Every dungeon core in the genre wants to devour something. Dahlia Quan just wants to grow something.

After thirty years dispensing medication and calm to strangers in an emergency room, Dahlia closes out her final night shift and wakes up somewhere else entirely — bound to the crumbling stone and tangled vines of an abandoned greenhouse, reborn as its dungeon core. The trouble is, she’s built wrong for the job. She can’t summon monsters to guard her halls. She can’t fight off the adventurers who wander in looking for loot. She can’t absorb the creatures that pass through her walls the way a proper dungeon core is supposed to. What she can do is grow — and the book follows her as she turns that single ability into an entire ecosystem, coaxing magical plants from cracked stone floors, building alliances with small botanical creatures instead of monstrous ones, and slowly transforming a forgotten ruin into something closer to a sanctuary than a trap. The story runs on LitRPG progression mechanics — levels, skills, unlockable abilities — but keeps its stakes low and its pace unhurried, more interested in cultivation than combat.

Readers drawn to slice-of-life fantasy, progression stories with a gentle heart, or the specific comfort of watching something broken be rebuilt one careful choice at a time will find a familiar rhythm here, reworked through a former healthcare worker’s instinct to nurture rather than dominate. It’s a book for anyone who has wondered what a grow-don’t-fight approach to power might look like when the world keeps expecting violence instead.

The Pelican Atelier brings this one to readers as the opening volume in the GREENHOUSE CORE — The Verdant Vault series, built for fantasy fans who want something immersive but not exhausting — long enough to settle into, gentle enough to return to after a hard day. Find it on Amazon →