Shadowcroft's Academy for Dungeons Chapter 14

Logan woke up with his Dungeon Core Grimoire vibrating on the nightstand. Despite the fact that it was a leather tomb, as thick as a phone book, the book brimmed with so much potent magical energy that it might as well have been an iPad. It was five a.m. and time to get up.

“I need sleep,” he said to the room. “I need to not suck,” he said to himself.

He had a little jug of water, which he drank and splashed on his face over a porcelain tub on his bare desk. He didn’t need to brush his teeth because, ha, no teeth. He was feeling a little hungry, however, and he had the chicken legs from the night before.

While Marko had spent the night drinking in Vralkag, Logan had stayed up way too late studying the various aspects of his Guardian Form. Fungaloids might not have been much to look at, but, man, they were fascinating. 

They had a wide array of skills and among the more intriguing abilities he’d read about was his Digestion ability—supposedly, it was a critically important to his race. If he understood correctly, he could use digestive spores to consume dead creatures even at a distance, absorbing additional core-essence in the process then instantly converting it into usable Apothos. That last bit he still didn’t entirely understand, but it seemed like a selling point. Once he started building dungeons, he could also use the ability to create an Acidic Digestion Pit to aid in digestive efforts. Sort of an easy, hands off way to eat your foes. 

Logan put the chicken leg in a bowl near the fireplace. He then concentrated on the meat, shedding a fine powder of nearly invisible spores. A layer of fungus appeared on the skin, moldering and gray.

A second later, Logan felt like he’d eaten something. He didn’t get a shot of Apothos, but that was probably because it was only piece of the animal and not the animal itself. If this thing had contained Apothos at some point, it was probably all gone by the time it wound up on his plate.

He shimmied down the ladder and found Marko, upside-down in his bed with his hooves in the air. Logan tapped his forehead. “Okay, Marko, time to pay the piper. We warned you about staying out all night.”

Marko didn’t move. Logan checked for a pulse. Sure and steady. Check. He went out into the hall and down the stairs all the way to the empty common room, the fires all burned to coals. Inga was already there with her DCG, reading while absently sipping some sweet-smelling tea. “You’re late,” she said.

Logan grinned. “Inga, I like you. You get me like no one else.”

“Insects and plants should get along.” She turned a page and kept on reading. She also must have some magical ability to see in low light.

Treacle came lumbering into the room.

“I’m going to need your help,” Logan said to the minotaur.

Back up the stairs they went. 

Treacle threw the satyr over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes—he snored like a jackhammer the whole while—and they made their way out to the Akros Coliseum in the crisp morning air. The world was still mostly dark, the sky the color of a fresh bruise. Like most things on campus, the Azure Dragon practice room didn’t properly open until eight. But unlike the Library, there were no locks, bars, or doors to keep them out and there was also not another soul in sight at this ungodly hour. Which made Logan obscenely happy. 

Thin fingers of gold and pink sunlight were starting to break across the horizon when they got serious. That also happened to be when Marko finally stirred from his bender-fueled hangover. They’d laid him on the first row of stone seats. He lifted a fuzzy hand. “I need… coffee… and a hammer. The coffee is for you. The hammer is for me.”

The air had a brisk, autumn-y chill to it. Somewhere there were pine trees, and their morning perfume mixed with the murky stink of the lake.

Inga had them head off the dirt track and into the gently swaying grass in the middle of the field, which was a terrible mistake. Logan tromped in with confident steps, eager to sprawl out in the dewy grass. The pain hit him seconds later when the green sliced through his fragile skin like frozen razor blades. He let out a yelp and backpaddled, a series of lace-fine cuts littering his body, arms, and legs. 

“What the heck?” he called out, even as the others forged deeper into the ocean of green. 

“Iceblade grass,” Inga called back over a shoulder. “It’s meant to help you focus while cultivating, plus its designed to help you refine your Iron Trunk. Once you become an Iron Trunk like the rest of us, you will hardly feel the sting at all. Take a seat”—she motioned toward a deceptively lush section of grass in front of her—“and we’ll begin.” 

Logan grimaced, took a steady breath, then nodded. He gingerly waded back into the sharpened blades as though preparing for battle. It felt like rolling around in a fire ant mound, but he ignored the blazing pain and took a seat, crossing his legs just as the others had done, then straightening his back. 

“Excellent.” Inga started her lecture like she was a tenured professor. “Now, there are hundreds of different cultivation techniques and theories. The more interesting ones include:  Boundless Wheel, Heavenly Root, Ancient Void Flame, Metamorphic Array, Blood Prison Sea, Ashen Sun in Ascension, Wise Moonlight Chain, SpiritWater Feeding Tree, Parasitic Coil Blossom, Eclipse Core Path. And these barely scratch the surface of the possibilities. Powerful Heartwood and Crown Class Cultivators are even known for inventing their own cultivation techniques, shared only with their closest disciples.” 

