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

Light spun out from the book on the ground, gathering in mid-air and filling the archive with a glow.

The light began to form shapes. First, a star-shaped core appeared in the room. It hovered in the center, motionless to begin with. Then, essence wafted out from its five points, and another creature formed nearby. It was a rat. Normal sized, nothing special.

“What is-”

Gill held up his hand. “Watch.”

The core wasn’t done. More and more essence left it. Much more than it would need to create something as basic as a rat. I didn’t understand why it was being so wasteful.

As if in answer, the vermin began to grow. First to the size of a dog, then a wolf, and then even more, until it was the size of a carriage.

The star core looked visibly weakened now. I recognized the look. It had just emptied all its essence. Even if a core was besieged by a hundred heroes, it was never a good idea to use all your essence. It would be like a man exercising until he sweated every last drop of moisture from his skin. Less lethal, yet just as horrible to experience.

Gill gestured at the giant rat. “He’s a looker, no?”

“If you like your vermin to be house-sized. What did I just see?”

“Lacking anything for their core’s monsters to battle against between serpent raids, the Academy of Plenty created the Essential Overflow technique. The idea is simple. To create a rat, a core normally uses just a smidgen of his essence. All this will produce is a small creature. Level 1, tiny, and unable to devour anything but a block of cheese. But when the core employed the Essential Overflow technique…Well, I am not here to lecture you. How about you tell me what happened, Beno?”

I hesitated, not wanting to give a shameful answer.

“Don’t be coy, Beno. We learn better from a thousand wrong answers than an embarrassed silence.”

“The core used more essence than he needed to when he created the rat. The Essential Overflow technique converted the essence into something that made the rat bigger.”

“Not just bigger. The Essential Overflow leveled up the rat so that it was created not as a level 1 vermin, but level 50.”

I was astounded. Even after so many hero battles that I had lost count, I didn’t have any creatures who’d surpassed level 30. For a newly-created creature to be a level 50 was simply unbelievable.

“And I could do this, even with a Base-quality core? When can we start?”

Gill laughed. “Steady on. What you just saw was an Enlightened-level core using Essential Overflow. Even Base-cores can learn this technique, Beno, but your results will not be anywhere near what you have seen.”

“Not at first. But with time…”

“That’s the spirit! There was a reason I brought you here, Beno. As long as you carry that determination to your training, you will surpass the Base-core you were dealt. The tablet will show you the pulsing technique needed to learn Essential Overflow. You will watch it until the sight sickens you. You will practice until your core feels ready to fall apart. And then you will practice again. You are capable of mastering this Beno. The spark is already lit, and your determination needs to fuel the fire.”

Chapter 25

It took me four days to learn Essential Overflow. After that, we didn’t have long to prepare for the quarter-final fight with the Dungeon Core Academy. That meant I had to make the best use of every second. It didn’t leave Bolton, Gulliver, and I much time to talk strategy in my core chamber.

“What do we know about the way Aethos fights?” I said.

Gulliver flicked through the tournament notebook he’d spent the last few weeks scribbling in. “He’s a tricky one. He’s never used the same monsters in two different fights. He’s never conjured the same traps. Better trying to predict the weather by sticking your hand out of the window.”

“Randomness is a consistent behavior in itself,” said Bolton. “Something we can work with, perhaps.”

“The inconsistent enemy wears fickleness as his uniform. I remember that from Mid-Level Strategy class,” I said. “But I can’t prepare to face every possible monster and trap combination. Let’s think about what we know about Aethos. When he took the core test in the academy, it evaluated him as a Mid-Foundation core. That means he’s four steps further up the ladder than me, and he will be able to hold five different types of essence in his core. That means I have five different methods of attack to prepare for.”

“I am impressed, Beno,” said Bolton.

“Thank you.”

Gulliver tapped a page in his book “I’ve watched all of Aethos ’s fights. So far, he’s used monsters and traps with the magnet, air, and fire elementals.”

“That’s three types of essence that we know that he has. But Gill told me there are fifty different types out there. Maybe more. And the academy has resources to get them all.”

“There were five huge cultivation chambers in the academy when I was still teaching,” said Bolton. “I’m told that Overseer Tarnbuckle has expanded them further.”

 “Then there’s no way to predict which essences Aethos will fill his core up with before the fight. That means I have no way of predicting what he’ll use. I suppose the only thing I can do is focus on my strengths and my strategies.”

Alone in the arena, I decided it was time to create some monsters for the fight. First, I checked how much essence I had to work with. Conjuring monsters during the tournament had taken its toll. Despite my new Essence Pulse technique and Tomlin’s cultivation efforts, my essence wasn’t completely restored.

Total essence: 5798 / 6982

That wasn’t a whole lot of essence to work with. Sure, it was probably more than Aethos had. He