Bolton used to be a dungeon core, and he was such an amazing core that he rose to Master tier, and he created the Necrotomitlita, one of the greatest dungeons ever made. The name really didn’t do his lair justice.
He was so good as a core that he ascended into his third life, where he was given a chance to be human again. This was something that most cores strived for. After becoming a man, Bolton took a job at the academy, teaching cores like me how to get by in this cruel, cruel world.
For all his brilliance, Bolton had a problem. He knew it. All us students knew it.
He was going bald.
Not a biggie in the scheme of things, to be honest. But Bolton loved his hair, and when he realized he was going bald, he started checking his hair all the time. Looking in the reflection of windows, even casting mirror spells in the palm of his hand when he thought we couldn’t see. He couldn’t stop himself from checking. Every time he thought he saw his scalp shining through, it made his anxiety even worse.
So how did this relate to me, an entirely hairless dungeon core?
Well, after digging a while, I glanced at my buds.
And saw black spots.
Yup, three of the buds had developed tiny little smudges of black on them. My brain screamed at me.
“They’re rotting!” it said. “This didn’t work! I split a part of myself for nothing!”
Just like overseer Bolton, I kept checking on my buds every five minutes. Then every minute. Then every second. I was convinced the black spots were spreading.
I needed to get a closer look, but removing the buds from the vines for a second time would almost certainly kill them.
I could split some of my core again. Give them another coating and see if that helped…
…no. I had learned about a thing called sunk cost fallacy in the academy. This was where you carried on doing something that wasn’t getting you the right results, just because you’d already invested something into it.
The one thing about plant-based problems was that, even though essence plants grew a lot faster than normal plants, I still had plenty of time to decide what to do.
I thought about it again and again, until I was repeating the same things in my head. Eventually, I decided what to do.
Rot spreads in essence plants, and right now only three had black spots. The black spots might have just been natural blemishes, but I couldn’t take the chance of the other buds getting infected.
I snipped the three offending buds off the vine and brought them into my core. As always, I could taste them inside me now. Rich with essence and almost fruity. They hadn’t quite spoiled yet.
This time, I didn’t fight temptation.
I absorbed all three buds, letting their deliciousness cascade inside me. It filled me with vigor and strength, and I basked in the warm feelings crashing around in my core.
Essence increased – 1.5
Essence increased - 2
Essence increased – 3
Woo hoo!
Absorbing the buds so early had robbed them of some of their essence-increasing potential, but at least I didn’t have to worry about rot. What’s more, my total essence had trebled, which meant that I could dig for three times as long.
I had rescued the rest of the buds, hopefully, and I had increased my essence at the same time. It was the best of a crummy situation.
I noticed the difference straight away. Three times the essence meant three times the digging, which meant that I carved chunk after chunk away from my tunnel. The more digging I did, the more my skill increased.
For the next two days, I let my vines grow, and I delved deeper into the mud tunnel, eventually making an arched passageway that was six feet high and ten feet long, and wide enough for monsters of many kinds to walk through.
Digging increased – 3.1%
Dungeon fixture created: Tunnel
That was that. Tunnel complete.
Now, I had to dig out my first dungeon room.
CHAPTER 4
If digging a tunnel had taken me almost a week, then centuries would have passed in the time it would take me to carve out a full room.
Luckily, my buds had bloomed!
Yup, the remaining seven buds had grown on the vines like the good little buds they were. Now, they were at that precarious size where they were ripe for plucking, but it was also tempting to wait and see if they’d get bigger. After all, the bigger the bud, the more essence.
Remembering how it felt when I almost lost the three buds, I decided to just absorb them. It wasn’t worth the risk of them reaching the end of their growing phase and dying on the vine.
Feeling hungry and excited, I did this, using my core arms to bring them to me.
I could have just absorbed them all in one go. Cores can do that. Instead, I did it one by one so that I could savor each of them. After all, who knew when I’d next find an essence bud?
Sometimes, it’s good to just take your time and enjoy life. A dungeon core is nothing if not patient.
So I absorbed six of them, taking in their sweet essence one by one until finally, I felt really, really full.
Essence increased – 49
Holy lords of all the underworlds! Consuming my buds had given me a whopping 46 extra essence points! To think, if I’d eaten the original bud without coating it in my core and splitting it, I’d have earned maybe 8 points at most.
It made me feel like it was worth it. Losing 5% of my core hurt, but I guessed that having so much essence so early put me
