Puchi Dungeon, deep zone. Lin Jun's lair—a swamp cavern overgrown with glowing mushroom trees.
Countless luminescent mushroom trees grew from murky pools, illuminating the entire space like a dreamscape.
Airborne spore particles drifted visibly, shrouding the whole cavern in haze.
At first glance, this spore-filled cavern was eerily quiet. No wild monsters. No sign of Lin Jun's forces. Only a few ordinary Puchi wandered aimlessly through the mushroom forest.
Yet beneath the surface? Killing intent everywhere.
This seemingly lifeless cavern concealed a full thousand meticulously placed Puchi guards!
Cannon Puchi fused with rock walls using rock eater hung inverted from ceiling and walls. Mine Puchi disguised as ordinary mushrooms through mimicry dotted every surface. Inside thick mushroom tree trunks lurked massive heavy-armor Puchi. And beneath the murky swamp, two S-grade magic crystal knight Puchi lay hidden, their presence sealed with feign death.
Why such heavy defenses in the safe rear? Because this world full of incredible skills and magic was simply too dangerous. Never mind the wild rumors—Lin Jun vividly remembered what he'd witnessed firsthand. During the northern battle, two demonspawn had teleported away right before his eyes using abyss magic.
He didn't know if it had worked—after all, he knew well how unreliable abyss magic was. But that didn't stop him from preparing for the worst.
With this cavern's defensive setup, even if a duke-level powerhouse like Sigmund suddenly teleported in, as long as they didn't appear directly in front of Lin Jun's main body, this defensive system would at least buy him ample response time.
When that moment came, whether swiftly relocating with his main body or using clone to swap his main body with a distant Puchi, leaving only a decoy behind—he had plenty of ways to handle it.
Besides, this cavern was right next to the dungeon core. If the attacker failed to immediately identify Lin Jun's clone, Lin Jun could try using the clone to lure them to the core area, then activate those two golems.
Of course, if things ever reached the point of needing that move, it would mean his main body's intel had leaked and the situation was already quite dire.
For Lin Jun, these carefully laid defenses were best never used.
Below the swamp, mycelium formed a pocket space where Lin Jun's main body resided.
Lin Jun liked swamp environments but disliked actually having filthy things touch him directly, so he usually carved out a separate space within the swamp to live.
At this moment, Lin Jun's eternally motionless main body actually twisted.
Finally!
Finally, he'd obtained a no-grade skill that truly belonged to him!
Ming's physical immunity didn't count—that skill wasn't on Lin Jun.
And Ming, despite having such a super talent, had simply been born too late.
Even with mornings spent learning various subjects from Dome, afternoons thrown into brutal octagon cage melees, plus taking Riel's potential-stimulating potions—
Under such intense exploitation, he'd barely reached bottom-tier adventurer level. Who knew when he'd actually be useful.
But life source was genuinely, meaningfully a no-grade skill belonging to Lin Jun himself. It would surely prove useful in the coming battles!
Back then, watching his Puchi army reduced to ash under sword extremity had carved the power of no-grade skills deep into Lin Jun's mind.
He'd even dreamed that one day the Sword Saint would drop dead, letting Lin Jun disassemble him and obtain that super skill.
Who'd have thought—he missed out on sword extremity but unexpectedly got this one instead!
Hard not to get excited.
Of course, he still needed to figure out exactly what this skill did.
Judging by the name alone, it seemed to boost vitality somehow. He guessed it might be something like super-speed regeneration?
But after carefully sensing it, Lin Jun felt something was off.
Ever since plundering this skill, his main body had been feeling increasingly... moist.
What the hell? The skill wasn't called "juicy"...
He spawned a Puchi and loaded the skill onto it.
On the panel, the Puchi successfully equipped life source, while on Lin Jun's own panel, life source didn't disappear like clone had, but grayed out instead.
Skill graying out? First time seeing that, though it made sense.
He tried loading it onto a second Puchi. As expected, it failed.
He killed the first Puchi. Before Lin Jun could devour it with gluttony, life source on his panel had already lit back up.
So while he couldn't share this no-grade skill with all Puchi, at least he wouldn't permanently lose it from being unable to recover a body.
What if... he gave the skill to someone else?
Probably the same—when they died, the skill would return.
Now for the main event.
In the cavern, mycelium tore with a ripping sound as a heavy-armor Puchi ripped through a mushroom tree and emerged.
Lin Jun loaded life source onto it.
Time to test this skill's specific effects. Heavy-armor Puchi had thick health and durability.
Slashing, stabbing, electric shock, burning, salt-roasting, oil-braising...
After one round of testing, Lin Jun was stunned.
Not that it was useless—the heavy-armor Puchi's self-healing had clearly strengthened. Mycelium tentacles could regrow within seconds when severed. Cut in half, as long as it didn't die outright, it could grow back purely on its own. A pretty decent recovery skill, honestly.
Only... this qualified as a no-grade skill?
It couldn't restore a full heavy-armor Puchi from a single mycelium strand in seconds—and that was supposed to be no-grade?
At this level, if Lin Jun just trained regeneration higher and combined it with mycelial reconstruction, he could achieve similar effects—with an added death rebirth function to boot!
Regeneration LV10 + Mycelial Reconstruction LV10 ≥ Life Source?
What a joke!
After completely decomposing the heavy-armor Puchi and recovering the skill, a deeply disappointed Lin Jun fell into thought.
Was this a defective no-grade skill? Was that why the Divine Tree had given it up so readily?
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
A few Puchi emerged from the fungal mat at the bottom of the Divine Tree Dungeon. Lin Jun planned to discuss after-sales service with the Divine Tree. At minimum, it owed him an explanation!
Playing him for a fool like this—did it think he was some country bumpkin who didn't know quality goods?!
Just as he prepared to knock on the Divine Tree's "door"—
Drip.
A translucent droplet slowly slid from the edge of a blue mushroom cap, trailing a crystalline thread of liquid.
What the hell?
(End of Chapter)
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