Purple Crystal Underground City, Fifth Floor - Swamp Area
Mud mixed with blood seeped through his fingers into the swamp as Dylan pressed his back against the slippery rock wall, the penetrating wound in his abdomen making every step an ordeal.
He had failed—failed right from the very beginning.
He hadn't managed to control that isolated parasitic tree with sleep powder before being discovered.
Now not only was he severely wounded, but his weapon had been knocked away, and the other parasitic trees in the distance had received the signal and were closing in.
"Bella..."
Whispering his daughter's name, Dylan's eyes burned with the desire to survive—he couldn't die now.
Bella was his only flesh and blood with his late wife—intelligent, sensible, and quite talented.
Despite her young age, she already possessed Silver-rank strength and would surely become someone far more capable than her worthless father.
She still had a bright future ahead of her. She shouldn't die now, and certainly shouldn't become something as hideous as a blood vampire, living in agony.
So he couldn't die yet. He still had four packets of sleep powder. He still had a chance, as long as he could escape the swamp...
"Dead end..."
At some point, a stone wall had blocked the path ahead.
Dylan tried to retreat, but five parasitic trees had already surrounded his escape route from a distance, their pale roots writhing restlessly, waiting to capture him.
If his body were intact, he might still try to charge through before the parasitic trees closed in, but now, with his severe abdominal wound, it was impossible.
He grabbed onto climbing vines hanging from the stone wall, trying to scale it, but the vines were completely torn away, revealing a stone door that had been concealed behind them.
"Hah... *cough cough*... haha... a hidden room..."
In all these years, this was his first time stumbling upon a hidden room. Under normal circumstances, he would have been ecstatic, as they usually contained valuable items.
But now...
The parasitic trees were already less than twenty meters behind him. Dylan couldn't afford to worry about anything else and fumbled around until he found a protruding mechanism and pressed it in.
Now he could only pray that inside there would be some legendary divine artifact to help him turn misfortune into fortune.
Accompanied by continuously falling gray-green dust, the heavy stone door swung inward.
*Bang bang bang—*
Several magical cannon shots fired from the shadows, striking a parasitic tree that had already extended its roots toward Dylan, severing it at the waist.
Glowing mushroom caps lit up one by one in the darkness, and rows of round, peculiar slimes appeared before Dylan's eyes.
*I have been imprisoned for ten thousand years,*
*And now you dare to intrude upon my domain,*
*This is truly— Holy crap! What kind of tree-person looks this disgusting!*
---
Life in the treasure chest room was worry-free when it came to food and drink, but it was truly... quite boring...
It wasn't even as good as the mushroom garden, where he could at least fight monsters every day.
The days here were so dull that Lin Jun had eaten all the glowgrass in the room, gaining a luminescence skill that consumed almost no magical power.
Of course, his level progression was quite fast here.
With a whole pool of high-concentration magical power, by the time Lin Jun had absorbed most of it, his level had jumped straight to LV47.
He then took out that one-tenth fragment of the Lava Heart he had scavenged.
Worthy of being a flame demon's core body—even after shattering, it still radiated astonishing heat.
If Lin Jun's high-temperature resistance hadn't already reached LV7, his mycelium probably wouldn't have been able to attach to it.
After decomposing the Lava Heart, Lin Jun gained another level and plundered a new skill: [Self-Destruct LV3]
Now he wouldn't need to use magic crystals when playing with self-destructing slimes...
It was fortunate that the flame demon had died suddenly. If it had retained even a trace of health and had the chance to use self-destruct, while Lin Jun's position might have been uncertain, the three adventurers nearby would definitely have been doomed.
The current problem was: how to get out?
He had already produced another 40 slimes.
Due to limited space, he couldn't go for quantity, so he chose to improve quality instead—each slime was equipped with five to seven skills.
He had already tried collective bombardment on the stone door, but surprisingly couldn't break it.
The treasure chest room must have special reinforcement measures; otherwise, wouldn't blasting through a stone with this firepower be easy?
As for using self-destruct to blast the door, Lin Jun didn't dare try it, fearing the power would be too great in such a confined space and end up destroying himself...
After being confined for an unknown period, something interesting happened—the treasure chest refreshed!
After a wave of magical fluctuation, the stone slab lid actually returned to its original position. When opened, a ring emerged from inside.
Unfortunately, it was an offensive magic ring that didn't add attributes and could only cast Ice Spike three times per day.
Its power was about on par with mushroom cannons—completely useless to Lin Jun.
In the following days, Lin Jun could only eagerly wait for the treasure chest to refresh again, hoping it might produce something to help him escape.
It would be great if it could refresh something classic like a teleportation scroll.
However, before Lin Jun could wait for the treasure chest's second refresh, someone opened the stone door from outside...
---
Light from outside streamed in, illuminating Lin Jun's main body by the pool's edge.
This—this was the scent of freedom!
But the next second, the slimes formed an impenetrable barrier blocking the doorway and the light, preventing any possible attacks from harming the main body.
After the fully repaired strongest slime carefully hid the main body within its shell, Lin Jun finally had the leisure to observe the situation outside.
A severely wounded adventurer lay by the stone door, not daring to move.
So this person had released him? Not bad at all.
Further outside were several trees... people... what disgusting monsters.
Opening the status panel and seeing the [Fusion Parasitism] skill listed there, Lin Jun finally understood what these things were.
He immediately unleashed covering fire. Several parasitic trees tried to counterattack using their skills, with one even casting Fireball.
But before Lin Jun's firepower, it was all futile. The Fireball hadn't even finished forming before being scattered, instead burning the caster itself.
After easily eliminating several parasitic trees, only this weak adventurer remained.
Don't misunderstand—Lin Jun wasn't trying to silence witnesses.
In fact, as long as his main body's existence wasn't exposed, he didn't mind news like "strange slimes appeared in the labyrinth" getting out.
This person had released Lin Jun, and Lin Jun had saved his life in return—they were even.
The problem was that in his current state, the man looked like he was about to die, with his health steadily and slowly declining on the status panel.
Leaving him to die naturally didn't align with Lin Jun's principles as a mushroom—at the very least, he should try his best to save him.
The current difficulty was that Lin Jun didn't know any healing skills...
Slimes were consumables—when broken, just discard them. If repairs were really needed, patching them up with mycelium would suffice. But surely people couldn't be patched up with mycelium too...
Should he call for other adventurers to help?
Setting aside that he didn't know where this was, even if he found other adventurers, they'd probably start fighting first.
Lin Jun recalled the description of [Fusion Parasitism] he'd just seen, and looking at the several parasitic trees still soaking in the swamp, it seemed this was his only option.
The slimes dragged both the unconscious Dylan and the parasitic tree remains into the treasure chest room.
Lin Jun controlled his mycelium to accelerate the decomposition of the parasitic trees.
This was quite wasteful—the magical power consumed for acceleration far exceeded what was gained from decomposition.
But Lin Jun obtained what he wanted.
[Greed of the Seven Sins Activated]
[Skill Plundered: Fusion Parasitism LV1]
The main body personally scattered spores over Dylan's fatal abdominal wound, and the mycelium gradually fused with flesh and blood under magical enhancement, plugging the wound.
It even replenished Dylan's life force to some extent.
So in the end, he really was patching up a person with mycelium...
Sensing this existence that was neither human nor mushroom appearing in his mycelial network, Lin Jun felt somewhat strange.
Had the purity of his organization somehow decreased?
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