Watching Little Blue, now human-shaped and drying out, carried away by Puffshrooms from the secret room, Lin Jun turned to Pink Puffshroom. “Dying… why?”
She looked healthy!
If anything, maybe too comfy lately, a bit rounder? But far from “fat-dead”!
“I might… die from nightmares.” Inanna’s voice trembled with fear and tears.
“That’s a thing?!”
But on second thought, maybe it was!
Lin Jun hadn’t tried, but relentless [Mind Guidance LV5] could torment someone’s mind, possibly driving them mad or dead in dreams.
He hadn’t tested it—same person’s dreams got boring fast, and he lacked patience to “clear” them.
Inanna spilled everything: her nightmares, her mother’s similar death, her fears and guesses.
From her mother’s tale, Lin Jun’s first thought: the butler did it, with Dreambloom as a hallucinogenic spore-like medium!
But Inanna’s case didn’t fit. The intruder’s method seemed different, not needing a physical medium.
Otherwise, sneaking into her bedroom would’ve been caught by Knight Puffshroom No. 3, even if Lin Jun missed it.
Checking Pink Puffshroom’s panel, he found a new status: [Strange Dream].
This wasn’t Inanna’s paranoia—something was real.
He told her about “Strange Dream,” but she knew nothing of it.
Her bad vibe confirmed, Inanna saw herself dying young like her mother, maybe sooner.
“Boss… can I be saved? If I must die… I want to die on the Mycelial Network…”
“Even by your mother’s case, death’s not that quick! I’ll have Edin dig into ‘Strange Dream.’ Tonight, I’ll check your dream myself.”
Inanna blinked. “Check… my dream? What’s that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“You can enter dreams?”
“Yup.”
“Have you… been in mine before?” Her voice shook, visibly rattled.
“Nope.”
Honestly, Inanna’s dreams were bottom-tier boring to Lin Jun—tea parties or Puffshroom raves, no plot twists, dead last on his “dream fun ranking.”
He calmed Pink Puffshroom, scrapping his plan for a “battle royale” in Norris’s dream to focus on her tonight.
Night fell. Inanna drifted to sleep, uneasy.
Her mansion was under tight Mycelial Network and Knight Puffshroom watch—no physical intruders slipped through.
The issue had to be the dream itself.
[Mind Guidance LV5]
Via the Network, Lin Jun sank into Pink Puffshroom’s dream.
By a gnarled old tree, a gray-blue mushroom sprouted silently.
First, scout the scene.
Sunlight dappled through leaves, the forest calm, a stream gurgling. Inanna picnicked by the river with Puffshrooms.
Another plotless, chill dream. So boring.
Some Puffshrooms frolicked in the woods, others splashed in the stream. Inanna crouched, grilling fish.
Lin Jun noticed no Mycelial Network here. How’d she split the fish with Puffshrooms?
Free of her pre-sleep fear, Inanna couldn’t fully carry real memories into dreams, lost in this peace.
While she wasn’t looking, the gray-blue mushroom swelled into a Puffshroom with a blue cap, blending naturally with the group.
The dream stayed calm—nightmare hadn’t started. Lin Jun arrived early, perfect for prep.
He scattered spores, the Mycelial Network spreading at unreal speed, silently claiming dream “turf.”
Then, arms hugged the blue Puffshroom from behind.
“A new cutie? Never seen you!” Inanna mumbled, stroking the blue cap.
What?!
Over forty Puffshrooms, plenty with blue caps—how’d she know?
Wriggling free, Lin Jun kept working. He had setup to do.
Luckily, as dream master, Inanna didn’t press, returning to her fish.
After a long wait, when Lin Jun thought he’d wasted his time, a harsh wolf howl tore through the calm from afar.
More howls followed, growing closer.
Then, Lin Jun sensed it—a foreign mental force invading the dream’s edge!
Beyond the forest, a blank area morphed into a twisted, grim forest. Fierce-eyed wolves poured out, charging the peaceful picnic!
Hearing the howls, Inanna frantically gathered Puffshrooms to flee but was cornered at a narrow cave entrance.
Puffshrooms blocked the cave, fighting the wolves. Inanna, anxious, tossed spells from behind.
Lin Jun, perched on a treetop, saw it all.
Her fighting Puffshrooms weren’t his—they were her mental defenses taking form.
Why Puffshrooms? Just her preference projected.
In normal dreams, defenses might be friends or guards.
Form and numbers didn’t matter—mental defense strength did.
Right now, wolves seemed to outnumber, Inanna in danger.
But the cave fight was a stalemate, showing the intruder hadn’t overwhelmed her yet.
Lin Jun knew this setup: dream invasion was a timed siege. The intruder’s power grew over time.
Even if they didn’t win now, draining her mind made the next attack easier.
What caught Lin Jun’s eye was the twisted forest appearing from nothing. What was it?
His [Mind Guidance] could tweak dream scenes but not create whole new maps like this, confirming the intruder’s method wasn’t [Mind Guidance].
Enough watching—time to step in.
On the dream’s Mycelial Network, Puffshrooms sprouted one by one.
(End of Chapter)
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