[Skill Upgrade: Puffshroom Creation LV7→LV8]
[Skill Upgrade: Mental Integration LV6→LV7]
[Skill Upgrade: Corrosion Resistance LV6→LV7]
!!!
Life was finally looking up!
As for [Puffshroom Creation], let's not even talk about it—this skill upgrade only increased puffshroom production speed without enhancing their base attributes, making the upgrade effect rather mediocre.
At LV8, if he didn't worry about magical power consumption, he could probably produce a standard artillery puffshroom in about one minute.
The corrosion resistance came from the grueling daily torture training in the six-layer slime chamber—day after day of relentless conditioning finally paid off.
The truly crucial upgrade was Mental Integration!
This was the core of Lin Jun's cores.
Previously, due to [Mental Integration] being only LV6, the number of puffshrooms Lin Jun could control through the mycelial network was limited to around 1,500.
Not to mention that the scouts from [Familiar Control] alone consumed the attention equivalent of nearly 100 puffshrooms.
Although he could expand the numbers by arranging subordinate nodes like the tree demons, the total number of puffshrooms had never exceeded 2,000.
But now...
Lin Jun sensed his mental capacity—it had roughly doubled!
This made his confidence in conquering the Thousand-Pivot Mayflies even greater.
Just as Lin Jun was immersed in the joy of growing stronger and happily planning for the future—
"*Burp~*"
Suddenly, one-third of the mushroom forest on the fifth layer vanished from his perception.
Huh!?
What's going on?
Did the fifth layer collapse?
It took Lin Jun only one second to find the culprit.
Sitting on the ground, holding a puffshroom ice pop she'd just taken a bite of, frozen in place and staring blankly—it was Little Black!
A cone-shaped disaster zone spread outward from where Little Black sat, with black smoke still billowing from her open mouth.
If she had a neck, Lin Jun would've twisted it 90 degrees to express his bewilderment.
That one-third of the mushroom forest hadn't completely disappeared—through the gradually dissipating black smoke, he could still see the remains of many mushroom trees that had collapsed after being corroded.
As for the mycelial carpet, that had indeed vanished entirely...
[Name: Little Black]
[Level: 60]
[Skill: Acid Breath LV1]
Wait... how did this creature reach level 60 just by eating and sleeping?
Don't tell me she leveled up perfectly just from finishing off that puffshroom ice pop in her arms?
And isn't this [Acid Breath] effect a bit too overpowered?
At LV1, she wiped out one-third of the mushroom forest in one go—this was incomparably stronger than the [Strong Acid LV5] Lin Jun had grinded out from slimes!
At LV6, wouldn't she be able to spray away the entire fifth layer in one breath?
This was the gap between races!
A slime's lifetime of effort couldn't compare to a single LV1 innate skill randomly awakened by the dragon race!
After lamenting the world's unfairness for a while, Lin Jun still focused his energy on rescuing the innocent disaster victims.
Two puffshrooms dragged away Norris, who was at the edge of the cone-shaped area—uninjured but thoroughly frightened.
They also fished out a yellow book that had fallen into the cone-shaped zone, corroded and wailing "*Aowao*" while continuously cursing Norris for his unsteady hands.
There was also an aerial bat puffshroom rescue team that hoisted up a vampire who had received permission to rest in the mushroom forest but suffered this unexpected calamity.
Fortunately, this vampire had some resistance—not much, but at least enough to avoid being instantly killed by a area-of-effect breath attack.
Being level 50 and getting one-shotted would've been rather embarrassing.
The sixth layer urgently sent up a freshly dead stone-skinned wild boar. After guzzling several mouthfuls of magical beast blood, Louisa's complexion improved somewhat, and her corroded skin began to slowly recover.
Louisa said nothing—didn't dare say anything. After recovering, she simply took her pickaxe and returned to the cave area.
Finally, the puffshrooms dragged the still-dazed Little Black to the basement of the mushroom forest.
This place served as a prison. Though currently unoccupied, it had expanded several times over since Louisa first moved in.
Bringing Little Black here was to prevent her from spitting again and wiping out Lin Jun's remaining two-thirds of the mushroom forest.
This foolish dragon still hadn't figured out why she'd suddenly spewed black mist...
Little Black did understand she'd caused trouble this time, sitting obediently in the center while a circle of puffshrooms around her poked and prodded at her.
Sometimes they'd pry open her mouth to study where the black smoke came from; other times they'd step on her belly to see if they could stomp out some breath.
