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

had been impressed enough when Tomlin earned his F class cultivation license, but seeing real proof of his talents was remarkable.

With her job done, Shadow crept away from the cultivation room and out of the dungeon.

The exit was in sight when someone grabbed her shoulder.

The core has noticed me!

She spun around, only to come face-to-face with a fellow kobold. On instinct, she pulled her dagger and swung it towards his throat, but then stopped before puncturing their skin.

She looked into the kobold’s eyes. Just like Tomlin, this kobold was petrified. Not a warrior.

Shadow knew she should kill him. If she didn’t, he would tell the core what he had seen, and the core would be suspicious. Everything would be ruined.

But ever since Anna had possessed Shadow and forced her to murder one of her fellow dungeon mates, Shadow had found violence curiously hard to come by.

The kobold backed away. Soon, he would turn and run.

The dagger felt strange in Shadow’s hand. She almost turned and left.

And then her instincts kicked in. She lurched forward and stabbed the kobold, while covering his mouth with her free hand and silencing his screams.

Chapter 14

We headed to the star lounge bright and early the next morning. Well, I say bright, but it was a rather dismal day. Angry clouds billowed way ahead, dark, brooding, ready to spit a torrent down upon Heaven’s Peak.

And I say we, but today, that only meant Shadow, and me. Gulliver, Bolton, and Tomlin were in the city, searching for a shop that was rumored to sell magic lamps with genies inside. Never mind that Bolton was an old man in his third life and Gulliver had traveled the world. They still believed in hokum like magic genies. I preferred to keep myself grounded in reality, in the indestructible logic of a world where a resurrected gemstone could conjure monsters from essence.

“You did well,” I told Shadow. “I chose you because I could rely on you.”

“And because I am your only scout, Beno.”

“All the same. You did what I asked of you. Just as you did in Hogsfeate with the old mayor. Thank you.”

“I am here to serve.”

“I told you, Shadow. You have your independence now. Unlike the others, you and I work together. I will not command you to serve the dungeon. You earned your true independence. So for as long as you do so, you have my thanks.”

Shadow had a strange look on her face. Pride? I didn’t know. I’ve always found emotions hard to read. “Did it work?” she said.

“Perfectly. The vines that Tomlin supplied you with were failures. One of his many experiments designed to boost my essence regeneration. The grey vines have the nasty habit of making a core completely unable to use essence for up to a week. Painted purple, the Moneyed Fist core, and his cultivator wouldn’t have known anything was amiss, and he would have drawn from the vines as normal.”

“Then we will be able to register?”

“I hope so. Gulliver kept his ears open to rumors this morning and heard that the Moneyed Fist Academy had to drop out. The core they brought here, so they say, is the only one worthy of fighting in the tournament. What they mean, I think, is that was their only legal core. The rest, they probably got from rogue forgers. Either way, they’re gone.”

Inside the lodge, there was no sign of any snooty owl, nor any other kind of bird as it happened. Given that it was daytime, and she was the world’s only non-nocturnal owl, she was most likely doing something in another part of the lodge. I turned to Shadow.

“I have to warn you. The owl lady who works here can be very snooty and condescending. The trick is not to rise to it. And if you find it difficult, just do what I do, and imagine her being fed to a fox or something like that.”

“We will have to get you some help one day, Beno. I worry about you sometimes.”

Soon, an owl flew through a door and into the office.

“Here she is,” I told Shadow. “Remember, don’t rise to her grouchiness.”

The old owl saw us and spread her wings out wide and opened her beak. Her eyes were shining. “Why, hello! If it isn’t Core Beno. Lovely to see you. Good morning!”

I was a little taken aback. “Is everything…okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? Ah… Look, about the last few days. Or weeks. If I came across as grouchy as a crow, I apologize. You have to understand that here in Heaven’s Peak the last ten years have been geared towards the Battle of the Five Stars. The closer it gets, the more frenzied things become. I have academies constantly pestering me for things. To arrange accommodation, to register their cores for battle, and so on. It can all get a bit too much for my beak to chew on. But now the tournament is just a couple of days away, and when I woke up this morning, I said to myself: ‘Brenda, you are not going to let them stress you out today. You are a competent, powerful owl, and you are doing your best. That’s all anyone can ask.’”

“Good for you, Brenda,” said Shadow.

“Anyway, what can I do for you?” asked Brenda.

“I hear that an academy has been forced to drop out of the tournament. I would like to register Beno and Jahn’s Dungeon Core Academy to take their place.”

I braced for it. For the bureaucratic reason that would prevent my academy from competing in the tournament. The obscure bylaw, no doubt written in the last day, that would mean we couldn’t compete.

“Okay,” said Brenda.

“Excuse me?”

“No problem. I will register your academy for the tournament. The Moneyed Fist academy dropped out this morning,