only get to experience something like this once, being here in the Battle of the Five Stars. I was determined to sense it all, to not block anything out.

  So, I followed Overseer Bolton out into the arena. Overseer Gill stumbled alongside me to my left, and Gulliver was on my right.

  The crowd laughed and jeered. From the other gates in the arena, some of the other academy cores and overseers gathered to watch. It wasn’t hard to read their looks.

  Curiosity, ridicule, mirth. I made sure to take a good, long look at them. I even turned my core emotions higher, making me more sensitive to everything. To the laughter of the crowd, to the pitiful glares of the other overseers and the cores. I made sure I would remember this.

  Later that day, some of the first round fights had already begun. All the arenas were occupied as cores battled it out in the preliminary stages. Our first fight wasn’t until the next day, and I wanted to get ready. We need more time, really, but there was no chance of that.

  “The Academy of the Raised Arrow are our first opponents,” I said. “They favor monsters who use projectile damage. That means I’ll need to use creatures who are either heavily armored, or fast.”

  “Depends on the kind of projectiles they use, Beno,” said Bolton. “If they had, say, rock frogs, then we would know we are facing an opponent could spit stones at us. Anything with tough armor would counter that. But what if the projectiles are magic? Then we’d need to rethink who we send out to fight them.”

  “That’s the problem. We just don’t know. And I have to select the monsters I will use before each round begins. I’m not allowed to change my mind once the round starts. It makes it a gamble. If only…”

  “If only what?”

  “What if we could see for ourselves who the Raised Arrows are planning to send into battle?”

  “You’ll never get into their dungeon. Portdoors are completely untamperable. There is no rogue skilled enough to pick their locks, and no magic would unlatch them. Otherwise, every academy would be sending its spies through the portdoors,” said Bolton.

  “True,” I said. “But if I remember rightly, the Academy of the Raised Arrow is only ten miles away from Heaven’s Peak. You could walk there in an hour or two. Or rather, a rogue kobold could walk there…”

  Shadow, sitting beside the wall with three dogs surrounding her and one with its head on her lap, sat up. “You have another job for me, Beno?”

  “We might not be able to sneak through the portdoors. But I doubt the academy itself has such protection. If you leave Heaven’s Peak and travel to the Raised Arrow’s academy, there’s bound to be a door somewhere in the complex that you can sneak through. So,
forget sneaking through the portdoor, and go to the academy itself. Once you get there, I want you to listen to what they are planning for the fight…”

  Shadow left immediately and returned just as dawn broke the next day. It was the morning of our first fight. Even if cores needed sleep, I probably still would have spent the last night without it. I whiled away the hours making plan after plan. And then scrapping plan after plan.

  It was only when Shadow returned that I could settle on a strategy. She told us what she had learned by spying on the Academy of the Raised Arrow, and I changed my plans accordingly.

  When the time for our battle came, I headed to an arena named Geritus. While the highest, and the biggest arena was the Saucer of the Gods, the smaller arenas were named after the men and women who had first organized the Battle of the Five Stars tournament.

  This arena could only hold a thousand people, and every seat was taken. Scanning the crowd, I saw that many of them were holding wooden placards with the Academy of the Raised Arrow emblem drawn on them. Only one or two held up completely blank placards. I wasn’t sure if that meant they were supporting me, or if they had simply forgotten to draw anything on the cards.

  The Raised Arrow core and I took our places in the semicircle. Guided by the announcer, we prepared ourselves to fight.

  “Core Beno,” said the core. “Hagmer greets you with honor.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “And he will crush you with honor, too.”

  The announcer raised his hands in the air.

  “Cores…please summon your monsters!”

  This was it.

  That morning, we had all gathered and listened to Shadow and what she had learned by sneaking into the Raised Arrow academy. Using that, we came up with a strategy that seemed rather obvious.

  As such, I summoned two stone dwarf trolls and an angry elemental jelly cube. Summoning three monsters in the first round was a risk. But Shadow told us that the Academy of the Raised Arrow intended to use skeleton archers in rounds one and two. That meant was a simple matter of having the dwarf trolls draw the skeletons' attention and absorb the damage of their arrows.

  Meanwhile, my elemental jellies cube would float across the arena and commit a surprise attack against the archers. The archers would struggle to fight the cube at close quarters. In the confusion, my trolls would cross the arena and pulverize them.

  That was how it should have gone.

  I summoned my trolls and jelly. However, the core opposite me didn’t conjure skeleton archers. Instead, he summoned a kobold shaman. Just one monster. No archers, nothing else.

  This wasn’t good.

  The announcer raised his hands again. He seemed rather fond of doing that. “Cores… prepare to fight!”

  The announcer ran to the arena sidelines just as Hagmer’s kobold shaman planted a totem into the sand. I had barely begun to re-strategize with my trolls, when light shot out of the totem.

  This was when I knew I was in real trouble. It wasn’t just any light that left the totem. It was pure sunlight, distilled by mana. The kind of magic-boosted sunlight that was every stone troll’s weakness.

  A bolt of light hit one troll, instantly freezing it.

  The totem fired again, freezing another troll. This left my elemental jelly cube alone against the shaman.

  The jelly didn’t last long, and before I knew it, the first round was over.

  Back in the dungeon, we gathered in my core chamber. We had fifteen minutes to re-strategize before tournament lackeys would bang on the portdoor and request my presence for round two.

  “That wasn’t just coincidence,” I said. “Their shaman had a totem firing pure, mana drenched sunlight. That is so ridiculously specialized that it can only be used on stone trolls.”

