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

often saw on sailing boats. While such nets were used to catch haddock and cod, this could be hung in the room and would catch any lies spoken within the walls.

The third and final reward was the Glade of Rest. It looked like a piece of turf dug up from a field. A bit of mud, a few blades of grass, and a pink petal resting on top. It had an artificial smell, as though it had been preserved by mana. I was about to dismiss it when I read the card beneath it.

The Glade of Rest

When touched, the Glade of Rest transports the user into a mystical field, where time is slowed and powers of sleep are multiplied. A user who rests for just an hour in the Glade of Rest will wake to find himself refreshed as if he has slept for a dozen hours.

“Core Beno, we will have to press you for a decision. Another fight is to take place here soon,” said the announcer.

My first thought was to take the yacht. There were some places in Xynnar only accessible by boat, and boats were often expensive to hire. Plus, what wasn’t to love about a yacht you could store in a bottle when you weren’t using it?

But really, how often did I even go to the sea? It was just a fancy trinket. It would be a waste of a reward to take it. The Liecatcher’s Net would be more useful, especially after the mimicry antics today.

I almost made my decision, but then I paused.

I needed to think about the later rounds in the tournament. Although monsters rarely died in tournament fights, the damage taken in one fight would require healing before the next. Maginhart would be able to whip up some kind of alchemic healing potion, and Rusty the shaman also had a healing totem. But the further I went in the tournament, the more injuries my monsters would accrue.

If one hour in the Glade of Rest was like getting twelve hours sleep, then if I sent a monster into the glade for eight hours, it would be like them getting four full days of sleep. Injuries would heal faster, and my monsters would be much more refreshed than those of the other cores. Especially in the later rounds.

“I’ll take the Glade of Rest, please,” I said.

This brought a few jeers from the crowd, but I didn’t mind. I knew would I was doing.

Revered Trinket Received: 

Glade of Rest

The announcer hurried me out of the arena so they could prepare for the next two cores to fight. I floated away with a warm feeling cascading through my inner core. A part of me had worried that I would crash out in the first fight. Especially after losing the opening round.

I didn’t know what my strategy would be. I didn’t even know who my next opponent would be. But at least I wasn’t out of the tournament yet.

Just as I crossed the portdoor and emerged back in my dungeon, messages appeared in my inner core.

Leveled up to 29!

- Total essence increased to 5600!

- Core quality boosted by 5%!

- New dungeon chambers available for construction

- New monsters available for creation

- New trap and puzzle options

Shrub Bandit leveled to 5

Permanent battle boost: Sun-drenched

Overseer Bolton caught up with me as we headed into the dungeon. Seeing him wearing his overseer robes, I was struck with how much he seemed like the old Bolton, and not the new, retired one. He looked noticeably less happy, though. It was as if the robe brought back the serious side of his personality.

“Beno. Can I have a word?”

“What is it?”

“You don’t seem to be enjoying this victory as much as I expected,” he said.

I thought about it for a moment. “I am. It’s not that. It’s just that this was only the first round of the tournament, and I came within inches of losing. The core I fought wasn’t especially strong. If he could almost beat me, what hope do I have in the later rounds?”

Bolton folded his arms in the way he used to when he taught at the Dungeon Core Academy, so that his hands disappeared inside his oversized sleeves.

“Coal doesn’t become a diamond until it is crushed under tons and tons of pressure. Without the pressure. It will always be coal. Year after year, nothing will change. It will be the same old lump. Time will always pass, Beno. You can’t fight it, and you can’t run from it. With that being true, why not be like the coal? Let time pass as it always will, but let it do so with the pressure. Let it turn you into a diamond.”

“You know, coal and diamonds don’t exactly work like that.”

“There! There’s the Beno I know. Always ignoring the point of my lessons and causing trouble. I only hope that, like in the academy, you have taken the real meaning of what I said and stored it in your core.”

“Thank you, Overseer Bolton. It is good to have a mentor again.”

“I am not your mentor. I’m tired, and I’m also retired.”

We had just stepped into the dungeon when a voice spoke above us and echoed throughout the dungeon.

“Announcement from the Battle of the Five Stars. From round two onwards, cores will be able to choose and permanently keep a monster from any core they defeat.”

Chapter 19

I spent a few days before round two alternating between drilling my monsters in the dungeon arena and spending time with Maginhart in his alchemy lab and watching him brew all kinds of potions that would be useful for battle. When I wasn’t doing that, I was pulsing my essence in the essence cultivation chamber.

This was a technique that I had been shown by - of