Punishment

"It's all my fault..."

On the open ground in front of the mushroom house, Norris knelt in the center of a group of puffshrooms, with even Little Black crouched in a corner watching him.

He hung his head low, his scales scraping against the ground with tiny grinding sounds, his intermittent confession floating in the air along with a faint bloody scent.

At this moment, Norris's right foot had been reattached and the wound on his chest had healed, yet he still looked utterly disheveled.

The flesh at the severed limb's reattachment point hadn't fully fused, leaving a clear demarcation line. His scales were missing here and there all over his body, and those still attached were mostly cracked, no longer possessing their former luster.

Norris himself wasn't clear on how he had lost emotional control. He should have been used to being bullied after so many years.

Now that he had committed the crime of murder, he could only honestly confess what had happened, then wait anxiously for his fate.

With the dual effects of the mycelial network and parasitism, Norris couldn't hide any lies from Lin Jun.

In Lin Jun's view, this matter wasn't entirely Norris's fault—after all, the humans had struck first.

But Norris's poor handling was also undeniable.

When pestered by human adventurers, Lin Jun could accept whether Norris chose to fight or flee, but he should have immediately informed him through the mycelial network. Acting independently when encountering problems was not a good sign.

As for the deaths of three humans, it really wasn't a big deal in the dungeon.

So Lin Jun quickly decided on Norris's punishment:

"Norris, you acted on your own authority and violated the mushroom garden's discipline. You're now sentenced to clean floors for the slime for one month."

"Clean floors for the slime?"

Norris's mind couldn't process this for a moment. Subconsciously, he still thought his crime was murder, but now hearing the boss's meaning, his problem was not reporting?

"What, do you have objections?" Lin Jun thought Norris was unwilling.

Cleaning floors for the slime was no easy task.

That two-colored slime was quite capable of division. The so-called floor cleaning meant that after killing the divided slimes, one had to collect their cores and place them on the mycelial carpet, while all remaining mucus had to be washed into the underground sewers with water.

During work, meals and lodging would be in the mountain cavity, which was essentially house arrest. This job could truly be described as working from dawn to dusk.

Not to mention the cage would be raised from time to time, releasing curses to train the puffshrooms, and Norris would definitely have to suffer along with them inside.

But for Norris, this punishment was already lighter than his best expectations.

So he hurriedly bowed his head in acceptance: "No, no, I have no objections."

Two puffshrooms ceremoniously escorted Norris away to serve his sentence, one in front and one behind.

Little Black didn't understand what had happened at all, still waving at the departing Norris.

Lin Jun then went to find Little Green to confirm the adventurers' strength.

Three silver-rank adventurers capable of operating on the sixth floor—Norris had achieved a 1-for-2 exchange ratio in direct confrontation with them.

The last person was eliminated by Little Green, who arrived just in time. Without Little Green, Norris would probably be dead by now.

In this incident, compared to Norris's mistakes, Lin Jun saw more of the strength he had displayed.

You have to know, Norris was only level 24!

Previously when fighting magical beasts, he was also fighting above his level, but magical beasts lacked intelligence compared to Norris, so killing them wasn't strange.

But this time it was three genuine human adventurers, each a full rank higher than him, and he could still achieve such results. This showed that his skill additions were indeed very effective.

Higher skill levels combined with reasonable coordination had compensated for the attribute gap caused by Norris's insufficient level.

Lin Jun also understood that this compensation had limits. At gold or even diamond rank, people would also have high skill levels and reasonable coordination, and by then the advantage of Lin Jun's granted skills wouldn't be so obvious.

But undoubtedly, relying on this ability, as long as he had enough suitable materials, Lin Jun could mass-produce a batch of core forces that could quickly reach silver or even gold-rank strength.

It's just... he seemed unable to find materials?

In all his time in the dungeon, he had only encountered someone like Norris who was a blank slate. Every other person who entered the dungeon came with a full set of "skills."

Perhaps there were many close to blank slates among human civilians and children, but taking away population would obviously attract attention, and in the end it would probably be more trouble than it was worth.

He set aside this thought for now.

After Norris finished his confinement, Lin Jun planned to give him a second round of modifications.

The originally planned [Mimicry] couldn't be given for now. Norris's strength was still insufficient, and his personality wasn't stable enough. With him wandering around with [Mimicry] in this state, who knows when another impulsive moment might expose everything.

Better to cultivate him more first.

In comparison, Little Green's performance this time was excellent.

In the dryad forest, Little Green knelt on the moist soil, extending its roots into the earth to carefully organize the intertwined root systems of new trees.

When magic power was abundant, dryads would condense jade-green tender branches within their bodies at regular intervals.

By leaving the tender branches and part of their root system in the ground, they could grow into demon trees. When mature, these demon trees would develop consciousness and become new dryads.

Thanks to Lin Jun's rewards, the dryads had obtained many magic crystals, greatly increasing their magic absorption efficiency.

Naturally, there were more newly planted tender branches recently, and some of them, like the one in front of Little Green that had grown well, had already become healthy demon trees.

The dryads would occasionally help the demon trees organize their wildly growing root systems—the underground space of the dryad forest was much more crowded than it appeared on the surface...

"Little Green."

The sudden communication made Little Green stop its current work.

"What is it? Please give your orders, boss."

"It's not really an order, but a proposal I wanted to get your opinion on. The land over at the small mountain has been empty since we cleared it out. Rather than let other magical beasts occupy it, I might as well plant some mushrooms there. It would also conveniently prevent adventurers from accidentally entering the mountain interior. I'm asking you—do you have any plans to plant some trees there together? This way we'd have bases on both the east and west sides, so we wouldn't have to run such long distances every time."

"Expanding territory..." Lin Jun's proposal made Little Green fall into thought.

Indeed, although the dryad forest's land was still sufficient, according to current development trends, outward expansion was almost inevitable.

Originally, Little Green's idea was to slowly develop outward from the forest entrance.

Now, according to the boss's meaning, he wanted them to directly establish a new home on the other side.

It seemed... feasible?

The dryads had long lived in seclusion for two reasons: first, their numbers were previously limited, and the dryad forest was sufficient for survival. Second, they didn't want to attract too much attention from human adventurers. Living remotely and staying together made them less vulnerable to adventurer attacks.

Now the situation was different. When dryads went out, they were followed by groups of puffshrooms. Not only had their combat power increased, but adventurers seemed to greatly fear puffshrooms, and conflicts had decreased significantly.

In that case, opening up new homes in locations far from the forest wasn't impossible.

"Boss, do you want puffshrooms and dryads to live together?"

"Live together?"

In Lin Jun's view, puffshrooms were just tools, while dryads were subordinates. Using the term "live together" for subordinates and tools felt somewhat strange to Lin Jun, but Little Green's understanding was acceptable.

"Sort of. I plan to plant a mushroom forest there. Speaking of which, you can't go up to the fifth floor so you haven't seen the mushroom forest yet. You should like it."

In Lin Jun's conception, dryads were quite suitable to live with mushroom forests.

Mushrooms mainly collected magic power from the air, while dryads mainly absorbed magic power from the soil. The two didn't interfere with each other.

Then the mushroom forest could provide environmental effects like spores, while dryads could lead puffshrooms to guard the mushroom forest without Lin Jun having to worry about it.

The ultimate purpose of everything was actually to conceal the fissure and two-colored slime in the mountain cavity. Everything else was incidental.

"Boss, I have no objections. When do we start?"

Little Green felt at ease after learning it would be living together with puffshrooms—with puffshrooms around, there was no fear of adventurers.

"We can start now—my puffshrooms have already come down!"

"Then I'll gather the clan members right away!"