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

in the center of it, directly over the mural of himself. He took a small, cylindrical piece of metal from his robe. He ran his fingers over it while muttering, and the metal extended into a six-foot-long rod.

He placed it on the ground, moving it until he heard a click. He rotated it, and the belly mouth of the mural began to open. It grew wider and wider until it revealed yet another sloping passageway.

“I knew that the empire would never return here,” said Gill. “After all, they had killed our overseers, destroyed our cores, and then emptied our archives. What was left for them except an underground ruin? You can find hundreds of those around Xynnar. So, I would periodically return here with the teachings and techniques I had learned from other academies on my travels.”

I stared at the passageway, eager to see what was hidden at the end of it. “You have other technique tablets hidden here?”

Gill nodded. “I was never sure what I was going to do with them, other than a vague notion to protect some of the ancient teachings from the empire. I certainly never planned to teach them to any cores.”

“I thought you recently taught at an academy?”

“Sure, I spent some of my days overseeing in the various empire–approved academies. But that was to fund my travels, and I only ever taught what the government allowed.”

“Not to be rude, Overseer, but when you taught at these academies…didn’t the empire ever realize that you had survived? Wouldn’t they have wanted to hunt you down again and get rid of any trace of this academy?”

“That was the least of my problems, Beno. Where’s your imagination? I simply used one of my faces. I think this was the one I wore.”

A face appeared on Gill’s head. Narrow eyes, a craggy forehead, and a thin, red nose. His cheekbones thinned, and a row of pearly teeth formed in his new mouth. With his face where it should be and his robe drawn shut, he easily passed as a regular person.

More and more, I couldn’t help but feel tremendous respect for Overseer Gill. I thought back to when I’d first met him in the tavern, pouring pint after pint of beer into his belly mouth. If I hadn’t needed an overseer to open my academy, I wouldn’t even have looked at him. How wrong I had been. I felt ashamed that I had judged such an esteemed overseer so harshly. I was just a Base-quality core, who was I to judge a man like Gill?

“Why did you agree to help us?” I said. “It wasn’t just about beer money.”

“I only met with you because I owed Gulliver a favor. I was fully prepared to tell you to get lost. But after hearing what you planned to do, I sensed something in you. I knew your core quality was poor immediately. Not Base–poor, but poor all the same. Even so, something was lurking in your inner core that even UpperFoundation quality cores don’t possess. Core quality isn’t everything. Determination can count for so much more, and can be a difference between a core reaching Foundation, and climbing even higher. Talent is the spark that sets a flame going, but it is determination that sustains it.”

“Thank you for your faith in me, Overseer Gill.”

“You can thank me by working until your entire core feels like it is going to tear apart. Come, I’ll show you the archives.”

Gill led me down the passageway and into a secret archive. It was barely bigger than the smallest chamber in my dungeon, yet I stared with wonder.

The shelves were filled with technique tomes that Gill had copied from academies he had visited. There must have been fifty or so of them, each representing a different power or technique a core could learn.

I felt like a dog let loose in a butcher’s shop. I wanted to pore over every tablet and learn every technique until I was bursting with power. Then, I’d go back to the Dungeon Core Academy and show them how little their test meant.

“I want something powerful,” I said. “Something-”

Gill lifted his hand. I immediately fell silent. That was something I hadn’t done since my early days in the academy, back when I’d actually respected overseers.

“Only one of these techniques can be learned by a Base-quality core, Beno.”

Just one? Crestfallen wasn’t a big enough word. All these techniques, all these powers, and I could only use one?

But that was an ungrateful attitude. Gill had brought me here to show me a technique, and I would be a fool to waste the chance because I was greedy.

“I would be honored if you teach me the technique, Overseer Gill.”

Gill selected a tablet from the shelves. It was thicker than a doorstop, and bound in material as orange and red as autumn leaves, and made a similar crinkling sound when gill handled it. The overseer setting it down on the ground.

“I got this from an academy who dwell on a small island far out on the Caspyra Sea, on Xynnar’s western coast. You won’t find it plotted on any maps, nor have any trade routes been established. Yet, you won’t find a more picturesque place to spend your days.”

“What is the academy called?”

“The Academy of Plenty. There is a good reason they created the technique I am about to show you. As they are so remote, their cores have nothing to fight.”

“How do they level up? And how do their monsters level up, for that matter?”

“We come to the crux of it. Their island is often besieged by serpents of the sea and giant gulls of the air, and they must defend themselves. Given that they cannot level up their monsters between attacks, they were forced to forge their own technique. This, Beno, is the technique of