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

sense, this is just a scouting party here to see how many traps you managed to rebuild. Is there any way to speak to Core Jahn and see if they’re attacking that door too?”

“This leaf could run to him.”

“That’d take hours. We need a better way of communicating across both doors, but that’ll have to wait.”

I felt my mind narrow into an intense focus now. That was the perk of my academy training; my whole second life thus far had been designed around fighting heroes. When it came to a battle, I felt at home. Tense, anxious, but at home.

So, I had 340 essence points to spend, and I needed to make sure I used them well enough to repel the Seekers. To do that, I needed to know what I was dealing with.

Looking at Warren, I realized I couldn’t send him back through the tunnels. I knew what I could do.

Create fire beetle.

A squat black beetle appeared in front of me. It had bulging eyes, skinny legs, and streaks of red light ran up and down its dark shell.

“Kill?” it said.

I suppose that it is a proud moment in any parent’s life when their offspring says their first words. For me, I had come to know that a fire beetle’s first words are always, fight or kill. Not exactly heart-warming, but a lot more appropriate for the circumstances than dad or papa. 

“I don’t need you to kill,” I told it. “See this map?”

“Fight?”

“No. Listen to me. Head north to the door you can see way, way at the top. As soon as you see anyone, watch them. Do not fight. Do not kill. Don’t even whisper harsh words under your breath. I need you to stay in the shadows and watch them.”

“The beetle is a spy?” asked Warrane.

“Of sorts. Once I do any kind of work in a dungeon tunnel or room, it technically belongs to me, and that means I can see it no matter where I am. Right now, I haven’t done anything to the northern reaches of the tunnels, even if I have mapped them out. So, I’ll need this vicious little creature to be my eyes.”

The fire beetle scampered off toward a tunnel entrance, and it soon disappeared out of view. I watched its progress on my map, and once I was reassured it was heading in the right direction, I closed my map.

“It’ll be a while before he gets to them,” I said. “We need traps for the core room.”

“Tavia is away, Core Beno.”

“That’s why you bought a core. No offense to Tavia, but I doubt her traps are as sophisticated as mine. They won’t have the same level of complexity, of artistry, of elegance. Now, do I want a giant hole with spikes at the bottom, or a metal bear trap?”

Traps were a real essence drain, so it was difficult to get a balance. In total, six tunnels led into the core room. One of those went all the way back to the Wrotun cavern, so there was no threat of an attack from that side.

That left five tunnels I needed to make safe. I had very little time, so I’d have to lay some bear traps or pitfalls. Pitfalls were much more effective, but they cost 100 essence points each. I couldn't hold 500 essence points at my current level.

Even if I did, it might not be the way to go about it. If I blew all my essence points on defending the core room, I’d having nothing left to use on making creatures. This meant I wouldn’t be able to take the fight to the Seekers, and I would effectively be tempting them toward my core room in the hope that my traps could get them. It was riskier than pulling on a dragon’s tail.

Either I created monsters and sent them to kill the invaders, or I relied on defense to do the job. The present state of my dungeon meant that neither option appealed to me.

I decided it had been a while now, so I used my core vision to see through my fire beetle’s eyes.

The room around me grew hazy, almost as if a giant was shaking it, and then different images snapped into place.

I saw a tunnel, the stone walls passing by either side as the beetle scampered down it. I couldn’t hear anything, which was a drawback of only being a level 5 core, and having little affinity with this particular beetle. The more I leveled up, the stronger my core senses would get, gradually introducing sounds, smells, and feelings into my core vision.

Not only that, but the longer a creature spent in my dungeon, and the better we bonded, the more attuned I would be when looking through his or her eyes. Right now, I had to make do with just the sight.

For a while, it was just an endless stream of darkness, with the beetle scuttling through it. I decided that I really should get some mana lamps fixed to the walls. Not too many, because I didn’t want the place lit up like the academy dining room. But careful placement of mana lamps was actually a good form of defense; you could use it to draw invaders’ gazes to the right (or wrong) places.

I was about to leave my core vision and focus on my core room problem again when I saw something.

Just ahead, at the end of this particular tunnel, I saw lights.

Okay, now we were getting somewhere! The beetle crawled on, getting closer and closer until the lights got brighter.

The tunnel opened out just ten meters away. I saw that the lights were in fact little balls of burning goo squashed atop metal rods. There were eight goo torches, and eight figures holding them. It was still just that little bit too dark to see them properly.