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

“Ray? Really?”

“Yes. Thank you…Beno.”

Even using his core voice, Ray’s tone was labored. Drawing on the black essence had left him close to death. His second death, I supposed, given that he was a core. The thing was, he must have been drawing on it for a while, judging by the insects and wraiths that he’d made. I’d absorbed essence from it just once, and I lost so much core purity that I didn’t even want to think about it. At his peak, Ray must have been a strong core, to be able to draw from black essence for so long.

Maybe he was used to it. Maybe Ray was made to be able to draw from it, and the black essence allowed him to create things like the insects. I sure as a demon’s arse couldn’t make something like that.

Then again, if Ray was supposed to absorb black essence, why did he look like a giant steel elephant had sat on him?

Judging by the state of him, I wouldn’t have long to get my answers.

“Tell me something, Ray. You created the insects, and you’re turning people into wraiths, aren’t you?”

I braced myself for the denials and the lies.

“Well, obviously,” he said.

“Oh. Good, at least I know. Can you turn them back?”

Here came the bargains. He’d want me to do something in exchange for turning them back.

“No,” he said.

“Right. Nice to know where we stand. What about Riston? What’s he got to do with this?”

“Riston Ruth is an Awakener, Beno. When the ancient ones begin to stir, the Awakeners are…well, they are awakened. All across Xynnar, it is their job to find us. Each Awakener has a core he must find. And then, they are our hands. They are our tools on the surface, while we shake off our slumber. Riston was to be my hands on the surface until…until the 50 nights were summoned.”

There it was again. Riston had told me the wraith girl mentioned the 50 knights in her sleep.

“50 Knights? Who are these guys?”

“I said the 50 nights, Beno.”

“Yes, I heard. Who are they?”

“They? What do you mean?”

“The 50 knights!”

Ray sighed. “Night is what follows day, Beno. When the sun retreats and darkness spreads in the sky.”

“Ohhhh. 50 Nights! Bloody hell, I feel like an idiot now.”

And then a thought hit me.

Demons arses!

Ray had asked Riston to summon 50 nights, which must have meant…what? That there would be 50 straight days where the whole wasteland was in darkness?

And what about the wraiths? They’d have the freedom to roam for all that time!

They’d attack Yondersun. Kill the townsfolk. Create more wraiths. Then roam over to Hogsfeate, kill the folks there, and multiply their wraith numbers even more. After that, they would head north and spread through the rest of Xynnar.

“You need to call this whole thing off,” I said.

Call it off? That sounded lamer than a three-legged mule, even to me. Why would a core who called himself an ‘ancient one’ give up on his grand plan, just because I told him to?

I had to try another way, but I needed more information.

“What’s your angle on this, Ray? Why do you need to create so many wraiths in the first place? It’s just greedy if you ask me. And who the hell are the ancient ones?”

Bolton straightened up. He wiped his dusty hands on his trousers.

“The ancient ones are the original cores, Beno. The first cores to exist in Xynnar. I would have thought that was obvious.”

“You could hear our core voices?” I said.

“I’m a bloody Dungeon Core Academy overseer. Do you think it would be wise to let cores talk amongst themselves using their core voices, and for us overseers not to hear?”

“Then you knew about Ray and what he is?”

“I told you, I came here for him.”

A sickening feeling began to worm its way inside me. Bolton had come here for the core. For Ray.

Riston was an awakener, apparently. His job was to be Ray’s hands on the surface. To act out his desires. What if Bolton was the same?

“Don’t look at me like that, Beno.”

“Like what?”

“So suspiciously. I think Ray has something to show you.”

“Who are you, old man?” said the core. He used his real voice now. It sounded ancient and gloomy. “Are you an Awakener?”

“Not as such. Show Beno what he needs to see.”

Ray cast a core vision in front of us. A rectangle of light that extended from floor to ceiling, housing a dizzying swirl of colors. Every color that existed, and some that never had until now. They went round and round, hypnotic and mysterious. The colors finally settled, forming a scene.

It was a village. The strangest village I had ever seen, actually. The houses were made of jagged glass spikes that extended higher than a bird could fly. Each spike was covered in a patchwork of vines, twisting and wrapping around them all the way to the top. Essence vines. I’d know them anywhere. Except, I’d never seen them growing above ground.

There were no people around. No carts, no traders, no shops. Just those giant spikes. I’d never seen anything like it. Never learned about such a place. But instinctively, I knew what it was.

This was a core settlement. A village on the surface of the world, but for cores.

It was hard to say why I thought of that so instinctively. Maybe because an old core was showing me this in a vision. It didn’t take a great leap of deduction to assume his vision would involve cores.

But more importantly, it was the glass spikes. They were dwellings, but nothing like what you’d find in a civilized part of Xynnar these days. It was impossible that such a