The reanimated took five steps before standing on a pressure plate. Pretty standard core stuff. We learned about pressure plates in Traps 101.
From a hidden recess in the ceiling, a giant metal rod swung out on a pivot. At the end of the rod was the head of the shovel. It slammed into the corpse’s arse at such a speed that it lifted into the air.
When the corpse was in mid-air, it tore through a line of fishing wire, triggering two more ceiling recesses. The first covered the corpse in oil, and the second spat down thousands of feathers.
Soon, the corpse was covered head-to-toe in chicken feathers, like some kind of bipedal zombie poultry.
Blinded by the oil, it shambled to and fro, soon stepping on yet another pressure plate, which released a scythe, scissoring the corpse in half.
I wasn’t proud of the trap by any means. The humor wasn’t my style, and neither was the means of death. But that didn’t matter. At least it had worked.
From outside the chamber came the sound of an overseer laughing. Overseer Yuren, who had the sense of humor of a child and was just as easily entertained.
“Excellent, Beno,” he said. “Excellent stuff.”
The blue and green cores were eliminated from the trap round, which left just me and Grey. In almost any task, I would have liked those odds, but I knew what was coming next.
The core quality test. The one I’d scored the lowest ranking on. The one that told me I had a core that ranked in quality with a diseased rat.
The quality test was to take place the next morning. Bolton, Jahn, Gulliver, Shadow, Anna, and I were given rooms in the academy. Gulliver decided to spend the night chatting to the overseers in their lounge, where they were happy to entertain a world-renowned scribe. In exchange for getting their names mentioned in his next book, of course.
Shadow kept to herself, as she often did these days. No doubt she was missing her pups, who were more like wolves now they were fully grown. She hated having to leave them behind. Anna was in the chamber next door, staying true to her word and studying the books that Bolton had given her, which would add to her education as a Chosen One.
That left Bolton, Jahn, and I gathered in my chamber. Bolton, being the only human, was sitting on the bed. I was floating, and Jahn was resting on a pedestal.
We were staring at the marble podium in the center of the room, on top of which rested a golden scale.
“I had to pull every favor owed to me to have the academy kobolds bring this here and keep quiet about it,” said Bolton.
“I appreciate it. Do you think there is any way we can manipulate it during the test?”
“I doubt it. I spoke to Overseer Yuren, and they’re all very excited about this thing. Not only does it evaluate a person’s potential core quality before committing to forging them into a core, but the test is beyond reproach. Completely spell proof.”
“If we can’t tamper with the instrument of measurement,” I said, “perhaps we can mess with the subject of measurement.”
Bolton looked at me strangely. “Explain.”
“Jahn,” I said. “Will you let Bolton measure your core quality?”
“I suppose so, Beno. But I don’t...”
“Don’t what?”
“I don’t want you to feel bad, old pal.”
In my inner core, I smiled at Jahn. “Don’t worry about me.”
Bolton placed Jahn on the golden scale. Blue light washed around the marble pedestal, and the symbols on the front began to illuminate.
While my core had lit just one symbol, Jahn’s made one after another flash with blue light. One, two, three…all the way to the eighth marking.
A sole quality of eight! I had scored just one, marking me a base-core. As an Ancient, Jahn was seven places above me on the ladder.
“I told you this was a bad idea, Beno. I didn’t want to make you feel bad.”
“You didn’t, Jahn. It’s not you that’s made me feel bad, even if I do feel pretty crappy. It’s the test itself. Never mind. Bolton, how long do we have with this thing before the kobolds have to take it back?”
“An hour or two.”
“Then we better figure out how it works so we can cheat it.”
“Is that possible, Beno?” asked Jahn.
“Bolton?” I said.
“Yuren said it is magic proof… but that doesn’t mean it is tamperproof. Just like how you could place your finger on a scale to make the measurement look heavier, we should be able to tinker with the golden scale. But according to what Yuren told me, will need to chip a few flakes from Jahn’s core.”
“Are you sure you’re okay with this, Jahn?” I asked.
“If you think it will help...”
The next morning, Tarnbuckle gathered me and the grey core back in the main chamber. This time, all the other overseers and some senior core students were present. No doubt they were here to see Grey massively outscore me in core quality, and thus get the sponsorship.
The golden scale and marble podium were dragged into the chamber by Tarnbuckle’s kobolds, who huffed and wheezed at the weight. The head overseer proudly adjusted his necklace medallion and then addressed the audience.
“We will begin with Aethos, esteemed student of the Dungeon Core Academy. A core already in possession of five separate offers of employment from some of the finest armies in the land.”
A few cheers rose from the crowd, quite out of keeping with the dignified air the overseers had tried to foster. No doubt everyone present thought this was just an exercise in administration. A tiresome task to get out of the way so that they could send me, a failed graduate, on my way, and then get busy with preparing for the Battle of the Five Stars.
If this went the way I had planned, they were in for a surprise.
Two formally-dressed kobolds carefully chipped a tiny fragment from Aethos and placed it on the scale.
The chamber hushed.
The scales whirred to life.
Light washed over the marble, lighting the numerals. One, two, three... all the way to the fifth symbol, where it stopped.
