It was confusing to work it out at first, but the pieces began to arrange themselves in my mind.
“The obelisk isn’t actually creating these attacks or defenses,” I said. “Mokrus has different types of essence inside his core, and he is feeding these to his obelisk. The obelisk is translating the different elemental essences to elemental effects.”
Gill smiled. “You’ve pretty much got it. The Dungeon Core Academy has only ever taught you to harvest and use one kind of essence, haven’t they?”
“The one I use to create monsters and traps.”
“It’s true name is Formation essence. Think of it as the flour of the essence world. Combine other types of essence with it, and you never know what kind of cake you will bake.”
“Poisonous bears? Flame-fisted yetis? Arcane sharks?” I said.
“I forgot how much I missed fledgling cores and their imaginations,” said Gill.
“How many types of essence are there?”
“Fifty, that we know of. There might be more. Essence comes from essence plants, after all. There could be vines growing in some cave deep under Xynnar that nobody has ever explored yet. There could be a secret cultivator school out there that has rare buds and leaves in their chambers. We just don’t know.”
There was a movement in the arena. A third symbol lit up on Mokrus’ core. It was a yellow hand, palm open.
“That’s the symbol of healing magic. A type of healing essence?” I said.
Gill nodded.
Mokrus pulsed essence from his core and toward the obelisk. A similar symbol lit up on his obelisk. Warm, yellow light left the obelisk and drifted lazily across the arena, where it gathered around the dead shaman.
Soon, the kobold stirred. The arcane wounds on his chest stopped smoldering and then knitted themselves together. Finally, he stood up.
I was amazed. I had just witnessed the power of three different types of essence. Were there really fifty types?
“Pretend you were Mokrus,” said Gill, “But with your current abilities. When your rival summoned a shaman, what would you have done?”
“I would have made a flame-resistant barrier of some sort.”
“To cover your side of the arena? Very costly. A most needless use of essence. Not to mention that the shield being in place would restrict your own monsters’ attacks and movement. What else could you have done?”
“Conjure a water-based creature to negate the shaman’s fire totem.”
“Ah but then it becomes like the two of you standing there, unguarded, and slugging each other’s faces. Water creatures can negate a fire attack, but they can also be vulnerable to it. By using water essence, Mokrus could make his obelisk form a water shield, without making the obelisk itself a water-based creature. The obelisk is just a receptacle for essence, yet one that can use it to cast spells. What about Mokrus’ arcane attack? How would you accomplish that?”
“I would have to conjure another creature. One specializing in arcane magic. But it would have taken me five times as long and five times as much essence as it had Mokrus.”
“Exactly. In which time, the shaman would have scored much more damage.”
I was fascinated by Overseer Gill. How long had it been since I had found anyone who’d engage with me on this level? Who’d feed my curiosity? Better still, who’d make me feel like an idiot. Rather than being ashamed of my stupidity, I was glad for it. It meant I was learning. The tired muscle grows stronger than one that is never tested.
“How do you think Mokrus achieved his obelisk’s effects?” said Gill.
“If I have this right, Mokrus has several different types of essence stored in his inner core. For example, when he wants to give a creature the water element for its attack or defense, he switches to water essence and pulses it toward the creature. If he wants a monster to have an arcane attack, he switches to arcane essence and transfers it to the creature.”
“You’re nearly there. If we could look inside your core, Beno, we’d see it full of Formation essence. As much as your current level will let you hold. If we opened up Mokrus, we’d see that his inner core is divided into sections. Each is dedicated to a different type of essence. In his dungeon, he will have several different cultivation chambers.”
“And he can cycle through these essences at will?”
“Correct. If Mokrus uses his arcane essence and combines it with formation, any monster he creates would have the arcane element for its base defense or attack.”
“What about his obelisk? It kept changing,” I said.
“The Obelisk of Flesh is an advanced monster that only the Academy of the Infernal Obelisk knows how to create. Think of the obelisk as a tool that can use different essences to produce different effects, according to its core’s will.”
“This is all amazing.”
“You understand now why I brought you here,” said Gill.
“But I only have normal essence in my dungeon. I never knew about the other types. I’ve seen a couple of different species of essence before, but no healing essence. No fire essence. No arcane, water, poison…”
“I’m not surprised you don’t know,” said Gill. “This is just one of the techniques that academies haven’t taught their cores in a long time.”
“But this is so effective! Why wouldn’t they teach it to us?”
“Your answer lies in your question, Beno. Dungeon cores turned the tide in the battle against the Shielded Republic. But they were so effective in doing so, that the empire insisted they be regulated. They decreed that dungeon core academies could not teach their cores the full range of their potential abilities. They also made sure that academy forgers inhibited cores’ abilities in certain areas. For example, you, Beno, are able to use your essence below ground. Yet, you cannot use essence above ground, can you?”
“I’ve seen cores who can do that.”
“Cores like Jahn, who is an ancient core. And other cores who, through hard work and the right mentality, overcome their limitations.”
Suddenly, I felt greedy for all the powers I’d seen Mokrus use. I imagined all the uses I would have for it. For instance, right now, I could create bone guy warriors. They were just basic skeleton fighters with no elemental strengths or weaknesses.
