After dealing with the slimes, Lin Jun encountered no further obstacles on the sixth floor.
With the tree sprite leading the way, he could go wherever he pleased.
"Help me~ Help me~"
A vague yet pitiful cry for help drifted from behind a small hill.
However, neither the leading tree sprite nor the puffshrooms under Lin Jun's control bothered to investigate what lay behind the hill.
Honestly, once you've seen enough flower sprites, you realize just how stupid they can be.
Their voice system only had this one ancestral phrase.
If one occasionally appeared in some remote wilderness, it might actually fool an adventurer, but this was the damn sixth floor botanical garden!
Everywhere you went, it was "Help me," as if afraid people wouldn't know where they were!
Thank goodness plant-type magical creatures still retained the ability to absorb nutrients from the soil, otherwise with this level of performance from the flower sprites, they should all starve to death.
Little Green cleared the path ahead, eventually leading them to a rarely visited corner of the sixth floor.
The reason few people came here was that there were neither harvestable herbs nor magical creatures that dropped materials when killed. There were only dozens of cracks of various sizes, extending downward beyond the limits of vision.
The edges of the cracks were encrusted with dark brown weathered traces, like coagulated scabs.
When a puffshroom stood at the edge and leaned forward, it could feel the damp, cold air rising from underground.
These cracks looked roughly similar—not necessarily vertical, but each one bottomlessly deep.
[Sonic Detection LV6]
Here, this skill was far more convenient than other observation methods.
Through detection, Lin Jun discovered that these cracks weren't completely separate as they appeared on the surface.
Some adjacent cracks would converge as they extended downward, while others would branch into new fissures after descending a certain distance.
With this structure, saying they led to the unknown was absolutely accurate.
Unfortunately, Lin Jun's detection skill had limited range and couldn't directly observe the bottom.
"Boss, why did we come here?"
Little Green had been living quite comfortably lately.
The A-grade magic crystal the boss gave it had accelerated the magic absorption speed of its roots, finally budging the level that had been stuck for so long.
It had risen from level 29 to the tier cap of level 30.
Lin Jun also regularly gave them batches of low-grade magic crystals as wages. These crystals were all planted in the forest, helping new tree sprites awaken consciousness.
Because he had brought real benefits to the tree sprite forest, more and more tree sprites joined the ranks of serving the boss. As long as they connected to the mycelial network, they could naturally experience the boss's unfathomable will and understand that this was the best choice for tree sprites!
The current situation was that it had almost become the leader among the tree sprites.
Only a few old diehards were still hiding deep in the forest, refusing to come out.
This time when Lin Jun needed a tree sprite guide, it had just finished resting and volunteered, not expecting the destination to be this dead zone.
For magical creatures unable to leave their floor, this truly was a dead zone.
The puffshrooms dragged an unconscious stone-hide boar, found a relatively vertical rift valley, and tossed it down.
The boar fell rapidly. After exceeding the floor's boundaries, a thin electric arc flashed, and the boar's status panel disappeared.
Instant death.
The labyrinth's rules were still in effect even in the rift valley, just in a different form.
This scene made Little Green, watching from the side, feel somewhat empathetic. It too was a floor-bound magical creature—jumping down would yield the same result as that boar.
Only then did Lin Jun answer Little Green's earlier question:
"Why come here? Because... down there is my homeland..."
Homeland?
So that's it—the boss came from further below, no wonder he's so powerful!
In an instant, Little Green's imagination ran wild with various possibilities.
Then it heard Lin Jun shout through the mycelial network: "Homeland, here I come!"
A puffshroom leaped down, its four mycelial tendrils spreading out a blanket—a parachute.
Then it went into free fall, and with a "bang" crashed into a rock wall somewhere below, sacrificing itself...
Well, apparently the makeshift parachute he'd casually thrown together was useless.
But that was fine—he had more than one plan!
A round, plump puffshroom wrapped in thick layers of mycelium rolled out. The other puffshrooms worked together to find a random opening and push it down.
The mycelial ball bounced off stone walls, bumping and jolting as it burst into clouds of mycelium below, quickly disappearing beyond the visible range.
Little Green beside them really wanted to ask if this method of returning to one's homeland wasn't a bit too reckless, but didn't quite dare speak up...
In reality, Lin Jun wasn't even sure if the mushroom garden was down there—he was simply checking if this could lead directly to the deep layers.
The opening he'd chosen wasn't very vertical, and the mycelial ball tumbled and bounced, consuming most of its cushioning mycelium before even landing. It looked like it wouldn't be able to land safely.
It was probably going to crash to death.
A thick white strand caught the puffshroom!
The puffshroom twisted, but the adhesive was too strong to break free from.
A spider?
There were indeed several spider species in the deep layers.
The ground still couldn't be sensed below—why would a spider put its web this high?
Vibrations in the adhesive strand seemed to disturb the homeowner. Soon, the magical creature crawled over along the strand.
A large magical creature with a segmented body like a centipede and a pair of dragonfly wings on its back appeared before the puffshroom.
Wait, what happened to the promised spider?
Spiders were disgusting enough—this thing was even more revolting than spiders.
The puffshroom aimed its spore cannon at the creature and fired a shot, hitting the magical creature's head directly!
Seemingly not expecting its prey to fight back, the creature shook its head, which had been jolted by the impact, then crawled right over. There wasn't even a trace of injury on its head.
After crawling over, the creature extended its thin, elongated mouthpart and stabbed it directly into the puffshroom's body, beginning to suck its magic power.
In one gulp, it drained a third of the magic power, causing the puffshroom to visibly shrivel.
Before dying, Lin Jun only managed to glance at the opposing creature's status panel.
[Species: Thousand-Jointed Mayfly]
[Level: 62]
Right, no wonder the spore cannon couldn't hurt it!
This was very much the deep layers!
As the thousand-jointed mayfly sucked with force once more, the puffshroom lost connection.
Although the puffshroom was dead, Lin Jun had at least confirmed that below indeed led to the deep layers.
A level 62 magical creature—far exceeding the tenth floor's level cap—where else could it be but the deep layers?
However, this crack definitely wasn't the one leading to his former mushroom garden. When Inanna had slowly fallen down back then, she neither hit rock walls nor encountered magical creatures.
Though it was meaningless, Lin Jun still quite wanted to see his old home.
But there was no rush to do so today.
After confirming this place connected to the deep layers, Lin Jun planned to spread mycelium down along the rock walls to see if he could descend directly by laying mycelial carpet.
"Let's go back," Lin Jun instructed.
The remaining puffshrooms had originally been meant for exploration, but since the second puffshroom had completed the job, there was no need to throw the others down to their deaths.
Little Green had no idea what had happened below, only knowing that two puffshrooms had been arranged to jump down and die.
It turned to clear a path back for the puffshrooms.
Passing by the small hill, the cries for help from behind still hadn't stopped.
"Save me~"
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