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

“Good. Now, why not construct a mana lamp in each room, at exactly the same time?”

“I…can’t do it.”

“You’re thinking in straight lines. You’re rooted in a human’s form of thinking, Beno, and yet you haven’t been human for a long time. Think like a core.”

“I am a core!”

“Then think like one!”

I tried again, but attempting to hold three separate chamber visions in focus and draw essence to conjure three things at the exact same time was impossible. It was as if my mind resisted being divided, and it turned into a chaotic mess. Soon, my mind was a swirl of images, of words, of my own thoughts.

“I can’t do it.”

“Perhaps you aren’t as advanced as I thought. I am not infallible, either. Perhaps all those years in the academy, when I thought I sensed potential in you…”

I knew Bolton was trying to prod me, but the problem was that it worked. As my old mentor, he’d always had that kind of hold over me.

Damn it, I wouldn’t let him leave here thinking I had failed. But how could I untangle my mind?

And then I remembered the skill Razensen had taught me.

Remembering his lesson, I used the Bogan Mind-Settle technique. It was enough to clear my head so I could really focus. Now, when I looked at each chamber vision and thought about what I wanted to do, there was no mess of light and noise.

I concentrated on the three chamber visions.

I felt something inside my core. A shifting, almost. I could do it.

I pictured the three separate chambers in my mind. I had three separate thoughts in my core all at once, and yet I was somehow able to hear each of them individually and follow the thought chain of each one simultaneously.

I gave three separate commands, at exactly the same time. Three chunks of essence let me. And then, in a split-second, three new mana lamps glowed on the separate chamber walls in my core visions.

So that was my problem. It wasn’t that I had been spreading myself too thin by extending my influence out of the dungeon. It was that I hadn’t truly been thinking like a core. My inner core had advanced through dungeon building and hero slaughter, yet I hadn’t stopped and contemplated it. I hadn’t let my core mind catch up with my advancement.

This was how Namantep had survived. She was a much older core than me, and she’d already mastered the technique. When Dullbright had attacked her, she’d split her core consciousness, surrendering part of it to death and keeping part of it dormant and hidden.

I stared at Bolton. Since I don’t have eyes, most people would not know just how intensely I was glaring at them, but Bolton was an overseer. He knew.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t thank me. I didn’t bring you to this level; everything you have done since leaving the academy got you here. All I did was show you the signposts that you had so willfully walked by. Of course, if you had graduated from the academy and stayed in our employ, I could have shown you this before. Even a graduated core needs a mentor, Beno.”

“Whose fault is it that I didn’t graduate?”

“Blame. Such a funny thing, isn’t it? Rather like an arrow pointed at your own head.” He stood up, his leather boots creaking. “I’ll take the girl and leave. Keep well, Beno. I mean that.”

CHAPTER 17

Shadow woke up on the floor of an empty chamber with a pounding head, a sore leg, and a cramp in her stomach. There was a bowl of cave shrooms beside her, but the bitter smell made her retch. Getting to her feet, she felt a dull pain in her thigh, and saw that it was bandaged. A faint floral smell came from it, no doubt from some kind of alchemical concoction.

She began to recognize her surroundings. The vaulted ceiling, excavated with precision by Wylie’s mining team. The smell of mud and sweat and blood. The drip-drip of unseen dew from some unseen part of the chamber.

She was home, of course. Back in the dungeon. Where else would she be? But that being the case, why did she feel like she’d spent some time away from it?

She tried to remember what she’d done last night.

Nothing.

She strained to think about the week before.

Nothing.

Where were her memories? The last thing she remembered was killing Sir Dullbright on Beno's orders and then leaving Hogsfeate under the shroud of night. After that, her mind was empty.

She left the chamber and headed into a tunnel. There were arrows scratched into the ground.

“Hello?” she said, getting no answer but her own voice echoing back at her. “Core Beno? Tomlin? Wylie?”

No answer. No answer, and no memories. She felt so alone, for some reason. Even here, in her own home.

She followed the arrows. They took her along a cramped tunnel that curved left, went straight for a while, and then looped right. She called out every so often but got no answer.

Had something happened to everyone? Had a bunch of heroes finally defeated Core Beno once and for all, and not content in just taking his loot, had also destroyed him?

As much as she’d wished that upon her master at times, she’d never truly wanted it. Though he had his faults, he’d been making an effort with her, hadn’t he? In turn, she’d resolved to make an effort with him. The idea that he was gone…that everyone was gone and that only she had been spared for some reason…

Yes, she felt alone. Truly, and utterly alone. There would have been a time when Shadow would have found the idea liberating, but for the first time in her life, the idea of