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Lucas used to delve dungeons. Now, he has to run one. After Lucas dies during a freak explosion, divine intervention brings him back to life with the power to control a new dungeon — but his old body remains bound to it. When he sees rookie adventurers entering his domain, he decides to help them survive and complete their quests. After all, adventuring is a process, and someone needs to guide the rookies.

Sandra had been a merchant, but what she always wanted was to be a crafter — master of every trade. When she dies and is reborn as a Dungeon Core, she finally gets her wish in the most unexpected way: a dungeon built entirely around crafting. With a Gnome apprentice enchanter as her ally and the ruins of a world that desperately needs what only she can provide, Sandra must defend her dungeon from orcs, rival cores, dangerous elves, and her own rapidly expanding influence — all while trying to get back to what she loves most: making things.

Roark von Graf — hedge mage and lesser noble of Traisbin — is one of only a handful of Freedom fighters left, and he knows the Resistance's days are numbered. But when a daring plan to unseat the Tyrant King goes awry, Roark finds himself on the run through an interdimensional portal, stranded in an ultra-immersive fantasy video game called Hearthworld. He can't log out, his magic is on the fritz, and worst of all, he's not even human — he's a low-class Dungeon monster called a Troll. He did manage to grab a powerful magic artifact on his way through, and with it he might just be able to save his world. Unless, of course, the Tyrant King gets to him first.

Alexandra Rousseau, an engineer from the European Federation Star Navy, is launched into hyperspace when an FTL jump goes wrong. She wakes in a world of magic and monsters — and when a mysterious Order makes a catastrophic mistake, she is transformed into a dungeon core. The transformation grants her the power to bring back long-lost technology and take revenge on those who wronged her. But first she must survive those who would steal her core, all while keeping her true identity secret from the adventurers delving her dungeon.

Frank isn't exactly a model citizen. He's also not here to save Earth — he just wants his favorite curse word back. Too bad the World Dungeon drops him in as a zombie with a level cap of 1 and a profanity filter that turns every F-bomb into "frank." Earth has been repossessed and rebranded by a megacorp called DungeonCore. The prize is ownership of the planet, and this season is Hardcore Mode: death means getting stuck in his Lair until the next expansion, losing everything. Humanity gets a head start, but deep-pocketed aliens are lining up to buy in. To make matters worse, hero classes went to the NPCs while actual players got saddled with monster classes. Frank spawns as a lowly zombie with only stubbornness, handyman's grit, and an accidental Universe First achievement that lets him build a class of his own. He's not a hero — he's not even technically alive. But he might be petty enough to move mountains for the sake of one four-letter word.

Aliandra Amariel loved magic, dedicating her academic years to the study of runes and spells. Like most Fae, her destiny seemed clear — until the day of her Class Trial, when the Blind Lich unleashed an undead apocalypse on her home, the fabled underground city of Dal'mohra, triggering a cataclysm that forever reshaped the world. Saved by her mother's legendary time-stasis spell, Ali wakes thousands of years into a dark future. Everything she knew is gone, buried under a mountain and transformed into a twisted dungeon by the malevolent will of the Lich. Now Ali must master battling monsters and braving corruption while the Lich hunts her unique magic. As her advancement slowly reveals the horrifying truth of the Class she chose to survive, she must decide: falter into the eternal servitude of undeath, or rise against all odds and cast him down.

The senselessness of so much of the world's death and suffering becomes apparent to the dying paladin Isaiah in his final moments. He perishes — and is reborn into a quiet existence as a simple blackbird. But a spell gone awry transforms him instead into a strange, angelic monstrosity that is neither man nor animal. Isaiah, desperate to return to his simple life, sets out to build the tallest tower ever seen — tall enough to reach the reclusive gods in the heavens above, so he can demand they undo the transformation. But the humans below believe he is trying to destroy the world. [Dungeon-Core] [LitRPG] [Base-building]

Pan was an ordinary boy practicing to become a mage's apprentice, living at home and working for his parents — until the day a rogue necromancer attacked his family, killed them, and kidnapped Pan for his affinity for magic. In a bizarre ritual, Pan's consciousness is transferred into a dungeon stone and bound to serve the necromancer, forced to create an army of skeletons. Now Pan must find a way to escape the mage's magical clutches — and if he can manage that, simply survive.

Yona wasn't always a cat, but she is now, and she's living her best cat life. No silly Quests or Systems are going to get in her way — until they do. Stranded alone on an island surrounded by monsters, she needs to fight to survive and return to the mainland. Or she could just pig out, nap, and sometimes slap some fish people around. Either works. One thing she won't do: swim. And that makes escaping the island considerably more challenging. Meanwhile, the gods are brewing up something — as gods tend to do.

