LOGAN WOKE UP WITH his Dungeon Core Grimoire vibrating on the nightstand. Despite the fact that it was a leather tome 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 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 a 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, where the fires had 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—Marko 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 Coliseum 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. That made Logan obscenely happy.
Thin fingers of gold and pink sunlight were starting to break across the horizon when they started training in earnest. 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. Pain hit him seconds later when the green grass sliced through his fragile skin like frozen razor blades. He let out a yelp and backpedaled, 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 it’s 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 steadying 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, 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, and Lost Branch 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—is designed to help cultivators absorb Apothos and cycle it through their cores 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 affect 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.”