Peter shook himself out of his daydream. He could speculate his next moves all he wanted, but they would not ever be realized if he just sat down here dumbly imagining it. He took one more minute to collect himself. Rookie or not beating 2 dungeons was definitely notable. He had also just showcased 5 S tier units. Most of the cores probably were not analyzing the battle carefully to realize that fact, but at least four of his S tiers, the 3 dragons and the nightmarish creation were pretty prominently displayed. They would be hard to miss. The guardian spirit, however, could have been missed by the less discerning. The various golems the spirit possessed really only fought at the A tier level, so it was possible they had not caught everyone’s eye.

  Peter half expected for all eyes to be on him as he crested the stairs. He scanned the room, only a few heads turned to see who it was. They looked away just as soon, not particularly concerned. ‘I guess a rookie is still a rookie,’ he thought as he made his way toward his group.

  “You finally got ‘double tap’,” Elyra said with an approving smile.

  “Really, that's what you care about. Not a good job, or a wow that was impressive?”

  “He actually just traded for them,” Gabriel said, selling Peter out.

  “At least he has them,” Elyra shot the fallen core a side eye.

  “It would not have mattered anyways. He would have still had too many spare’s.”

  Peter saw Elyra’s face settle moments later. She looked uncomfortable. He only noticed because she was looking at him. Her ever smug expression was gone. In its place was contemplation and unease. “I don’t quite understand it. How are you so lucky? From the battle’s I have seen you are clearly just able to win, but you have managed it year after year, without even a recovery year. Even with my unequal trades, I still lose too many units where I cannot replace them with the rewards I got for winning. Is there something I am missing about the design card? Is it really so strong? The built in increase and options are nice, but they barely make up for using a weaker card.”

  “Uhhh…” Peter said, scratching his cheek, flushed by the attention.

  ‘Don’t get full of yourself. She is clearly a dumb brute who just sends waves of units at her opponents. If we got as many type cards as she did with our trades, we would not be fighting nearly as desperately,” Delilah said derisively. “Oh! Make her trade you cards for an answer.”

  “Well… I have battled every year, so I haven’t gotten a chance to see you fight. Still I’m sure I could make recommendations on how you could improve. If… you would make an equal trade with me,” Peter said, smiling. He had already been thinking he needed to acquire some more of her cards, based on a glaring issue he had noticed during this battle.

  Elyra glared at him, but finally sighed heavily. “Fine, 2 for 2?”

  “Actually, I was hoping to get 100 B tiers from you. You of course can get whatever flavor you want as long as it is equal to 1 million essence.”

  Peter did not have to take a page out of Helen’s book for the others at the table. They would all trade equally with him as long as they had the ability to do so. Elyra however, looked as if he had asked her for something precious. Her unequal trades was clearly something she considered her right as well as a way to get more out of her resources than others at the same level.

  “Fine,” she finally acquiesced, before adding. “But it better be helpful.”

  Peter made sure the trade was made before he added anything. He still had 9 A tier phase stock options, and he had 38 for ghosts anyways. He wanted to get a ready source of B tier alternates capable of interdimensional travel. Other than his spirit catcher dragon one offs, he had no other way to make B tiers for Delilah’s forces. With stock options, he would likely be able to make something like 500 or more.

  “I’ll be as helpful as I can… but first I would like you to share more about your dungeon and capabilities,” Peter stated. Elyra's face contorted in suspicion. She clearly did not appreciate being asked about her deepest darkest secrets “We’re well past the point where we should be wary of one another,” Peter added, trying to pacify her mood.

  Gabriel stepped in. “Nearly all of the cores at our level have their sights set on us. He will always have more opponents, and the rest of us would not dare either. There is no reason, we could not all hunt other prey until well after we become centurions, and if we all made it to that point we would all be far more concerned about the millennials.”

  Elyra settled a bit at his words, but it still took her quite a while for the doubt to leave her tone entirely. She described her forces, mainly what she had when going against the Bonefiend core. She had taken about 1,200 B tiers, 240 A tiers and 2 S tiers into battle. Peter tried not to show anything on his face, but internally he was like, ‘And she still lost! Just how strong was Bonefiend.’ He did not have to wait to find out.