Aethos was a MidFoundation core. I had to admit, I was impressed. Jahn was an Ancient core, centuries-old and made from the original gemstone. Not forged in the academy, but brought to being in some mystical way that overseers had never figured out. As such, his core quality was ranked Ancient.
For Aethos to score MidFoundation was very impressive. Especially since I had been a normal man, as far as I knew. The overseers had never mentioned anything lacking in my old life, other than the fact that I managed to get myself killed. In fact, I must have been a remarkable person in some way, for them to even decide to forge me as a dungeon core. Even with that, my core quality was only Base. Aethos was really something.
Unfortunately, I was going to make a chump out of him.
“Beno,” said Tarnbuckle, with a hint of a smile on his lips. “no need to measure your core quality. We already know, do we not?”
“Your own rules state that each core must be measured on the same day. My quality must be evaluated again.”
He looked at me with frustration. “Why not save a slither of dignity, Core Beno? Is it not bad enough the child wets his bed? Does he need to hold up his soggy sheets for all to see?”
I could cheerfully have spawned a five-headed gargoyle and had it tear Tarnbuckle’s head off right then. We were underground, after all. I could use essence here. It was just a shame that every core and overseer in the room would immediately rise against me, and I’d be dead before a gnat could blink.
So instead, I gritted my metaphorical teeth and reminded myself that soon, he’d be the one looking foolish.
“You rules state I have to be tested today, so that is what we’ll do.”
“Very well,” said Tarnbuckle, and coughed at the kobolds.
The creatures cut a small fragment from the base of my core body, and carefully placed it on the scales. I prayed that the gemstone dust we’d taken from Jahn would do the trick.
The scale began to work and the numerals lit up.
The first symbol glowed blue.
Tarnbuckle walked in front of the podium. “And there you have it, Core Beno scores a core quality of one. He is just a Base core. It is clear that our next sponsoree in the Battle of the Five Stars will be…”
He stopped talking, noticing that Overseer Yuren was pointing.
The etchings on the marble had carried on glowing, all the way to six, where they stopped.
Six symbols. That meant I was an UpperFoundation-ranked core!
Or it would have, if I hadn’t cheated.
A cackle escaped my lips. I couldn’t help it. It was the same kind of laugh I’d normally give after slaughtering a bunch of heroes. A completely involuntary reaction.
Tarnbuckle looked horrified. “There must be some mistake! Reset the scales and try again.”
“I checked the new regulations written into the academy code of conduct,” I said. “It’s quite clear. The core quality test can only be administered once in our evaluation.”
Tarnbuckle opened his mouth, but Bolton interrupted him. “It’s true. I checked them, also.”
The head overseer looked like he was going to explode. I felt a much larger laugh build up inside me when I thought about how we’d done it.
The night before, we had cut just a sliver of gemstone from Jahn, crushed it up, and spread it on me using a transparent bonding paste. That was enough to confuse the golden scales.
However, I was lucky that the test wasn’t being administered again. Every time Bolton and I tested it the previous night, the paste had resulted in a different reading, ranging from two to seven. I was fortunate that today’s reading had been six.
Tarnbuckle stormed out of the chamber, no doubt to collect his temper and to resign himself to having to come back out here and announced to everyone I was going to be sponsored by the academy.
I didn’t mind waiting. It would make it all the sweeter when the announcement was made. So, I stayed on the stage with the academy cores and overseers all looking upon me in awe. Or at least, that was how I chose to interpret their expressions.
When Tarnbuckle came back, he didn’t look as glum as I’d expected.
Worse, he had a big, thick book in his hand.
A book I knew well.
He stood in the center of the stage and waited for a babble of core voices to quieten. Then, he opened the book and read from it.
“When an ex-core has failed to contribute to the alumni fund and has also failed to attend alumni night events, it can be considered that he is no longer associated with the Dungeon Core Academy.”
He let his words trail off, leaving a silence. All I could do was brood on what he had said.
A technicality. He had me on a bloody technicality. I didn’t need to read the book to know he was telling the truth. I vaguely recalled something about alumni fees and events.
I hadn’t contributed to the alumni fund, nor had I visited alumni night events. Why would I? Those things sounded boring. The fact was, I’d never intended to associate with the academy again.
As such, I wasn’t part of the academy, even as an ex-student. I had no right to be evaluated the sponsorship, as it turned out.
“Behold, cores, overseers, kobolds, and guests,” announced Tarnbuckle. “The core competing for the Dungeon Core Academy in this decade’s Battle of the Five Stars is… Aethos!”
Chapter 6
The mana carriage ride back home to the dungeon was a quiet one. Bolton and Shadow were napping, and Gulliver and Jahn were on the roof. Gulliver had promised to show Jahn the constellations, and demonstrate how a person might navigate using them. I preferred using signposts and asking people for directions, like a normal person.
As much as I usually enjoyed the quiet time so that I could read or think of new traps or just have a minute’s peace away from the constant jibber-jabbering of kobolds, I didn’t enjoy the silence that night. With the absence of chatter, gloomy thoughts filled the gap.
