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

essence-wielding abilities for good, rather than evil. Boring. A waste of a profession, if you ask me.

Yet, I had no choice but to study with him. After all, First-Leaf Galatee was my owner, and as much as I hated the word, she had a contract that was written on paper and sealed with mana. I could not disobey her, or the magic contract would do bad stuff to me. I could explain the inner workings of such a contract to you, but that will suffice for now.

So yes, that meant lots of studying. Luckily, studying is my forte. I am not the most intelligent core in Xynnar, but I work hard. As much as the idea of creating things that didn’t involve the three M’s saddened me, I had put all my energy into it.

But what did I have to show for it so far?

“You have nothing to show,” said Galette, seeming to read my thoughts. Though I doubted she was a telepath, she had an instinct for reading emotion that would serve her well as a leader. “Your silence tells me that, even if I was blind to the fact that this is still a plane of desolation. And now, your friend Jahn has well and truly Jahned up and destroyed our food supply.”

“How did you learn about Jahning up?”

“A kobold told me. That is not relevant, Beno. My point is that Chief Reginal is right; you cores are failing so miserably that I am beginning to think it is willful. Reginal, go ahead and motivate these gems in whatever way you see fit.”

“Thank you,” said Reginal. He peered into the great hole in the ground and bellowed, “Core Jahn, get your miserable mineral arse up here.”

There was no sign of movement from below. No noise save the gentle sound of mud falling from the edges of the sinkhole.

I looked at the hole and then at Reginal, holding his whip. I had to stop Jahn from getting a thrashing. There could be no doubt that was the motivation Reginal had in mind.

So, how was I going to explain this in a way that helped my friend avoid a lashing?

Looking at the mess, it was obvious what had happened. Jahn had placed some sort of fire-tile trap too near his essence vines, and then he’d accidentally triggered it somehow. When too many essence vines catch fire too quickly, things get hot and explodey.

“I really Beno’d this up, didn’t I?” said a voice.

There, floating beside me on the pedestal, was my good friend Jahn. He was a dungeon core like me, though colored orange and shaped like a distorted, overweight star. Though we dungeon cores aren’t usually expressive, it was amazing the friendliness and warmth Jahn managed to convey. I guessed it was just part of his aura; for a being forged to wreak death, destruction, and doom – the three D’s – he was a swell guy.

We hadn’t always been friends, Jahn and I. Back in the academy I hadn’t made many friends because I was so preoccupied learning everything I could about coredom.

But after we both failed the academy, whether my failure was deserved or not, and found ourselves owned by Galatee and the Wrotun clan, we had become good pals.

My desire to help Jahn avoid getting whipped for his catastrophic error wasn’t just because I’m a good guy. Not solely because I’m a good guy, anyway.

No; Chief Reginal and First-Leaf Galatee treated Jahn and me as if we were one being. When Jahn messed up, it made them look disparagingly on cores as a whole, and it made Reginal pay more attention to what we were doing.

Right now, if I was to capture the narkleer and find a way to sever my mana-sealed contract with Galatee, I needed his attention to be focused elsewhere.

So, an excuse.

Come on…I must have been able to think of something.

“Core Jahn,” said Galatee. “Would you like to explain what happened?”

Galatee was being reserved, I could see, but Reginal’s fury was clear in how the veins on his goblin forehead were bulging. Around us, the Wrotun and Eternals clan workers were still picking through the vegetables that hadn’t been completely ruined. They all knew what Reginal’s fury meant, and the tension seemed to stretch from one worker to another like a chain.

“Core? We’re waiting,” said Reginal.

“Well, you see, um,” began Jahn.

“Thermal pockets,” I blurted.

Galatee and Reginal both looked at me.

I had nothing.

“Thermal…”

“Yes,” I said, constructing the theory as I spoke. “The sun has beaten down on this wasteland for hundreds of years. That’s how long the land here had been untouched, no? Heat soaks into the soil, where it is trapped. Normally it would dissipate over time, leaking back out through holes in the dirt. But you have so many cultivators working here, digging with metal tools. You have masons chipping away at stone. Someone must have created a spark, and Lady Chance frowned on them. A spark managed to strike near enough to a hole where a thermal pocket was leaking, causing the explosion.”

Gulliver shrugged. “Sounds perfectly plausible to me.”

Both Galatee and Reginal stared at me now, wearing not just masks of doubt, but full costumes of it.

I had hoped I had used just enough true-sounding words that they’d accept my explanation. That’s the thing with truth; you don’t need to say something actually true, just something that sounds like it could be.

But no, this wasn’t going to work.

I glanced at Brecht.

Because Brech was a kobold I had created, I could speak to him using my core voice, which nobody else would hear.

“Brecht, play something to make them believe me.”

The level 15 bard sat cross-legged on the ground, with his giant tambourine before him. He began to drum softly on it while whistling a gentle tune.

“This is no time for music,” began