When a Dungeon Core acquires a taste for beautiful jewels, it sets out to become a criminal kingpin, operating from the sewers beneath the city.

In a world five times larger than Earth, dungeons and their Dungeon Cores have become the top of the food chain. Millions of dungeons utilize humanity as a source of Mana to facilitate their growth; in turn, humans delve into the dungeons to acquire Essence, allowing them to develop and enhance themselves. It is a symbiotic relationship that has lasted thousands of years. Far in the northern wilds, a young man is left alone when his parents are suddenly murdered. Now without friends, family, or supplies, Fredwynklemossering embarks on a journey to discover what killed his parents — and soon learns of his seemingly impossible status as a Dungeon Core/Human hybrid. With that knowledge comes a shift in his objective: the dangers the humans will face in the future dwarf any personal revenge.

Ryan doesn't remember much about his life before becoming a dungeon core — only that he had a bit of a disagreement with the church, something to do with a beheading. Now reborn, Ryan begins to arm his darkness dungeon with devious traps, bestial zombies, and ill-named skeletal creations, without doing anything too evil. Well, mostly. But being a darkness dungeon isn't all loot and bone puns. With a necromancer on the rise and the Adventurer's Guild watching his every move, he must prove that not all darkness dungeons are malevolent — even if they do have a few skeletons in their caverns.

Will is the newest dungeon born into the world — and he is a rank higher than any dungeon that preceded him. Born alongside seven others in a small area due to a magical disaster caused by the Voidbringers, Will faces an immediate threat: they have returned, and they can corrupt dungeons. With the aid of his dungeon fairy Amber and an adventuring party led by Gar Adamant — displaced prince of the kingdom the Voidbringers destroyed — Will must grow his dungeon, build up a nearby town, and fend off enemies on every side.

Out on the frontier of a new continent, the wizard Lori and her group of settlers try to build a community in a land actively hostile to intelligent life. With their wits, their will, and their newly built Dungeon to protect them against the Iridescence — the deadly growth that makes life inhospitable beyond the borders of their demesne — they should be fine. If they can survive the lack of infrastructure. And the deadly beasts they need to hunt for food. And idiots who don't understand what settling somewhere actually entails. And dragons. Using structural engineering, the scientific method, logistics, and the dark art of personnel management, Lori and her newly dubbed lord Rian must solve the persistent problems of shelter, sanitation, food storage, and keeping the colonists from making terrible decisions.

Coast Guard Captain Jesse Watkins is killed in action. Instead of moving on to the afterlife, Watkins wakes up as something different — he has been reborn as the core of a war-ravaged starship and must work to repair his vessel if he wants to find his way home. Threats to his new existence abound, both in the darkness of space and lurking aboard the ruined hulk of the ship he now commands. With a lifetime of naval service experience to draw upon, Captain Watkins must become something more than he was before — a vessel powerful enough to survive the journey home.

Sistina awakened after millennia of dormancy, her memories shattered, reborn in the ruins of an ancient city. When she rescues a princess from slavery, she is drawn into a war between two elven nations and the slaver kingdom of Kelvanis. With her domain holding traces of forgotten knowledge, Sistina becomes dungeon, stronghold, and beacon of hope — and perhaps, in this new life, a chance for love.

Nineteen-year-old repair technician Tess Rivera lives on Tertius-Prime, a crumbling megacity built atop a dungeon that has been "cleared" for twenty years. The power grid fails nightly, her father's health is declining, and their freighter-home is one broken component away from becoming a coffin. When desperation drives her into the dungeon's outdated tutorial system, it malfunctions—and Tess fixes it herself, accidentally acquiring a {null} class no one has ever heard of. No combat skills, no normal leveling. Just the ability to see dungeon code, interface with broken systems, and talk to an AI that has been alone for far too long. The "cleared" dungeon is not empty. It has just been abandoned. And Tess's "broken" class might be exactly what is needed to wake it back up.

In the world of Vol — a vast, bountiful plane where the only constant is life in its many forms — an otherwise unremarkable dungeon core awakens in one of the most resplendent locations in Vol: a Mana Reef. Watch as this small gemstone turns a simple hole in the ocean floor into something truly unique, while the rest of the world is forced to deal with its growth.

dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 was born for war, its entire species created and grown as sentient cybernetic weapons. While sentience in its home universe means little beyond intelligence, in others it means owning a soul — and a wandering soul can be a very dangerous thing, especially when it awakens as the controller of a dungeon core.

Dungeons are an integral part of so many stories and worlds — the foundation of an economy, a place for the weak to grow strong, or a threat to civilization itself. Nearly as common as the idea of a dungeon is the concept of a dungeon core. But where did dungeon cores first come from? Are they a natural occurrence? When did they first appear? This is the story of the first dungeon core.