A few days later the year 7 congregation started like any other. Just like all the other rookies, he appeared down on the bottom floor of the banquet cavern. Peter’s head swiveled, even as dozens of his staff started locating other cores for him. He noted Gabriel, grabbing the other’s attention before his eyes locked down on Elyra.

  “Your planning to make a move?” Elyra said with a calm tone. A second later Gretchen and Predator joined their huddle. It was always such a mad scramble at the beginning as rookies shot off in different directions, each with their own priorities and tasks to accomplish. Unlike many of the older dungeons, they almost assuredly had no way to keep in touch throughout the year.

  “I plan to challenge Bonefiend. I know he would challenge me at one point. Figured I might as well prepare for him specifically and get it over with. Wanted to see if you guys wanted to join me.”

  “Sure you can take on, Bonefiend? He will probably field 300 A tiers or so. Not to mention at least 3 S tiers.” Elyra asked, clearly skeptical of his ability to overcome that.

  Peter nodded. In truth he had estimated that bone fiend could reach that level assuming he had about 100 A tier survivors from his previous battle with Elyra. At most Peter could bring in somewhere between 34 to 35 million essence over a two year period of time. Even if he estimated high assuming bone fiend collected more essence by having his dungeon kill far more adventurers, the demon core would be hard pressed to get even near 40.

  Boris used 37 million as an upper estimate of what was possible. At most, Boris estimated the other core would use 20 million or a little over half for 200 A tiers, and that was assuming no combinations where double or triple the resources were spent. That being said, with potentially uneven trades from the demon faction, that could easily make up the difference where he received several A tier type cards for one of his own. It would put combinations back into the equation for the same numbers, or more A tiers in general. Even then, 300 A tiers was a worse case scenario, assuming that Bone fiend fielded a good amount of the lower tiers.

  “As ready as I could be. So how about it?” Peter said, looking over the other cores.

  Elyra smiled ear to ear before revealing her teeth in a blood thirsty gleam. “I’ll take Pit fiend. The rest of you pick the weaker cores. Make sure you double tap them. Other than Bonefiend most of them should not have many spare cores.” As one the five members of the rookie concept group approached the demon faction group.

  Bonefiend sat back confidently, looking even more creepy since the last time Peter had observed him up close. The bones had formed even more prominently outside his skin. The guy looked more alien than human at this point. Best comparison was an awkward bone crustacean, although nubs of demon horns had started to poke out of the upper bone forehead. The other demon core rookies looked anywhere from meth heads like in Baelrock’s case to an imp like existence. All hideous as far as Peter was concerned. Where were the hottie demoness’ like Elyra?…minus the half that was bovine she was a red skinned knockout.

  Bonefiend clearly agreed with Elyra being a knockout. “So have you come to finally join my harem. I could not imagine you are here to challenge me again, after what happened two years ago.”

  “Actually, I was the one that was going to challenge you,” Peter said gazing down at the sitting demon. Bonefiend stood to his full height, which was a bit taller than it had been a few years ago. Peter went ahead and sent the challenge as did the others. There was no sense in allowing something unusual to happen.

  Bonefiend smug expression twitched in irritation. After 60 seconds, the challenge would be accepted automatically. The only way out of that was by using a block challenge or through mutual renegotiation.

  “While I have no doubt that I could take you out, I don’t feel like I will be able to hold my head up high when joining the intermediate division if my allies could not do the same. So how about this? Lets do a group on group battle. The seven of us against the 5 of you, Otherwise we will see who has the better set of support cards to ensure this battle becomes what we want.” Bone fiend said with an evil grin.

  Peter suddenly regretted his decisions. He had honestly counted on Bonefiend’s pride and desire to be the top rookie to prevent him from adding a second dungeon to their battle. The prospect of facing him and a second core was not something he would want to attempt. Not to mention, the fact that the two dungeons they had not challenged were tutorial losers. Until now they had not participated in a single battle, but had hidden under the protection of their group. Skilled or not, that would have a frightening amount of resources that they could bring to bear.

  “That sounds good, we will be able to take you all out in one go,” Elyra said with a cruel smile.

  Peter however, desired to even the odds even a bit. “How about you allow us to invite one more core, and then you will have a deal.”

  “Very well, can we nullify the challenges first before they are accepted,” Bonefiend asked. To which they agreed to. With both sides consent the challenges dropped.

  “There is no one left to join,” Elyra said, raising her eyebrow after they rehuddled back down on the first floor.

  “Not exactly, there is one beast core that has not sided with the other groups,”

  “You mean the crab guy. He has been skulking in the stairwells or on the bottom floor since our year 1 congregation. I don’t even think he has been upstairs trading.” Gabriel said, also surprised.

  “Correct, which means he should have a lot of saved up resources.”

  “And how do you expect we get a coward like that to agree to join a battle. The major faction groups have probably just left the guy alone since he was not worth the effort. And they probably think it's hilarious. Its why I certainly never challenged him.” Elyra stated.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “That and the fact that he would have almost a full 7 years of resources,” Gretchen challenged.

  Elyra smirked looking down at the smaller female. “You have become quite full of yourself.”

  “Enough, we will trap him, and say we will gang up on him if he does not join the effort,” Peter said. “His stockpiled resources should effectively counter one of the demons who has not fought. Through our collective might we should be able to deal with the other.”

  “Coercion, I like it,” Elyra said, her smile returning.

  “The real question is whether we really want to do this challenge. We could just as well go elsewhere,” Predator stated a bit skeptically.

  “The only other places we could look are likely even worse. Sure we could finish off Putrify and a few others, but that would leave this group growing in strength. I would rather deal this with them than take on the 8 insect cores,” Gretchen said.

