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

Now it was time to move a step closer to opening this place to the loot-hungry public.

CHAPTER 16

With a newly replenished, whopping 100 points of essence, I felt ready to conquer the world. Pity that my world consisted of miles and miles of mud.

My first step was to install a pedestal point in room four. In there, I accessed my fixtures list and saw that new things had been added.

Dungeon Fixtures

Pedestal Point [Cost:12.5]

Lamp [Cost: 10]

Door [Cost: 15]

Pathway [Cost: 5]

Small Loot Chest [Cost: 20]

*New* Iron Door [Cost: 30]

*New* Disguised Iron Door [Cost: 35]

*New* Lock [Cost: 10]

*New* Rug [Cost: 15]

Rug? Why, in the name of all that was unholy, would I want to put a rug in my dungeon?

I mean, sure, when I first became a core, I retained a glimmer of my old self and I used to miss home comforts. I’d shed that part of myself entirely now. Even in my core room, which I supposed was the equivalent of my living quarters, I didn’t need a damn rug.

Forgetting the useless carpet, I was happy with what I saw. Doors and locks were very important in my dungeon, for several reasons. Firstly, I now had a means of protecting my core room, and with it all of my lovely essence. It meant I had a place where I could lock myself away once the first adventurers came.

So, I changed my priorities for a second.

Hopping back into my core room, I did a couple of things. First, I crafted a disguised iron door and placed it at the tunnel opening. I admired my work; it was great!

Although it functioned as a door, it looked like a mud wall. I crafted a lock onto it, and then I did the same at the end of the tunnel, where it opened into the loot door. Disguised door and lock, check.

Now I had two disguised and lockable doors that would stop heroes from getting to my core.

Sure, it wasn’t foolproof. If a hero party had a mage who could dispel illusions and a rogue who could pick locks, then they could still get through. But I wasn’t overly worried.

The thing was, if the heroes made it to my loot room and defeated whatever boss monster I placed in there, they’d be too excited about opening the loot chest to bother hunting for more secrets. It didn’t make me indestructible, but I was a little safer.

Constructing two doors and locks had sapped 90 of my 100 essence points, so I had a little waiting to do.

I did this in my core room. Although my essence vines would replenish me no matter where I was in the dungeon, the effect was strongest at the source. Now, the vines had completely covered the two walls where I’d planted them, and they were getting much thicker. Unlike Overseer Bolton’s hair.

Sorry, Bolton, I thought. I shouldn’t joke about that. That was mean of me, and you can’t help it.

While I floated on my core pedestal and let the vines nourish me, I looked around, and a thought hit me.

Man, a rug would go rather well in here, actually.

Argh, what was I saying to myself? What a waste of essence that would be!

My essence had replenished to fifty points, when I received a message. Not a welcomed message, either.

Bolton had finished tearing me apart in his evaluation, and it was time to read his judgement.

Attention, Core Beno.

Overseer Bolton has completed your second evaluation.

He is disappointed that you do not seem to have progressed much since his last visit. Four unfurnished rooms, save an oddly placed loot chest. You had not leveled at the time of his visit, nor have you constructed any traps or puzzles.

Your lack of advancement has dropped your placement among the other cores to the lower 50%. Some cores have already opened their dungeons to heroes.

However, Overseer Bolton accepts that for the purposes of your evaluation, you are not to be ranked against other cores.

Furthermore, he noted that you have summoned a kobold and instructed him to mine for you, and your core room essence growth is impressive.

As such, Overseer Bolton has issued an evaluation reward. Henceforth, the number of non-dungeon creatures surrounding your territory has increased, and their difficulty has heightened. I am sure you realize that this will bring increased experience points if you can kill them.

Also, the overseers have increased the fame score of the towns and villages near your dungeon, which will attract heroes of a much higher skill level. Again, this brings better rewards.

Uh, what?

I had to read the evaluation three times before I dismissed it, because I couldn’t believe my eyes. Overseer Bolton had actually rewarded me?

Did that mean that maybe he respected the fact that I’d appealed his earlier decision? Perhaps it was the right thing to do after all, and it gave me the idea that overseers might actually like their cores to stand up for themselves.

Then I thought about it some more, and I re-read the reward they’d given me.

Reward? Pah.

They had increased the toughness of the monsters that might find their way into my dungeon, and the ones Tomlin might encounter while mining.

As well as that, they’d gone to the villages and towns on the surface and somehow made it so that better heroes would go there, and thus the first heroes I encountered would be tougher.

They were right in saying that would bring me more experience points and rewards for killing them…but that was the problem, wasn’t it?

When a core first opens their dungeon, nobody really knows about it. Word hasn’t spread yet. The more famous a dungeon gets, the more highly skilled heroes want to conquer it.