At the bottom of the staircase connecting to the sixth floor.
Several large bull-horse Puffshrooms busied themselves with their fungal tendrils, packing up the last bits of monster remains.
Once this trip was finished, all the spoils the Puffshrooms had gathered during the magic tide would finally be transported back to the mushroom garden.
Thanks to the massive amount of fertilizer and abundant magical power, in just over a week, the large and small mushroom plots covering the entire floor had already begun to take shape.
In about another week, they might even become more prosperous than before the magic tide.
Even Lin Jun himself had to admire the growth speed of the mushroom clan.
Of course, this excluded the poison lake.
The contamination situation at the poison lake had actually become even worse than before.
Initially, only the area around the lake had become a dead zone, but now it had expanded to within 500 meters.
Lin Jun somewhat regretted not carefully examining the skills of that three-headed snake.
What kind of poison could be this vicious?
Fortunately, the spreading trend had finally stopped in the past two days, though who knew how long it would take for the normal ecosystem to recover.
As for the Mirajis in the lake—
A large bull-horse Puffshroom, two meters tall, carried a belly full of harvested mushrooms.
It entered the poison circle, walking step by step toward the lake.
The reason for taking it step by step was that with each step, the Puffshroom's feet touching the ground would be corroded away by the toxic liquid.
Only because this Puffshroom was large enough did its feet barely have anything left by the time it reached the lakeside.
Then the entire mushroom rolled down the slope, tumbling into the lake with a belly full of mushrooms.
The Mirajis who had been waiting in the lake swarmed over and began their feast—a meal they got once every two days.
Lin Jun had ultimately decided to raise them after all. This lake couldn't be used for anything else now anyway.
These creatures weren't very aggressive—at most they'd spit some poison—and their range of activity was limited to the lake, so they wouldn't wander around.
Moreover, since they lived in the poison lake, even if adventurers passed by later, it would be difficult for them to target these creatures.
And naturally, he was raising them for their harvest.
Mirajis averaged only around level ten and were small in size, so the magical power and experience they could provide was negligible.
What was valuable were their underwater adaptation and scale armor abilities—especially the scale armor.
After decomposing large quantities of dragon beasts with scale armor skills, Lin Jun had naturally acquired this ability.
Then he discovered that this thing was truly more convenient than the shell he was currently using!
Compared to the external shell, scale armor had decent defensive power while being lighter and more flexible.
Now with these Mirajis as a stable source, probably only the excavating Puffshrooms would still use external shells for breaking rocks in the future.
While the mushroom garden flourished, Lin Jun also set his sights on other floors.
Though he didn't know why human adventurers still hadn't resumed their activities despite the magic tide having passed so long ago, it wasn't necessarily bad news for the current Lin Jun.
Taking advantage of this period, Lin Jun had sent out quite a few Puffshrooms.
They weren't doing anything special—just scattering spores in corners of the first four floors or places difficult for monsters to reach, generating a few mushrooms to serve as perimeter monitoring.
Though when there were too few fungal threads in one location, they couldn't generate images and could only sense magical power fluctuations.
But these small points could serve as relay stations for those large fungal mats outside, connecting back to the fifth floor.
As for why he wanted to set up large fungal mats outside?
Of course, it was because Lin Jun couldn't bear to see monster corpses from other floors go to waste!
When the time came, Lin Jun would decompose the corpses to gain magical power and skills, then generate some mushrooms as food to supplement the ecological cycle of each floor. Everyone could have a beautiful future.
Unfortunately, the mushroom garden was currently in a state of reconstruction, and there weren't quite enough Puffshrooms yet.
He could only head to the upper floors where the danger level wasn't too high first.
As for the lower floors? If he sent too few Puffshrooms, they'd be devoured completely by the local monsters before completing their mission.
---
At the dungeon entrance, two guards responsible for watching the gate sat by a fire.
The campfire flickered slightly in the night wind. Aiden stuck his iron sword into the fire and stirred it a couple times, sending a few sparks flying onto his chainmail.
"So cold. I really want to go back and have a bowl of meat soup right now." The newcomer beside him rubbed his shoulders while complaining. "Senior, what's the point of the guild having us guard here? If those adventurers want to go down, can we really stop them?"
Aiden glanced at him, took the leather pouch of alcohol from his waist, first took a sip himself, then handed it to the newcomer.
"You're quite the busybody, kid. Standing guard is standing guard wherever you are. What, if you were standing guard in town instead, you'd be able to drink meat soup?"
The newcomer took the pouch and gulped down two mouthfuls.
The alcohol flowing into his stomach immediately warmed him up considerably.
"How is it the same, senior? Look at that." The newcomer pointed to dark red stains on a rock. "I heard that many people died here that day. Who knows, it might spawn vengeful spirits!"
Aiden just stared at the newcomer until he looked somewhat embarrassed, then burst out laughing.
"Listen to fewer bard stories, kid. Vengeful spirits? If a few deaths could really spawn resentful ghosts, after all these years, the dungeon would be packed full of vengeful spirits by now!"
"I... I was just talking casually, didn't really think that..."
*Rustle rustle—*
Both men simultaneously stopped their conversation and looked toward where the sound came from.
Aiden even put a whistle to his lips.
The newcomer's somewhat cowardly voice came from beside him: "It's not really a vengeful spirit, is it..."
"What are you thinking!"
Aiden pulled out a simple torch, lit it from the campfire, and slowly walked to the tree where the sound had come from.
After swinging his iron sword back and forth through the bushes and grass several times and finding nothing, Aiden returned to the campfire and began mocking the newcomer mercilessly:
"Probably just some small animal. Look how scared you got—with that kind of courage, you'll never make it big."
The newcomer, who had indeed been frightened just now, could only sit down sheepishly, muttering things like "I just didn't react in time" and "I'm just drunk, that's all."
Neither of them noticed that behind them, two rows of shallow footprints had appeared at some point, extending all the way into the dungeon.
---
First floor of the dungeon.
The light by the stone wall blurred for a moment, revealing two young men crouched against the wall.
"Th-th-that scared me to death!" The young man in wizard robes was shaking uncontrollably. "Gray, you don't know—that sword missed me by just this much! Really, just this much!"
Gray, dressed as a warrior, looked speechlessly at his partner and friend—Calvin.
"Wasn't it you who insisted on getting close to eavesdrop on what they were saying, only to get spooked by some vengeful spirit... You're supposed to be a mage who studies all sorts of weird magical materials every day. How can you still be afraid of vengeful spirits?"
At the mention of vengeful spirits, Calvin, who had finally calmed down, started shaking again: "You... you don't understand! I've seen them before when I was with my teacher, that's why I'm scared! If you encountered one, you'd be scared too!"
"Yes, yes," Gray looked like he couldn't be bothered to continue this conversation. "If you're already this scared, should we still go down? How about you cast another invisibility spell and we head back?"
Upon hearing this, Calvin grabbed Gray's arm: "How can we do that? If I don't get the parasitic tree seeds, how can I brew the truth serum? If I can't brew the potion, how will I turn in my assignment? If I don't turn in my assignment this time, my teacher will definitely punish me by making me serve as a spellcasting target for that duke's daughter with special fetishes, and then watch me get turned into a Puffshroom! Gray, you have to help me this time. Don't forget that when you were constipated last time, I was the one who helped you make that laxative!"
"That time you just gave me the runs for a whole day—you call that helping?"
"Just tell me whether it worked or not!"
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