  “That is who we will be facing next year for sure. Unless all the cores decide they are ready to prepare for the integration. Perhaps we should just shift to the insects now, giving them one less year,” Elyra proposed.

  “I’m ready for demons this year,” Peter fought back. I would rather us all prepare a full year for the bugs. They will always have more units than us, so another year’s worth will just be another layer. I still would rather prepare for their battle giving them the year,” Peter argued.

  “I agree, insect dungeons are fearsome to face due to their numbers, but other than that they are far more predictable. If we all prepare for it there is no reason we could not cut into them next year. Or perhaps we finish off what remains of the demons and Putrefy,” Gabriel stated.

  Decided on their course of action, they quickly searched to locate the elusive crustacean core. They successfully ran him down on the lower floor. “Peter, what do you guys want,” Eli the crustacean asked. Originally the guy had looked like a Wookie from Star Wars. Now the guy was nearly completely hairless. His skin had become pinkish, like a freshly mottled crustacean before the shell hardened.

  “We’re here to recruit you into our group for battle. We plan on taking on the demon group, so would rather it be 6 on 7 versus 5 on 7.”

  “We’ve decided to give you the honor of spending all those carefully saved resources in battle. You will get an easy win, and make new friends,” Elyra picked up with a grin.

  “You guys are crazy. You should be preparing for the integration, like I am. I can’t afford to waste it all now to keep you all alive,” Eli rejected flatly.

  “Who said you get the choice? You either join with us, or we will do our match up with the demon group next year. This year we will have a crawfish boil,” Elyra said, her grin taking on a wicked tint. She clearly meant it.

  “What?” Eli stuttered looking between them. None of them offered him an out, so he eventually caved in.

  “Just remember we are doing this for your own good,” Elyra smirked as she led their procession back toward the demon rookie group.

  Bonefiend however had his own surprise when they came back. “What?” Peter asked.

  “Just like I said, both sides will agree to put up extra cores for the match. If your side loses you will lose cores corresponding to an equal amount of what the other group put up. It means if your side has more, and you lose, some of you may survive. Of course, then that would open the option for double taps. You guys added something so why can’t we.”

  Peter’s head reeled. The other side, with card packs, could easily have more than enough to take them all out. He currently had 5 spares, with his actual core that made 6. Gabriel probably had at least 5 or 6. Elyra had at least 3 or 4, but the other 3, likely only had 1 or 2 if any spares. Conversely, Bonefiend had at least 4 spares, and several of the others at least had 2. Even if Peter did survive after the follow up double tap, Gabriel and him might be the only ones left in the group. That being said, one of the demon cores could have taken the nine life specialization, giving their group more than enough to finish off Gabriel and himself.

  “Well this certainly got interesting,” Elyra stated. “I was afraid we would have to challenge all the survivors again next year.

  [The concept core rookies, 7, have been challenged by the demon core rookies, 7. Optional condition: Core burnthrough has been enacted. Participants include:

  Concept core rookies: Peter (Design), Gabriel (Fallen), Elyra (Phase), Gretchen (Dark elf), Predator, and Eli (Crustacean).

  Demon core rookies: Bonefiend, Pit fiend, bael rock, Frozen gate, Rock demon, Flame whelp, and Beastfiend.]

  Peter got the challenge. He just looked at it for a moment. It was certainly a big risk, but it would also mean a big reward. Likely there were battle conditions, not just rookie ones that were handed out for such a big group battle. Eventually he clicked yes, his name flashed green just after Elyra’s. One by one the members of the groups selected. Eli was the last holed up, but after a glare from Elyra, he accepted as well.

  The group retreated immediately to begin preparations. None of them had obviously planned for this. Eli was not the only one who seemed overwhelmed. Other than Elyra, all of them felt like they had bitten off more than they could chew. However soon a plan was formed. There was no worry that anyone would not contribute since all of them could be eliminated if they lost. Their cooperation would not fall apart until cores were on the verge of being eliminated so would inevitably dedicate their forces to their own defense versus someone else's.

  The six of them would be allowed to talk real time during the battle, so could coordinate any of their forces they could get word to. They could also direct troops to follow instructions of other ally cores or their units. Most cores in general were weary of doing this from what Peter had heard. It was no different with them. Other than small support divisions none of them, not even himself, were willing to give potential command of their troops to someone else. It was just like, ‘no one treats a rental car like their own’.

  The difference between this battle and the other rookie battles was one careful addition, no time limit. Due to the core burn through condition, one side had to be eliminated completely. However, as rookie dungeons, a small provision had been added. They would not receive essence mid battle for defeated units, which normally occurred 24 hours after they were killed in your dungeon. Resources finite, and no time limit meant that cores could make some strange moves that he had not before now considered.

  When Peter finally appeared in his core space, he received a scolding from Khan on how crazy he was. Apparently the ancient ranger thought that was the best use of their hour to prepare. Already he had spent much of his 12.5 million essence, although he kept 2.5 in reserve. With nearly 2,000 B tiers from maelstroms, Peter felt safe only using an additional 2 million to supplement the B tiers with another 200. He then used the 4 million to produce 8,000 C tiers, and 4 million to add 40 A tiers to supplement his elites. Peter however was counting on his increased auxiliary output from this year to make up a substantial difference in the battle.

  “Good luck, be safe,” Peter said to Delilah as the counter ticked down.

  “I will be just fine. I got to make sure you make good on the shadow pool upgrades,” She said, kissing him on the cheek before flashing toward the first floor entrance while she still could. A second later she stepped through to join his forces in no man’s land.