Core of Knowledge (Book 2 Complete)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The Crazed Scholar. The Hoarder of Knowledge. The Thief of Ten Thousand Techniques. After ten thousand years, a cultivator attempted to ascend. To join the Heavens. To be a God. He failed. However, the story of Xu Han did not end there. He found that the Heavens had gave him another life. As a dungeon core.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2024
Author: Ghostman

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 1,050
Views: 475,871

What readers say about Core of Knowledge (Book 2 Complete)

“So far, I’m extremely pleased with the concept of the story, combining cultivation knowledge in a dungeon course setting. While there is a bit of oddness here and there when it comes to the authors writing. These feel like minor corrections that would get f…”
Moon_WinchesterRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“This is just a short review for a story I enjoy. the story is pretty well written and I think I learned that I like dungeon core stories with either a good balance of dungeon shenanigans without feeling like you are just trapped in a room praying nothing ba…”
FlorboRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

Moon_WinchesterRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So far, I’m extremely pleased with the concept of the story, combining cultivation knowledge in a dungeon course setting. While there is a bit of oddness here and there when it comes to the authors writing. These feel like minor corrections that would get fixed when the book one is completed and they do a rewrite/grammar effect.
So far I’m on chapter 14 and I felt the writing get progressively better though in the beginning it was extremely confusing in his first talk with the dungeon fairy. But I’m extremely excited to where this will go.
I’m currently giving it a five star since I would love for more people to come read this book and to give the author more ideas I haven’t commented yet since I’ve mostly been reading on my phone during break time at work. I plan to write more detailed comments later on when I read it suggestions here and there.
All in all, I’m extremely pleased that you created me a novel story idea. And I love the execution so far my only suggestion will be adding POV then the person’s name at the top of the chapter or paragraph when that person viewpoint comes in to play. Other than that, we’ve had a countless mentions of other peoples system as well as how the dungeon should have a minor system because of its Demi divine status, but we haven’t seen anything. I don’t know if this is an intentional choice or not but the crypticness feels a bit odd. I can’t wait to see how deeply you will utilize the cultivation cliché, tropes, environments, lower knowledge and more to construct a dungeon in a uniquely fantasy world.
FlorboRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is just a short review for a story I enjoy.
the story is pretty well written and I think I learned that I like dungeon core stories with either a good balance of dungeon shenanigans without feeling like you are just trapped in a room praying nothing bad happens like some lesser dungeon core stories begin to feel after a while.
Can'tBeSeenRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I’ll say this upfront. I'm a big fan of the author. The Dungeon Hive Trilogy amd Grandpa Sweet Fist were both great, and this story did not disappoint. The idea of the story, a seemingly nasty cultivator who finds some sort of redemption after being reborn as a dungeon core is odd, but it does works. It's a fun read, and quite enjoyable.
There are some grammar issues, as many readers had commented, but I don't think it's that big of an issue. It's not unreadable or anything. If you can ignore the grammar, then you're in for a fun time.
Nat_1Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
it's pretty unique with xania x fantasy mixed with the dungeon core trope, has no major grammatical errors, and the MC does change even in the thirty chapters mark that I'm reviewing it at.
another thing is the fleshed out system for gods and how they work, most just leave that part nebulously interpreted.
versiasRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
The Core of Knowledge is an interesting mashup of two popular genres with a lot of crossover—LitRPG and xianxia. The story doesn’t necessarily focus on aspects of either but instead blends tropes from both to tell an interesting tale. The main character is the dungeon core, formerly the cultivator Xu Han, once known as the Crazed Scholar and the Thief of Ten Thousand Techniques in his home realm. He challenges the Heavens for immortality and fails because of a fatal flaw in his Dao: knowledge hoarded is knowledge lost. What good is knowledge that is not shared? Xu Han realizes that with his death, lacking in disciples or hidden manuscripts or any means of passing on his knowledge, he has deprived the world of countless valuable techniques, technology, and the like. But Xu Han gets a second chance go correct his failures: he is reborn as a dungeon core! The new Tomb of Ten Thousand Techniques will be his reparation for the scars he left in his previous world.
Story
The story is one of this work’s strong points. There is a clear theme of knowledge shared being more valuable than knowledge hoarded. Shared knowledge becomes collaboration, and collaboration enables new discoveries. The dungeon itself is a collaborative effort between dungeon fairy and dungeon core, by sharing knowledge, debating and compromising between the values of Xu Han’s old world, and the rules and wisdom of his new one.
The interactions between various philosophies and parties is interesting and engaging. I want to see how the collaboration between different dungeons evolves and shapes the world, and how the world responds! The best stories are always the ones where you keep asking, what’s next?
Style & Grammar