I thought about the academy and how they’d used regulations to discard me. Not that I could complain, given I’d cheated with the golden scale. But I guessed that the worse thing was their desperation to be free of me. The lengths they went so they didn’t have to sponsor me. As though I would bring them shame, or something.
And then delving deeper, there was the fact that I had to cheat to win. My core was of such low quality, that had the golden scale been around back then, I would never have been forged in the first place.
What bothered me - what this meant - was that any idea I had of entering the tournament, earning glory, and winning the rewards was gone. No other academy would even think of sponsoring me. I only had a chance with the Dungeon Core Academy because I used to be a student there.
Maybe I just had to accept my new place in the pecking order. That even though I had my dungeon, Jahn would be the most important core in it. That I should fall in line and get behind him, forget about personal glory and just focus on Jahn’s task and being a faceless cog within it.
It wasn’t that I begrudged Jahn anything. It was just... I don’t know. It had always been my dungeon, and my wishes had always been at the center front.
“What’s got you brooding so much?”
I was surprised to see Anna climb to the front of the carriage and sit beside me, dangling her legs over the ledge as the scenery whizzed by. I couldn’t think of a single time when Anna had spoken to me out of choice. Likewise, the only time I’d spoken to her of my own volition was to interrogate her after she had magically possessed Shadow, my kobold rogue.
“Shouldn’t you be studying?” I said.
“It gets boring. And sometimes I find it hard to take in. I read so much that my mind can only keep up with part of it, and Bolton won’t ever let me stop and just think things through. Y’know, get everything straightened and stored properly in my head. He’s always saying, ‘Five more chapters before tomorrow, Anna!’”
“I always used to love studying. As many books as possible. I couldn’t get enough of them.”
“I prefer to learn more about my magic by doing things. Using it, and stuff. But Bolton says the way I used to use my power wasn’t very nice.”
I thought about how Anna had once used her Chosen One power to possess Shadow, and then get Shadow to kill one of my minor kobolds.
“Yes, a cynic might say that you weren’t very pleasant, Anna.”
“And you have a halo around you, do you, Mr. Core?”
“I was forged to slaughter heroes. Any death or murder on my part was just me acting according to my nature.”
“Oh? And what are you doing now? Is brooding in your nature?” she said.
“What would you know?”
“That you’re moping around like a little baby.”
“I expect I’m feeling like you did when they kicked your arse out of the Chosen One school. When you learned you would never match up to the standards they set.”
“Except that I was kicked out of the school for using my powers on an instructor, not because I wasn’t good enough. And I only did it to help...a friend.”
Anna still hadn’t said her best friend, Utta’s, name since he had died. I knew that some of my more earnest, and less perceptive, dungeon monsters like Wylie had asked Anna how she was feeling from time to time. But most people didn’t even bring the subject up.
“I’m sorry about Utta,” I said.
Anna looked at me, shocked. I was just as surprised. What the hell had just come out of my mouth? Empathy?
No, not just that. Not just that horrible thing called empathy, but empathy for a girl who I could quite cheerfully throw into a vat of boiling oil.
“I don’t think you should give up,” said Anna. “Utta always used to say that unless you’re dead, you always have a chance. Although, I suppose you are dead, aren’t you, core? Or does having a second life count as being alive? Or are you half-dead? For that matter, what’s the diff
erence between a resurrected thing and a reanimated? I’m sleepy. And if Bolton is allowed to nap in the mana carriage, then so am I.”
Part of what Anna said was sinking into my mind. I could feel an idea stirring, and I just needed a little time alone to work it out.
As Anna shifted towards the back of the carriage, I turned to face her.
“If you want to remember more of what you read, and avoid having to read books twice, then I’ll teach you my memory palace technique someday.”
She said nothing for a moment. “Thank you, you stupid core.”
I suppressed a laugh. “No problem, you insufferable, dim-witted, failure.”
And that left me on my own again, watching the scenery go by, seeing the cracked orange of the wasteland gaining on us in the distance.
I took the idea I’d had, and I played with it. I twisted it, folded it, picked at it. All the while, I repeated the words of Anna’s best friend.
As long as you’re not dead, still have a chance.
Well, I did have a chance, didn’t I?
If I wanted to enter the Battle of the Five Stars, I needed an academy to sponsor me. And if no academy would sponsor me, then what was the answer?
To create a Dungeon Core Academy of my own.
Chapter 7
A few days later, I took yet another mana carriage. This time I was headed to a city named Tavercraig. I had wanted to go alone initially, but then thought better of it. For what I was going to do, it would help to turn up with an ex-Dungeon Core Academy overseer. Even if said overseer was wearing a short-sleeve shirt with flowers on it, was half drunk, and was puffing on a pipe.
“Did you have to wear that horrible shirt today of all days, Bolton?” I asked.
“Try anything once. That’s my new motto, Beno my boy. It just so happens that I only have, at best, ten or fifteen years to try everything. So, unfortunately, lad, today’s the day I am wearing a floral shirt for the first time. For the first time, I am sampling a whiskey known as Snake Tongue, and chuffing on red-nettle weed. Not only that, but I have never visited Tavercraig before. Four new things accomplished in one lovely morning.”
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 136
