Dungeon Core? Nah, I Think I'll Just Get Super-Wealthy Instead

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The cycle is simple enough. A Dungeon Core is born from a wayward soul. It seeks power and agency, and works to accumulate wealth to fuel its power, in turn using this power to accumulate further wealth. Inevitably, the mind is lost as desperation and ambition drive it to commit darker and darker acts. Shortly thereafter, the adventurers arrive to quell the core.

This is a tale that has repeated itself countless times throughout history: all cores desire power. And yet, this core seems to have it backwards.

It doesn't want to rule the world. It has no desire to enslave or conquer.

No, this core doesn't want to be a warlord, a villain, or a tyrant.

It wants to start a core-poration.

After all, when money is power, what greater weapon is there than capitalism? Join a dungeon core that wastes an absurd amount of time and effort tryingnotto be evil on his journey to earn fat stacks against all odds.

-This is a 'Dungeon Core' type fiction with LitRPG elements in it. The start may be fairly slow compared to the average. Expect roughly 2.5k per chapter.

-I'm only a hobbyist writer. As such, there may be the occasional error and pacing may be poorly-handled. Constructive criticism is alway welcome. I'm just here to write stuff that makes my brain release theg o o d c h e m i c a l s.

-I am trashy and I like monsterpeople so you can expect an awful lot of those as we get further in.

Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you enjoy.

Information

Status
Hiatus
Year
2021
Author
Maltenai

Tags

LITRPGACTIONFANTASYADVENTUREMAGICSLICE OF LIFEHIGH FANTASYPROGRESSIONDUNGEON CORE

Royal Road Stats

Rating
4.6/ 5.0
Followers
3,356
Views
733,696

Chapters(32 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(10)

  • rgreadsRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    For a dungeon, money is life. Literally, possessing money in their hoard generates mana, required to expand, evolve minions or plants, or even level themselves up. No money, no mana, soon enough, no dungeon.
    But adventurers know that successful dungeons are a great place to find a huge pile of cash, and now we have a problem!
    But that's a future problem. The current problem is making the most of exactly one each of the lowest value coin that exists, a mouse, and a level 0, completely exposed on the surface, near powerless dungeon core.
    With a unique magic system and a slow but entertaining burn as we get started and (literally) do some worldbuilding, this could grow to be an exemplary part of the dungeon core genre on RR.
  • Bluelightning42Royal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    This series is weird - it's simultaneously something I really like and recommend but not something I have a lot to say about.
    If you've liked any Dungeon core story I can safely say this will scratch the itch. I'd argue it's one of the best I've read despite the relative early spot its at. The system has a slightly unique take on a few aspects and the ones that are standard are well put together and entertaining.
    This manages to make me excited when I see new chapters and as far as I can say that's high praise.
  • DecimvsRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    A unique idea, I'm always a sucker for Dungeon stories and what you've come up with so far has definitely kept me interested. The story so far is honestly pretty great, slow burn but just the right amount of progression for it to still be nice and the characters seem believable. Hope they get expanded on in the future though, can't wait to get to know them better!
    Besides that, like the title says I definitely recommend this to pretty much everyone & anyone :)
    To the author; keep the chapters coming! I'm definitely enjoying what you're writing!
  • RedPineRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    MC is not evil, but you probably guessed that from the intro blurb.  Prose is good, worldbuilding is good.  I'll quote the story to give you an idea:
    The [Telepathy] linking us wasn't quite like a telephone--more like a caffeine-addled fourth-grader drawing pictures with their half-eaten crayons based on what the mouse was thinking, then walking it over to me and shoving it through a text-to-speech algorithm.
    The dungeon core aspect is very well written and integrated with the story.  It reminds me of Bunker Core (by Andrew Seiple, who you may know from Threadbare.)  You get the sense that all the rules follow the logical principles that make up the universe in the story.  The universe does not revolve around the protagonist -  in fact, the whole point of the story is that it doesn't.
    Unlike most stories in this genre, this story is mostly psychological.  It's about the day to day mindset of a dungeon core trying to get by.  It is very slow paced, but in exchange it is very thoughtful.
    The characters in particular each have clear, conflicting, and contrasting differences between eachother.  For example:
    The first minion joins him not out of blind loyalty, but for the pragmatic reason that she wants her lifespan extended.
    There's an interesting dynamic between the protag and the first minion, as the protag is prioritizing her short term survival but she is prioritizing her long term survival.  They both want the same thing, but how they prefer to go about it, and which kinds of risks they are willing to take, are very different.
    It's too soon to write a more advanced review, but I'll get around to that once there is more story to talk about.
  • TajarimRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    I admittedly review this now, because the author paused writing the story - apparently because of people being mean. Which is really really not nice of them, since this story is very well written and absolutely cute! Good pacing, perfectly acceptable grammar, good characters, MC that isn't an utter imbecile. I really love it and hope that the author will pick it up again ASAP!
  • A Fish Swimming in the OceanRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    Overall 5/5
    Style: Very nice system on how the dungeon protagonist gathers mana and experience. There isn't a need for killing any creatures to gain both. Instead, the amount of coins possessed is tied to the mana gathering rate and peaceful actions give experience.
    Grammar: Pretty solid. Hard to find mistakes when reading, not that I've found any. The way the words and sentences are put together isn't bad either, it's pretty smooth. Perfectly readable.
    Story: The story progression is going pretty nice. There is always a solid direction readers can see the main character going in, no matter how small the objective or goal is. The dungeon is progessing towards a production type, which I adore and hope that it will stay that way, no matter what events occur.
    Characters: The characters each have their own personalities, even though there is only a miniscule amount introduced. It was very interesting to see how their different personalities interacted and brought progress into their their relationship. It's also great to see that the main character isn't fond of brainwashing or vegatative types of minions, gives a little spice to the  story when the minions under the dungeon core protagonist aren't extremely deferential or postrating themselves because they were dungeon touched.
    That's it for the review, I hope it wasn't too long. This is a very nice story. I would recommend everyone to try it.
  • NecamijatRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    I'm going to go on a limb and say this is one of the most classical approaches to the dungeon building genre. That doesn't mean that it's mediocre, though. The execution is excellent, since the author does a great job of focusing on the little things but keeping them in proportion to the bigger picture.
    The numbers/table aspect is vague enough to allow for freedom, but explained enough to make sense. I'd say it's a decent system that doesn't seem too gamey, at least for now.
    As far as the plot is concerned, it's going slow but steady, and I appreciate that there's no immediate large-scale conflict to consider or participate in.
    All in all, it's a great start to a fiction, with steady updates (may they continue in the same vein), and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them.
  • JuJuJuRoyal Road
    ★★★★ 4.0
    I really like this story, it's fun, it's nice, but I'm sad that there's been no new chapters for almost a month, I'm worried that there won't be any more chapters at all and I'm also worried that something happened to the writer. It'd be a real tragedy if such a good story got stopped for all time, and we, the readers, got no answer as to why it got stopped.
  • EvonixRoyal Road
    ★★★★ 3.5
    Pleasant, characters aren't just there to sing the MC's praises and the MC actually has thoughts and quandaries. Thought has clearly been put into the worldbuilding.
    It is too damn slow though. "Show don't tell" is good advice generally but there's such a thing as moderation, it's ok to summarize sometimes. We don't really need the play-by-play of the iterative design of decorative tea bottles, especially when there's nothing special about them and they have had no actual bearing on anything else so far, I mean I don't dislike them specifically but you could really tighten things up.
  • pewpewcachooRoyal Road
    ★★★★ 3.5
    This is alright. It's a different take on a dungeon core story. As far as it goes, I have no complaints. The writing is good. The grammar also seems good. The story itself is not bad. It's a little slow but that is expected with dungeon core stories. Keep up the work author.