Heavenly Root? Metamorphic Array? Ashen Sun in Ascension? What in the world was she talking about? Logan raised his hand. “I’m sorry—I guess I don’t understand. Do all these techniques do different things or…” he trailed off, not sure how to finish. 

Inga pinched the bridge of her nose. “My but you really are from a backwater world. Listen, the answer is both yes and no. Each of these techniques—and the thousands of others like them—are designed to help cultivators absorb Apothos and cycle it through their core so they can power their innate abilities, and so that their cores can ascend to the next level. Different cultivators believe that these techniques allow you to process Apothos better or faster. Some of these techniques also focus on specific elemental affinities and how best to integrate them. Still others deal in the art of Core Configuration.” 

“Core Configuration?” Logan asked.

She waved his question away. “That won’t become important until you reach the upper levels of Deep Root and start the ascent into Iron Trunk. And even then, your Core Configuration doesn’t drastically start to effect outcomes until your ascension to Azure Branch. The Knot Patterns are too basic at the lower Class Levels to really have a huge impact.” 

Marko swallowed and squinted. “Professor Inga, I have a question? Which technique allows for the most vomiting?”

Treacle burped and chewed his cud from the dinner the night before. He was mellow but not enthusiastic, and Marko was barely even present.

Logan had to save their morning. “Okay, so I don’t need to worry about Core Knot Configuration yet. Good to know. But where should someone like me even start? Maybe you could just pick your favorite technique, Inga, and teach us that.”

The moth woman snorted and laughed awkwardly. “But they’re all so good. I generally do ten minutes of each.”

“For us newbs, we need to choose one and stick with it.” Logan had the idea that Inga probably should’ve done that as well. In his experience, being a master of a single thing was far better than being a novice at a hundred different things. 

She paused, lips pursing into a thin line as she tapped at her plump bottom lip. “Just one. Hmmm. Well, that is a challenge, but I suppose for someone entirely unacquainted with proper Core Cultivation, the best technique is probably Boundless Wheel. It is a good foundational form that will help you to cycle Apothos quite efficiently. First, I want you to close your eyes and focus on your breathing—the rush of air filling your lungs, then trickling out.” 

Logan did as he was told, stilling his mind, fighting to block out the painful cuts from the Iceblade grass—no easy task, that. It took several minutes, but eventually the sensations faded to a dull roar in the background noise of his mind. He was one with his breath. The crisp, pine-scented air swirled around him. Rich and alive with energy. 

“Good,” Inga intoned, her voice mellow and strangely distant. “Now, while still feeling the ebb and flow of your breath, I want you to focus on your core. Envision it in your mind’s eye and call it forth.” 

Logan followed suit, shifting his thoughts away from his lungs and toward the gem embedded in his belly, reaching out for it with his will. A picture formed inside his mind: a swirling cloud of jade and gray energy, shoot through with veins of gold. It looked like a disheveled tangle of dying weeds to be honest—unkempt strands of wispy energy trailed away from the sprawl like weeds. 

“Since you’re new to cultivating,” Inga said, “chances are high that your core will look a proper mess. You are probably seeing tendrils trailing off—that’s what we refer to as seepage. You’re losing energy all the time, getting weaker every moment because you are not actively cycling that power back into your core and through your body. The goal of using the Boundless Wheel form is to turn that untidy affair into a singular orb of energy. A perfectly dense marble of Apothos. To do this, you must push your core. Spin it in a great circle, all while feeding those wispy strands of energy back into the ball in a never-ending wheel.”

Logan focused and his body trembled with the effort. 

He envisioned the ball on a potter’s wheel, spinning round and round, faster and faster. His core responded, whirling, even as he pressed down and in, shaping that power through sheer will power. Feeding the strands of energy into the mass, reeling them in like stray fishing line. It was almost impossible to do both at the same time, though. True, he managed to capture of few of the free-floating strands, but for every one he caught, another seemed to slip through his mental fingers. His heart was pounding like mad inside his narrow chest and he felt like he was trying to carry a pickup truck up the side of Mount Everest on his back. 

Carrying a pickup while simultaneously juggling a trio of buzzing chainsaws. 

“Good,” Inga said. “This is the first phase of cultivation—a process known as refinement. During refinement, you aren’t actively filling your core with new Apothos, but instead you’re only cycling the Apothos already contained within. Harnessing it. Now it’s time to use it, though only a little bit.” 

Logan could feel her close by, but he kept his eyes pressed shut tight, focusing on the churning sphere of power. 

“What I want you to do now is peel off a few of those wispy strands and push them out. Circulate them through the meridians that crisscross the body. Meridians are a bit like veins, but instead of carrying life-giving blood to various parts of your body, they carry the essence of life themselves. Circulate the energy to your skin, reinforcing your body—tempering it against the slicing Icegrass blades.” 

