The mushroom garden was flanked by rock walls on both sides. These walls looked like skeletal remains gnawed by some ancient beast, their dark gray surfaces riddled with honeycomb-like erosion holes.
In certain depressions, dark purple crystal clusters had formed, scattered sparsely across the entire rock face. Around these amethyst formations, the magical power concentration was always somewhat higher than other areas.
What they called the mining zone was specifically for harvesting these purple crystals.
While inserting these purple crystals into the soil wouldn't directly transform them into nutrients, they could attract the free-floating magical power in the surrounding air, improving the efficiency of the mycelium's magic absorption.
The mining area was filled with many Puffers equipped with the Chitin Shell skill. They generated a thick layer of carapace on their mushroom caps, then used it to chip away at the crystals embedded in the rock walls.
Honestly, with only a Level 4 skill, the shell's hardness was insufficient, making the mining efficiency quite low. The Puffers often ended up killing themselves from the vibrations, but given the limited conditions, being able to extract anything at all was already pretty good.
Inanna had her eyes fixed on a fist-sized purple crystal that had been mined out, desperately trying to grip it with her stubby little legs.
"What are you doing?"
"Lin... Lin Jun?"
The pink Puffer trembled violently and tripped over the purple crystal beneath her feet.
"Don't suddenly speak in my head like that..."
"Do we have any other way to communicate? You'd better get used to it early."
Come to think of it, Inanna realized he was right, but she still felt like she'd never adapt to having someone able to talk in her head anytime, anywhere...
"You have so many magic crystals here." Gripping the purple crystal again, Inanna couldn't hide her excitement.
"Magic crystals? You mean these purple crystals we use for fertilizing the fields?"
"Fer... fertilizing?"
A blue-capped Puffer hopped out and used its stubby legs to lift the cap of a large mushroom nearby, revealing half of a purple crystal embedded in the soil beneath.
"You... you... you're actually using magic crystals to fertilize fields?"
"What else would we do with them?"
"These are magic crystals! They can be used to craft magical items, serve as formation bases, and even the small fragments can be used as spellcasting materials! How can you use them for fertilizing?"
Inanna looked utterly heartbroken, as if Lin Jun was committing some terrible waste of precious resources.
"You forgot this is a dungeon, didn't you? Though they do have other uses besides fertilizing."
A tendril woven from mycelium extended from beneath the mushroom, activating the skill [Entangle LV3]. It wrapped around a palm-sized purple crystal and bound both the Puffer and the magic crystal together.
Immediately, magical power began flowing endlessly into the magic crystal. The crystal transformed from dull to lustrous, then from lustrous to flickering. The excessive magical energy within put the entire crystal in an overloaded state.
When cracks began appearing on the crystal and it started emitting stressed whimpering sounds, the Puffer bounded wildly to an empty area while carrying the crystal.
*BANG—*
It exploded.
The explosion's shockwave knocked Inanna over again.
"Pretty powerful, right? This thing works great against magic beasts."
Lying on the ground, Inanna no longer knew what to say.
A C-grade quality magic crystal that could serve as the main material for a Silver-rank adventurer's staff with just a bit of processing had just been used as a disposable item before her very eyes, releasing an explosion equivalent to a Level 4 Flame Burst spell.
Even the most ignorant nouveau riche in the Federation wouldn't waste such precious magical materials like this!
You have to understand—even her own personal magic staff only had a B-grade quality magic crystal embedded in it.
"By the way, you still haven't said what you want the magic crystal for."
The sudden return to the main topic caught Inanna off-guard while she was still mentally cursing Lin Jun as a spendthrift, and she blurted out her purpose directly:
"Want... want to use it for spellcasting."
After saying this, Inanna became nervous again, because she wasn't sure if Lin Jun would view her ability to cast spells as a threat. If Lin Jun considered her dangerous, her little life might be...
"Oh? Didn't you say you couldn't cast spells after becoming a Puffer?"
Lin Jun seemed completely unconcerned about any threat, his words filled with nothing but curiosity.