  Bonefiend had fielded nearly 2,000 B tiers, 250 A tiers and 3 S tiers. His C tier forces had been about the same as her own. Peter was clearly surprised that 2 non insect faction dungeons had been able to put out so many units last year. Even Agatha, the long leg spider core, had not fielded near that many against him. Perhaps it was luck, or perhaps it was because he only barely seemed to win each year. Regardless, Peter was glad he had gone up against the opponents he had, when he had. It was a bit humbling to know their were monsters of his year that could stomp him down.

  When Elyra described her force composition though… Peter resisted the urge to cover his face with his hand. Delilah was right. Elyra was exactly the type to throw a bunch of strong units haphazardly. She was also controlling every aspect of her dungeon. She had subordinates, but it was clear they were not able to advise and support her. As far as her auxiliary forces. She at least had a mine and was working on potions and enchantments likely thanks to Helen’s advice, but it was clearly not to the extent it was needed. It was likely thanks to her uneven trades that she had not been trounced before going against a true elite. Perhaps he should have known from her domineering and blunt personality.

  Peter thought for a moment on how to say it. Peter glanced at the front screen. It was a light year in the intermediate division with only 2 battles. Equestrian, the top core from the prior year group was going against a core 2 decades older than himself. The other battle was the gnome core, 46, against the Wyrm core, 76. It was really his first good opportunity to watch a humanoid type core battle. Then his eyes moved to Gretchen. He had it.

  “Okay, I know how I can help you. Let's use Gretchen as an example. She lost her tutorial battle as did every single other humanoid core from our year, because humanoids are generally just weaker than other types. However, by the next year, despite having a bad start, she won her next battle. I haven’t seen her battle, but I could guess she is doing the same thing that I’ve been doing. The same thing the gnome core likely did.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Well, that is not a great example. Gretchen fought an extremely weak core for her second battle,” Elyra said with disgust.

  “Perhaps, but since then she has fought what even you would have to say are mid tier cores,” Peter challenged. Elyra clearly disagreed. It did not matter.

  “Anyways, you just watched my battle. I’m sure you noticed that I had fewer elites than my opponents although some of mine were clearly of a better caliber.” Elyra did not respond. “The trick is expanding your capabilities. In my world, we say, ‘not every job requires a hammer.’ I have a ton of different tools, and I plan to have far more. I build forces specifically to get the most out of my best ones. My Armageddon dragon could kill several A tiers pretty much whenever it wanted, but it could only do so in short bursts.”

  Elyra was looking at him like he had just conned her.

  Peter indicated Gretchen. “Shield walls, siege weapons, archers, mages… All things at which humanoid types are the best at. Weak physically, but you have an entire year to properly equip, enchant, and so on. I would have been quickly overrun without them stopping enemy advances with a shield wall, in any one of my battles. I would not have stood a chance against Agatha if I did not have my catapults to rain burning rock down on her endless hordes.”

  “I chose a guy to study herbology instead of a mage. I chose the gnome who could build my catapults over two other options that could fight. The things they developed, the things they built or produced, or healing, all of which allows units to either fight at their tier more effectively or even strike above their tier. Most of my C tiers are used to holding the line, hopefully stopping everything below the A tier. Which allows my own B tiers and above to focus almost entirely on taking down the enemy elites.”

  Peter continued on with enchantments, weapons, and tactics. What she should be focusing on the rest of the year to develop her capabilities. At some point, he could not help but to talk about maelstroms and how buying them was an investment for the future. How they guaranteed units and preserved capabilities. Which in his opinion made them far more of a force multiplier than anything else.

  It was not quite a secret, but still none of the cores in his group had realized how much he had used them until he praised them at length. However, after he had, he could clearly see the smarter ones like Gabriel thinking back on his battle that had ended. He had thousands of units serving in his infantry, but nearly half were C tiers based on elites that had long been dead. If he had not built the maelstroms, all of his infantry would have been the exact same, based on his current flavor.

  Elyra looked beyond frustrated, but not at him. Helen had clearly set her up and helped her out, but she had not held her hand. Far more than any other core got, but clearly Elyra needed to check her pride. From the looks of it, what he was saying had clicked for her. The other 3 also were also taking his words to heart, despite all of them already having worked hard in many of the areas he had alluded to.

  ‘It looks like you might be becoming the de facto leader, but you should wrap things up. The gnome core is essentially doing a better job of demonstrating what you were talking about. Things you could learn about dragons as well,’ Delilah cut in.