Logan concentrated, digging down, while he envisioned a slim thither of energy floating away from his core. He focused on that teether pushing it outward by flexing some sort of internal, metaphysical muscle he didn’t fully understand yet. The energy moved slow at first, almost hesitant, like water tricking through the cracks in a dam wall. He kept pushing, though, forcing the energy through a snaking network of invisible that pulsed with a gentle life of their own. He focused on the meridians closest to his skin and felt the energy begrudgingly flow where he directed it. 

A shiver ran through his body, followed by a sweet wave of relief as the nicks and minor lacerations began to heal themselves. Spongy flesh knitting closed in an instant. The sensation was so extraordinary that it almost broke the meditative spell. Logan held strong, though. He was making real progress, and he didn’t want it to end—not know. Not when he felt so close to breakthrough.

“Reinforcing your skin,” Inga mused. “Impressive for a first attempt. Maybe there’s more to you than I though.” She paused, the silence tense and somehow thoughtful. “Let’s push it a little further, Logan. Let’s see how far you can go. Next, I want you to cycle the energy upward, through the heart line meridian, and into your eyes. Reinforce them, just as you did with your skin.” 

Logan licked his lips, his body violently trembling from the strain, which only served to open up fresh cuts, courtesy of the razor-sharp grass blades. Still, he wasn’t one to give up—never had been and never would be—so he did as he was instructed. The Apothos was responding even slower now, more sluggishly. It seemed the further he forced the energy from his core, the harder it was to control. But after what felt like a lifetime, the buzzing energy reach his eyes. Unlike with his skin, he didn’t feel any immediate difference, but he was sure he’d done as Inga had asked. 

Operating on gut instinct, he opened his eyes. Not an easy task while trying to hold the image of his core. What he saw took his breath away. Covering the field were swirling pockets of mist in a kaleidoscope of colors. Fiery orange streaks that danced here, chilly waves of blue and purple light there. He even spotted streaks of green and gray energy, drifting up like heat waves on a hot day. When he turned to his friends, he saw a faint halo of light surrounding each of them. A nimbus of gold, purple, and white flashing around Marko. Copper, crimson, and silver cloaking Treacle. A vibrant whirlwind of opal, electric blue, and neon green around Inga. 

It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Apothos. The life force of the universe on display. And now that he could see, he felt an unbridled desire to drink it all up. Like a man dying of thirst finding a refreshing oasis. Without actively thinking about it, he focused back on his breathing—inhale, hold, exhale, release—drawing a strand of bright red mist into the gill fronds running beneath his mushroom cap. For the briefest moment Logan felt a surge of fiery power, filling him with boundless energy. And then the mist hit his core…

It felt like snorting a line of cayenne chili powder. The image dissolved and Logan found himself sprawled out on his back in the painful grass, struggling to breath and keep his eyes open. God, but everything hurt.

Marko was looming over him, cackling. “You just tried to cultivate Ignis, dude. You’re a squishy plant, dude.” It seemed Marko had finally shaken off his hangover and was back in good spirits. “Respect for the effort, but that’s a classic leap before you look situation. And believe me, I would know because I am constantly leaping before looking. Bet you’re feeling about like I did when I woke up this morning.” 

Logan groaned and nodded. He really did feel hungover. 

“You have to be careful what you cultivate,” Inga said, a smile on her normally reserved face. “Still, not terrible as first attempts go.” She offered him a hand up. Logan noticed that she wasn’t covered in grassblade cuts and didn’t seem at all winded by the exercise. “Before you can actively start cultivating new energy, though, you need to refine your core to at least Rank 6. And to do that, you need to practice the Boundless Wheel. Practice it until its second nature. Until you can do it in your sleep. While reading a book. While in combat. Get that down, get to Rank 6, and I’ll teach you how to actively cultivate and purify elemental Apothos without killing yourself in the process.”

“Hey, don’t let it bum you out,” Marko said, slapping Logan on the shoulder. “It takes time, but even I managed to get to Iron Trunk, so you know it can’t be that hard, amiright?”

“Yeah, okay,” Logan replied. “I think I’m wiped on meditation, but maybe we could get in a round of sparring before we call it a day?” he asked. He was feeling exhausted to the core, but he would sure like to have a few moves to pull out against those doom hounds, since he was sure he hadn’t seen the last of them.

Inga had snorted and rolled her eyes. “As if. You are as weak as kelpie grub. More grub than kelpie for sure. Right, Marko?”

“No idea, moth mama,” Marko shot back, “but I have a better idea. Instead of meditation or martial prowess, I think it’s time for coffee and breakfast! I have a greasy omelet with my name on it.”

The resounding chime of the dining bell off in the distance seemed to agree with Marko. 

“Fine.” Inga crossed her arms. “Breakfast it is.”

  Keep Reading Here: Chapter Fifteen