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

31 academies, each with cores flanked by overseers. Each with history. With prestige. Crucially, with their own fancy emblems.

And then came the words I had slowly begun to dread.

“Finally,” said the announcer, clearly beginning to tire, “please welcome, Beno and Jahn’s Dungeon Core Academy.”

I almost didn’t want to go out. How could I? We had no flags, no emblems. Everyone would look at me and know about the quality of my core. Even if it wasn’t visible in my gemstone body, word would probably have spread. Everyone in Heaven’s Peak probably knew about it, thanks to Overseer Tarnbuckle.

And not only that. The other academies had overseers who carried themselves with dignity, who practically reeked with expertise. The only overseer who would accompany me into the arena was Gill, a drunken fool with a mouth on his belly.

 I floated at the gate entrance, where I could see the baying crowd beyond.

Gulliver nudged me. “Beno? They’ve called you.”

“I know.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Then, Overseer Bolton strode past me, wearing…well, something strange.

Not a floral shirt, not a straw hat, not combat leathers that didn’t fit him. He was adorned in robes that befit an overseer, like the ones he used to wear at the Dungeon Core Academy.

“Bolton?” I said.

“I know. I said I wouldn’t be an overseer in your academy. And I’m sticking to that. I don’t want to waste the rest of my years teaching cores. But that doesn’t mean the crowd has to know that. My face is rather well-known among academy circles, and I thought that it might do a bit of good if I accompanied you into the arena. If you’re happy with that, of course.”

A strange feeling hit me. A rather overwhelming one. If I had eyes, they might be watering. I didn’t like it. I hesitated in shutting off my core feelings, however. I would only get to experience something like this once, being here in the Battle of the Five Stars. I was determined to sense it all, to not block anything out.

So, I followed Overseer Bolton out into the arena. Overseer Gill stumbled alongside me to my left, and Gulliver was on my right.

The crowd laughed and jeered. From the other gates in the arena, some of the other academy cores and overseers gathered to watch. It wasn’t hard to read their looks.

Curiosity, ridicule, mirth. I made sure to take a good, long look at them. I even turned my core emotions higher, making me more sensitive to everything. To the laughter of the crowd, to the pitiful glares of the other overseers and the cores. I made sure I would remember this.

Later that day, some of the first round fights had already begun. All the arenas were occupied as cores battled it out in the preliminary stages. Our first fight wasn’t until the next day, and I wanted to get ready. We need more time, really, but there was no chance of that.

“The Academy of the Raised Arrow are our first opponents,” I said. “They favor monsters who use projectile damage. That means I’ll need to use creatures who are either heavily armored, or fast.”

“Depends on the kind of projectiles they use, Beno,” said Bolton. “If they had, say, rock frogs, then we would know we are facing an opponent could spit stones at us. Anything with tough armor would counter that. But what if the projectiles are magic? Then we’d need to rethink who we send out to fight them.”

“That’s the problem. We just don’t know. And I have to select the monsters I will use before each round begins. I’m not allowed to change my mind once the round starts. It makes it a gamble. If only…”

“If only what?”

“What if we could see for ourselves who the Raised Arrows are planning to send into battle?”

“You’ll never get into their dungeon. Portdoors are completely untamperable. There is no rogue skilled enough to pick their locks, and no magic would unlatch them. Otherwise, every academy would be sending its spies through the portdoors,” said Bolton.

“True,” I said. “But if I remember rightly, the Academy of the Raised Arrow is only ten miles away from Heaven’s Peak. You could walk there in an hour or two. Or rather, a rogue kobold could walk there…”

Shadow, sitting beside the wall with three dogs surrounding her and one with its head on her lap, sat up. “You have another job for me, Beno?”

“We might not be able to sneak through the portdoors. But I doubt the academy itself has such protection. If you leave Heaven’s Peak and travel to the Raised Arrow’s academy, there’s bound to be a door somewhere in the complex that you can sneak through. So, forget sneaking through the portdoor, and go to the academy itself. Once you get there, I want you to listen to what they are planning for the fight…”

Shadow left immediately and returned just as dawn broke the next day. It was the morning of our first fight. Even if cores needed sleep, I probably still would have spent the last night without it. I whiled away the hours making plan after plan. And then scrapping plan after plan.

It was only when Shadow returned that I could settle on a strategy. She told us what she had learned by spying on the Academy of the Raised Arrow, and I changed my plans accordingly.

When the time for our battle came, I headed to an arena named Geritus. While the highest, and the biggest arena was the Saucer of the Gods, the smaller arenas were named after the men and women who had first organized the Battle of the Five Stars tournament.

This arena could only hold a thousand people, and every seat was taken. Scanning the crowd, I saw that many of them were holding wooden placards with the Academy of