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

“Jahn!” I said, with genuine happiness.

There was something different about Core Jahn today. Not in the way he looked, exactly. Or perhaps in the way he looked, but not his actual appearance. He was still the same old Jahn in that regard. But now, he seemed to carry himself better, to float a little straighter atop the pedestal.

“Sorry I haven’t been to visit much, Beno,” he said. “A problem with my essence vines. Or complication, rather than a problem. You see my kobold cultivator, Beno, he-”

“Woah, woah, woah. You named a kobold after me?”

“Why, yes. It was you who gave me such good advice on growing essence, so it only seemed fair…”

I didn’t like this. Not one bit. A kobold sharing my name? But Jahn was so earnest that I didn’t have it in my dead, evil heart to rebuke him.

“How are things going up top? It looks like you’re making progress,” I said.

“Ah, you went to the surface? And you didn’t visit me?”

“Not exactly. I was using my core vision filtered through a mimic, and it was a whole thing…never mind. I saw that you’ve begun building houses up there.”

“Yes, Beno. Chief Reginal is still searching for thermal pockets. He’s demented, if you ask me, always ranting and raving about them. But we couldn’t hold off on construction any longer. My miners excavate so much stone that it's piling up to the rafters, and it needed to be used. Added to that, the clan is sick of tents. Even with their alchemically-treated fabric, they don’t reflect the heat well enough. They need a place to shelter from the sun.”

“You’ve done a great job, Jahn. It looks like a different place up there. Almost like a real town.”

“Using essence on the surface is simple, Beno. Like riding a mule after you’ve already learned to make a horse gallop. It's just the way you bring the essence out from your inner core that’s different. You see-”

Jahn launched into a whole diatribe about using essence on the surface instead of a dungeon, and using it to build rather than destroy. It was interesting on many levels, mostly because I had never heard Jahn talk about a subject for so long, in so much detail, and with such an air of confidence.

But as proud of him as I was, all I could think about was my lessons with Samson Bing, and how I hadn’t been able to construct a single thing on the surface.

I supposed we were just different cores, Jahn and I. Which led me along another path; despite being resurrected by the academy, were cores brought back to life with different natures?

Did we all belong in a dungeon, or were some of us better suited for creation, for healing, maybe even for things like art?

Why had I never really questioned this before?

I felt a lurching inside me now, like I was standing in a sky balloon and watching the world miles and miles below me. It was a strange feeling, in that it was one of the first real feelings I’d had in a while.

I didn’t like it, and so I shook it away.

“…and purple essence vines used in surface construction work just fine, but I came to thinking that there might be a way to grow essence on the surface itself. And in doing that, perhaps grow crops. If essence vines can survive in the heat, can the thing that gives it its survival traits be utilized in food crops?”

“Wow. An intriguing thought. You’ve changed, Jahn. Not that there was anything wrong with you, but you seem like a person who’s found their purpose.”

Jahn seemed to glow then. He was always such an upbeat core, which earned him plenty of harsh stares back in the academy, and now he’d found a place to use his positivity.

“Found my calling, yup. And my freedom! Did the First-Leaf talk to you?”

“Free cores at least, eh? I wonder how many of our old academy classmates are free?”

“Now now, Beno. Let’s not gloat. It’s only thanks to the thoughtful nature and good heart of Galatee that we are free. We should spread that same kindness, not lord it over others.”

I wanted to say something. To claim all the credit. But for what purpose? Just to satisfy a little of my ego?

And besides, the mimic did most of the work. As a transparent husk, the mimic was entirely egoless by definition, so why should I inflate my own with his deeds?

“I came here to ask you something, Beno,” said Jahn.

“I am an open book, my friend.”

“As happy as I was when Galatee offered me a deal, I came to wondering...I just wanted to ask…you are staying here, aren’t you? You won’t just leave?”

“There will come a time when the clan doesn’t need me, Jahn. But they’ll always need you, I think. As long as you want to be needed, anyway. Humans and gnomes and other surface dwellers will always need creation more than destruction, and I think that’s what we’ve both become: two opposite sides of the same gemstone.”

“But always friends, I hope. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’ll stay for a while, Jahn, and that’s all I can promise. When that changes, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Good, good. Thanks, friend. My best friend, in fact! Now I better go. I left my kobold, Fixus, in charge of taking some stone to the surface, and I don’t want him to Beno it up. Whoops, sorry.”

I laughed. “Get your arse up there, you pumpkin-faced buffoon.”

As Jahn prepared to hop from the pedestal in my dungeon and back to his own lair, we heard footsteps coming from a tunnel connected to the core room.

They were rapid steps, ones that could only have been made by someone in