At the entrance of the dungeon.
Horn, who had tasted sweet success and was brimming with confidence, was preparing to enter the dungeon once again. However, this time he had a completely different set of teammates.
After the last mission, his old teammates, green with envy, hadn't directly kicked him out of the party, but they had all quit one by one and then reformed into a "new team."
Horn's assessment of this situation was simple: a bunch of fools blinded by their emotions.
He hadn't sold off that dagger representing his good fortune—the +2 Agility dagger—but kept it with him to enhance his combat abilities.
His teammates had clearly become stronger, yet they abandoned him out of jealousy. If that wasn't foolishness, what was?
Fortunately, Horn didn't care to associate with those idiots anymore. Armed with his gleaming dagger, he quickly found a newly formed party.
Now the four of them stood outside the dungeon entrance, conducting their final preparations.
Since the newly assembled party hadn't yet developed proper coordination, this kind of mutual confirmation before entry was essential to prevent accidents.
For instance, since their party lacked a mage, torches or the oil cloth needed to make torches were absolutely indispensable items.
After checking everything thoroughly, the new party finally entered the dungeon.
However, as soon as they entered, all four were drawn to the crowd gathered at the edge of the main hall.
Something must have happened—otherwise, no one would be loitering here.
Adventurers could be considered one of the most gossip-hungry groups around. When there was excitement to be witnessed, no one would refuse, and naturally, the four of them joined the crowd.
Someone in the crowd noticed Horn and, clearly an acquaintance, called out: "Hey, Horn! I heard you drew something good on the fifth floor?"
Adventurers were indeed the most gossip-hungry group, so news of Horn's incredible luck in drawing a jackpot naturally spread like wildfire.
Horn didn't try to hide it. He drew out his dagger with its blade gleaming with flowing light and flourished it in a circle, making the other person exclaim with envy.
After showing off, Horn also asked: "What are you all blocking up here for?"
It really was blocked—the main hall at the dungeon entrance connected to eight passages, and this was one of them. The corridor, which could fit four to five people across, was packed with over ten people.
"There's a group of puffshrooms at the entrance!"
As he spoke, he grabbed Horn's hand and forcibly squeezed through the crowd.
After emerging, Horn almost thought he was hallucinating—a Fat Puffshroom had actually come to the first floor entrance?
However, unlike on the fifth floor, this Fat Puffshroom was surrounded by many ordinary puffshrooms, all sitting obediently on the mycelium mat.
"What's this all about?" Horn asked.
His acquaintance shrugged—he wasn't clear on the details either.
Suddenly, an adventurer who seemed to be from out of town said something that made everyone present feel their blood run cold: "Huh? This dungeon entrance just has monsters giving themselves away for free?"
The speaker was a warrior who, while talking, was already drawing the longsword from his waist.
However, the moment his sword was drawn, this warrior was kicked down by someone, and then fists and feet from surrounding people rained down on him like hail.
"If you want to die, go die by yourself! Don't drag the rest of us down!"
"Damn outsider trying to get people killed!"
"We'll beat you to death!"
Horn also went up and gave him a couple of kicks. Who the hell didn't know that Fat Puffshrooms would self-destruct when attacked? If it really exploded here, at least half the people present would die!
After driving away that idiot warrior, many people also realized the potential danger of staying here and left one after another, no longer interested in the spectacle. The area suddenly became much less crowded.
Horn had originally planned to go kill a monster first and bring it over to see what would happen, but obviously he wasn't the only one who thought of this. An adventurer carrying a Rotfang Hound corpse came running over.
The Fat Puffshroom extended its mycorrhizal tendrils, stuffed the monster corpse into its body, then with a push of its tendrils, nudged out one of the puffshrooms that had been sitting on the mycelium mat in a daze.
The tendril pressed down on the puffshroom's mushroom cap... and the puffshroom lit up!
The adventurers: ???
They saw the puffshroom glowing with orange-yellow light take its little short steps and follow behind the adventurer who had provided the monster corpse. When the adventurer took two steps, the puffshroom would take four steps to keep up.
The adventurer: !!!
That adventurer tried pressing the puffshroom's mushroom cap as well, and the light on the puffshroom's body flickered twice before going out!
"Ohhh~!"
Exclamations of amazement immediately rose from the surrounding people.
Seeing this, Horn discussed it with his teammates, and they also killed a prey to take away an illumination puffshroom.
Everyone wanted to try this novel thing. Even some parties that had mages took one out of curiosity.
Along the way, they figured out some patterns.
Puffshrooms would only follow within a single floor. At the edge of each stairway was a Fat Puffshroom, and each new floor required providing a monster corpse to hire their services anew.
On the second floor, their illumination puffshroom was accidentally killed by a scorpion's pincers. When they reached the third floor, the Fat Puffshroom completely ignored them.
Only after they provided three monster corpses did they manage to rent another illumination puffshroom.
Also, an illumination puffshroom's energy could last at most one full day. After it went out, it would still follow you, waiting for you to bring it back to the Fat Puffshroom.
The illumination puffshroom's brightness was several times that of a torch, and the effect was quite satisfactory. The rental fee of one monster corpse per floor was still acceptable for parties without mages.
The downside was that they died too easily...
...
Lin Jun quietly observed the adventurers' reactions.
Seeing the new business venture developing smoothly, he was quite satisfied.
After being blocked on the eighth floor, he had begun preparing to tackle the ravine.
However, after discovering last time that the ravine was difficult to traverse, Lin Jun had abandoned that stretch of high-maintenance mycelium mat. Now he needed to lay it out again.
At the same time, aerial combat puffshrooms suitable for expeditionary battles in the ravine environment would also need some time to be produced.
During this spare time, Lin Jun used it to repeatedly practice drawing magic formations.
These illumination puffshrooms were all byproducts of his practice. Recycling them directly would be somewhat wasteful.
He might as well create a following illumination service. Earning monster corpses was secondary—the main goal was to continue improving adventurers' acceptance of puffshrooms.
In the future, he might even be able to introduce services like luggage transport and dungeon cafeterias.
Using convenient puffshroom services to gradually corrupt the adventurers, ultimately cultivating them into people who couldn't explore dungeons without puffshrooms!
Of course, this plan was still in its early stages, and there were quite a few problems.
For instance, since the illumination puffshrooms were all hand-crafted by Lin Jun, their quality varied greatly. Some substandard illumination puffshrooms would experience sudden blackout problems.
Fortunately, the dungeon had no review system, so cheated adventurers had no way to come back and leave bad reviews.
The puffshrooms also didn't support returns or exchanges, embodying a principle of "no responsibility once they leave the premises."
---
Lin Jun's evil plan to corrupt adventurers had just begun. Meanwhile, a party heading for Mute Wind Town had also departed from Oath City.
The magnificent carriage at the front bore the prominent sword-and-shield emblem, with gold trim around the edges of the emblem indicating the important status of the person inside within the Adventurers' Guild.
Behind it followed a large wagon carrying eight clerical staff members, along with four Gold-rank guards on horseback.
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