Chapter 109: 108 Rift Valley

After dealing with the Slimes, Lin Jun faced no further obstacles on the sixth floor.

With the Tree Spirit guiding the way, they could go anywhere.

"Help me~ Help me~"

A muffled yet weak cry for help came from behind a small slope.

However, neither the lead Tree Spirit nor Slime, controlled by Lin Jun, went to check the situation behind the slope.

To be honest, after seeing so many Flower Spirits, one really feels they are stupid beyond belief.

The voice system only has this ancestral phrase.

If one occasionally appeared in some remote wilderness, it might actually fool an adventurer, but this is the sixth-floor Botanical Garden!

Wherever they go, it's "Help me," as if afraid others wouldn't know where they are!

Fortunately, plant-type monsters retained the ability to absorb nutrients from the soil; otherwise, given the performance of these Flower Spirits, they should all have starved to death.

Xiao Lv cleared the path all the way, finally arriving at a rarely visited corner on the sixth floor.

The reason few came here was that there were neither collectible herbs nor monsters whose corpses yielded materials; there were only dozens of cracks, large and small, extending downward to the very limit of vision.

The edges of the cracks were coated with deep brown weathering marks, like congealed scabs.

When Pujie stood at the edge and leaned forward, it could feel the damp chill emanating from underground.

These cracks looked much the same; they were not necessarily vertical, but each one was bottomless.

【Sonar Detection Lv6】

Here, this skill was far more convenient than other observation methods.

Through detection, Lin Jun discovered that these cracks were not completely separated from each other as they appeared on the surface.

Some adjacent cracks merged with each other as they extended downward, while others branched out again after a certain distance below.

With such a structure, saying they lead to the unknown was absolutely correct.

Unfortunately, Lin Jun's detection skill had a limited range and could not directly observe the bottom.

"Boss, why come here?"

Xiao Lv had been living quite comfortably recently.

The A-grade Magic Crystal given by the Boss accelerated the root's mana absorption speed, breaking the long-standing level cap.

It rose from level 29 to the floor's upper limit of level 30.

Lin Jun regularly provided them with a batch of low-grade Magic Crystals as wages; these crystals were planted in Lin Zili, helping new Tree Spirits awaken consciousness.

Because it brought real benefits to the Tree Spirit Forest, more and more Tree Spirits joined the ranks serving the Boss; as long as they connected to the Mycelial Network, they would naturally experience the Boss's unfathomable will and understand this was the best choice for Tree Spirits!

The current situation was that it was virtually becoming the leader among Tree Spirits.

Only a few old stubborn ones hid deep within Lin Zili, refusing to come out.

This time, when Lin Jun asked for a guiding Tree Spirit, it had just finished resting and volunteered to come, never expecting the destination to be this dead zone.

For monsters unable to leave the floor, this was indeed a dead zone.

The Pujies dragged a昏迷 Stone-Skin Wild Boar, found a relatively vertical rift, and threw it down.

The boar fell rapidly; once it exceeded the floor's range, a tiny arc of lightning flashed, and the boar's status panel vanished.

Instant kill.

The dungeon's rules still applied even in the rifts, just in a different form.

Seeing this, Xiao Lv nearby felt a bit of empathy; it was also a floor-bound monster, and the result of jumping down would be no different from that boar.

Only then did Lin Jun answer Xiao Lv's earlier question:

"Why come here? Because... below is my hometown..."

Hometown?

So that's it; the Boss comes from even lower down, no wonder so powerful!

For a moment, Xiao Lv wildly imagined all sorts of possibilities.

Then it heard Lin Jun shout in the Mycelial Network: "Hometown, here I come!"

One Pujie leaped down; four mycelial tentacles spread out a blanket—a parachute. Then it free-fell, and with a "Bang," crashed into some rock wall, sacrificing itself...

Well, as expected, the simple parachute I casually made was useless.

But it didn't matter; there was more than one plan!

A round Pujie, wrapped in a thick layer of mycelium, rolled out; other Pujies worked together, found an opening at random, and pushed it down.

The mycelium ball hit the stone wall, bumping and crashing as it burst forth with mycelium again and again below, quickly disappearing from the visible range.

Xiao Lv nearby really wanted to ask if returning to the hometown this way was too hasty, but didn't dare to speak...

Actually, Lin Jun wasn't even sure if the lower area was the Mushroom Garden; he was simply checking if this led directly to the deep zone.

The chosen opening wasn't very vertical; the mycelium ball stumbled and fell, exhausting most of the buffer mycelium before even hitting the ground; it was clear a safe landing was impossible.

It would probably be crushed to death.

A thick white line caught the Pujie!

The Pujie wiggled, but the stickiness was too strong to break free.

A spider?

There were indeed several types of spiders in the deep zone.

The ground still couldn't be sensed below; why would the spider set its web so high?

The vibration of the sticky thick line seemed to disturb the owner; soon, this monster crawled up along the line.

A large monster with a segmented body like a centipede and a pair of dragonfly wings on its back appeared before the Pujie.

Wait, what about the spider we agreed on?

Spiders were disgusting enough; this thing was even more disgusting than a spider.

Puji aimed the mushroom cannon at the monster and fired a shot, hitting it square in the head!

Apparently not expecting its prey to fight back, the monster shook its rattled head for a moment, then simply crawled over, not even a scratch on its skull.

Once it crawled over, the monster extended its slender proboscis and stabbed straight into Puji's body, immediately beginning to suck out its magic power.

A single gulp drained a third of its magic power, and Puji visibly shriveled up.

Before it died, Lin Jun only managed to glance at the monster's stat panel.

【Race: Thousand-Pivot Mayfly】

【Level: 62】

Right, no wonder the mushroom cannon couldn't hurt it!

This is the deep-layer zone!

As the Thousand-Pivot Mayfly sucked hard once more, Puji lost contact.

Although Puji died, Lin Jun had at least confirmed that below really did lead to the deep-layer zone.

A level 62 monster, far exceeding the tenth floor's level cap — where else could it be but the deep-layer zone?

Still, this rift definitely wasn't the one that used to lead to the old Mushroom Garden; back then Inanna had drifted down slowly, neither hitting the rock wall nor running into any monsters.

Though it didn't really mean anything, Lin Jun still quite wanted to take one last look at the old place.

But there was no rush to do it today.

After confirming this place connected to the deep-layer zone, Lin Jun planned to spread the mycelia down along the rock wall, to see if laying a mycelial mat would let him go straight down.

"Head back," Lin Jun ordered.

The remaining few Puji had all been meant for scouting, but the second one had already done the job, so there was no need to throw the rest down to die.

Little Green had no idea what had happened below, only knowing that two Puji had been sent to jump down and die.

He turned around to clear a path back for the Puji.

Passing the little slope, the cries for help behind him still hadn't stopped.

"Help me~"

(End of chapter)