Deep beneath the water's surface, a squad of five diving puffshrooms maintained their formation as they cautiously descended.
The team suddenly changed direction, swimming horizontally for dozens of meters before continuing their downward journey. Just moments ago, an almost completely transparent large fish had appeared ahead of the puffshrooms, but it was completely exposed under their [Sonar Detection].
Under continuous detection, they soon discovered another one of those strange fish in the distance—the kind with extendable mouthparts that could stretch over thirty meters.
One diving puffshroom used [Infrasonic Attack]. While this couldn't deal sufficient damage to the monster fish, it could make it feel uncomfortable!
Sure enough, the monster fish twisted its body and swam away in another direction.
But when a massive jellyfish caught up to the puffshroom squad, intent on catching them all in one net...
The puffshroom at the rear broke away from the formation and charged toward the jellyfish behind them.
*BOOM—*
After a muffled explosion, puffshroom fragments scattered everywhere, while the jellyfish's body was left with a gaping hole, completely losing its mobility.
It was self-destruct!
Lin Jun had added self-destruct!
This was already the third batch of diving puffshrooms.
Ever since the first batch was completely wiped out, Lin Jun had painfully decided to add the [Self-Destruct] skill after careful consideration.
Indeed, puffshrooms couldn't escape the fate of self-destruction.
This skill had been forcibly leveled from LV5 to LV6 by Lin Jun, making its power even more formidable.
The seventh floor proved more troublesome than Lin Jun had imagined. The most difficult aspect was the appearance of giant-type monsters.
Perhaps it was easier for creatures to grow larger in deep water?
Giant-type monsters meant that at the same level, they had higher attributes and thicker health bars.
The specific situation was just like the earth worms from before—two earth worms not even at LV50 had completely wiped out Lin Jun's expeditionary force.
At the same level, if it had been spiders or minotaurs instead, they would have been beaten down long ago.
The aquatic giant-type monsters on the seventh floor were the same. The puffshrooms' combat effectiveness underwater was already a notch weaker to begin with.
Although it wasn't impossible to defeat them, going head-to-head would be a thankless task.
Lin Jun simply wanted to explore all the water areas once, so naturally he would avoid them when possible.
Fortunately, monsters were still monsters—their habits and attack patterns all followed discoverable patterns.
Through three rounds of trial and error, Lin Jun had more or less memorized all their behavioral patterns.
Finally, four puffshrooms successfully reached the bottom layer covered with sand and ruins.
Perhaps because the bottom layer had many places to hide, giant-type monsters generally wouldn't come down here, making it quite safe...
A claw suddenly shot out from the sand at the bottom, grabbing the tail of one diving puffshroom in a vice-like grip.
[Infrasonic Attack LV6] x4
The defense-ignoring attack was super effective against this crab monster that relied purely on its shell for protection.
It directly shattered the creature's internal body, and naturally the claw gripping the puffshroom loosened.
Along with it died two other crab monsters hiding in the sand nearby that hadn't had time to attack.
The injured puffshroom had a gash at its waist, making movement difficult, and its health was down to just a sliver.
Perfect for pathfinding!
The critically wounded puffshroom swam ahead with difficulty, while the three intact puffshrooms leisurely followed behind.
This time, Lin Jun had the diving puffshrooms float upward, maintaining a distance of five to six meters from the sandy bottom. This way they wouldn't have to worry about crab ambushes.
The bottom layer was indeed a refuge for small-type monsters. In just this short while, Lin Jun had already seen four or five types of monsters he hadn't encountered above.
These small monsters hid among the ruins' debris or buried themselves in the sand like the crab monsters.
None were particularly strong, and seeing the puffshrooms traveling in a group, they didn't even dare to attack.
Swimming along this route, Lin Jun observed the stone building debris and kept wondering what this area used to be.
A residential district?
Unlikely. Although these stone pillar structures had collapsed and were damaged, you could still vaguely see that they must have been magnificent buildings in the past. Civilian housing should have been smaller.
But if these were large venues like temples, council halls, or royal palaces, everything before his eyes seemed too plain.
There were no excess decorations, nor any statues representing gods or people.
Lin Jun felt this place was too "clean."
According to his impression, underwater ruins and sunken ships should have some rusty iron implements, treasure chests, and such things, right?
But here there was nothing but stone.
Human adventurers?
This guess was dismissed by Lin Jun as soon as it arose.
It wasn't that humans couldn't reach this place, but the difficulty was obviously incomparable to just fishing in the upper layers.
With such high difficulty, making a trip down here would surely involve picking the good stuff, not picking it this clean.
Most likely this place simply had no treasures to begin with...
The exploration continued for nearly two hours, and surprisingly they hadn't encountered any particularly deadly dangers. That critically wounded puffshroom still hadn't been consumed!
Although there were no special gains, Lin Jun hadn't discovered any traces of rifts either.
That could be considered good news?
While Lin Jun was lost in thought, one diving puffshroom swimming past a patch of seaweed got its scales caught on an inconspicuous hook.
The hook was pulled by the puffshroom's movement, and the next second the seaweed connected to the hook was rapidly retracted, dragging the puffshroom down with it.
A sharp stone pillar pierced through the hooked puffshroom, instantly sending it to the puffshroom afterlife.
Lin Jun hastily made the remaining 2.5 puffshrooms stop and carefully observe their surroundings.
Only then did he discover that there wasn't just one hook—many of the seaweeds in this patch were connected to hooks, and the hooks were tied on rather than naturally grown that way.
Connected to the hooks, the base of the seaweed concealed a primitive yet ingenious mechanism whose purpose was to retract hooked prey, with the killing blow delivered by sharp stone pillars specifically placed at the bottom.
Lin Jun saw some aquatic monsters also skewered on the stone pillars.
Clearly this was a trap made by some intelligent creature.
Good heavens, the seventh floor had intelligent beings too!
Mermaids?
That didn't feel right. If they were mermaids, shouldn't they be in the upper layers singing to lure adventurers? Living at the bottom catching fish and shrimp would be too tragic a life, wouldn't it?
He controlled the diving puffshrooms to explore even more carefully and meticulously.
Half an hour later, the puffshrooms hadn't found the intelligent creatures, but they discovered a rotatable switch on a ruined stone wall!
An underwater treasure room?
It took two puffshrooms working together to turn the switch. With a "rumbling" muffled sound, a passage leading diagonally downward appeared.
This feeling... didn't seem like a treasure room.
It wasn't like Lin Jun hadn't seen treasure rooms before—they were all simple, exquisite single rooms with a treasure chest placed right in the center.
Rather than a treasure room, what lay before him looked more like a passage leading to a new area.
Without much hesitation, Lin Jun directly sent the 2.5 puffshrooms swimming in. This was exactly what they were meant for.
Within the passage, Lin Jun saw recesses on both sides for illumination crystals, and even spotted the remains of a crystal that had been defunct for who knows how long in one recess.
Along the way there were quite a few symmetrical side passages, but with just these few puffshrooms, splitting up would be meaningless. Lin Jun simply continued straight ahead.
At the end of this path was a great hall.
At the foot of a massive headless stone statue covered in tentacles stood three stone discs arranged side by side, while the walls on both sides were carved with murals whose content had long become indiscernible.
Mottled murals on the stone walls on both sides had been eroded by the years until their content was impossible to distinguish.
So this was a temple?
At the same time, within the perception of [Sonar Detection], some living creatures were converging toward this great hall...
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