If I different kinds of essence inside me like Mokrus, I could watch my enemies, gauge their strengths, and then fill my bone guys with the corresponding elemental essence to counteract them.
“Can I learn how to hold different essences in my core?” I asked.
Gill’s belly mouth smiled wide. “Finally, the question I longed to hear. Nothing beats an eager student. I didn’t bring you here to show you how weak you are compared to cores like Mokrus. I wanted to show you what you could become if you listen to me and are prepared to work.”
“I’ve never been scared of that.”
“I mean real work, Beno. The kind that makes you wish you were never forged. Study with me, and you’ll have to push through so many barriers of pain that you will forget what it is like not to feel it. You will hate me. I will hate you back. But together, we will reforge you. Break you down and build you back into a core that nobody recognizes. If we are to do that, I need your word as commitment. I need you to promise you will do what I tell you to, when I tell you to.”
The pain and wishing I was never resurrected didn’t sound good. But I thought about all the power I could get.
“When do we start?”
Gill and I went to the dungeon in my arena. The walls were covered in murals depicting fights between my monsters and the various hero groups who had braved my lair. Blood-covered straw was strewn across the ground, though that was mostly for effect. Maginhart was adept at brewing a very convincing fake blood. At the far end were practice dummies peppered with arrows and sporting all kinds of scorch marks and sword wounds.
Overseer Gill set his leather burlap sack on the ground. After rummaging for a while, he took out a parcel of leaves. They looked like the essence
plants in my cultivation room, except their leaves were pond-green, sharper, and lined with thorns around the edges.
“Let’s see how you get on with these.”
“What essence is this?”
“Venom,” said Gill. “Have you seen it before?”
“Never. I never even knew it existed.”
“What did your academy actually teach you? Anything?”
“I’m beginning to wonder,” I said. “But you said the empire restricts what they can teach us.”
“True, and most shackles are forged by fear, not iron. So it is with your academy. If only they realized the potential they are locking away. Never mind. Venom essence is used by the cores in the Academy of the Forked Sting. It is how their cores can imbue any monster they create with a poison aspect.”
When I had watched the Forked Sting core practice, I assumed that he was making monsters who naturally possessed a venom or poison elemental. Now, I realized that he was combining Venom essence and Formation essence in his core. As such, every monster he made would have the venom element, regardless of whether that was typical for the said creature.
I eyed the venom vines greedily. “So I can use this? I’ll be able to create…hmm…a poison kobold? No, too small. A venomous rhino, perhaps?”
“Steady on. First, I want you to draw on the venom.”
Using the technique Gill had taught me, I actively drew on the essence. It was akin to lifting a weight. I was so used to drawing formation essence that its weight was nothing. But venom essence felt like a ton of steel. As much as I tried, nothing happened.
“You can’t feel it?” said Gill. “Not even a little bit?”
“It’s as if it’s refusing to enter my core.”
“The essence is doing nothing of the sort. It is your own core that is reluctant to play.”
“What do you mean? I’m trying to draw on it.”
Gill frowned. “It is as I expected. I thought it was worth a try, but this technique may be a little beyond you, for now, Beno.”
With a new power just sitting there ready to use, I wasn’t about to give up. I wanted to be able to use the venom essence and create poison monsters of all different kinds. I wanted venomous apes, poison gargoyles, toxic serpents. After that, I wanted to get some arcane essence. Fire essence. Water essence. I wanted to try every essence imaginable.
Bracing myself, I drew again. My inner core felt solid, as if the formation essence already inside me was resisting my attempts to draw something new.
Gill packed up his venom essence. “Your core quality is holding you back, I’m afraid. It is too advanced for a Base-core to attempt. I feared as much, but the man who never tries to look at the stars will always wonder why the night sky bores him. Sorry to have got your hopes up.”
I eyed the venom essence, feeling downcast. “I’ll never be able to use venom essence? Is that it?”
“You could use it now. But you would have to pulse all the Formation essence out from your core until not a scrap remains. Only then could you draw on the venom essence.”
“But without Formation essence, I wouldn’t be able to create anything.”
“Exactly,” said Gill. “You would be able to use the Venom essence to give your existing creatures a mild venomous attack or defense. But it would be nowhere near as effective then if you combined Formation essence with Venom essence when creating a new creature. A dog dressed in a fake mane is not the same as a lion. As I said, I’m sorry to have gotten your hopes up.”
“There has to be a way I can learn to hold both types of essence at once. If other cores can, then I can.”
“It is akin to saying a one-armed man can use a broadsword the same as a barbarian with two arms. The man can train as hard as he wants, but his lack of an arm will always be a disadvantage. So it is with your core quality,” said Gill.
“But I can improve my core quality. There must be a way. If you can teach me techniques to strengthen my formation essence by pulsing, then there must be techniques out there to help core improve his own core quality.”
“Are you ready to suffer for these techniques?” Said Gill.
“I’m a core. I’ve already died once. My second existence has been spent mostly underground, accompanied by monsters and under the constant barrage of loot hungry heroes. I was born to suffer.”
