On the wasteland beside the Venom Lake, apart from the occasional splash of water from the lake, this place was as silent as the world of the dead.
The ground beneath their feet was dark green, and the air was filled with an unpleasant sour and astringent smell.
"This smell is absolutely awful," the mage said, covering his nose as he cast a purification spell on everyone. "When the Blue-Eyed Frogs were here before, even though everything was filled with green poisonous fog, at least there wasn't this pungent stench."
Wells rubbed his nose—he thought it wasn't too bad, just smelling slightly worse than the sour wine at the Rotten Willow Tavern.
What he was more concerned about were the splashing sounds from the lake.
The group hadn't taken the mushroom path, and the surrounding area was pitch black. The illumination spell had limited range, so they couldn't see clearly what was happening in the lake.
"What do you think is living in the lake now? Should we try to catch one and see if it's worth anything?"
Wells's suggestion made everyone somewhat tempted—things they'd never encountered before always meant more opportunities.
However, team captain Ralph vetoed it: "I'm afraid we don't have time."
"What do you mean we don't have time?" Wells didn't understand what the captain meant.
"You probably didn't notice, but in a few more minutes we'll be barefoot."
Wells looked down at his feet in confusion...
"What the hell!?"
Those standard thick-soled adventurer boots had already lost half their soles!
The others quickly discovered their boot soles were in the same condition.
"No wonder my feet felt slippery!"
Jeanne had it worst—her shoes were the thinnest.
Jeanne reached out with both hands, grabbing Wells's sleeve pleadingly.
"Wells, could you carry me on your back?"
Under her priest robes, her feet were stepping back and forth, as if they might get injured any moment.
"But I'm already carrying these," Wells said, patting the two bags on his back filled with monster corpses.
"Please, Wells! You're the strongest among us. Let the others share those two bags. Don't worry, I'll help out too and won't let you get tired!"
She waved her staff as she spoke.
"I'll carry her," Ralph suddenly stepped between them just as Wells seemed about to agree.
"Tch." Wells frowned but said nothing, just moved aside.
Jeanne blinked at Wells with slight regret, then climbed onto the captain's back.
"Thanks, Captain Ralph."
She raised her small staff and waved it. A gray-white light flashed, and Ralph, who had seemed somewhat strained, suddenly felt much lighter. Carrying Jeanne, he took the lead.
"Let's hurry and get out of this lake's area."
Everyone followed.
Only the mage was a bit puzzled—was it really necessary to use Potential Boost here?
————
Lin Jun's attention had long since moved away from this Level 42 Human Killer.
Human killer—what did that have to do with him, a mushroom?
Were they more important than his latest mass-produced warrior puffshrooms?
【Dodge LV7】+【Scale Armor LV5】+【Acceleration LV6】+【Blade Whip LV5】+【Mycelium Reconstruction LV3】
Actually, five skills was a bit expensive, but now that his assets were substantial, a little extravagance was acceptable.
Though the cannon puffshrooms were powerful and versatile, after every battle they left devastation everywhere, and it took ages for the mycelium carpet to recover.
At home, many tasks were better handled by melee units with less destructive power.
This was also why Lin Jun hadn't added self-destruct to the melee puffshrooms.
These melee puffshrooms' main responsibility was dealing with unruly adventurers within the five floors.
If they encountered enemies they couldn't handle, deploying large-scale mushroom cannon forces wouldn't be too late.
If that still couldn't suppress them... Lin Jun still had Little Black...
This batch of security-positioned puffshrooms focused mainly on agility and evasion.
Blade Whip was brought by the dragon beasts during the magic tide period, with the main representative being the Blade-Tail Whip Dragon.
This skill allowed puffshrooms to generate blades on their mycelium tentacles, creating considerable power when swept around.
Unfortunately, the mycelium tentacles couldn't extend from 2 meters to 10 meters like those dragon beast tails.
Four meters was the absolute limit for tentacle attack range.
The first batch of freshly made four Whip Puffshrooms.
Their combat capabilities needed testing.
Since the hypothetical enemies were adventurers, the most suitable person to help with testing was—
"Boss, what did you say?"
Dylan, who had just been sound asleep, was dragged to the small clearing.
He stared blankly at the fine steel longsword Lin Jun thoughtfully provided him, then looked at the four puffshrooms opposite with their sixteen tentacles, the scales and blades gleaming coldly.
A shiver ran through him from top to bottom: "Boss, I can't do this..."
"Don't talk so defeatist! Aren't you also a Silver-rank adventurer? An elite who could escape alive from demon squads!"
"That's because I could run, not because I could fight..." Dylan wore a bitter expression. "Boss, didn't you say I was on vacation?"
"This is for your own good, Dylan," Lin Jun earnestly persuaded. "Exercise keeps you healthy. You've been indulging in special nutrients every day lately—keep that up and you'll waste away. Think of it as stretching your muscles. Don't worry, there won't be any danger."
"Really no danger?"
"I guarantee you won't die!"
"Wait..."
Before Dylan could continue making excuses, two of the puffshrooms received attack commands and charged forward.
"Shit!"
【Block LV4】
Just as Dylan held his sword horizontally across his chest, a tentacle blade stabbed forward, clashing with the longsword with a "clang."
The next second, two more tentacle blades swept from the sides. Dylan rolled on the spot to dodge, while two deep scratches were left on the large mushroom behind him.
2 versus 1, and long-reach versus short-reach—Dylan, a pure melee fighter, could hardly find a way to get close and could only keep dodging.
After dodging for a while, he seemed to think of a solution.
When another tentacle blade flew at him, Dylan didn't retreat but instead stepped forward at the right moment, slashing toward the middle section of the tentacle.
But after one strike, Dylan knew he was in trouble. His longsword hadn't completely severed the scale-armored tentacle, and the tentacle blade used this support point to coil around and attack his back.
【Spinning Slash LV5】
In desperation, Dylan used a combat technique, not only cutting through the half-severed tentacle but also spinning back to knock down the tentacle blade behind him, barely resolving this attack.
But Dylan couldn't feel proud.
He'd only taken down one tentacle—the two puffshrooms still had seven more waiting for him...
"This... how am I supposed to fight this!"
Dylan simply gave up on attacking and just kept running circles around the large mushroom.
Actually, this method worked—whenever a puffshroom swung its blade, it would get stuck in the large mushroom, giving Dylan a chance to run far away.
Continuing would be meaningless, so Lin Jun stopped tormenting Dylan.
"Alright, that's enough. Thanks for your hard work, Dylan."
Seeing the two puffshrooms behind him stop chasing with their little stubby legs, Dylan immediately slumped against a nearby mushroom, panting and wiping sweat from his face.
Even though the boss said he wouldn't die, if he got a few cuts on his body, wouldn't that hurt his old bones to death?
"Dylan, you're not doing well. That was just two of them. I'll get you some equipment later to boost your strength."
Lin Jun was fairly satisfied with this test.
Lin Jun hadn't micromanaged—the puffshrooms had fought purely on instinct after receiving commands.
Though Dylan was considered weak among Silver-rank adventurers, having two of them suppress him exceeded expectations. He'd originally thought it would take at least three.
Of course, it might be related to Dylan not being completely serious—it was normal not to display full strength without life-or-death pressure.
Moreover, adventurers would cooperate with each other and wouldn't encounter the awkward situation Dylan faced of being unable to reach the puffshroom main body.
Next time, he'd test them on unruly adventurer parties.
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