  “Are you saying Hagmer knew our plan?” said Gulliver.

  “He must have. Otherwise, he conjured shaman with a rare totem, on the slight chance that out of all the creatures of I could use, I would summon stone trolls.”

  “I blame him,” said Shadow.

  She was pointing at Gill, who leaned back in his chair. He lifted his shirt to show his belly face. “Me? You grubby little wolf. How dare you accuse me?”

  “This drunken lout has debts all over Xynnar. He only joined the academy to earn beer money. We don’t even know him. Who’s to say he wouldn’t sell information to rival cores?” said Shadow.

  Gill stood up and started ranting angrily. Unfortunately, his shirt had fallen, muffling his belly mouth.

  I didn’t have time to listen to this, not with round two around the corner. I rose from the table and left the core chamber. Just as I reached the tunnels, Bolton called out. “Beno? Where are you going?”

  “I’m going into the loot room. When I call your names, I want you to come and see me individually. Whatever I tell you, do not repeat what I say to you to anyone else.”

  When round two began, Hagmer gave me a smug stare. That was some achievement, for a core. “Back for more, Core Beno?”

  I said nothing and waited for Hagmer to summon his monsters. He had brought his kobold shaman into round two, of course. It didn’t make any sense not to. Sending him out of the fight would be a waste of a monster space.

  But it was what he summoned next that interested me. In my dungeon, I had spoken to everybody one by one and told them my plans for round two.

  However, I had told each of them a different plan. All I had to do was see what my rival summoned, and I would have a good idea who had broken my confidence.

  My guess was Gill. Shadow had a point about him. We didn’t know him, and the one thing we did know was that he needed money.

  To my surprise, Hagmer summoned a fire imp.

  My stomach sank when I realized what this meant.

  I didn’t have time to dwell on it, however. I had a fight to win. While I had told everyone in my dungeon a different plan, I had kept the real plan to myself. And luckily, a fire Imp and shaman didn’t hamper it.

  I had already selected my monster before floating back into the arena, as per the tournament rules. So, when the announcer told me to summon my monster, it was mostly for show. My choice had already been made.

  I gathered my essence in my core, imagined the shape of a creature in my mind, and let the essence form it. It felt curiously sluggish, which was unusual. Or, perhaps it had always felt like this. But now that I knew my core was of the lowest quality, my mind was making me feel inept.

  A shrub bandit appeared in front of me. It was nothing special. Merely a piece of foliage with barbs inside it, that it could fire like arrows. It was a rather pathetic monster and only cost me 100 essence points. In most fights, it wouldn’t have a chance.

  However, I knew that my opponent was going to use a shaman with a sunlight totem. That was the key.

  The round began. Immediately, the kobold shaman planted a totem. Meanwhile, the fire imp skirted around the arena, no doubt, aiming for a backstab attack of some sort.

  Mana drenched sunlight fired out from the totem and poured over my shrub bandit. But rather than damage it, the sunlight reacted with a potion I had asked Maginhart to provide and spread over the shrub. It robbed the sunlight of any damage but kept its potency.

  Using the process of rapid photosynthesis, the shrub absorbed the nourishment of the sunlight, instantly growing bigger and tougher. Its barbs and thorns grew to the size of a man’s hand.

  The imp charged at it from behind. What it failed to recognize was that there is no ‘behind’ when it comes to a shrub. It could launch its thorns in any direction.

  One thorn flew from amidst the bushes and pierced the imp’s stomach, sending it flying back. It landed on its back on the ground, bringing a cheer from the crowd.

  Not done yet, the shrub fired a volley of thorns at the shaman. As a primarily magic-based creature, the shaman had no defense. He squeaked as five thorns peppered him, smashing the creature across the arena and pinning him against the wall.

&nbs
p; The announcer waddled into the middle of the arena, his coattails trailing along the dust.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, with surprise in his voice. “The winner of round two is… Core Beno, of Beno and Jahn’s Dungeon Core Academy!”

  I made sure to remember those words, the declaration of the first round our academy had won. I’d need them ready for savoring when times were tough.

  Cheers rose from some parts of the arena, but not all. I watched with satisfaction as a few of the spectators turned their placards around so that the Academy of the Raised Arrow emblems were hidden, and a blank one was in its place.

  In the dungeon, before round three, I once again gathered everyone in the core chamber. The air was tense. No doubt everyone was wondering what was going on, and why I had told a different plan to each of them.

  “Bolton? Gulliver?” I said.

  They looked at me.

  “Grab hold of Shadow and bind her up,” I said.

  Shadow stood up, but Bolton grabbed her straight away.

  “What’s going on?” said Eric the barbarian. He drew his sword and flung his glorious hair back and settled into a fighting stance.

  “Settle down,” I said. “This isn’t Shadow. It’s a mimic. I should have known, but it is a very good mimic. When we sent Shadow to sneak into the Raised Arrow Academy and spy on them, they must have caught her and sent back a mimic in her place.”

  Nobody said anything for a moment. Gulliver was the first to speak. “I suppose Gill is owed an apology, is he not?”

  “Let’s focus on the fight, and apologies can come afterward. Eric? I want you to head over to the Raised Arrow and get Shadow. For the rest of us, it’s 1-1. The winner of the next round takes it all.”

  The third round was deceptively simple. It turned out that when the core from the Academy of the Raised Arrow didn’t have a mimic feeding him my plans, he wasn’t very bright.

  Although his academy was much bigger than mine, as a core, he was many levels below me. As well as that, he had very little real battle experience. As I had found out the first time I left the academy, what you learned in theory was much different when put into practice.