Gill smiled. “It will take a while for you to improve your core quality. But for now, there may be something I can teach you. We will have to take a trip.”
Chapter 24
I thought that Gill was going to lead me to another arena where we would watch yet another core sparring in preparation for the next round. Instead, we left God’s Fist and then headed through Heaven’s Peak and carried on, traveling far away from the city.
The overseer and I walked and floated across the green and yellow wilderness surrounding Heaven’s Peak, traveling for half a dozen miles before the grassy fields gave way to a barren landscape. Cracks ran along the ground, and the whole place had a dead feel to it. No grass, no insects, no critters scampering, no birds singing. I was amazed that I could still see Heaven’s Peak in the distance, and yet at the same time, it felt like we had completely left civilization behind.
“There are as many core techniques in the world as there are academies,” said Gill, looking around to get his bearings. “Many of them were documented as they were created or discovered. Etched into tablets so that new cores could be taught their ways. But after the war against the Shielded Republic, the empire seized the archives of every known academy in existence.”
“The academies just let them do that?” I said.
“Every word spoken by the emperor has the weight of his empire behind it, giving him a loud voice indeed. After the empire evaluated every core technique and teaching, they created a list of the ones they were happy for academies to teach their cores. The rest, the ones they deemed powerful enough that they would make dungeon cores a threat to the empire, were stored in empire chambers. They are hidden to even those in the higher echelon of the emperor’s trust.”
I looked around at the landscape, so devoid of life, and wondered if that was why Gill had brought me here.
“I suppose if you wanted to hide a bunch of core technique tablets, this might be a place to do it. Who would ever think to come out here?”
Gill shook his head. This was a disconcerting sight, since his actual head was featureless. “Some academies weren’t too happy to be hobbled by the empire. However, the punishment for going against the emperor’s decree was so severe that not many overseers considered rebelling. Thus, many academies taught their cores only what they were allowed to. The more powerful techniques fell out of use.”
“But I’m guessing you didn’t bring me out here for a history lesson.”
“It was a damn shame that so many academy archives were raided and emptied. All those techniques, locked in an empire chamber and lost to the rest of us. However, if a person were to know of a secret archive…”
“Here?”
“Come.”
Although much of the landscape looked the same, I began to get a peculiar feeling as Gill led me across it. I felt as though I was being drawn to something. As if I was a magnet and a particular part of this vast nothingness hid a trove of gold.
Gill soon stopped above a patch of blackened soil. He kneeled and put his hand against it. He began to mumble, his belly lips whispering words that I couldn’t understand.
Blue light ran through the cracks in the ground, spreading out like a torrent filling dry river channels. Slowly, they formed a square. Gill grabbed hold of one part of the light with his right hand and then pulled. The ground opened like a door, revealing a passageway that sloped down into the earth.
We made our way down into a silent gloom. This wasn’t my dungeon, so I didn’t have perfect vision. However, I was a core, I was made to live underground. As such, I could see through some of the darkness. Not perfect, akin to what a person might see if they squi
nted so that they had just a slither of their usual vision.
I saw stone walls. I saw symbols carved into them, cracked in many places, perfectly preserved in just a few. I saw statues of monsters standing guard in the silence.
“This is a dungeon,” I said.
“Not quite.”
Gill led us through a maze of passageways and tunnels, taking each turn as if he knew exactly where he was going. We soon went through a tunnel that opened at the end, and we emerged into a giant chamber. It was supported by eight pillars, only six of which were standing. The other two were rubble on the ground.
The overseer headed to the walls, took a flint stick from his robe pocket, and one by one, lit some lamps. With a full view of the chamber, I saw that in the center of it, there was a mural.
I couldn’t believe it.
The mural was of a man wearing robes. His face was completely blank, but eyes, a nose, and a mouth were carved into his stomach.
Now, I wouldn’t pretend that I had seen anywhere near as much of Xynnar as I should have. There were all sorts of people and creatures and places waiting to be discovered. But I would have bet my core that there weren’t many people in the world who had a face on their belly.
I looked at Gill with equal parts amazement and suspicion. As is usual with me, the suspicion won. “Gill, let me ask you something. How old is this place?”
“Two hundred years.”
I eyed the mural of the man with a face in his belly, and then I looked at Gill.
“And, uh, how old are you, exactly?”
“I didn’t bring you here to hide things from you, Beno. Judging by your questioning, which has the subtlety of a drunken ice troll, you have probably worked out that I am very, very old.”
I was beginning to understand. Just a little. “This is a dungeon core academy, isn’t it?”
Gill took a breath. The expression on his stomach seemed rather wistful. “It was an academy, once. I was its overseer.”
“Whatever happened, it couldn’t have been good. This place is a wreck.”
“Our academy helped the empire against the Shielded Republic. But when the empire requested to pour through our archives, we refused. Our techniques were ancient, and we had used them to help the empire. That didn’t give the empire the rights to them. We had watched with growing concern the way the empire was treating academies after the battle, and we began to understand how things were going. As we were making plans to move all our tablets from our archives and to a new place, the empire visited.”
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 146