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

“They didn’t succeed, then. It’d be famous,” said Gulliver.

Gill’s belly mouth pursed for a moment. “They did. Unfortunately, when something is accomplished, there are always those who covet the glory. No soon was the monastery completed, then various people in Xynnar attacked them, hoping to take it for themselves.”

I thought I was catching on. “And lacking defenses, they recruited a dungeon core.”

“Exactly. Their core was successful for almost a hundred years, but eventually, the spire fell. Not before the sect had recruited more cores, however. After losing their work of many generations, the sect disbanded. Brothers and sisters lost their faith. Those who remained did so under a new guise.”

“As a dungeon core academy.”

“And thus we see their modern iteration. The Academy of the Eastern Spire,” said Gill.

“I would love to learn more about this. For now, can you tell us anything that will help in our fight?” I asked.

“Their current head overseer used to be a monster hunter. That obviously was very useful to the academy, because he could capture some of the rarer monsters in Xynnar and give them to his cores. There was one creature above all, that he was always obsessed with capturing, and I recently heard that he had finally done it. I would bet my last gold that the creature they are holding back for a rainy day, is the one that he always sought.”

“And what was that creature?”

“A dragon.”

“A bloody dragon?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Gill.

A dragon. Of all the creatures they could have. And to think, if I’d just been a little quicker back home, I could have had a sand dragon of my own! But it was useless to think about could-have-beens. I had to focus on the present.

I racked my brains trying to think about what to do. No monster I could create myself from essence would ever rival a dragon. Not even after all the essence pulsing I had done in the Glade of Rest. There was no creature I could call upon that would help me here.

Unless…

Aha!

“Bolton? Would you mind going into Heaven’s Peak to send a mana message for me?” I said.

A few days later, I hadn’t received a reply to my mana message. But it wasn’t as if I just sat around waiting for it. I spent two full days in the Glade of Rest, pulsing my essence. It was a strange feeling, drawing essence into myself when I hadn’t actually spent any. It was like trying to shove a rat into a drainpipe that was already full of rats.

But the more I did it, the more I felt it working. When I pulled essence into myself using Gill’s technique, it squashed up against the essence that was already there. The pressure caused the essence to meld together, becoming stronger.

As well as my new essence technique, Tomlin was constantly tweaking every single essence bud, vine, and leaf. Nourishing them, caring for them using alchemical potions and pastes made by Maginhart. The vines grew thicker and stronger. The cultivation chamber emitted a pungent smell and pulsated with heat so much that you could feel it in the tunnels outside.

When I wasn’t in the Glade of Rest, I was supervising training in the arena, where the shrub bandit I’d created for the first fight had leveled up to 8.

I decided it was time for an experiment. I had created this shrub bandit before Gill had taught me his technique. It was a level 8, and also had the sun-drenched boost from a shaman. It should easily have been able to beat a newly-created shrub bandit.

I spent 100 essence and made a fresh shrub bandit. This was just a level 1.

I commanded the two shrubs to spar with each other. Over the next few minutes, my level 1 bandit held his own against the level 8 for a while, before eventually admitting defeat.

The time I had spent pulsing essence in the Glade of Rest had strengthened my essence to the point that my newly-created monsters at level one, could rival a level eight monster made using my old essence.

There would be diminishing returns, of course. The more I pulsed, the longer it would take me to improve. But this was still something. It might even be a way for me to close the gap between myself and cores with a higher core quality.

My third fight of the tournament soon approached. We fought in the Potalius arena, which was shaped like a star and had a grassy surface rather than sand. The spectator chairs were made from oak, and birds nested in foliage that surrounded the arena.

The Academy of the Eastern Spire entered the arena with quiet dignity, holding their emblems aloft. I entered afterward, flanked by Overseers Bolton and Gill, with Wylie and Klok trailing behind and holding a big white sheet in the air. That was the advantage of having a blank emblem, I realized. It could be easily improvised from old sheets and blankets. I’m nothing if not thrifty.

Not only that. It made it easier for spectators to change their allegiances to my academy. Today, there must have been 60 spectators holding blank placards and cheering when they saw me. They were still the minority, but it was an improvement. I stopped myself from floating around the arena in a lap of honor, after taking note of the dignity of the Academy of the Eastern Spire.

After the overseers announced us, the battle began. The Eastern Spire core took the first round.

I regained the second and felt momentum on my side. Just one round remained, and I was optimistic.

It was then that I received troubling news.

Gill approached me in the loot room before round three. “Problem, Beno. I just visited the arena tavern to get some…water. I