Station Cores
Jonathan Brooks
Milton Frederick, one of the best players of the VR game Crowned Lieges of Destiny, is abducted by the alien Collective along with 100 other humans and has his consciousness implanted in a Station Core on a hostile alien world. From a damaged core with almost nothing, he must build a dungeon, construct drones and Molecular Converters, recruit defenders, and survive escalating attacks by Proctans, the Cordpower Corporation, and worse — growing from a barely-surviving core into the fortress at the heart of a kingdom, across a complete five-book arc.
Progression: Dungeon-core progression: the Station Core earns resources and expands by claiming territory, building rooms, traps, and Molecular Converters, and manufacturing drone and defender units (including allies Brint, Whisp, and the Guardian Guild who grow in capability alongside the dungeon). Each book escalates the scale of threats — from local beasts and Proctan war parties to corporate armies (Cordpower Corporation), the Quizard Mountains hordes, and kingdom-level war — requiring Milton to rebuild bigger after each near-destruction (his dungeon is destroyed and rebuilt across volumes 2-4), unlocking new core capabilities, fortress tiers, and allied forces at each stage.
Goodreads
