The collapsed cavern entrance saw twenty mining puffshrooms working frantically to smash the fallen boulders into pieces, while ten pack-mule puffshrooms behind them continuously used their reinforced mycelial tendrils to cart the rubble aside.
This was a minor miscalculation on Lin Jun's part. He had originally planned to place some auto-attacking landmine puffshrooms at key strategic positions to effectively strike at enemies.
But he had forgotten how fragile the caverns were, and how much the puffshrooms' self-destruct capability had improved.
This time it wasn't even a direct explosion within the cavern—the blast had occurred over ten meters away.
At times like this, Lin Jun would miss the deep-level passages that remained stable as mountains no matter how much you bombed or blasted them.
Come to think of it, normal mining operations required reinforcing the mine shafts, right?
Lin Jun lacked civil engineering knowledge. If pressed to think of reinforcement methods, he could only imagine setting up some framework structures in the tunnels, though their effectiveness would be questionable.
He wondered if this world had such expertise—it would be great if he could find some talent in this area.
After all, if he could ultimately control the dungeon, there would certainly be more places to mine than just this fifth floor. If cave-ins happened daily by then, no one could stand it.
About a day later, the cave-in at the cavern entrance was finally cleared.
The mining puffshrooms that had been trapped inside came rolling out one by one, tumbling onto the fungal carpet outside to replenish their energy.
Only about half of the originally working mining puffshrooms were still mobile. The rest had entered standby mode due to inability to replenish nutrition in time, with a few even starving to death outright.
The pack-mule puffshrooms entered and carried these puffshrooms out one by one.
Lin Jun also inspected the internal tunnels. The good news was that the interior tunnels had barely collapsed at all, meaning the losses weren't too severe.
Among these, Lin Jun paid special attention to tunnel number 22, sending a puffshroom all the way to the bottom to confirm there were no problems before finally relaxing.
The reason Lin Jun was so concerned about tunnel 22 was because it wasn't a tunnel dug for mining purposes.
Its purpose was—to dig diagonally upward out of the dungeon!
The dungeon having only one exit meant that even if Lin Jun extended outward, when facing enemies who understood his situation, they could adopt the strategy of eliminating large quantities of fungal carpet at the main entrance to cut off his connection with the outside.
At worst, this method could cause massive delays in Lin Jun's external control.
This was why when facing the choice between developing outward versus downward, Lin Jun focused on going down, while only extending small amounts of mycelium outward for reconnaissance.
But if he could dig out a second exit, or even a third, fourth...
Then such concerns wouldn't exist.
Of course, Lin Jun didn't think the dungeon would have such a massive loophole. If there were such loopholes, the dungeon would have been riddled with holes long ago.
Most likely, when digging to the boundary, some kind of invisible wall limitation would appear.
But didn't he have hero privileges? If he could use those privileges to solve the restrictions, then there would be no problem!
Anyway, the cost of trying was just having ten-plus puffshrooms take turns working each day.
...
This cavern collapse wasn't entirely a loss—Lin Jun still gained something from it.
In a mushroom house within the mushroom forest, Norris lay on a fungal bed, his body wrapped in translucent mycelium.
His left arm and both legs had bones crushed to pieces, his spine was fractured, and multiple organs were damaged.
Even with the mycelium repairing his body, Lin Jun had used several healing potions just to keep him alive.
However, while mycelium could repair flesh and organs, and could barely reconnect broken bones, it couldn't handle bones shattered like his. So even if he woke up now, he would just be a paraplegic invalid.
Lin Jun did know that the human world had limb regeneration potions—top-tier items that could restore someone to full health even from death's door.
But he didn't have any!
Everything in his inventory came from visiting adventurers. How could those guys possibly have such high-level potions?
Besides, even if he had them, they would be classified as strategic resources rather than casually used to save a stranger.
The reason this youth named Norris was considered his "gain" was because this guy had the fewest skills of anyone Lin Jun had ever seen!
Normal humans, even low-level adventurers who entered dungeons, which one didn't have a pile of skills?
Though the skill levels were all low and most had little practical value, they still had them!
If it was someone Dylan's age, the number of skills would be even higher, making Lin Jun's skill addition costs astronomical each time.
So piling skills to boost Dylan to diamond level was simply impossible.
Similarly, Lin Jun could only give Little Black a few key skills, and had to save up enough magic power in advance each time.
But this young man was different—he had pitifully few skills, his status panel could even be called... clean!
And he was different from Dylan.
Though Dylan was dependent on Lin Jun, overall he didn't owe Lin Jun anything.
When they first met, Dylan let Lin Jun out, Lin Jun saved his life—they were even.
Afterward it had only developed into a boss-employee superior-subordinate relationship.
So Lin Jun didn't dare casually try many of his ideas on Dylan. After all, if he really modified him into having three heads and six arms someday, even Lin Jun would feel somewhat embarrassed.
But this young man was different.
The account for his near-death should be settled with those two adventurers who had already sunk into the swamp.
And now, he had saved his life. Asking him to help explore the effects of combining human and monster skills was very fair!
However, before that, he still needed to investigate this youth's background clearly.
A puffshroom stepped forward, its mycelial tendrils "pat pat pat" repeatedly slapping Norris's face.
"Mm—?"
Before long, Norris gradually awakened: "This place is..."
He tried to sit up, but discovered only his right hand could move...
Soon, Norris understood his condition. Though he didn't know why he had been rescued, it seemed worse than dying on the spot.
Suddenly feeling like nothing mattered anymore, he wasn't even curious about why a puffshroom was standing beside him.
"Do you still remember answering me that you wanted to live?" Lin Jun's voice suddenly echoed in Norris's mind.
Norris was startled at first, but quickly returned to that ashen-hearted appearance, casually asking back:
"Who are you? The god of death? But I heard the death god is supposed to be a goddess..."
"You don't look like someone who wants to live. Is it because you're disabled? Actually, it can be restored."
"Really?" A glimmer of light sparked in Norris's eyes.
"Really really, it's just there will be a small cost or something... but that's not important. Let me confirm with you once more—if you had a healthy body, you'd still want to live, right? Answer me yes or no."
Norris: "..."
He actually wanted to ask what the "small cost" was, but this mysterious voice seemed unwilling to waste words with him.
Norris thought of his earlier life flashing before his eyes, thought of that girl he had only met once.
He wanted to approach her, wanted to know her, wanted to talk with her, wanted...
"I... want to live!"
"Good, now we enter the second round of the interview."
Second round?
The mysterious voice seemed full of anticipation?
Norris wanted to continue thinking, but somehow his attention suddenly couldn't focus?
"Young man, now let's chat about your story!"
This voice seemed to come from the horizon, carrying an irresistible magic...
Comments