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

core felt solid, as if the formation essence already inside me was resisting my attempts to draw something new.

Gill packed up his venom essence. “Your core quality is holding you back, I’m afraid. It is too advanced for a Base-core to attempt. I feared as much, but the man who never tries to look at the stars will always wonder why the night sky bores him. Sorry to have got your hopes up.”

I eyed the venom essence, feeling downcast. “I’ll never be able to use venom essence? Is that it?”

“You could use it now. But you would have to pulse all the Formation essence out from your core until not a scrap remains. Only then could you draw on the venom essence.”

“But without Formation essence, I wouldn’t be able to create anything.”

“Exactly,” said Gill. “You would be able to use the Venom essence to give your existing creatures a mild venomous attack or defense. But it would be nowhere near as effective then if you combined Formation essence with Venom essence when creating a new creature. A dog dressed in a fake mane is not the same as a lion. As I said, I’m sorry to have gotten your hopes up.”

“There has to be a way I can learn to hold both types of essence at once. If other cores can, then I can.”

“It is akin to saying a one-armed man can use a broadsword the same as a barbarian with two arms. The man can train as hard as he wants, but his lack of an arm will always be a disadvantage. So it is with your core quality,” said Gill.

“But I can improve my core quality. There must be a way. If you can teach me techniques to strengthen my formation essence by pulsing, then there must be techniques out there to help core improve his own core quality.”

“Are you ready to suffer for these techniques?” Said Gill.

“I’m a core. I’ve already died once. My second existence has been spent mostly underground, accompanied by monsters and under the constant barrage of loot hungry heroes. I was born to suffer.”

Gill smiled. “It will take a while for you to improve your core quality. But for now, there may be something I can teach you. We will have to take a trip.”

Chapter 24

I thought that Gill was going to lead me to another arena where we would watch yet another core sparring in preparation for the next round. Instead, we left God’s Fist and then headed through Heaven’s Peak and carried on, traveling far away from the city.

The overseer and I walked and floated across the green and yellow wilderness surrounding Heaven’s Peak, traveling for half a dozen miles before the grassy fields gave way to a barren landscape. Cracks ran along the ground, and the whole place had a dead feel to it. No grass, no insects, no critters scampering, no birds singing. I was amazed that I could still see Heaven’s Peak in the distance, and yet at the same time, it felt like we had completely left civilization behind.

“There are as many core techniques in the world as there are academies,” said Gill, looking around to get his bearings. “Many of them were documented as they were created or discovered. Etched into tablets so that new cores could be taught their ways. But after the war against the Shielded Republic, the empire seized the archives of every known academy in existence.”

“The academies just let them do that?” I said.

“Every word spoken by the emperor has the weight of his empire behind it, giving him a loud voice indeed. After the empire evaluated every core technique and teaching, they created a list of the ones they were happy for academies to teach their cores. The rest, the ones they deemed powerful enough that they would make dungeon cores a threat to the empire, were stored in empire chambers. They are hidden to even those in the higher echelon of the emperor’s trust.”

I looked around at the landscape, so devoid of life, and wondered if that was why Gill had brought me here.

“I suppose if you wanted to hide a bunch of core technique tablets, this might be a place to do it. Who would ever think to come out here?”

Gill shook his head. This was a disconcerting sight, since his actual head was featureless. “Some academies weren’t too happy to be hobbled by the empire. However, the punishment for going against the emperor’s decree was so severe that not many overseers considered rebelling. Thus, many academies taught their cores only what they were allowed to. The more powerful techniques fell out of use.”

“But I’m guessing you didn’t bring me out here for a history lesson.”

“It was a damn shame that so many academy archives were raided and emptied. All those techniques, locked in an empire chamber and lost to the rest of us. However, if a person were to know of a secret archive…”

“Here?”

“Come.”

Although much of the landscape looked the same, I began to get a peculiar feeling as Gill led me across it. I felt as though I was being drawn to something. As if I was a magnet and a particular part of this vast nothingness hid a trove of gold.

Gill soon stopped above a patch of blackened soil. He kneeled and put his hand against it. He began to mumble, his belly lips whispering words that I couldn’t understand.

Blue light ran through the cracks in the ground, spreading out like a torrent filling dry river channels. Slowly, they formed a square. Gill grabbed hold of one part of the light with his right hand and then pulled. The ground opened like a door, revealing a passageway that sloped down into the earth.

We made our way down into a silent gloom. This wasn’t my dungeon, so