What was up with this ridiculous defense? Even if it was only LV2 with four layers stacked, it shouldn't have shattered from just a light scratch by Little Black, right? Pulling up Little Black's status panel, he couldn't see any awakened god-tier shield-breaking skills either.
So his [Sacred Barrier] was just for show?
What the hell!?
After pondering for a while, one word surfaced in Lin Jun's mind—"faith."
After all, skills with "sacred" in their name that he'd only seen on church warriors before... but faith was something...
He could only say thanks but no thanks.
Lin Jun had absolutely zero desire to get tangled up with gods.
Defensive skills weren't limited to just this one anyway. If he couldn't use it, then he couldn't use it.
Lin Jun decisively tossed it into his "useless skill trash pile" and didn't spare it another glance.
Using a small pearl, he coaxed the dejected Little Black back to the mushroom forest. The deep zone still wasn't suitable for her—he was genuinely worried she'd fall into a crevice one day.
After that, he called over Little Pig, announcing that her vacation was over.
He had her follow the fifteen-hundred-capacity puffshroom brigade and set out to reclaim lost territory first.
During the time Lin Jun had reassigned the puffshrooms, caverns four, seven, and eight had all been overrun by monsters.
Poor puffshrooms—they'd originally just been living carefree lives in their own caverns, peacefully gathering mana without bothering anyone.
Who would have thought those greedy, violent monsters would invade!
Now that he had his hands free, Lin Jun was going to make those monsters pay!
So Lin Jun gave Little Pig orders to kill without mercy.
Louisa thought for a moment: "Uh... so same as before then?"
"Yeah, same as before."
Louisa's blood reserves were running low and needed replenishing anyway, so she set out very willingly.
Of course, even if she wasn't willing, she'd still have to go.
Finally, there were these cave dwellers.
Looking at the issues Norris had compiled, who would have thought cave dwellers had so many problems?
Lin Jun couldn't care less about how these primitive beings fought over mates—he wasn't about to start playing matchmaker for cave dwellers!
Lin Jun wasn't Cupid!
But the casualties and destruction from their infighting were genuinely draining his "assets," and he couldn't just let it slide.
And their habit of "bullying" the puffshrooms also had to be corrected.
So how should he fix these deep-rooted, primitive, and annoying problems?
Reason with them?
Lin Jun doubted cave dwellers could even understand the concept of "reasoning."
Why overcomplicate things? To deal with primitive cave dwellers, just use primitive methods.
Anyone who infought, deliberately harmed puffshrooms, or damaged the mycelium facilities—sprout mushrooms on all of them!
Simple, direct, maximum impact.
He didn't even need to explain the new rules to them. Cave dwellers who'd learned their lesson would naturally break these bad habits.
Apart from these problems, the cave dwellers' training in commanding puffshrooms was progressing smoothly under Norris's guidance.
One cave dweller could generally control around ten to fifteen puffshrooms.
Lin Jun planned to group the cave dwellers in tens and try deploying them as guards in several caverns to see how effective they were.
This was an important job evaluation. Lin Jun sincerely hoped the cave dwellers could prove their... value of existence.
Three groups of cave dwellers were reluctantly driven out of the snail-wood to establish new settlements.
Lin Jun turned his attention back to Norris.
[Level: LV29]
Just one step away from the silver-tier threshold, plus all those skills—his actual combat power definitely wasn't low.
But in the deep zone, he really wasn't much to look at.
Remembering the equipment reward he'd promised Norris earlier.
Originally, he'd planned to outfit Norris with a full set of the church knight's plate armor they'd harvested—while that stuff didn't add attributes, its defensive power was undeniably solid. Even a direct hit from a [Mushroom Cannon] only left a shallow dent.
But now Lin Jun had abandoned that idea.
Look at the monsters they'd encountered this time!
Those claws that could tear through rock... ordinary full plate would probably only buy one or two more claw strikes at most.
And heavy plate armor would severely hamper Norris's speed and agility. When he couldn't dodge or escape, he'd just die faster.
Norris should probably go the agility route.
But lighter equipment, the leather armor adventurers liked to wear, probably had even less defensive power than Norris's silver scales. Completely unnecessary.
After much consideration, maybe he should focus on getting little Norris's skills maxed out first?
"Norris, how many times did you use sound wave detection earlier?"
Norris, who was desperately trying to repair his shattered relationship with the yellow book and hoping it would continue telling him stories, took a second to react before answering: "Can't remember exactly... maybe ten times?"
Ten times?
In less than a second, Lin Jun fired off ten [Sound Wave Detection] skills and assessed the feeling...
He felt nothing at all.
No discomfort whatsoever.
Was it an intelligence attribute issue or because of [Mental Integration LV7]?
Speaking of which, upgrading this skill let him control more puffshrooms. If he added it to Norris, could he achieve the same effect?
Could Norris alone command a three-thousand puffshroom army?
If that were really possible, he'd immediately go kidnap... no, recruit humans.
Those human civilians who'd been occasionally visiting the dungeon lately would be perfect. With tens of thousands of puffshrooms, even LV70s wouldn't be scary!
Fantasizing about this bright future, Lin Jun added [Mental Integration LV7] to this round's enhancement list.
[Claw Strike LV9] naturally had to be included too. While it was just a common skill, Norris already had [Claw Strike LV7], and upgrading existing skills consumed much less than adding new ones. Extremely cost-effective.
As for other skills...
[Corrosion Resistance LV8] + [Physical Resistance LV7] + [Magic Resistance LV6] + [Mimicry LV6]
*Sigh—*
He'd developed some attachment to little Norris. This final round of enhancements was entirely defensive turtle-shell skills.
At the beginning, he definitely would have stuffed "research materials" like [Sacred Barrier] in there.
Now though... with limited slots, he could only let later "lucky ones" explore the mysteries of divine arts.
[Mimicry] was one of Lin Jun's frequently used skills, mostly employed for mine-laying.
Level six mimicry wouldn't dispel from taking a bit of damage anymore.
Through testing on puffshrooms, the disguise now only disappeared after health dropped below half.
Pretty useful now. He'd upgrade old Dee when he got back too.
...
"I'm really sorry! Next time I absolutely, absolutely won't use you as a shield anymore, senior! I swear!" Norris wrung his claws together, repeatedly begging the yellow book's forgiveness.
[You said the same thing last time!]
[And what happened?]
[At the crucial moment, didn't you still shove defenseless me out front?]
[Norris, we're finished. No more stories ever again!]
"It really won't happen again..." Norris pressed his hands together, promising.
Unfortunately, the yellow book wasn't buying it at all, radiating an icy aura that screamed "don't touch me."
Just as the man and book were locked in this standoff, several round puffshrooms quietly surrounded them.
Wisps of pale purple mist carrying a sickeningly sweet fragrance began permeating the area.
"Hm?" Norris's nose suddenly twitched twice, his pupils contracting sharply!
He looked up alertly, scanning the seemingly "harmless" puffshrooms around him.
"B-Boss?" Norris's voice carried a barely perceptible tremor as he forced a stiff smile. "What's... what's this about now?"
This kid actually caught on!
Lin Jun didn't answer, but those puffshrooms that had been "quietly releasing gas" suddenly dropped the act. Contracting and expanding, they sprayed massive amounts of hallucinogenic spores that completely enveloped Norris!
Wanting to run but not daring to, Norris completely lost consciousness in his hesitation...
As for the yellow book, it would have to get cozy with the suicide puffshrooms' rear ends for a while.
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