Recently, adventurers in Dumbwind Town discovered that monster activity on the fifth floor of the Amethyst Dungeon had drastically decreased.
The gnoll tribes had retreated deep into the forest and no longer ventured out to hunt. The Poison Mist Lake showed no trace of the blue-eyed frogs, and even the corrosive slimes that normally wandered everywhere had significantly diminished in number.
Only the crystallized bat swarms and rock lizard clans in the western caverns maintained their usual patterns.
Speculation about the source of this anomaly varied wildly among the adventurers.
Some claimed that during a certain quest, they had detected violent magical fluctuations from afar in the swamp area—surely the parasitic trees had gone berserk and frightened all the surrounding monsters.
Others theorized it was a harbinger of an approaching mana tide, though the Adventurer's Guild was the authority on such matters. Since the guild hadn't issued any mana tide warnings, few gave credence to this theory.
The most ridiculous claim came from that drunkard Nick, who swore on his life that he had personally witnessed a group of Puffshrooms systematically slaughtering entire pools of blue-eyed frogs.
This assertion drew hearty laughter from everyone who heard it, convinced that Nick must have been thoroughly intoxicated even while in the dungeon, unable to distinguish reality from his own drunken hallucinations.
After all, everyone knew that Puffshrooms were at the bottom of the food chain even on the first floor—how could they possibly massacre fifth-floor blue-eyed frogs?
Compared to Nick's tale, even the mana tide theory seemed considerably more plausible.
————
Meanwhile, the lone gnoll assassin killer, the near-exterminator of blue-eyed frogs, and the true culprit behind the fifth floor's transformation—Lin Jun—had once again launched a territorial war against the parasitic trees.
His recent strategic defensive withdrawal had allowed the parasitic trees to reclaim most of the swamp territory.
However, the parasitic trees' numbers wouldn't increase in the short term; instead, they had become more scattered across their expanded domain.
Lin Jun, on the other hand, had accumulated vast amounts of mana through his hunting sprees and cultivated over a hundred new Puffshrooms.
Now, the time for counterattack had arrived!
With over two hundred Puffshrooms at his command, the outlying parasitic trees were instantly annihilated upon contact, easily pushing the battle line back to the previous engagement zone.
Just as before, the parasitic trees deployed their magical-martial twin threats.
Two filthy water elementals appeared once more.
Lin Jun quickly dispatched forty Puffshrooms in successive waves, temporarily suppressing the water elementals.
On the other flank, a blade storm spun toward the Puffshroom formation—if it broke through, Lin Jun would suffer devastating losses.
However, Lin Jun wouldn't fall into the same trap twice.
The Puffshrooms all turned and compressed downward, squashing their bodies into compact masses in mere moments, then—
They bounced up!
[Assault Bounce LV4]
Thanks to the mobility skill contributed by the frogs, the Puffshrooms scattered in all directions. Only one unlucky creature, caught mid-leap closest to the blade storm, was sliced into pieces.
But that wasn't the end. The suicide-bombing Puffshrooms that had been prepared in advance rolled out from the formation, detonating one after another before the parasitic tree.
Although each Puffshroom was blocked by the spinning roots at the outer perimeter, unable to reach the trunk for maximum explosive impact, even so, after twenty consecutive detonations, the parasitic tree's life force was nearly depleted.
In reality, such damage would be completely insufficient to kill a Level 45 warrior-class adventurer, but this parasitic tree's main body was merely Level 24—it couldn't withstand such a sustained bombardment.
Now only the summoner parasitic tree remained.
Masses of Puffshrooms bypassed the suppressed water elementals and surged toward the remaining parasitic trees behind.
When another unremarkable parasitic tree was blasted in half at its trunk, the two water elementals immediately collapsed, dissolving into the swamp and vanishing without a trace.
With the two most troublesome parasitic trees fallen, what followed was merely tedious cleanup.
The Puffshrooms continued to suffer sporadic casualties from occasional bizarre abilities, but this no longer affected the overall situation.
The parasitic trees that struck terror into the hearts of lower-tier adventurers posed little threat to Lin Jun.
Human adventurers had to detour around parasitic trees because they faced an endless stream of them in small party formations—naturally, their chances of victory were slim.
Lin Jun's situation was entirely different. He was waging war, commanding a unified army of Puffshrooms who feared no sacrifice against scattered monsters fighting individually.
Even if these parasitic trees had varied tricks up their sleeves, as long as no overwhelmingly powerful force appeared, everything else could be categorized as mere flashy gimmicks.
Now Lin Jun devoted only a fraction of his attention to commanding the battle, while most of his thoughts had already turned to planning his new mushroom garden.
Unlike the enclosed terrain of the deep-level mushroom garden, the swamp area was located at the very center of the entire fifth floor.
It was only because the terrain here was difficult to traverse and harbored terrifying monsters like parasitic trees that adventurers chose to take detours.
Once the parasitic trees were cleared and the danger reduced, some people might well choose to pass through here. Lin Jun had no intention of letting his base become a highway for adventurers.
Whether through force or some form of communication, he needed to find a way to make them understand they should continue taking detours.
Moreover, Lin Jun's new mushroom garden wouldn't be limited to just the swamp area—in fact, the swamp was merely the core of his plans. Eventually, the entire fifth floor would fall under his mushroom garden's domain.
The Poison Mist Lake area could serve as a breeding ground, though he hadn't yet decided what to raise there. The options were quite numerous.
The caverns were originally mining tunnels, currently under adventurer exploitation—that area had the highest human population density on this floor, which was why Lin Jun had avoided hunting there recently.
The mines still produced the dungeon's specialty—purple magic crystals.
However, their average quality was clearly far inferior to those from the deeper levels. Lin Jun had secretly investigated and found that even C-grade crystals were considered rare there.
But ultimately, it was a mine in his own backyard, and he needed to find an opportunity to claim mushroom ownership over it.
Deploying force to occupy it would be simple enough, but he didn't want to display strong hostility toward humans.
This wasn't due to any sense of human identity, but rather a more pragmatic consideration—when one's strength was insufficient, it was better to appear benevolent.
Don't be fooled by his current apparent dominance on this floor, capable of obliterating ordinary adventurers with a snap of his fingers. Compared to humanity as a collective, he was still far too weak.
Since future interactions were inevitable, it was better to start on a positive note. If they could reach agreements, even tacit understandings, that would be beneficial.
The only major problem was that his Human Common Language was still only Level 1, making direct communication impossible.
He could hardly go about massacring adventurers en masse, level his Human Common Language to Level 10, then approach them saying: "Now let us coexist peacefully."
This issue was paramount and required careful planning.
As for the gnolls in the forest...
Well, he just happened to have that parasitic fusion ability that he hadn't had time to study thoroughly. They'd make perfect test subjects.
Everything was for making the mushroom garden great again!
————
Dark clouds churned overhead as torrential rain turned the roads into muddy quagmires. Each hoofbeat splashed up filthy mire.
In such treacherous weather, horses could easily slip and fall.
Even so, the rider showed no intention of stopping, gripping the reins with one hand while protectively clutching a bundle against his chest, galloping forward at full speed.
Howling wind drove the raindrops in fierce gusts, tearing away his hood and revealing Dylan's grotesque half-face, crawling with fungal threads.
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