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

“Tomlin understands.”

“Then do you know what I want you to do?”

“He thinks so. Tomlin is to protect the essence room.”

“So close, yet so far. That’s almost what I need, except you aren’t much of a fighter. No, Tomlin, I would like to give you the rank of cultivator. Your job will be to help my essence grow. To maintain the existence vines, and to plant them on the walls of new rooms. I’ll even have Wylie excavate a special cultivation room.”

“Tomlin will get his own area of the dungeon?”

“Yep.”

“He will be the boss of it?”

“Subject to my ability to overrule absolutely everything you do, if that’s what I choose. Then yes. You’d be the boss.”

He smiled now. Though a cheerful, friendly kobold, Tomlin rarely smiled wide, and it was nice to see him do it now.

Assign role: Cultivator.

Tomlin [Kobold] is now a [Cultivator!]

Due to your kobold proficiency, he begins at level 5.

“Tomlin feels different!”

“Interesting. How, exactly?”

He tapped his claws on his chin. “He sees where the vines are strong, and where they need more space. He can feel which are best to clip and plant elsewhere.”

“I think you’re going to enjoy this,” I said.

“Tomlin would like books. He would learn more about essence and the way it grows.”

“Those kinds of books are held in the academy library. Sorry, bud. Even if I could persuade Galatee to send someone there, we couldn’t pay for any books.”

“Essence vines are a plant, Tomlin surmises. Other books may hold their secrets.”

“A book on regular horticulture? Maybe! I’ll ask Warrane.”

“Tomlin thanks the Dark Lord.”

“The Dark Lord is a kind core with a generous soul,” I said.

After both keeping my best kobold friend happy and hopefully securing the growth of my essence vines, it was time to think about the dungeon.

I needed more rooms. Lots of them. I had to construct traps, make puzzles, and in general, fashion this place into a pit of horrors where any intruder stupid enough to invade it met a gruesome end.

What do you need if you want to excavate lots of rooms underground?

Miners. People willing to do the dirty work so that you can keep your core hands clean.

I already had Wylie, but as good as he was at excavation, it would take him too long. So, why not increase my workforce a little?

After all, I could spend 450 essence points at a time now, and Tomlin would hopefully increase my essence regeneration speed soon. Besides, after leveling up, my dungeon could hold 18 monsters at a time.

I was about to create three new kobolds at 35 essence points each when I paused for a second. I remembered back when I had begun my first dungeon, when I was an inexperienced level 1 core. Back then, creating one kobold had been a task, and look at me now!

Before I created my new workforce, I checked my crafting list to see if there was any creature better suited to digging. Every time I leveled up, more and more things would be added to each crafting list.

Monsters

Spider [Cost 15]

Leech [Cost 15]

Fire beetle [Cost 20]

Kobold [Cost 35]

Angry Elemental Jelly Cube [Cost 75]

Sinister Owl [Cost 120]

Stone Dwarf Troll [Cost 180]

Bogbadug [Cost 200]

*New* Bone Guy [Cost 250]

*New* Hivemind Shrooms [Cost 375]

*New* Mimic [Cost 500]

There were some interesting additions to my list now. The Bone Guy was appealing to me. I cast my memory back to Overseer Winthrop’s creature class, and the module we’d studied on undead creatures. The undead covered tons of things; zombies, vampires, ghosts, demons, librarians. Lots of crossovers.

Bone Guys were of the undead affiliation, which meant they could take a beating. Man, could they take a pounding for the dungeon. You could club a Bone Guy around the head for hours, and he’d just stare at you and ask for more brains to eat.

That made them a good front line creature, one you sent forth to give heroes a bit of a test and to fatigue them. They did, however, have a weakness. Most undead creatures got all weak-kneed when they faced any kind of holy power. If a paladin or monk was in a hero party, don’t bother sending a bone guy to fight them.

The hivemind shrooms…I didn’t know much about those.

Surprised? The Core Beno, the all-knowing, the mighty, didn’t know about something?

Nah, I wouldn’t be surprised either if I was you. There’s tons that I don’t know. After all, the overseers only taught us enough so that we could graduate from the academy. For most cores, their real learning started when they built their first dungeon.

I’d have to craft some Hivemind shrooms to see what they could do, but not yet. I still had so much to do.

The final new entry on my crafting list made me very, very excited.

Mimics!

What is a dungeon, really, if it doesn’t have a mimic? It is like a bard without his lute, a mage without a beard, a barbarian without unchecked vanity that makes him stare at his reflection in his sword.

In case you don’t know, a mimic is a most delightful creature. They are shapeshifters capable of taking on the appearance of inanimate objects. Their true form is a sort of giant mouth, with a slurping tongue and rows of dagger-sharp teeth.

To a hero, though…the first time a hero meets a mimic, it is usually in the form of a loot chest, or a magic book. The stupid hero will approach it, thinking that it must be his birthday, and he’ll open the chest…

…only to get eaten alive by the mimic!

Does that sound beautiful, or what?

I couldn’t wait to get a mimic, but it seemed I would have to. They cost