  Peter directed the others to focus on the battle. They all started watching, and openly commenting on specific techniques that the two forces were using. Hours passed as they continued to watch and discuss what they were seeing. It was the first time that he had felt like they were a group, a team, and not just a cluster of like cores working together for benefits.

  The battle they were watching did not disappoint. Peter had seen older more powerful cores duke it out, but watching dragons was always interesting. The Wyrm’s might be considered dragon types, but most were closer to snakes. Only a minority of them had wings. Most were long and slender. The lizardmen and naga variants were pretty much the same however.

  But what really caught Peter’s eye was the gnome core’s forces. Delilah was right. The pistachio and walnut colored skinned humanoids were exemplifying the strength of humanoids in battle. The guy was using shield walls the same as Peter, but the older core’s infantry could shift formations. They might suddenly collapse sections of their line luring enemies in before activating a magical trap in the area.

  On a lava floor similar to his own, they had one side of their formation collapse and fall back even as the other end stood strong. Then the line suddenly strengthened creating a a new wall diagonal to the enemy's charge. Units were literally being funneled due to the push from units coming in from behind. The distance between the wall of iron shields and the lava pit edge decreased until there was nothing. The dragon units were likely quasi intelligent, same as all the dragons he had summoned. They were smarter than beasts, yet a good 30 or 40 fell into the lava anyways. The gnome force repeated the tactic multiple times with varied success, but even during the worst instance, at least some dragon units were pushed off the edge by the tide of bodies behind them.

  Then there was the use of calvary. Heavy plated mounts and riders rode into battle slamming aside larger and more powerful dragons. The gnome riders carried comically large war hammers or glaives, but since they each could likely bench press like ten or twenty of him, they swung them back and forth with ease, but even the calvary was nothing compared to the steampunk elements the gnomes were showcasing.

  Peter had not even seen a single gnome archer. The gnomes had rifles, cannons, flame throwers, floating ships, and various land vehicles. The dragon side of the battle was frequented with explosions from a constant barrage. Peter could only hope gearhead and Greg were taking notes, but… despite all this and seemingly contrary to the point he had been making, the gnome core was clearly losing ground. The wrym core did have 3 decades on him after all.

  Peter watched a frost blast from an S tier similar to an armageddon dragon rip right through the side of a ship and its magical enchantments. Another gnome tank like vehicle pushed forward with two old timey fire hoses shooting napalm like molten flame. The stuff burnt through enemies like acid. Less exotic he saw rifle platoons sending a hail of blue energy projectiles through a charging host of charging enemies.

  It took several days worth of battle, but in the end, the gnome core was eliminated. There was not a centurion match this year, so the congregation would be on the shorter side. Pachyderm obviously had a ‘year free’ card or enough card blocks to exhaust the insectoid centurions. It would not matter if they would challenge him again next year.

  Peter considered whether it had been long enough. He had decided not to trade right after his battle. He wanted to somewhat fade into the background of the other core’s minds. He decided it likely wasn’t. The last thing he wanted to do was cement the wrong impression in people’s minds while it was still fresh by getting in their face. He could only imagine that some would resent him, purely because they could never manage the feat of taking down two equally strong cores as themselves. It might result in some being unwilling to trade or more unequal trades, or any number of things.

  Peter had no doubt that he was on all the younger core’s radar, including plenty in the intermediate division, but there were varying levels of that. He could be treated like Equestrian who had been challenged by a fairly powerful dungeon on his year 11. Equestrian had then not fought again till this year, which for all Peter knew he might have challenged the other core himself. In contrast, he could be treated like the Holy core. Where the older cores would not rest until he was destroyed.

  Peter was sure he would get challenged on year 11 regardless, but there was a big difference between fighting some year 21 or year 31 dungeon versus one that was even older, who was only doing so to make a point. A core 4 times his age would get next to nothing for winning, so would basically just be wasting their resources. It was likely difficult to convince 1 dungeon to do so to make a point, but if he really pissed off those from up high off, it could be dictated to wipe him out regardless of the cost. Peter knew it would likely happen sooner or later for him. He could easily be one of the blacklisted dungeons one of these days, but as long as he could make it to year 31 or 41, he should be able to stand a chance against even the oldest of cores in the intermediate division, assuming he continued to progress.