Secretly relieved, Inanna quickly explained: "Just trying it out. Casting through a magic crystal might bypass the limitations of the Puffer body."
"Then give it a try."
Another tendril extended from beneath the mushroom, wrapping around the magic crystal beside Inanna and bringing it toward her.
Faced with the suddenly approaching tendril, Inanna instinctively backed away two steps, but was still caught by it.
After the tendril wound around her twice, it bound the magic crystal to the top of her mushroom cap.
"Be careful, these tendrils are quite fragile—don't break them."
After all, it was a stolen skill being forcibly used through mycelium; he couldn't expect it to really hold tight.
Hearing this warning, Inanna didn't dare move carelessly and focused her energy on spellcasting—Light spell, a cantrip that even apprentices could easily cast.
An orange-yellow orb of light appeared above Inanna's head, flickering unsteadily as if the magical power maintaining it was very unstable.
After flickering for a while, Inanna seemed to find the trick, and the brightness finally stabilized.
"It worked! It really works!"
Inanna was so excited that she actually started bouncing in place on her stubby legs.
*Snap—*
The bound tendril instantly broke, the magic crystal fell to the ground, and the Light spell extinguished along with it—the mycelium tendrils were truly very fragile.
"Sorry... sorry..."
Lin Jun didn't care at all about the consumed mycelium. His entire attention was focused on Inanna's spellcasting.
"Try casting it again now."
"I can't cast it without the magic crystal."
"It's fine if you fail, just cast it. I want to see what's different."
See?
Inanna didn't quite understand what Lin Jun meant, but she still tried to cast the Light spell on her own.
Then, unsurprisingly, she failed, just like the countless times she'd tried before.
However, Lin Jun, who had been observing her the entire time, saw much more.
[Magic Perception LV4]
This was taken from a type of magic vine called Noctis Whiskers that originally lived in this area of the mushroom garden. They relied on magic perception to find prey, then strangled them with their vines. Worth mentioning, the Entangle skill also came from them.
Although these magic plants were quite high level, since they couldn't move, they were no different from sitting ducks in Lin Jun's eyes. Now they were extinct in this area.
Lin Jun felt a bit regretful about this. Both of Noctis Whiskers' skills were quite practical, but at the time he was single-mindedly focused on securing territory and didn't think far ahead. Otherwise, he should have kept some to plant, and like the armored beetles and slimes in the breeding area, raised them for periodic harvesting to extract skill proficiency.
In his magical vision, Lin Jun observed that while Inanna's magical power flow was indeed smooth during the initial stages of spellcasting, the energy circulation stagnated at every node, never able to form a complete loop—as if her method of spellcasting was wrong.
Inanna had just successfully cast the Light spell using the magic crystal moments ago, so naturally it couldn't be that her spellcasting method was wrong.
In Lin Jun's view, this was more likely due to the different body structures between humans and Puffers—simply put, it was a hardware and system mismatch that prevented proper operation.
The magic crystal served as an independent environment that could better match these magical operation methods.
It felt somewhat similar to how he had to modify the Puffers before they could use corresponding skills.
"Can you use other magic now?"
Lin Jun knew she was a dual-element Level 4 mage, and he also wanted to see more spells.
"Um, I'm afraid I need more practice. I'm still not very familiar with outputting magical power through a Puffer body, and this magic crystal hasn't been polished—the turbid areas inside also interfere with spellcasting. I need to get used to it."
"Turbid? The purer the magic crystal, the better?"
Lin Jun really had no concept of this. He only knew that inserting them in soil could gather magic, and when some had different effects, he thought it was a size issue. As for using them for self-destruction... purity didn't seem to matter.
"Of course! It's said that Archmage Zolya's staff has a completely pure S-grade magic crystal embedded in it, and any spell cast through that staff becomes three times more powerful!"
"S-grade? They're actually graded by levels... wait a moment."
Shortly after, to Inanna's confusion, two Puffers came before her, working together to carry a large, crystal-clear magic crystal.
"A... A-grade magic crystal? And it's arm-sized!?"
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