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

I didn’t have perfect vision. However, I was a core, I was made to live underground. As such, I could see through some of the darkness. Not perfect, akin to what a person might see if they squinted so that they had just a slither of their usual vision.

I saw stone walls. I saw symbols carved into them, cracked in many places, perfectly preserved in just a few. I saw statues of monsters standing guard in the silence.

“This is a dungeon,” I said.

“Not quite.”

Gill led us through a maze of passageways and tunnels, taking each turn as if he knew exactly where he was going. We soon went through a tunnel that opened at the end, and we emerged into a giant chamber. It was supported by eight pillars, only six of which were standing. The other two were rubble on the ground.

The overseer headed to the walls, took a flint stick from his robe pocket, and one by one, lit some lamps. With a full view of the chamber, I saw that in the center of it, there was a mural.

I couldn’t believe it.

The mural was of a man wearing robes. His face was completely blank, but eyes, a nose, and a mouth were carved into his stomach.

Now, I wouldn’t pretend that I had seen anywhere near as much of Xynnar as I should have. There were all sorts of people and creatures and places waiting to be discovered. But I would have bet my core that there weren’t many people in the world who had a face on their belly.

I looked at Gill with equal parts amazement and suspicion. As is usual with me, the suspicion won. “Gill, let me ask you something. How old is this place?”

“Two hundred years.”

I eyed the mural of the man with a face in his belly, and then I looked at Gill.

“And, uh, how old are you, exactly?”

“I didn’t bring you here to hide things from you, Beno. Judging by your questioning, which has the subtlety of a drunken ice troll, you have probably worked out that I am very, very old.”

I was beginning to understand. Just a little. “This is a dungeon core academy, isn’t it?”

Gill took a breath. The expression on his stomach seemed rather wistful. “It was an academy, once. I was its overseer.”

“Whatever happened, it couldn’t have been good. This place is a wreck.”

“Our academy helped the empire against the Shielded Republic. But when the empire requested to pour through our archives, we refused. Our techniques were ancient, and we had used them to help the empire. That didn’t give the empire the rights to them. We had watched with growing concern the way the empire was treating academies after the battle, and we began to understand how things were going. As we were making plans to move all our tablets from our archives and to a new place, the empire visited.”

“So you relented in the end?”

Gill shook his head. “Our academy was hundreds of years old. The empire was barely twenty, at the time. We refused to hand over centuries’ worth of teachings. The ensuing battle between our cores and the empire soldiers is the reason that this place is a ruin and the landscape above dead. Nothing will ever grow above this place.”

“What happened to all your cores?”

“Dead.”

“And your overseers?”

“To my shame, I left the battle when it was clear that not only were we going to lose, but that the empire would not hold any prisoners. They had decided to destroy every overseer and core completely, and then empty our archives. As head overseer, it was my job to protect everyone, yes. But ultimately my main priority was towards the academy itself. If all the others died, the academy would have been forgotten about. The empire would make sure of that. So, to my shame, I saved my own life.”

“There’s no shame in that. If the battle was lost, why add your life to the tally?”

Gill ran his hand along a mural on the wall. “I spent so many years here, forging cores, and then teaching them their abilities. In the end, it was all our own fault. We could have stayed out of the war with the Shielded Republic. The empire didn’t know the existence or location of every academy. We could have stayed out of it, and they would have been none the wiser about us. But because we felt the right thing was to help the emperor, we ensured the destruction of our own establishment.”

“The empire has a lot to answer for,” I said.

“It does, but who is going to ask the question? It also has a lot to be praised for. Everything is a balance, Beno. Before Xynnar was united, rival territories warred incessantly. By bringing them all together under one flag, the empire has saved millions of lives over the years.”

“All the same, what they give comes at a price.”

“It does. After I fled the academy, I spent decades traveling Xynnar and finding out the cost. Not only that. I began to see what its rewards were, too. I’ve come to make a certain peace with what has happened. Instead of brooding on everything that was lost, it is much less stressful on my soul if I try to appreciate what the empire has given us.”

“If everything was taken from your archives, why are we here?” I said.

“When I was traveling, I wasn’t just seeing the sights. Our academy wasn’t the only one to resist the empire’s efforts to restrict its teachings. Some were more successful in moving their archives to different locations. Moreover, other academies stayed out of the fight with the Shielded Republic entirely, and continued to forge and teach their cores away from the glare of the empire.”

Gill crossed the room until he was standing