They'd originally wanted to use mycelial filaments to reach into her throat to feel around for clues, but Little Black felt uncomfortable and bit them off.
Until one puffshroom used [Trample LV4] on the area between Little Black's throat and chest cavity—
"*Burp~*"
A small puff of black smoke emerged. Two puffshrooms immediately collapsed, while the others quickly scattered until the black smoke dissipated before clustering back together.
After half a day of research, Lin Jun finally understood Little Black's breath ability.
It was a charging skill!
The area between her throat and chest cavity seemed to house an organ that stored breath, and it had quite a large capacity.
When full, it could release a wide-area breath that destroyed one-third of the mushroom forest. When not full, it would produce something like what just happened—like exhaling secondhand smoke.
The key issue was that when this thing got full, Little Black seemed unable to hold it in...
Just like earlier—one burp and all the breath leaked out.
Little Black probably hadn't just leveled up; it had been a day or two already.
It's just that Lin Jun normally wouldn't check Little Black's status panel for no reason, while Little Black herself was too dim to realize she'd leveled up.
After some thought, Lin Jun first forced Little Black to learn how to actively use her breath.
Then he taught her to go to the poison lake every day and spit once, since Mirage wasn't particularly afraid of corrosion damage.
Predictably, getting Little Black into this habit would be a long-term project...
*Sigh—*
Little Black had grown stronger—this should clearly be a good thing. Why was it so troubling for a mushroom?
Speaking of which, what was the level cap for dragonkin?
Werewolves and vampires both had 90, so dragonkin should also have 90, right?
At worst, it should be 80. That way, Little Black would still be far from max level.
The losses this time were considerable. Many puffshrooms still in gestation had turned to ash and smoke before even being born.
Replanting the mushroom forest would take about half a month.
Thank goodness Little Black hadn't spat on the sixth layer's mushroom forest, or Little Green would've gone mad seeing her tender shoots turned into black sticks.
The pack mule puffshrooms carefully cleaned up the debris in the disaster zone. When clearing the ruins, traces of breath that might remain in enclosed spaces could easily cause -10 HP to puffshrooms.
Hmm?
What's this?
In the center of the disaster zone, in a small pit, the pack mules discovered a small mass of black liquid.
This blob of black liquid continuously emitted corrosive fumes. When mycelial tendrils touched it, they were rapidly corroded away.
Judging by the size of this small pit, there had probably been more of this black liquid originally, but it had evaporated down to this amount.
This was obviously something Little Black had spewed out too.
He got a glass bottle and contained the black liquid.
Could this count as some kind of natural poison?
Lin Jun could understand the principle behind this liquid's appearance. The storage organ in Little Black's throat obviously wasn't some fourth-dimensional pocket—space was limited.
The breath should exist in liquid form inside, then convert to gaseous form for wide-area coverage when expelled.
This time, spewing too much in a short period probably meant not all the breath could be gasified before being expelled.
So this was essentially the "concentrate"?
Speaking of which... the Thousand-Pivot Mayflies seemed to have low corrosion resistance?
...
...
...
The Rift.
A specially modified experimental bat puffshroom flew down.
[Nightmare Incarnation LV3] + [Corrosion Resistance LV7] + [Spit Arrow LV5] + [Mycelial Reconstruction LV4] + [Magical Power Storage LV7] + [Precision LV6]
The black liquid in its bottle was carried down by the puffshroom.
Nearly at the destination, the bat puffshroom absorbed the black liquid into a nozzle grown through its skills.
Level 7 [Corrosion Resistance] couldn't completely negate the black liquid's damage.
Fortunately, relying on [Mycelial Reconstruction] enhanced by [Magical Power Storage], it barely extended the time before being poisoned to death, allowing the bat puffshroom to successfully reach its destination—the Thousand-Pivot Mayflies' habitat.
Upon meeting, the Thousand-Pivot Mayflies swarmed over, and the puffshroom immediately fired a spit arrow, shooting out the poison.
Unlike the mushroom cannon, spit arrows had almost no recoil. Under [Precision]'s enhancement, it successfully hit a level 31 Thousand-Pivot Mayfly.
Accompanied by a piercing shriek, this Thousand-Pivot Mayfly writhed in agony and fell.
Instant kill! Super effective!
No longer paying attention to this specialized puffshroom that was pierced and carried off by other charging Thousand-Pivot Mayflies.
Lin Jun now felt that Little Black had suddenly become much more adorable. As the saying goes, "you are what you eat"—would eating more acid puffshrooms speed up breath replenishment?
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