The technical craft of the writing is where this work loses points. Tenses of verbs are all over the place throughout the text. There are minor inconsistencies in the setting and story as well that could really benefit from a second pass. The text occasionally re-states something that had b
Candlelight107Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I've enjoyed this story so far quite a bit! However, for those who care about them, there seem to be at least 1-5 grammar issues in each chapter up to where Ive currently read. I'm excited to keep reading, and love the creativity and world building so far! I took off a star due to the grammar issues.
doppleganger09Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I'm quite enjoying the read so far, I only see two problems with the story neither of which are deal breakers for me. the grammar is a bit off in some places, but I hardly noticed I'm used to wading through MTL's, so I didn't even notice until I read other reviews. I also find the MC to be a bit too normal for a supposed 10,000-year cultivator. It's a common problem with writing characters like these. I'm sure everyone's read a reincarnated emperor story where the dude is dumb as bricks despite supposedly being thousands of years old. There are some moments where it feels like the MC should know better especially when the dungeon fairy has to point out obvious flaws in his dungeon despite his own experience. though it was somewhat remedied by what we learn about his life before, at least enough for me to Keep my suspension of disbelief.
ElvenDenRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I read the first book in one go and the thirst to see the next chapter did not give me the time and willpower to write comments.
An interesting well written fiction, the core is often too bloodthirsty for someone who claims to want to bring enlightenment, but I hope that this is the part of the character that he will overcome.
The fairy, the guild's head and even Heaven are right that knowledge and rewards are useless if you die.
And author should perhaps add the tags of the LitRPG (because of lvls and classes), a multiple lead characters (there are a lot of changes of points of view) and probably a villainous lead (or an antihero, but for now he's more busy killing people than spreading knowledge). This way readers will know better what to expect from the story. I also didn't find anything funny enough in the narrative for the fiction to match the comedy tag. Yes, the characters sometimes tell jokes, but the story itself is not comedic at all.
UPD. The beginning of the second volume was disappointment for me. Because of this, unfortunately, I will not know if the MC will develop not only his dungeon, but also his character. Or how many minor characters with the potential to become interesting will be killed in the dungeon.
WheelsRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
While the story is overall enjoyable, the constant errors make it tiring to read. Worse, looking at the comments you can see multiple people pointing the same error out over the course of months, leaving no reason to expect improvement. It's not even just minor grammatical errors, leaving me confused as to whether the titular dungeon is the "Tomb of 10,000 techniques" or the "Tome of 10,000 techniques", due to the former making more sense but the latter being far more numerous.
There's also a tendency to repetition, with the same point being made multiple times and chapter breaks seemingly being treated as reason to reintroduce scenes, but compared to the spelling and grammatical errors, this is a relatively light concern in my mind, and can be easily ignored.
If you can overlook that to read a creative if somewhat wooden story, you'll enjoy yourself, but unfortunately it's just too much for me. The author really needs to get in the habit of properly editing, or atleast fixing the problems the audience points out, if they want their stories to improve.
There is potential here, and I would love to see the author reach that potential, but as it is, I simply see no reason to believe they will. If correcting mistakes is not a priority, it is hard to imagine what could be.
general schnapsRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Interesting take on a dungeon core story, but the author needs an editor (or even an ai-assistant).The MC is a remorseful cultivator who wants to use his newfound dungeon powers to teach the world his cultivation techniques. I like some of the ideas here such the dungeon being focused on puzzles, or the story skipping most of the dungeon building process and going straight into the action by showing the first delve.Now the bad:First the Characters . Well there is only one really. The MC Xu who seems to be the only person with agency and goals. Everyone else just seems like a vessel to infodump. What can be said of Pos? He is a dwarf and gets a technique? What about the fairy Jemma? She gives info to the MC? These aren't really characters they have no personality, or motivation. There are no conflicts here, no clashes of personality, no flaws. Their voices are indistinguishable.Which gets us to the next problem:Dialogue & InfodumpingMost of it is just infodumping and explaining systems.In fact this story overexplains and repeats info far too often. Quite a number of pages are devoted to classes, skills, divine power and other mechanics. Magic Systems of any sort be they blue boxes, qi cultivation or divine powers are not enough to carry a story. Systems are a tool, a set piece or a part of the setting. The pillars of a good story are its characters and the plot.Lastly is the grammar. Being ESL myself I usually avoid talking about this. However if even I can spot some obvious mistakes it is probably necessary to either get some beta readers, ai-tools or an editors to check you writing. For example consider the story blurb "He found that the Heavenshad gavehim another life" should this not be "had given" or "gave"? This may seem pedantic, but seeing these errors multiple times in a chapter takes me out of the flow of reading. Frankly, it is irritating. Thankfully the author seems to have taken the edit suggestions from his comments and fixed most mistakes in earlier c