At the sixth-floor stairway.
Under the infusion of magical power, mycelium gradually grew out from within the steps.
A green slime was clinging to the wall, moving along the edge of the exit, devouring the newly sprouted mycelium.
*Boom—*
Several mushroom cannon shots hit their mark, sending a large amount of slime fluid splattering everywhere across the surroundings.
Despite losing substantial bodily fluid and shrinking by two sizes, the green slime still clung to the wall, intending to continue eating the mycelium.
The puffshrooms had no choice but to fire two more rounds of spore cannons before the slime's core was finally destroyed.
However, before long, new slimes emerged again...
Some slimes were quite small—a single spore cannon blast could indeed kill them, but the surrounding mycelium would also be blasted into fragments by their own attacks.
What was certain was that the sixth floor's botanical garden environment was indeed very suitable for slime survival, with numbers far exceeding the previous floors.
Among them appeared some mutated varieties, such as multi-core slimes formed by the fusion of multiple slimes.
When puffshrooms attacked it, it would explode into a ground full of individual slimes, then surge forward from all directions together, surrounding the puffshroom in the middle. By the time other puffshrooms rescued it, it had already been half-digested.
Although the slimes caused some losses, for Lin Jun it was merely a waste of some magical power. The mycelium's spread across the stone walls continued steadily.
Once it spread to the dome, just like the previous floors, it would devour all the firefly grass above and replace it with luminescent mushrooms.
What troubled Lin Jun more was the ground level.
Unlike the previous floors, the sixth floor's botanical garden had relatively fine and crowded territorial divisions on the ground.
A flower demon would claim about ten meters around itself as territory, and other magical creatures that intruded or grew into the area would either be killed or driven away.
Pseudo-flower vines would strangle other creatures lured by their honey fragrance, and passing puffshrooms would also fall victim to them.
Enchanting orchids would emit alluring blue light toward surrounding creatures, luring prey into their traps. This posed no threat to puffshrooms though—puffshrooms were controlled by Lin Jun and weren't susceptible to charm effects.
In short, various plant-type magical creatures, along with a small number of animal-type magical creatures, had divided the sixth floor into many small territorial patches.
Unless Lin Jun adopted the same extinction-style sweeping as on the fifth floor, it would be difficult for puffshrooms to advance far on the ground.
Without puffshrooms escorting them on the ground, mycelium in areas far from the stairway would become free lunch for slimes.
The reason for the extinction campaign on the fifth floor was that Lin Jun needed a stable base, while for other floors, what he needed were the skills of the magical creatures in the ecosystem, not the floor itself.
For floors one through four, Lin Jun had chosen to occupy spaces that local creatures didn't need, supplemented by striking at slimes, to complete the mycelial carpet coverage.
But the local plants on the sixth floor... there was no unneeded space on the ground.
Even if Lin Jun didn't mind disrupting part of the ecosystem and forcibly carved out a safe passage through the botanical garden, he could foresee facing endless tug-of-war battles with local plants just to maintain the safe passage.
This was laborious and thankless—not what Lin Jun wanted.
Lin Jun had thought of some solutions though.
If the ground couldn't accommodate puffshrooms, then let the puffshrooms follow the mycelium and climb along the stone walls!
There were three available skills to choose from.
**[Suction Cups LV3]**
Obtained from a small lizard during the magical tide period, it could be used to adhere to walls.
However, since puffshrooms had no hands, they would probably need to combine the suction cups with mycelial tentacles for movement.
Honestly, just imagining puffshrooms crawling on walls with tentacles made Lin Jun feel somewhat disturbed.
Another option was to do the same as these green slimes.
**[Digestive Slime LV6]**
The way these green slimes climbed walls was essentially no different from snails.
Their slime could serve both as digestive fluid and help them stick their bodies to walls.
Logically, puffshrooms should also be able to use this to climb walls if they added [Corrosion Resistance].
However, the problem was that puffshrooms not only needed to climb walls but also attack slimes while on the walls.
The recoil from spore cannons would probably be too much for the slime's adhesive force to stabilize—they'd likely fall off the rock face after one shot.
As for the last option.
**[Stone Eating LV4]**
Obtained from the now-extinct rock lizards of the fifth floor, the effect was to eat surrounding stone and then cover the body with a layer of rock armor.
If there were no footholds on the rock wall, just create them!
Directly produce puffshrooms on the rock wall. After birth, the puffshrooms would start eating the stone beneath them, then fuse the rock armor with the stone wall, eventually becoming something like a fixed turret.
This thing was aesthetically pleasing and practical, but had an obvious drawback—low cost-effectiveness.
For the same consumption, mobile puffshrooms that could move around and be deployed would certainly be more useful.
Fortunately, he currently had a solar-powered magic generator and wasn't short on magical power for now.
If the first two options weren't satisfactory, he'd choose this as a fallback.
...
While Lin Jun was still designing the new puffshroom form, a large black mushroom also descended from the fifth to the sixth floor.
"Little Black? What are you going to play today? Fight turtles on the seventh floor?"
"Fight green people!"
"Little Black, those are treants. You can't just hit green people randomly, you know?"
"Mm!"
*Mm* my foot!
Seeing how quickly she agreed, Lin Jun knew she absolutely didn't understand!
Since Little Black consistently failed to comprehend things, Lin Jun would explain repeatedly to her.
Over time, this creature had actually learned to pretend understanding, brushing things off with "mm-hmm-hmm" responses.
What a headache!
Speaking of which, last time at the treants' place, Lin Jun had scattered spores, wanting to test if mushrooms could compete for the moss's ecological niche.
Now with Little Black leading the way, he might as well go take a look.
Skillfully splitting off four puffshrooms to follow Little Black, Lin Jun's main consciousness once again immersed itself in designing puffshrooms.
This was delicate work—without properly designing the corresponding form, installing skills would be useless.
However, he couldn't immerse himself for too long before an unfamiliar voice through the mycelial network interrupted Lin Jun.
"Mushroom Master, you have appeared once again!"
???
Searching for the signal's source, it was... the treant grove?
Huh?
The puffshrooms followed behind Little Black, violently traversing several plant-type magical creature territories all the way to the grove entrance.
Only then did Lin Jun finally see the signal's owner—a treant with mushrooms growing on its body!
It looked somewhat familiar. Trying hard to recall, this treant seemed to be the one whose limbs Little Black had torn off before?
It appeared to have grown back now!
Plant-type magical creatures really did have superior regenerative abilities.
Wait, that wasn't the point...
These treants actually possessed higher intelligence!?
Just look at how that previous statement was phrased—at least more fluent than Little Black!
Speaking of Little Black, this creature had already rolled up its sleeves, ready to start fighting.
"Little Black, wait! Wait a moment, let's not play right now, okay?"
"Want to fight green people!"
Still calling them green people!
But now wasn't the time to argue with her about this.
He decisively deployed his most effective recent trump card for dealing with Little Black!
"Be good, I'll give you glass marbles later!"
Sure enough, upon hearing about glass marbles, Little Black instantly became an obedient child.
She ran to the side to play with tree roots growing from the ground.
At the same time, a puffshroom on the fifth floor ran to Little Black's mushroom hut and, from a room full of glass shards, pulled out two intact glass marbles to give to Little Black later.
Having dealt with the little brat, Lin Jun finally had time to address this treant who had been left hanging and had just walked the line between life and death again.
"Um... well..."
Checking the status panel—no name, confirmed to be a barbarian [non-civilized creature].
"Mr. Treant, you've connected to my home network. What can I do for you?"
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