Dragon Bourne (Guild Core #1)

A slice of life, multi narrative story, set on a fantasy RPG world. I normally dont like multi narrative stories, but this one is done well.

The main characters include Kai, the half dragon teen who accidentally heals and bonds with a dungeon core. The core itself, sentient, but without most of its former power or memories who does less dungeon building and more adventuring. Third, a disillusioned former female soldier, Rhona, who has given up the way of the sword for a lost unarmed style and goes on a journey of self discovery.

Two of the narratives, Kai and the Core, are fairly close together, commenting on the same events, with slight divergence as the core or the teen goes off to do something alone. But for the most part their story revolves around building up the dungeon to survive the country that wants them destroyed or controlled and getting the teen, Kai, ascended, the story version of leveling up mixed with a basic cultivation. Eventually they get a larger goal, which I wont spoil.

The three narratives come together eventually, but for most of the story the former soldier, Rhona, kinda just does her own thing, giving background on the world, building her character, and doing a slice of life action story thing. I really liked this third narrative the best and think Rhona had the best backstory, goals, and power set.

The RPG stuff is a bit custom with three levels to each rank with a small bit of cultivation to get to a new rank. There is essence instead of XP. But you still see ability and spell descriptions with essence costs and character sheets, stats, levels, and classes.

Things I liked:

There’s a good bit of depth to both the characters and the world building. The author takes the time to develop meaningful backgrounds for the main characters, a complex history for the world, its races, and its nations. The combat was great with visceral well thought out fights and the characters being challenged. The general adventures were well thought out and entertaining. I really enjoyed Rhonas class and her fighting style.

Things that left me wanting:

There’s not much dungeon core stuff. By that I mean, making monsters, traps, and having people come through and trying to kill them. About 10% of the story is that. There’s other things the dungeon core does, but in this book not much murder of adventures coming to dungeon dive. The story instead has a dungeon core as a character who adventures with his friend.

The cultivation aspect was minimal too. It showed up when the main character (MC) hit a new rank. He’d get instruction on messing with his core, he’d follow the instructions and be done. There was no mediation to gather ether, no improvement to body, mind, or spirit. It was all very skippable and it felt a little superficial. It honestly could have been eliminated from the story with no consequence.

Overall, its a good story. I genuinely enjoyed the depth of the character and world building, the fights, and the slice of life adventuring. I expected more/something different from the dungeon core and cultivation aspects, but once I understood what the story was going to be I just rolled with it and had a good time.

Score: 7.6 out of 10

Another great start to a series by TJ. His writing is getting better and better each book. It has an awesome mixture of world building, character building, and plot without being full of exposition. Kai is a great character who is enjoyable. Not just another wish fulfillment LitRPG power fantasy, but real depth and creative development. NEED MORE REAL STORIES IN LITRPG PLEASE!!!! Give me more like this.

This story has great progression.. The author does a great job of keeping the MC humble and not OP. I would highly recommend this book… I can not wait until the next book comes out.. Thank you, Tim V.

Great world building, and great characters and character development! Also, the author does a good job cf balancing perspectives between the 3 main characters.

The idea is that dungeons have most of the dungeony aspects from other books, but their main purpose is to take care of their bonded dragons. Then something happens (historically speaking), and all the dragons are targeted and killed, and their dungeons are then destroyed or enslaved. So the story begins, with a continent in three-sided war, a bunch of abandoned shivvered dungeons, and in the middle of it, a boy is dared to enter and touch one of the broken cores. Except when he does, something unexpected happens!

The only thing I would say that could be improved would be that the MCs are pretty crazy nave, which is kinda expected of Kai, and maybe Ban, but our 3rd MC was in a medieval army, which tends to make a girl a lot more jaded than she acts. But hey, maybe shes just resilient. Ill just accept it, since its a pretty small thing anyway.

TJ writes brilliant fiction that makes me savor every page. This is another example of his skill, with an added upgrade I didn’t feel was needed from his last series. He just keeps getting better. I loved many of his characters, and have several sentences highlighted to show everyone else how good this stuff is. Keep it up TJ, this series is incredible!

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