Logan blinked as fresh spores dropped from his gills. He suddenly felt lightheaded, and then all sensation disappeared for a minute. When he could feel again, it was like he was wearing a big coat full of pockets. Different parts of the dungeon filled the pockets to overflowing. The hallways. The rooms. The traps. He felt the giant centipedes skittering about in the room, the placement of a punji trap near the entrance, and each leaf on every vine.
He wasn’t watching over the dungeon—he was the dungeon. He could sense things he’d never sensed before, and it was overwhelming.
“Now, Logan, try to create something,” the professor encouraged, her voice echoing and oddly distorted in his ears. Almost as though he were hearing her from more than one source.
Logan couldn’t think straight. Every square inch of the place threatened to crush his brains into gravel meatloaf. There were just so many rooms! And he could feel Arketa helping him. Alone, he very well might’ve gone insane.
Logan focused on growing one of the Skullcap Waddlers, just a single mushroom.
A single red-and-white toadstool grew out of the cracks near Marko’s beer fountain. He tried to increase the size, maybe have it grow some arms and legs like a real minion.
Instead, he drew it upward until the toadstool was a foot tall.
Then he felt himself losing consciousness.
His gem fell and would’ve smashed down on the pedestal if Arketa hadn’t grabbed it and pushed it back into Logan’s belly.
Her forehead creased with worry. “Dear me, you have a long way to go, Logan. Have you heard of the Tartarucha Cells?”
Logan blinked, though he was seeing with both his eyes and his spores because of Fungal Vision. “Heard of it, yeah. It’s in the undercroft.”
Arketa knelt so she could look him in the eye. “The Tartarucha Cells are a simulation dungeon. You need as much time in there as possible. That might be difficult since there are so many cores signing up to use it. Incoming freshmen are at the bottom of the list, which is sad, since you have the Winnowing to deal with.” She shook her head. “You need practice, a lot of practice, a miracle really, hate to say it. I’ll see what I can do, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”
“Two questions,” Logan said, raising two stumpy fingers. God, it was embarrassing to have this conversation in front of the whole class, but part of him didn’t care. “One. Why do you seem to like fungaloids? And secondly, what exactly is the Winnowing?”
The professor tapped him on the head. “Well, fungaloids are rare, for one thing, which is always exciting. And for the record, I’ve long suspected that fungaloids can be amazing, we’ve just never seen one grow into its full potential. Incidentally, I also have a soft spot for this truffle cream sauce I once had in Haven’s Door on Eritreus. Made from Opal Truffles and absolutely amazing. It was delicious and virtually impossible to get outside of Eritreus.”
Hmm. Now that’s something, Logan thought. So far, Arketa seemed like good people, and it just so happened that he could grow something she loved. There had to be a way to use that to his advantage. He’d need to revisit that later.
“As for the Winnowing?” Her expression turned deadly serious. “Basically, the Winnowing is your Freshman Final at Shadowcroft. The four worst students are expelled.”
“I’ve been expelled from schools before.” Marko waggled his eyebrows. “It’s not so bad. Weekends aren’t a big deal anymore... except you get to hang out with your un-expelled friends.”
Arketa let her sunglasses slip a little and threw a withering gaze at Marko.
The satyr shut his trap and stopped smiling.
Logan felt his insides turn to slush.
“Expelled is a nice way of putting it,” the professor said. “Dungeon cores who wash out become wandering monsters, alone, readily killed... at the mercy of every dungeoneer with a smirk and a sword. The Winnowing is cruel, but crueler would be for a dungeon to fail at protecting a Celestial Node.”
“Utilitarianism at its best,” Logan murmured under his breath. He had to find someone to team up with because there was no way he was ever going to avoid the Winnowing on his own.
Chapter Sixteen
THE NEXT TWO WEEKS went by in a flash. After that first Underground Feng Shui class, Logan had decided on two out of the three mushrooms he would cultivate. However, he was still on the fence about the second-level mushroom.
Like on Earth, the school gave the students weekends off. Logan wasn’t going to spend any time goofing off, however. Inga said he needed to master Boundless Wheel so that it was as natural as breathing. So, Logan cultivated. Constantly. Walking up the ten flights of stairs to his room. Going to sleep. Waking up at the crack of dawn. Cross-legged in the swaying field of Iceblade grass. Relaxing in the Golden Serpent Hall. Sitting through Shadowcroft’s musings about ethics and the universe. Logan worked on spinning his core into a perfect orb and taking care of all that seepage, all while constantly circulating a hair-thin tendril of power through his body, reinforcing his skin against damage and improving his eyes so he could see the floating wisps of Apothos.
Logan insisted the Terrible Twelfth keep their early morning schedule six days a week, despite the extra time off. He would’ve done seven, but Marko threatened to violently revolt. However, it wasn’t like waking up early on Saturday would stop the satyr from partying with his other friends on Friday night. As for Treacle, the minotaur didn’t mind much. Whenever he got bored, he would simply chew his cud like a Wyoming guernsey cow.
Inga, though, matched Logan step for step.
On that second Sunday, she was reading in the common room when Logan came down at six a.m. He hadn’t really expected to see anyone else and had planned to go alone to the Akros Coliseum to cultivate. The Iceblade grass was miserable, but it really did help him sharpen his mind. In just two weeks, he’d already progressed to E-Class Rank 5, which was a major threshold. He didn’t feel it when he went up a rank. According to Inga and the others, that wouldn’t happen until he ascended to Iron Trunk. For him, ranking up was more like a status bar in a video game—it showed the progress he was making toward his next evolutionary form.
He hauled himself up onto the bench next to her. She steeped her tea with her left hand while turning pages with her right. A fresh log burned in the fireplace on the glowing red coals, casting a scarlet light on her blue-black wings. She was in her Azure Dragon robe with the matching scarf, blue and gold.
Logan wasn’t about to interrupt her, so he pulled up his Guardian Matrix Form.
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Logan Murray
Guardian Core Matrix
Base Race: Fungaloid
Current Evolution: Toadstool
Cultivator Class: Deep Root Cultivators; E-Class, Rank 5
Primary Elemental Affinities: Morta/Toxicus
Racial Abilities:
- Digestion
Racial Skill:
Domestic Fungi
- Level-One Proto-Spore Cultures
- Opal Truffles, Mucal Film, Ghoul’s Snare
- Level-Two Proto-Spore Cultures
- Outstanding Allotment!
Fungal Form (Active):
- Harden
Fungal Form (Passive):
- Fungal Vision
- Disease Immunity