"This is way too uncomfortable."
Wells stepped barefoot onto the fungal carpet, feeling like he was stepping into gelatinous honey. Every crevice between his toes was squeezed full of slippery, viscous living matter.
When he lifted his foot, it even formed sticky strings...
The others were in similar states—everyone's shoes had worn through back at the poison lake.
"I'm telling you, why don't we go back to the mushroom road? There's no mycelium there."
The captain cut off Wells' complaints: "Show some backbone—you're an adventurer, aren't you! We'll see the forest soon, and then we can get back on the road."
"Tch." Wells felt like the captain was always putting him down, openly and subtly. What a petty bastard.
As if venting his frustration, he stomped hard on the fungal carpet ahead.
"Holy shit!"
A sharp stone fragment pierced into Wells' sole, and he immediately crouched down in pain.
"Are you okay? Let me see!"
Hearing the scream, Genie came over and cupped Wells' slimy foot in both hands without showing the slightest disgust.
"It's not serious, just a small wound. I can treat it quickly."
As she spoke, she reached out and pulled the stone fragment out, then used her staff to cast Potential Activation on Wells.
Wells indeed stopped hurting quickly, the wound gradually healing, and his whole spirit even perked up.
"Genie, thank you."
Hearing his thanks, Genie gave Wells a smile.
The captain watching from the side couldn't stand it: "If you're fine, then let's move quickly. Don't pull any more stupid stunts like getting hurt by stone fragments."
The mage standing behind wanted to say something, but some puffshroom silhouettes appeared faintly in the distance.
"Another patrol."
These puffshrooms, numbering around ten, wandered randomly across the mycelium ground.
Almost all were mutated varieties with tentacles, scales, or cannon ports.
This was already the third wave they'd encountered along the way. Who knew if there would be fewer taking the mushroom road?
No one wanted to clash with puffshrooms. Even before the magic tide, adventurers already knew that fifth-floor puffshrooms were both strong and dropped nothing.
Fighting your way out of a puffshroom pile with great effort, you'd get nothing but a couple of chewier mushroom slices to roast and eat—no other gains whatsoever.
Pure loss-making business. Of course, avoid them if you could.
The mage first extinguished his illumination spell, then cast invisibility on everyone.
Like the previous times, everyone stayed in place without moving, waiting for the puffshroom patrol to leave.
But this time seemed to have a slight accident.
One puffshroom with the most ordinary appearance—no tentacles, no scales—suddenly broke away from the group and walked a few steps toward them.
Then, the puffshroom patrol that was about to leave was actually led by this ordinary puffshroom to turn around and walk straight toward them.
Seeing this, the captain cursed under his breath: "What dogshit luck. Wells, monster corpse!"
Wells took down one of the bags from his back, selected a canine-type monster from inside, and threw it out.
The monster corpse immediately attracted the puffshroom group's attention. The puffshrooms surrounded it, wrapped it with tentacles, and diverted toward the swamp.
Seeing the puffshrooms disappear, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, nothing else went wrong on the remaining journey, or they might have had to feed all their monster corpses to patrols.
But when they saw the forest—or rather, the mushroom forest—the team had to stop.
"How did the forest turn into this thing?"
"What is this?" Wells touched a giant mushroom, feeling the fluffy texture under his hand. "I've never seen mushrooms grow this big..."
"Such big glowing mush... ah... ah-choo... what is this stuff?"
The captain suddenly sneezed.
The mage seemed to remember something and looked up. From the gills under the giant mushroom caps, pale blue spores were constantly drifting down with a rustling sound.
"Everyone step back—it might be poisonous."
Hearing this, everyone retreated thirty paces before stopping.
"If the entire forest is like this, antidote potions won't be enough. Should we still go in?" Wells asked.
"I think we should forget it. Look at that."
Following the dwarf's pointing finger, Wells squinted his eyes but still couldn't see anything.
Wasn't it just a corner of the mushroom forest? What was special about it?
But the people beside him were already making sounds of amazement.
"What is it?" Wells quietly asked Genie.
Genie glanced at him and whispered in his ear: "Look carefully under the mushroom trees."
Wells endured the tingling sensation from his ear and looked over again.
This time, he seemed to see a... puffshroom that was exactly the same color as the mushroom stem?
Standing under the mushroom tree, you couldn't distinguish it at a glance!
"Mimicry?"
The mage nodded: "Should be. Who knows how many puffshrooms are inside.
The information on that sign seems to be all correct.
I suggest abandoning exploration here and going straight to the sixth floor."
The captain seemed somewhat unwilling: "Didn't the sign also mention a small path where you can find fat puffshrooms to trade things?"
Hearing this, everyone looked around and actually saw a small dirt path.
Seeing this, the captain's mood seemed to improve a bit.
"Let's take this path and have a look. Wells still has several monster corpses anyway.
If we confirm we can trade, we can carry more when we come back from the sixth floor."
Anyone coming to adventure in the dungeon wanted to earn more, so naturally no one objected.
Wells was even a bit excited: "Wonder what we can trade for? It shouldn't be too bad, right!"
When they walked all the way to that seven-to-eight-meter-high cave entrance, they discovered someone had already arrived first.
An exclamation came from within the cave:
"A-rank magic crystal!"
————
【Magic Perception LV6】+【Air Current Sensing LV7】+【Light Perception LV4】+【Sound Wave Detection LV6】
Another scout puffshroom fresh off the production line.
Let's see how those who love playing with invisibility try to sneak through now!
If you're so capable, just fly directly over the fifth floor!
After patching up the fifth floor's security, Lin Jun checked his status panel again.
【Mimicry LV4】
After these past days of tireless effort by about a hundred puffshrooms, it finally leveled up—a few days later than expected.
With mimicry upgraded, Little Black wouldn't have to be restricted to the mushroom forest anymore. These past days she'd been required to stay in the nest and was obviously getting more and more irritated.
Lin Jun had even considered having Dillan comfort Little Black—as someone with a daughter, he should know how to coax little girls, right?
But he gave up in the end, afraid Dillan would end up in her stomach while trying to coax her.
Fortunately, Dillan wasn't needed anymore. He could upgrade Little Black right now.
Lin Jun was about to call Little Black when a preset message came through the mycelium network from the fat puffshroom.
The grand prize had been drawn already?!
When the mushroom garden reopened, Lin Jun had stuffed an A-rank magic crystal into the fatty for promotional effect.
He just hadn't expected it to come out so quickly.
With truly random lottery drawing, he was still too conscientious.
Lin Jun shifted his vision over—he was also curious who was so lucky.
Hm?
Two teams?
And they were arguing?
How did they start fighting?
Damn it, don't hurt my fatty!
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