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

At the far end of the room, a kobold was kneeling beside a wall and pruning the leaves. He wore a white cultivation suit splotched with purple stains, and oversized mittens covered his hands. He was singing to himself as he worked.

“Morning, Tomlin,” I said.

He didn’t answer, consumed by his labors. I admired Tomlin. He might not have been the bravest of kobolds. If I gave him a sword to fight heroes, he was more likely to stab himself with it by accident.

But he’d found his passion in life, and that was something that I couldn’t help but respect. As a bonus, his passion just happened to help me, because Tomlin was in charge of cultivating my essence plants. They were the building blocks that allowed me to create monsters. Tomlin didn’t have much confidence in himself, but my dungeon wouldn’t function as well without him.

“Tomlin?” I said again.

He didn’t hear me, so entranced was he with the vines.

I floated quietly through the chamber until I was directly behind him.

“Boo!”

Tomlin jumped so high that he almost hit the ceiling. “Dark Lord! Don’t do that!”

“Busy?”

Tomlin took a moment to gather his breath. “Tomlin has almost made a breakthrough, Dark Lord. See the essence vines? Some have four leaves, some have two, or even one. The ones with four replenish Dark Lord’s essence at four times the speed. Some cultivators think the amount of leaves is random, however, Tomlin has discovered a way to nurture leaf buds to increase the chance of getting four. Sometimes even five or six leaves.”

“That’s excellent, Tomlin. But why stop at five? Why not ten? Twenty?”

“Dark Lord is never happy…”

“On the contrary, Tomlin. I just think that if you reach for the stars enough, you’ll grab one. And when you do that…well, you’d die. Stars are suns, you know, and quite capable of boiling you alive. In any case, I’m so happy with your work in the cultivation chamber that I’ve decided to reward you.”

“Reward?”

“You are a better cultivator than many of the chumps who work at the dungeon core academies across Xynnar. Yet they are more recognized than you, simply because they have licenses. I have decided to allow you to go to Tavercraig, where you can visit permit office 237, and take the test to earn your F class cultivation license.”

“Test? License?”

Tomlin backed away from me as if I was a hero ready to decapitate him or something.

“What’s wrong?”

Tomlin shook his head. “Tomlin doesn’t want to earn a license.”

 “Whyever not? A license is merely a recognition of your skills as a cultivator. You can even pin it on your chamber wall for everyone to see. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“No, Dark Lord. Tomlin wouldn’t like that.”

Something was wrong here. I was sure that Tomlin would be excited at the chance of earning a license and being recognized in his profession. It was his life’s work, after all. No, there was something amiss.

“You aren’t been straight with me, Tomlin.”

“Tomlin is just too busy to take the exam.”

Unlike many dungeon cores, I liked to allow my monsters as much autonomy as possible, situations permitting. However, my status as a core, and Tomlin’s status as a monster I had created, meant that my will overrode his. I could command him to do whatever I wished. I rarely used it, but I didn’t have much choice today. The deadline for registering my academy was getting closer.

“Tomlin, I command you to explain your true reasons.”

Tomlin sighed. “Tomlin loves studying and loves cultivating essence plants. But he doesn’t think… he’s unsure of…”

I thought I understood. “You’re doubting yourself, aren’t you?”

He gave a sad nod, and I felt bad for him. When I first joined the Dungeon Core Academy, when I was newly forged as a core, I remembered feeling overwhelmed. Especially when I saw all the other cores in the academy. They all seemed to know so much more than me.

As it turned out, I was probably right about myself. I hadn’t known it back then, but my core quality was the lowest in the whole academy. This, on its own, meant I fully understood Tomlin’s worries.

“I won’t force you to do this, Tomlin. I could, but it wouldn’t work. To pass the exam, you need to be committed by your own accord. Motivation earned by the rod snaps under the slightest pressure. But remember this: this is important. We need you to do it for us.”

Tomlin thought about it for a moment. “I am sorry, Dark Lord. I cannot.”

Why is it that time seems to speed up when you have a deadline approaching and are nowhere near prepared for it? After I met with Tomlin, the day seemed to fly by. I spent it trying to figure out how to get around my problem.

One option would be to create a new kobold, designate him as a cultivator, and send him to Tavercraig. The problem there was that it had taken Tomlin a long time to build up his expertise. The F-class license for cultivation, according to my research, was no joke. Creating a kobold and just assigning the cultivation class to him wouldn’t cut it. It would be like plucking someone from the street, giving them a sword, and naming them a dragon slayer, then wondering why the first dragon they saw burned them to a crisp.

I thought about sourcing a cultivator from outside the dungeon, but the problem was the same as with the overseers. Essence cultivators were often trained in-house by dungeon core academies, and thus were loyal to them.

Sometimes gardeners and horticulturists were cross-trained to cultivate essence, but people like that would command a high wage. Besides, my experience with Gill had burned me on recruiting people from outside the dungeon. I would do that as little as possible.