Chapter 115: The Huang Pishu's New Bedroom

Skills, though ubiquitous, still felt mysterious to Lin Jun.

Take this 【Nightmare Incarnation】.

When that half-vampire used it, it was clearly a transformation skill, yet after being installed on Puji, it became a fixed form.

However, the half-vampire clearly used its own blood ability when transforming; Lin Jun could only guess that Puji lacked blood power, so this skill retained only partial effects?

He had encountered skills that mutated due to differing inherent traits before; the most typical was 【Assimilation Absorption】, which changed from absorbing flesh and blood to absorbing mycelium.

This should count as a kind of self-adaptation.

Then, regarding flight, Lin Jun conducted a few more experiments.

Two identical Puji with bat wings stood together.

Although they looked no different on the surface, pulling up the panel would reveal that one possessed the skill 【Nightmare Incarnation Lv1】, while the other was a blank-slate Puji.

The blank-slate Puji was one Lin Jun had painstakingly crafted one-to-one by referencing the bat Puji over half a day.

No other reason; he just wanted to see if it could fly without relying on a skill.

Lin Jun first controlled the Puji with the skill to fly a circle, then, using that sensation, he controlled the blank-slate Puji.

After several failed attempts, it actually managed to fly!

But it was clearly much more strenuous; every wingbeat required more effort, as if some kind of assistance was missing.

Additionally, if Lin Jun did not control it, this blank-slate Puji would be unable to fly no matter what.

Puji possess low intelligence and act mostly on instinct; the inability to fly indicates a lack of flying instinct.

Thus, it seems skills can endow Puji with this flying instinct, feeling much like having the 【Precision】 skill makes hitting a target easier.

In that case, one could probably pull off some flashy moves independent of skills for personal amusement, but to implement them on a large scale for Puji, skill support remains indispensable.

Of course, these so-called theories are limited to such relatively simple fields; attempting to craft a mushroom cannon without skills in other areas would be pure nonsense.

After finishing these small tests, Lin Jun checked the construction progress of the Trap Room—it was nearly complete.

The so-called Trap Room was the love nest Lin Jun had newly built for the Huang Pishu.

Previously, Lin Jun's plan to excavate a dungeon had failed when he hit a transparent wall; this time, he simply decided to make use of the transparent wall.

Since the transparent wall was immune to collapse and couldn't be blown up no matter how hard one tried, he might as well use it as the Trap Room.

Now, a small squad of construction Puji was working on this section of the transparent wall, performing final adjustments.

The originally cramped space had been expanded into a complete basement structure; on the arches where mycelium and rock merged perfectly, glowing spores were embedded, shrouding the entire space in a pale green halo.

The entire basement had eight pillars.

The transparent wall serving as the ceiling actually required no pillars for support; these pillars were naturally disguises, actually composed of a layer of stone shells crafted by Self-Destruct Puji, with four Self-Destruct Puji inside each pillar to ensure sufficient power.

On the innermost stone base, resembling an altar, the Huang Pishu rested peacefully, looking just like a reward item after defeating a boss.

The stone base was naturally also Self-Destruct Puji; after all, they were cheap and effective...

Presumably, the Huang Pishu would have no objections to its new home.

Of course, it couldn't just have Self-Destruct Puji; here, Lin Jun had also arranged several newly created Elite Puji as guards.

Compared to ordinary Puji, Elite Puji differed mainly in stats, aside from having a few extra skills.

For instance, for melee-type Elite Puji, Lin Jun had raised their Strength, Agility, and Constitution stats all to 40.

For ranged types, Intelligence and Agility were raised to 40, while a Constitution of 30 was sufficient. Placing three or four Elite Puji in the Trap Room was enough.

By then, the outer entrance would be sealed with a layer of stone, turning the entire Trap Room into a hidden space.

Adventurers who roamed this cave area would not be of high level; even if they stumbled into the Trap Room by accident, the guard Puji would force them to retreat.

If it were demons coming to their door and the Elite Puji couldn't handle them, the Self-Destruct Puji would simply blow everything clean.

Even if they didn't die, the time taken to retreat would be enough for Lin Jun to mobilize the Puji to block the cave entrance from the outside.

The reason for taking so much trouble to move the Huang Pishu over there was mainly that if left in the Mushroom Forest, demons would come to cause trouble every now and then, and it would be bad if the Mushroom Forest, serving as the employee rest area, got trashed.

Lin Jun's Trap House plan and Elite Puji plan were both progressing smoothly, but the plan to lay mycelium mats from the Sixth Layer Rift all the way to the Deep Zone was not so smooth.

The rift's rock walls were extremely hard; the mycelium could not gather nutrients other than mana from the rock walls, so extending downwards relied on connected mycelium mats to transmit nutrients to sustain growth.

This problem was not unique to the rift's rock walls; in fact, even on the rock walls of the Fifth and Sixth Layers, the mycelium mats could not extract basic nutrients.

It was just that they were not far from the surface and the dome, so transporting nutrients there was not a major issue.

But here in the rift, the length of the rock walls was simply too great.

The distance for transmitting nutrients via mycelium mats was also limited.

With no other choice, lacking conditions, Lin Jun could only create conditions himself.

First, he crafted some hollow tubes made of mycelium, poured soil through the tubes onto relatively flat areas on the rock walls, forming one supply point after another.

Relying on the nutrients in the soil, the mycelium could extend a bit further, using tubes to reach the next platform; extending node by node like this, it was successfully laid downwards.

For this purpose, a batch of soil-digging and transporting Puji was stationed in the Sixth Layer Rift, along with three Tree Men responsible for clearing the way and providing support.

During the process of the mycelium mat's expansion, Lin Jun also discovered an issue.

This rift seemed not to connect with the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Layers?

At least, Lin Jun's mycelium mats had not found any entrance leading to other layers.

Could it be that the other layers happened to be completely separated by stone walls?

This question could only be studied again after occupying the Seventh Layer.

The spread of the mycelium mats stopped once it finally entered the Deep Zone.

It was not that Lin Jun didn't want to continue extending, but he encountered a familiar figure once again.

【Race: Thousand-Axis Mayfly】

【Level: 22】

【Race: Thousand-Axis Mayfly】

【Level: 31】

In the area where countless thick white lines crisscrossed, a vast number of Thousand-Axis Mayflies lived.

Unlike the level 62 boss encountered when Puji fell, the highest level seen nearby was only around 40, but their numbers were quite large.

Moreover, they possessed extremely strong territorial instincts.

When the mycelium extended down and approached their thick lines, they would come over to scrape the mycelium off, or directly spit a mouthful of acid to corrode away a large chunk.

Simply put, it seemed impossible to go down without eliminating them?

(End of this chapter)