Ming

The newborn Mycodescendant was named "Ming" by Lin Jun.

He had approximately half a month of infancy, after which he would enter adolescent form and grow into a full adult within a year.

At this moment, he was enjoying his carefree childhood.

"Ming, go! Take it down!"

In a pit deliberately dug out, a LV12 Armored Beetle was grappling with Ming.

The Armored Beetle suddenly curled into a hard sphere, rolling at high speed along the pit wall, then slammed hard into Ming, smashing him heavily into the earthen wall.

However, Ming quickly climbed back up and pounced forward again, only to be pressed down to the ground by the beetle's size advantage, unable to move.

Yet neither the insect's legs nor horns could harm this small Mycodescendant with little strength.

"Ming, don't struggle blindly! Break its leg! Right, that leg!" At the edge of the deep pit, Marshal Puffshroom stood above, constantly giving remote commands.

Getting the hint, Ming stopped flailing wildly. He grabbed a struggling insect leg with both hands and wrenched it back and forth with force.

Half a minute later, accompanied by a teeth-grinding "crack," the first insect leg was finally torn off by him.

He repeated the process. A few minutes later, the Armored Beetle's last leg was also removed. Though it still lived, the victor was decided.

[Level Up: LV4 → LV5]

A Puffshroom extended its mycelial tendril and pulled the small Mycodescendant up from the bottom of the pit.

"Boss!" Ming gasped for breath, lifting his small face and looking up at Marshal Puffshroom with anticipation.

Lin Jun naturally knew what this little guy was expecting.

The tendril wrapped around Ming's head, rubbing vigorously: "Well done! Well done! Extra meal tonight—delicious mushroom stewed oyster!"

Before the words finished, the fungal tendril grabbed Ming's ankle, swinging him like a handy weapon into a whirring "humanoid windmill," then suddenly smashed him toward a giant oyster that had been prepared nearby!

Since the dungeon's seventh layer transformed into a shallow water zone, this type of oyster had become one of the few surviving shellfish monsters.

Lin Jun now regularly harvested a batch while feeding them some mushrooms to maintain their population—essentially semi-domesticating them.

Accompanied by a crisp cracking sound, the hard oyster shell shattered!

Ming, his face covered in shell fragments, didn't care at all as he climbed up.

Just having been praised, he cheerfully dug out the plump oyster meat from the cracked shell.

Whether he ate oyster or not didn't matter to him—he loved being praised by the boss!

Digging Puffshroom quickly prepared the mushroom stewed oyster, paired with a cup of mushroom juice—that was Ming's dinner.

Ming held the steaming Digging Puffshroom and sat down next to Marshal Puffshroom.

Born already fused with fungal strands, Ming had a natural affinity for Puffshrooms.

In fact, he felt quite close to everyone.

The folks around him, whether Mycodescendants or captives, all had fungal strands on them—Puffshrooms just made him feel a bit closer.

Even that green uncle who stayed on the pole all day shouting loudly—in his eyes, he was just a bit noisy, not unlikeable.

Actually, by convention, infant Ming should have been kept under strict protection, but Ming possessed [Physical Immunity], an absurdly powerful innate trait, so there was no need to be so cautious.

Regrettably, this powerful [Physical Immunity] trait was something Lin Jun himself couldn't obtain.

[Greed] couldn't extract skills that Lin Jun himself had bestowed.

Ming's [Physical Immunity] relied on Lin Jun first granting [Physical Resistance LV10], then through the "Cradle's" rebirth ritual, seizing and fusing it with another [Physical Resistance LV10] from the sacrifice Galen's body, ultimately producing this result.

Similarly, because this was a special skill created through the "Cradle's" rebirth ritual, each Mycodescendant only had the opportunity to obtain it at birth.

This meant that in the future, if suitable sacrifices were found, Lin Jun might still be able to cultivate Mycodescendants with [Magic Immunity] or other amazing traits, but couldn't concentrate all these powerful skills on the same individual.

Somewhat regrettable.

Otherwise, a Puffshroom army with physical immunity... world domination would be just around the corner!

Actually, even such physically immune Mycodescendants couldn't be mass-produced. After all, where would you find so many individuals like Galen with maxed-out resistances to use as sacrifices?

Well, they weren't completely absent...

On that day at Crimson Spire's battlefield, he'd seen several, but unfortunately they were all wild and there was no chance to capture them.

So not all Mycodescendants could have Ming's uniquely advantageous position.

This time, Starfire presided over several consecutive rebirth rituals, successfully welcoming over a dozen new kinsmen.

However, these newborn Mycodescendants weren't all exceptionally gifted like Ming, born with levelless special skills.

What they obtained were mostly ordinary basic resistances like [Physical Resistance LV10], [Cold Resistance LV8], [Magic Resistance LV8].

Granting these blank-slate newborns basic skills didn't consume much of Lin Jun's magic power.

The real problem was that waiting for them to grow up and form considerable combat strength required quite a bit of time.

Except for the special Ming, all the newborn Mycodescendants were settled in the safe Mushroom Garden, carefully tended by Starfire.

Meanwhile, in the Far North, at the location of the former Demonkin tribe.

This place had first been transformed into a fortress, then completely destroyed in the self-destruction.

Now captives and Demonkin were undertaking major construction here together with Puffshrooms, building new settlements.

Currently, half-demons, lizardmen, and others still bearing captive status, crammed into bunkhouse-style wooden huts—this was still acceptable.

But if their free status were restored in the future, maintaining such crude living conditions would likely make it difficult to retain people's hearts.

Lin Jun had never advocated rule by terror. Improving living environment and quality naturally rose on the agenda.

The preliminary plan was to construct a city capable of housing about ten thousand people.

After all, the creep in the Far North was still continuously spreading, gradually extending to the periphery of other tribes.

Following his consistent strategy, Lin Jun planned to gradually infiltrate and assimilate these areas.

In the future, there would definitely be more people here, so naturally space needed to be allocated in advance.

Originally, Lin Jun had wanted to build an underground city.

Puffshrooms could exert maximum combat effectiveness in narrow, enclosed, structurally complex underground environments.

An underground city's defensive capability would be several times that of an ordinary city.

However, when the underground network was turned into an underground city, thorny problems came one after another.

Severe water seepage, unpredictable local collapses, headache-inducing poor ventilation...

Even when Lin Jun tried reinforcing supports, strengthening rock walls, and digging more ventilation shafts, it was useless.

A layman was ultimately a layman—wishful thinking couldn't accomplish civil engineering!

On the continent, seemingly only dwarves and ratmen had experience in this area, but unfortunately Lin Jun hadn't had much contact with either group yet.

He could only settle for second best and first build an ordinary settlement to make do.

(End of Chapter)