The pitch-black tunnel stretched ahead, its walls woven entirely from mycelium threads.
Norris carefully climbed upward using his hands and feet, taking care not to slip and tumble back down below.
Today was a special day for Norris.
The Yellow Book was tucked into his pants. Despite the Yellow Book's repeated emphasis that it was a noble sacred tome that shouldn't be treated so casually, Norris simply didn't have any spare hands to properly attend to it.
Finally, light appeared above—he was about to reach the exit.
When Norris had climbed halfway out of the tunnel, what he saw was a mushroom forest!
The tender shoots planted by the tree spirits hadn't even grown into proper demonic wood yet, but the mycelium planted at the same time had already grown into massive mushroom trees.
For a moment, Norris couldn't tell whether this was the fifth or sixth layer.
After emerging, a group of puffshrooms surrounded him, and among them was even a large black mushroom.
At the same time, the Boss shouted through the fungal network: "Congratulations on your release!"
The puffshrooms immediately threw handfuls of flower petals into the air. Upon closer inspection, one could recognize them as petals from flower sprites.
*Ting ting ting—*
Some glass shards seemed to have gotten mixed in with the petals, striking against Norris's scales...
The puffshrooms extended their mycelium tendrils and lifted Norris completely out.
The puffshrooms patted him with their tendrils, brushing off dust and clinging mycelium.
Facing the puffshrooms who cared about him, even though he knew they were all controlled by the Boss, Norris still felt an emotion he'd never experienced before—the feeling of being cared for.
If only the few pats from the large black mushroom hadn't been quite so heavy, nearly knocking him flat on the ground...
Addressing this newcomer, Lin Jun spoke with earnest gravity:
"Norris, now that you're out, you must absolutely turn over a new leaf and become a proper mushroom again.
Next time you want to kill someone, remember to file an application for approval first, then act only after getting permission.
You can't go around acting without organization or discipline on your own initiative anymore.
You must believe that Mushroom Garden will always stand by your side—this is your home!"
Hearing the word "home," Norris could no longer control his tears, crying while excitedly exclaiming: "Yes! Boss!"
A puffshroom suddenly brought out a bowl of soup.
"You've suffered down there, only able to gnaw on mushrooms every day. Come, drink some meat broth!"
Norris wiped away his tears without being pretentious about it.
Holding the bowl topped with a slice of meat, he first inhaled the long-missed aroma of meat, then drank it down in one gulp.
After finishing, Norris smacked his lips. It turned out to be mushroom meat soup—he'd thought it was pure meat broth, but this was good too.
The bowl was empty of meat and broth, but two mushroom petals remained. Not wanting to waste the Boss's thoughtful gesture, Norris decided to eat them clean.
Hm?
Picking up a mushroom petal... why was it blue...
Norris's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the ground.
Several puffshrooms rolled up the unconscious Norris—it was time for his second round of enhancement.
The Yellow Book at Norris's waist was also extracted. While Norris lay there for the next few days, it would return to the Happy Hut.
For the second round, besides the regular combat improvements, Lin Jun also planned to add some additional functions to Norris.
The current list included: 【Rolling Charge LV7】, 【Sonic Detection LV6】, 【Dodge LV7】, 【Acceleration LV6】, 【Spit Arrow LV5】.
【Spit Arrow】 was intended to work in combination with the neurotoxin Norris already possessed.
As for 【Rolling Charge】... Lin Jun really wanted to see what it would look like when used by a human!
The puffshrooms carried Norris away, and Little Black enthusiastically went to help.
While helping, it accidentally scraped off two silver scales, and seeing that Norris didn't react, accidentally scraped off two more...
By the time Norris was returned to the mushroom hut, a small patch on his back had gone bald.
...
With Norris taken care of, Lin Jun once again focused his attention on the seventh layer.
During this time, through diligent "fishing," Lin Jun had finally gathered the minimum skills needed for underwater exploration.
The first batch of diving puffshrooms had already been produced.
【Underwater Adaptation LV6】+【Wake Jet LV3】+【Water Current Sensing LV4】+【Sonic Detection LV6】+【Swimming LV4】+【Scale Armor LV6】+【Infrasonic Attack LV6】
Seven skills total, with even Agility boosted to 10 points—this was definitely an expensive variety among cannon fodder.
【Scale Armor】 was an unavoidable addition. Without scales, every little fish in the water would want to swim over for a bite. The scales' main function was protection against small fish.
They couldn't just blast their way through everywhere with infrasonic attacks.
Through 【Water Current Sensing】, they could not only detect danger but also sense any water-leaking fissures nearby.
Then, due to having the 【Swimming】 skill, when Lin Jun wasn't interfering, the lower halves of all the puffshrooms had transformed into fishtail shapes, though still composed of mycelium.
Following this world's naming conventions, calling them puffshroom fish seemed perfectly reasonable now.
These diving puffshrooms could only flop around uselessly on land now, requiring other puffshrooms to help push them into the water.
The first batch consisted of 60 diving puffshrooms, divided into groups of five, entering the water from different locations for exploration.
Under Lin Jun's unified command, it was time to officially dive!
Tendrils pushed the diving puffshrooms into the water.
At one of the entry points, a massive catfish that had been waiting who knows how long surfaced, opening its huge mouth to swallow all five diving puffshrooms in one gulp.
!!
No respect at all!
In his fury, Lin Jun... switched to a different viewpoint.
Fifty-five diving puffshrooms successfully entered the water and began exploration!
The seventh layer differed from other floors. Take the fifth and sixth layers with their largest areas—since there was no stratification, while the space was relatively large, the actual explorable area wasn't too outrageous.
But the seventh layer had over 80% of its space underwater, and aquatic ecosystems were distributed three-dimensionally.
So even though the overall size was slightly smaller than the sixth layer, the effort required for complete exploration was several times greater than the sixth layer.
The underwater space of the seventh layer was roughly divided into three levels.
The topmost was like a sewer system—crisscrossing waterways plus mountain peak terrain hanging down from the ceiling into the water on both sides.
The middle layer was pure water with nothing in it.
The bottom layer—the floor of the seventh layer—had some ancient buildings overgrown with aquatic plants.
These buildings clearly hadn't originally been underwater. Who knew why they'd ended up like this.
Could it be that the seventh layer used to be a dry floor?
The first area explored was the upper waterway region, which had the smallest area and was easiest to explore.
But even in this simple difficulty zone, nearly 20 diving puffshrooms were lost in the complete survey—no fissures were found.
When the puffshrooms reached the middle layer, survival became much more difficult.
Due to terrain restrictions in the upper region, fish were limited in size, but the middle layer had no such constraints. The puffshrooms quickly encountered larger, more dangerous magical creatures.
These either relied on their large size and speed to chase down and devour puffshrooms in one bite.
Or they possessed special abilities.
Like sucking puffshrooms over from more than twenty meters away, or extending precise feeding appendages up to thirty meters long.
Many of these creatures made Lin Jun nearly develop thalassophobia just watching them.
Just two hours after entering the middle layer, Lin Jun was down to his last three diving puffshrooms.
Lin Jun entered maximum manual control mode!
Two minutes later, the first batch of diving puffshrooms was completely wiped out...
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