Dungeon Second Floor.
A gentle breeze swept through the forest, carrying the pure fragrance of vegetation and the clear spring water of rocky streams, which reflected the orange-white radiance emitted by glowgrass.
At first glance, this appeared to be a lush natural woodland with flowing waters.
But in reality, the small magical creatures dwelling in this forest were almost all skilled at concealment and ambush attacks, and many of them were poisonous to boot.
Rookie adventurers who entered without proper antidotes prepared would die here as a matter of course.
His longsword pierced into the waist-high grass, and Gray gave it a light flick, spearing out a palm-sized green scorpion.
"Didn't they say that after a magic tide, the number of magical creatures would decrease drastically in the short term?
We haven't even walked that far, and I've already skewered 3 spiders, 6 scorpions, and 4 small snakes..."
Calvin, who was checking the dungeon strategy guide beside him, explained without looking up:
"The decreased numbers refer to high-level or large-bodied magical creatures.
After a magic tide, the magical power concentration within the dungeon increases dramatically. Low-level small magical creatures benefit most obviously from this—it's normal for them to emerge in large numbers."
Speaking, he held the strategy guide up to Gray's eyes, pointing at a section: "Look, this floor originally had a common type of black and white python, but we haven't encountered any along our way."
Gray swung his longsword upward, slicing a green snake hanging above their heads in half, and glanced at the strategy guide while complaining:
"That's 5 now... But this is too annoying. How much longer until the next floor?"
"Still quite a ways," Calvin paused for a moment, seemingly studying the map. "How about we take a detour? There's a natural cave passage we can use—there won't be so many annoying little things there."
"What's in there?" Gray definitely didn't believe it would be some completely safe passage.
"Spiders. Big spiders."
---
Gray raised the torch in his hand high, illuminating the chaotic and broken spider webs throughout the grayish-white stone cave. This place seemed to have not yet recovered from the magic tide's destruction.
"Where are the spiders?"
Calvin pointed overhead. Gray looked up and indeed saw small red dots hidden in the darkness.
"Don't worry, these fellows are actually quite timid. As long as you don't get stuck in their webs, they won't dare come down to attack."
"How do you know?"
"It's written in the strategy guide."
Gray nodded, then asked: "Then why don't they come down to eat this?"
Speaking, he used his torch to drive back the darkness ahead, revealing a Puchi struggling continuously on a spider web.
"A Puchi? Spiders are carnivorous, so it's normal they wouldn't eat it." Calvin showed a puzzled expression. "But why would there be a Puchi here?"
"What's the problem with it appearing here? Didn't we encounter them on the first floor too?" Gray didn't understand what was strange about it.
"That's why people like you who don't read books understand nothing."
Calvin moved closer to observe this strange Puchi while explaining to Gray:
"Magic tides do indeed cause magical creatures to wander into other floors, but they all move from lower floors to upper floors.
Upper floor magical creatures running to lower floors is almost impossible.
And this Puchi is really strange—it's even grown tentacles..."
"Then there must be walking mushrooms on even lower floors too."
"But the strategy guide says only the first floor has Puchi."
"When is your strategy guide from? Is it outdated?"
"Three years ago. It shouldn't be outdated..." Calvin also became uncertain. If the strategy guide was truly outdated, they might encounter unexpected dangers.
Gray stepped forward and took the Puchi down from the spider web.
"Gray, what are you doing? This is a mutant variety—it could be dangerous!"
Gray shrugged: "What danger could a walking mushroom pose? I just want to see what it's doing here."
The moment the Puchi touched the ground, its four mycelial tentacles suddenly extended, shooting into the darkness above.
After a hiss from above, a two-meter-wide large spider was yanked down and slammed hard onto the ground, dying on impact.
The Puchi then slowly dragged the spider's corpse toward the outside.
Gray turned his head to find Calvin staring straight at him.
"Alright, I admit it's a bit dangerous... Want to follow and take a look?"
Gray pointed toward the Puchi that was about to turn the corner—it was heading in a direction that wasn't on their route.
Calvin's curiosity was also piqued. After thinking for a moment, he nodded:
"We still have plenty of time anyway, so let's just follow for a look!"
After reaching consensus, the two tailed the Puchi all the way.
They watched it slap away an ambushing scorpion with one tentacle, then successively enter two concealed small paths, finally entering a small cave between rock crevices that glowed faintly from within.
The two came to the cave entrance and peered inside.
In the modest cave, mycelium covered every corner, and mushrooms of various sizes emitting ghostly light illuminated the entire cavern.
What made both men gasp in shock was even more alarming.
Skeletal remains spread from the cave entrance throughout the floor—dire wolves, black and white snakes, large spiders, unknown dragon beasts—the corpses of these magical creatures were mixed together.
Some of the remains were already covered with mycelium, while others seemed to have been brought recently, with blood not yet fully congealed.
Several mutant Puchi with tentacles worked together to move the newly arrived spider corpse to an empty spot, carefully ensuring the body didn't scrape the mycelial carpet on the ground during the process.
*Gulp—*
Making eye contact, both Gray and Calvin saw the shock in each other's eyes.
The two quietly retreated step by step until they were completely away from that cave before relaxing.
As soon as they emerged, Calvin complained: "Wh-why were we so nervous? This is only the second floor, and you're already level 31—what are you afraid of?"
"Weren't you nervous first?"
"Alright, alright, but of course I'd be nervous seeing something so eerie. Where else have you seen such brutal Puchi?
I need to tell my teacher about this when I get back."
Speaking, Calvin looked back once—there were no Puchi following them.
"For now, let's hurry to the fifth floor."
---
Hm?
Lin Jun, who was planting large mushrooms in the forest, suddenly received an image from the second-floor substation—two peeping human adventurers.
Has the dungeon finally reopened?
It looks like he needs to accelerate the formation speed of the large mushrooms.
He also needs to replenish more combat Puchi, otherwise there won't be enough defensive forces when troublemakers arrive.
As for those two adventurers, Lin Jun didn't bother with them.
He never intended to hide this from humans anyway—even if he wanted to hide it, it would be impossible.
Choosing a remote cave location was only to reduce magical creature harassment.
And actually, even if he wanted to interfere, he couldn't.
Unlike the direct mycelial connections, signals transmitted through mushroom nodes had a slight delay—what he was seeing was probably footage from about 6 minutes ago.
The Puchi outside were all executing preset tasks autonomously.
Unless human adventurers actively attacked or tried to steal magical creature corpses from the caves, they wouldn't retaliate—this was also Lin Jun's consistent neutral policy.
If someone really destroyed these substations, Lin Jun could only accept the bad luck, then wait for them to descend to the fifth floor before taking revenge!
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