Opening his eyes, he found himself once again in the familiar mushroom house.
As Dylan sat up, the mycelial threads connecting his back to the fungal mat disconnected one by one.
Casually picking up the cloth beside him, he gently wiped away the sticky residue from his back before putting on his clothes.
This minor inconvenience of mushroom-person life was something he had completely adapted to by now.
"Finally awake? How do you feel?" Boss's voice suddenly resonated in his consciousness.
Right, this wasn't ordinary sleep.
Earlier, Boss had mentioned something about improving his survival rate and seemed to have added another skill to him.
He couldn't help but feel he wasn't much different from a puffshroom now...
Dylan stood at the edge of the mushroom house, sensing the changes after awakening.
**[Acceleration LV6]**
Drawing the longsword from his waist, he tried swinging it around.
Downward slash! Straight thrust! Spinning cut!
Each was an individual movement, yet due to the acceleration effect, they felt as smooth and flowing as drifting clouds and flowing water!
"This feeling is incredible!"
"No, you won't be able to test it properly like this."
"Then how should I..."
Following Boss's words, four puffshrooms emerged from the mushroom forest.
Familiar scales, familiar four bladed tentacles—mass-produced close-combat puffshrooms. Last time, just two of them had Dylan running around desperately.
Watching the four puffshrooms closing in together, Dylan very wisely retreated two steps.
"Boss... how about we start with just two?"
"If you dare to just keep running, I'll have Little Black spar with you."
*Gulp—*
What cruel words!
Boss had to be joking, right?
Dylan glanced at Little Black in the distance, who was gnawing on a puffshroom while watching the show, and tried to recall the power of her claws...
Courage suddenly surged from within his body!
"Just four puffshrooms? Nothing to it!"
Watching Dylan charge forward and actually hold his own against four close-combat puffshrooms without falling into disadvantage for a while.
Indeed, **[Acceleration]** was incredibly useful!
Without the speed disadvantage, Dylan relied on his more experienced positioning to prevent the four puffshrooms from surrounding him.
He even found an opportunity to strike one of the puffshrooms while he himself remained uninjured.
Though due to insufficient attack power, he only managed to crack the scales, causing minimal damage.
But that was enough.
Lin Jun had given him **[Acceleration]** for survival in the first place—if you can't win, dodge; if you can't dodge, run.
"Alright, that's enough."
Since Dylan couldn't deal fatal damage to the puffshrooms, as time passed, he gradually became exhausted and fell into disadvantage.
Having tested the effects of **[Acceleration]** sufficiently, Lin Jun simply called a halt and had the puffshrooms retreat.
Dylan plopped down on the spot, looking at his hands with barely contained excitement.
So powerful!
With his current strength, if he encountered that information broker and his two companions again, he could win in a direct confrontation without needing to ambush them.
This feeling of rapidly advancing in power was something he'd never experienced in his entire life!
It was utterly intoxicating.
Of course, Dylan hadn't let power go to his head—he still remembered his purpose.
"Boss, when do we set out?"
"Don't rush. Lie back down first, I'm going to add another ability."
"Again?" Dylan was somewhat worried about wasting too much time.
"It's nearly a two-month journey—a day or two won't matter," Lin Jun replied impatiently.
To add skills for Dylan, the entire mushroom garden hadn't produced any new puffshrooms for the past two days.
And now he was getting picky!
Dylan scratched his head: "Boss, what ability are you adding this time?"
"Mana storage."
---
Night Owl stood atop the carriage, gazing ahead into the distance.
There was a battle taking place over there.
The canvas suddenly rustled with the sound of fabric rubbing together—Ivan had also been awakened and immediately used **[Reconnaissance]** toward the front.
"Humans, humans, wind wolves, wind wolf king..."
Ivan's voice suddenly rose an octave.
"It's magical beasts attacking a caravan! Quick, we need to help them!"
...
Dozens of wind wolves were besieging a convoy with over a dozen soldiers.
The soldiers had their backs to the wagons, with twelve spears forming a thorny iron ring around the wagons' perimeter, each spear shaft stained with gray-blue wolf fur.
In the center, two spellcasters continuously hurled magic into the wolf pack.
This barely kept them from being overwhelmed by the wind wolves' wave after wave of attacks.
"Stay tight! Stay tight! Don't leave any gaps—if these beasts dare come close, skewer their damn heads!"
The guard captain shouted commands while keeping his hands busy, spearing a wind wolf that had gotten too close.
However, this action seemed to give the wind wolf king, who had been observing from a distant rock, an opportunity.
With a short howl, a wind blade shot from the wind wolf king's mouth, aimed directly at the guard captain who was struggling to pull his spear tip from the wolf corpse.
*Clang—*
The wind blade struck the iron armor without penetrating, but the sudden impact knocked the guard captain backward.
The spear formation immediately showed a gap, and the wind wolves, not giving the guard captain a chance to return to position, scrambled through the opening.
The soldiers on both sides were quickly brought down by the pack, and the defensive line instantly collapsed.
The guard captain himself was pounced upon by two wolves, tearing at his arms.
We're finished!
Just as everyone despaired, a black shadow flashed by like wind.
The guard captain watched in amazement as the two wind wolves on him suddenly spurted large amounts of blood from their necks.
The wolf bodies collapsed, their heads still clamped onto his arm guards.
Not just these two—all the wolves that had charged forward were beheaded in an extremely short time.
"Ice Storm!"
A slightly aged voice came from the distance.
Immediately, bitter cold wind swept past the front of the convoy.
The remaining dozens of wind wolves, including the wind wolf king standing proudly on the rock, all became motionless ice sculptures after the cold wind passed.
Even though the spellcaster had deliberately avoided the convoy, the residual cold air still made the guard captain shiver.
"Are you all right?" Nova approached with Ivan and Gal.
The guard captain looked around—his subordinates were all wounded, but none seemed seriously injured.
"Thank you, we're saved."
"Wait," the guard captain suddenly remembered something, "quickly, we need to save Mena!"
"Mena?"
"The priestess! She was scattered by the wolf pack and ran into the forest!"
Upon hearing this, Ivan immediately scanned the forest and quickly pointed in a direction.
"Night Owl, over there!"
Night Owl, who had just been examining the ice sculptures, ran toward the direction Ivan indicated at incredible speed.
Soon, several wind wolf whimpers echoed from the forest.
After a while longer, Night Owl emerged from the forest with a disheveled priestess whose clothes were half-torn, named Mena.
Seeing this, the guard captain also breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good thing I was fast—her light barrier was almost broken through," Night Owl said with a smile, pointing at the priestess named Mena.
After the guard captain retrieved the priestess, he repeatedly thanked Nova and the others.
"Are you also escorting a priestess to Oath City?" Nova asked.
The guard captain nodded in affirmation, but looking at the wagon with its damaged wheel, he couldn't help but show a bitter smile.
Nova also noticed their situation and thought that since they were heading the same way anyway...
"Do you need me to help escort the priestess there?"
"That... that would be incredibly grateful!" The guard captain bowed deeply in appreciation.
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