What kind of mutated puffshroom is this?
Those scales that have burst forth... they look just like dragon scales...
Facing the giant black mushroom with nowhere left to retreat, Lacus once again drew fresh blood from within his body.
This damned floor—the entire level was filled with mushrooms, and he couldn't find any magical beasts to draw blood from. He could only use his own.
Blood spikes couldn't pierce through the giant black mushroom's scales, so he'd go around them!
He, Lacus, was a genius after all!
Instead of condensing the fresh blood into blood spikes, he divided it, then divided it further!
He formed the blood into silk threads, controlling the direction of each blood strand...
The overly precise manipulation requirements made Lacus's head throb with splitting pain, but caught between life and death, he forcibly endured this agony that nearly caused him to faint.
[Skill Upgrade: Blood Manipulation LV6→LV7]
"Ugh—Ahh!"
Countless blood threads shot forth, charging straight at the giant black mushroom before him.
The blood threads didn't strike the scales. Instead, they changed angles as they approached, piercing through the gaps between scales, then detonating the magical power and life force contained within the blood simultaneously.
For a moment, the giant black mushroom trembled all over and staggered back two steps.
With no time to feel proud, Lacus seized the opportunity while the giant black mushroom's movements were interrupted, immediately transforming into a bat and grabbing the grimoire as he flew toward the sky.
All along the way, the fungal threads hanging from the mushroom trees actually reached out toward him. Fortunately, his bat form was small, and through nimble maneuvering, he managed to avoid them all and break free from the mushroom forest.
Only after flying high into the air did Lacus breathe a small sigh of relief.
Thank goodness he could fly!
He hadn't dropped the grimoire either. Now he just needed to find a way to fly out of the fifth floor...
Suddenly, he sensed something rapidly approaching... a puffshroom?
A puffshroom with spread wings, gliding down from the dome above?
What the hell was this thing?!
The bat form wasn't convenient for counterattacking, so Lacus could only flap his wings desperately to get away, but he wasn't as fast as that puffshroom.
Still, it was fine. Lacus could see that this puffshroom could only glide, not truly fly. Once it approached, he just needed to quickly circle around it...
*BOOM—*
After the close-range explosion, the bat that Lacus had transformed into spun through the air before finally regaining balance after quite some time.
He didn't even have time to worry about his injuries—his empty claws filled him with shock and dismay.
"The grimoire? Where's the grimoire?"
The grimoire he'd been clutching had vanished in the explosion. He wanted to risk going back down to search for it, but then felt something blocking his path above...
Pitch-black scales, golden vertical pupils, massive wings, and claws striking toward him...
...
Lin Jun, who had just been enjoying the thrill of a diving self-destruct attack, immediately got a headache when he saw the half-vampire getting swatted down like a cannonball.
Did I kill him?
As the first demon clan member to enter his dungeon, Lin Jun had naturally given this guy his full attention.
He hadn't expected the target to be after the forbidden tome.
Originally, he'd wanted to interrogate him properly, but if he'd been swatted to death directly, that would be problematic.
Lin Jun didn't dislike guys who could break through in the heat of battle—after all, who wouldn't like someone who provided more skill proficiency?
But how could you injure Little Black...
Truth be told, this guy was quite impressive. At only level 40, having just stepped into Gold rank, he could actually cause effective damage to Little Black when facing him alone, even if it was just a tiny bit.
You had to know that the last time Little Black was injured, it took four Gold-rank fighters and nearly twenty Silver-rank ones working together to achieve that result.
Fortunately, the status panel hadn't disappeared yet...
Soon, the puffshrooms responsible for cleanup brought over both the escaped forbidden tome and its accomplice, the half-vampire.
The forbidden tome was in good condition—aside from slightly yellowed page edges, it looked quite spirited, with text scrolling across its surface like a display screen, constantly refreshing.
Through study, Lin Jun's [Human Common Language] had now reached level six, so he could understand some of it through guessing and deduction.
Most of it was nonsense about clearing relationships and begging for mercy.
Worth mentioning was that when Lin Jun looked at the text on the forbidden tome, he kept his own status panel open at all times.
If he detected any charm effects, he would let the forbidden tome know that its previous days had actually been pretty good.
As for this half-vampire who barely maintained human form... time to sprinkle some spores and begin the interrogation!
...
"So you came by yourself?"
The interrogation went smoothly. With Little Black sitting in front of him, showing this little thief a brutal scene of devouring puffshrooms, combined with Lin Jun's parasitic spores and hallucinogenic spores, Lacus practically spilled everything.
About searching for the grimoire, about the vampire duke, and his speculation about being a pathfinder—Lacus revealed it all.
Lin Jun just couldn't quite understand one thing.
"Since you've suffered such harsh treatment, why not choose to leave?"
Lacus, who hadn't had any blood to drink and couldn't recover from his injuries, lay on the ground and answered in a muffled voice:
"Blood pact... If I betray my lord, even if I survive, I can never advance in rank."
"What is advancement?"
"Noble rank is power... but also shackles," Lacus suddenly coughed violently, dark red bloodstains spreading on the ground. "Unable to advance to viscount... means my level can never exceed 40, and my lifespan limit... is only one hundred and twenty years..."
It sounded like a strictly hierarchical system with extremely strong control.
Lin Jun felt a bit envious.
His own parasitic ability still had weak compulsive power when targets were beyond range.
Looking at Lacus, who had already fainted on the ground, a nearby puffshroom carried him off to the Deep Swamp.
He did indeed have the death replay status effect. Letting him slowly die in the swamp meant no information would leak from Lin Jun's side.
He had no intention of taking him in as a subordinate.
From the interrogation, he'd learned this wasn't someone who would stay in line, not to mention being restricted by the advancement system. No matter how you looked at it, he wasn't suitable as a subordinate.
What concerned Lin Jun more was the demon clan's level of attention toward the forbidden tome. No matter how he thought about it, this forbidden tome was a source of trouble...
Should he throw this book away?
Lin Jun rejected this idea within a single second.
This thing had been here for so long—it couldn't just be released like that.
Rather than throwing it away, better to have Little Black tear it apart!
The grimoire on the ground, for some unknown reason, suddenly increased its typing speed for mercy by three times...
As for the demon clan team that might come later, Lin Jun wasn't too concerned.
Demons dying in the Amethyst Dungeon wouldn't have any negative impact on Lin Jun.
They surely wouldn't send a duke to infiltrate just to cause him trouble, right?
It wasn't that Lin Jun had any prejudice against the demon clan. From the shapeshifter Klolo, you could tell that the so-called racial differences in this world probably weren't that significant.
Lin Jun even quite wanted to interact more with races other than humans—elves, dwarves, demons, and such.
But the prerequisite was that they had to be friendly.
For bandits who came to steal things, there was no need to be polite.
He checked his status panel again—no charm effects. Good.
A puffshroom walked forward and rolled up the grimoire that was still chattering about being an "honest book." Lin Jun wanted to create a new seal for it.
He'd arrange at least dozens of landmine puffshrooms around it!
Oh right, there was also his elite puffshroom plan. The first batch was almost ready. He hoped to finish before other demons arrived—they could help test the practical effectiveness.
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