Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) by Alex Oakchest (book suggestions txt) 📕

You have leveled up to 7!

- Total essence increased to 615

- Existing crafting categories expanded

- Dungeon capacity increased: 18 rooms, 22 traps, 12 puzzles, 20 monsters, 2 boss monsters

- Maginhart [Kobold, Miner] is upgraded to lvl 21!

- Maginhart [Kobold, Miner] has gained weapon proficiency: crossbow

- Gary [Melded Monster] is upgraded to lvl 4

Finally! It had been bloody ages since I had last advanced my core level.

Given that I can only do so by murdering things, and with the lack of things to murder around here, I was resigned to waiting a while before I could do it.

But it had finally happened, and now I was a level 7. Super.

Not only had leveling up increased my total essence, which was what I needed to use to create things in my dungeon, but it had also expanded my crafting categories, giving me access to new things.

New puzzles to confuse heroes.

New traps to snare them.

New monsters to kill them with.

The only thing I had been unsure of about the entire saga was letting the young lad go. I mean, he looked like he was about to wet himself all over my lovely dungeon tiles, but it wasn’t through a sense of pity or cleanliness that I spared him.

No, you see, I had a problem.

As I mentioned, I could only level up my core stats, and thus get more essence and more things to craft, by killing things in my dungeon.

Sure, I could find rats and moles and other creatures to slaughter, but it wouldn’t level me up anywhere near as fast as when I kill heroes. To a dungeon core, in terms of leveling up, killing heroes is like pouring oil into a fire and sending the flames crazy.

The only problem was that right now, my dungeon was in a remote wasteland, far away from most hero guilds. Although the guilds had ways of knowing when dungeons had opened up, mine was so distant and had so low a difficulty and loot rating, that it was hardly worth the journey here.

No heroes traveling here, means few chances to level up. See my problem?

So, I considered letting the boy live a form of advertising. I pictured him journeying back home, and finally stumbling back into town as a traumatized, blood-soaked mess.

He’d spill his story to his people, and word would spread about the big, bad dungeon in the wasteland. Before you know it, I’d be up to my metaphorical elbows in heroes’ blood.

Happy days!

But right now, I didn’t hear the sound of heroes traipsing into my lair.

No.

Today, my thoughts were broken by the sound of a kobold screaming.

“Heroes, do you think?” said Gulliver. “What do you say? The scent of misplaced bravery and barely hidden fear is in the air.”

“It always smells like that down here. Come on.”

With a mental command, I traveled through my dungeon, past the alchemy chamber and monster melding room, until I reached the most eastern part of the labyrinth.

Here, I materialized on a pedestal. This room was a mess even for a dungeon, which should tell you something about its state. Gulliver arrived not long after. He was red in the face and clearly had dashed through the tunnels to try and beat me here. Yet when he entered the room, he did so with the biggest strut he could manage, while humming a tune.

“What a mess,” he said. “Looks like a troll’s guest parlor.”

Debris was sitting in great big piles. Mini hills of mud, stone, and clay heaped over by one wall, and smaller piles of iron, selenium, and zinc ores opposite them. Mana lamps glowed on the walls, spreading light over a room littered with mice bones completely stripped of flesh. It looked like a truly disturbed cat had loaded up on barbiturate-laced catnip and gone on a killing spree. But no, this was just the remnants of my kobold mining crew’s lunch break. They couldn’t get enough of grilled mouse.

My mining crew was over by the most eastern wall, though I couldn’t see any reason for one of them to have screamed so loudly. The team comprised of five kobold miners led by my friend Wylie, who I had recently promoted to supervisor after the last one, a delightful young lad named Warrane, had to quit.

Wylie was a little short on brains the same way most cats are a little short of loyalty, but he was one of the hardest workers I had ever seen. As a hard worker myself, that made me like him. Not only that, but he was loyal, and he truly, truly loved mining. I’m sure that when he slept, his most beloved dreams involved him swinging a pickaxe in a never-ending labyrinth of clay and asphalt.

“My dear kobold,” said Gulliver, bowing theatrically. “Well met. How are we on this especially dark and dreary day?”

Wylie looked at Gulliver, and then me. His eyes were panicked, and he seemed tense.

“Wylie, what did I teach you?” asked Gulliver. “Remember? About being a gentleman?”

The kobold scratched his head. He gave a short, awkward bow. “Well…met,” he grunted.

“Wylie, what’s wrong?” I asked. “I heard screaming.”

The kobolds around Wylie, most of them taller than him and slightly more intelligent, glanced at their supervisor and then looked away. They did that thing where people act so inconspicuous, that it looks incredibly spicuous.

Is spicuous the opposite of inconspicuous?

Whatever. Right now I felt more suspicious than a policeman investigating a pie theft and seeing his main suspect’s hands covered in gravy.

“Wylie…” I began. “You’re hiding something from me. Do we need to talk about truth and honesty again?”

“No, Dark Lord.”

“Then what did we say about honesty?” I asked.

Wylie looked at the ground, ashamed. “A dungeon is no place for lies.”

“Good. Then you