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

“Correct,” I said. “But the dragon stuff isn’t important. The Battle of the Five Stars could be the making of us.”

“The making of you, more like,” said Bolton. “It’s no secret that the core who wins the tournament earns magnificent rewards. Could this be your motivation entering such an event, by any chance? Personal glory and untold rewards?”

“Bolton, I am shocked. Have you ever know me to act selfishly? Don’t answer that. My motivation is as pure as angel breath, if that is a thing. You said time and time again that Jahn’s task is so important that it’s almost divine. We need to find Ancient cores before anyone else does, and bend them to our will. I don’t need to tell you how difficult that will be. The rewards bestowed on us by winning the tournament would help us immeasurably. The Battle of the Five Stars happens only once a decade. Can we really afford to pass up this chance?”

Bolton squinted at me. “And you have only Jahn’s task in mind as your motivation?”

“Bolton, nothing would please me more than to dedicate my entire second existence to serving Core Jahn and his mission from the gods.”

Bolton stood up and stopped pacing while tapping ash from his pipe onto the floor. “This is all just a silly diversion. You have no chance of winning the tournament, Beno. Do you know the caliber of cores that will enter? Cores from the best academies. Ones who can conjure monsters that make the heavens tremble. You will not defeat them using your usual dirty tricks. They are much more sophisticated than that.”

“So that’s it then, is it? I come to you with an opportunity, and you refuse it because you are scared of losing?”

Gulliver and Jahn were watching me now. I noticed Gulliver nodding his head. Jahn wasn’t nodding his head, since he was a block of gemstone and didn’t have a head. Nevertheless, as a fellow core, I could sense his emotions. He was agreeing with me. Suddenly, the tables had turned on Bolton.

The overseer’s face reddened. “I am simply-”

“You are chicken,” I said. I tried making a chicken noise, but it came out all wrong and sounded like a pig that had stood on a bramble. Not quite the effect I wanted.

“A coward. A goose-livered, pipe-smoking old git who barks about Jahn’s cause and how important it is, yet is scared of failure. A sniveling mouse of a man who will not take a risk.”

“Beno is right,” said Gulliver. “If the rewards of winning this tournament are so great, can we pass it up? After all, what’s the worst that could happen? We lose? I’d rather suffer 1000 losses while trying to achieve greatness, then have my life be a long, drawn-out loss with no chance of reaching for the stars.”

“A rather mixed metaphor,” I said. “But you sort of made the point.”

Then, Bolton did something that surprised me greatly. He turned to face Core Jahn. “Jahn? What do you say?”

I had never seen Bolton, or any overseer, show such deference to a dungeon core before. Especially not Core Jahn, who back in the academy was renowned as the worst dungeon core to ever be forged.

Of course, we knew now that Jahn hadn’t been forged in the academy. He was an Ancient core who the academy had found, woke from his slumber, and then brainwashed into forgetting his roots.

This explained why Jahn had always been poor at building dungeons, creating monsters, and fighting heroes. While I cultivated essence and used it to make monsters underground, Ancient cores were masters at using essence to create structures on the surface. Peace versus violence. Cores forged for different existences. Building on the surface was something I could not do.

Jahn was enjoying the overseer’s attention. Though no expression appeared on his face, I sensed smugness coming from him. If he wasn’t such a bloody nice guy and one of my best friends, I would have been annoyed.

Jahn had never been the sharpest core in the academy, and he would never be the brains behind any operation.  That was just how it was. We all have different talents. That rich division should be celebrated.

But it was with Jahn’s intelligence in mind that I didn’t feel positive as I waited for an answer.

“I trust Beno,” said Jahn. “If he thinks this could greatly help our chances, then why not at least try winning the tournament?”

“Jahn,” I said out loud. “I always said you were a genius. Now, let’s get started.”

Chapter 2

This decade’s Battle of the Five Stars was to be held far north of the wasteland. That was further than I had ever traveled. In this life, at least. I may have traveled the whole world when I was a man, but I couldn’t remember it. That was one of the drawbacks of being forged into a core - your past life was gone.

Before we could begin training for the tournament, we had to register. This meant that Gulliver, Shadow, Bolton, Anna, and Jahn, and I journeyed out of the wasteland in a hired mana–driven carriage. The trip would take a normal carriage two weeks. It would take six weeks for someone to walk. It would take maybe a few hours for the crow to fly.

In a mana-driven carriage, it was a two-day journey. Anna, the teenage witch who saw Overseer Bolton as a father figure, spent the journey sitting on the end of the carriage, staring out. She hadn’t seen much of the world and was very excited to watch the landscape pass by. Gulliver had spent his life as a scribe and had seen more of the world than any of us put together. As such, he spent the journey scribbling in his notebook.