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

I imagined Jahn being in the core vision. Maybe he’d lived in a village like that long ago. I suddenly felt a deep reverence for him. He was older than me. Older than Bolton. Older than the academy.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Did I do something wrong?” he said. “Oh! Here’s the core we were looking for. Listen, are you going to change those wraiths back into-”

“Silence, Jahnetian.”

Ray, despite his core body ready to fall apart, had enough energy to put force into his voice.

“My name’s just Jahn.”

“You are not just anything…but I am not one to use a longer name when the short is preferred,” said Ray. “I never met you, back then. But I heard about you. You dwelled in a village north of mine. I met your brother’s wife’s cousin, once, I believe.”

“What? What’s he talking about, Beno? Has he gone mad?”

Ray and Bolton told Jahn everything.

Then they told him again. Slowly this time, so he understood it all.

And then they answered around 50 of his questions.

Jahn looked so confused he could burst into pieces trying to comprehend it all. I completely understood how he felt. It was only a short while ago that I thought I was the ancient one. That had been confusing enough.

But not only that. Nothing compares to the disorientation when a core first gets resurrected. When you wake up in a room, surrounded by overseers, and they tell you that you died. And then were resurrected. And that henceforth, you would live life as a magic block of stone.

Yes, confusion and I were good buddies. I reckoned that for Jahn, this was like his first core awakening, but even more of a mind twister.

“So now you know, Jahn,” said Ray. “I apologize for the suddenness of this, but time is our enemy. First you have too much and all you can do is lie dormant, waiting to be found and awakened. Then, you have too little. We have been given the sign. It is time for all the hidden and slumbering ancient ones to rise. The Awakeners have been called. Though, so much time has passed that the title of Awakener has gone from father to son, passed down through the ages.”

“And these Awakeners are all people?” I said.

“Yes.”

“I’m not the brightest of cores, but tell me if I wasn’t following along properly. I thought Old Ones…”

“Ancient Ones!” thundered Ray.

“I thought the Decrepit Guys had a whole falling out with people. You know, the tiff that resulted in the near destruction of all cores.”

“Some people helped us with our oppressors. They swore fealty to us. In return, we granted them certain aspects of our powers.”

“Your oppressors?” scoffed Bolton. “Beno, Jahn, you both need to listen to me. The cores attacked first.”

“Will you heed the words of a man who admits he lied to you already?”

“Overseer?” said Jahn.

“The academy isn’t perfect, but we try. We have our reasons.”

“Reason sinks when it rests on a bed of lies,” said Ray. I got the overwhelming sense he was directing every word to Jahn now. “A core has finally come back to Xynnar, my fellow ancient. A core strong enough to lead us. The Awakeners are back. Ancient cores are emerging from their slumber. They are your kind. Your family.”

“How can they be my family? I never met them!” said Jahn. “All I know is the academy and Yondersun. Beno, Bolton, Galatee, the nice people in town. They depend on me.”

“Who? These people? They may depend on you, but you can never depend on them. Everything has its opposite, ancient one. We have our awakeners. Those who will serve us. But awakeners have their opposite.”

“I take it you mean the hunters?” said Bolton. “More mythical bullcrap.”

“An order descended from the first people who so cruelly destroyed our civilizations. They will come for you, Jahn. They will come for all of us once they learn that we are waking.”

“For me?” said Jahn.

“For you. For all ancient cores.”

“Even you?”

“All ancient cores.”

“For-”

“For all ancient cores! You had better awaken to your true self quickly. Banish the fog they planted in your mind. You have a choice, ancient one. Will you help your fellow cores? Or will you help these people, so full of lies and treachery, with the crimes of their past staining their every deed?”

Jahn started at Ray. Then Bolton. Then Ray. Confusion emanated from him.

Finally, he looked at me. His friend.

“Beno?”

Demons arses, what was I supposed to say? I could hardly make sense of it myself. What was the truth? Ray’s story? Bolton’s?

“Come and talk with me,” I told him.

I floated out of the chamber. Bolton carried Jahn to me, away from Ray.

“You can’t listen to him,” began Bolton.

“Quiet, please, overseer,” I said.

Bolton seemed to pick up on the anger in my voice.

“Listen, Jahn,” I said. “It turns out you’re the real core here. Me? I’m not much of one. I’m a false core. Made unnaturally. There was a time when I thought all of us cores were unnatural, but that’s not so. I at least believe Ray about that.”

“But he wants me to…to what?”

“To side with the ancient cores and their awakeners, by the sounds of it.”

“I don’t know what to do, Beno. I’m scared.”

Bolton rolled his eyes.

I felt a tremendous fury surge through me then. Fury at Bolton, at the academy, at their methods, their lies.

But I had to forget that, and be there for my friend.

After all, one thing Bolton said was true; they’d sent me away with Jahn. I had been there for him.

“I know as much about this as you,” I told Jahn. “And that’s a whole lot of nothing. But one thing seems clear. Think about