Chapter 20: 20 The First Fungal Speaker

In the pitch-black forest, Dylan held a torch and called out anxiously:

"Bella! Bella, where are you? Answer your father!"

"Da... da..."

A faint voice came through. Dylan hurriedly followed the sound, pushing aside the grass, and saw his daughter leaning against a tree, covered in blood.

"Bella! How did you get so badly hurt?

Bella, don't be afraid. Father is here, Father is here."

Tears streaming down his face, Dylan embraced his weak daughter tightly.

"Father, I... I..."

"I'm here, I'm right here. Speak slowly."

"Father," Bella wrapped her arms around Dylan's neck and opened her scarlet eyes, "I'm so hungry..."

Sharp teeth pierced his neck. Dylan's blood gushed out. In his blurred vision, he saw Bella crying as she swallowed his flesh and blood.

————

"Ah!"

Dylan woke with a start, gasping for air.

It was a dream. Thank goodness it was a dream...

Where... am I?

Dylan looked up and saw a Pujiji turning away from him with disgust.

A monster... a mutated Pujiji...

He remembered the scene before he fainted. Where were those parasitic trees?

Then Dylan noticed the remains of parasitic trees lying scattered on the ground around him, sprouting mushrooms.

A rough glance showed there were far more than the five that had been chasing him.

These... all done by these Pujiji?

Dylan found it hard to believe. Even if the Pujiji had mutated, could they kill so many parasitic trees?

But the hazy memories before he fainted and the current scene seemed to tell him this was the truth.

This was that hidden room. He saw the stone chest that had been opened.

So it was a treasure chest room.

The Pujiji were probably monsters guarding the treasure chest.

However, the Pujiji around him seemed to hold no hostility toward him. Strangely, he didn't feel awkward either, as if this were simply how things should be... so strange...

Right, what about my injuries?

Dylan touched his abdomen. The wound was gone, but a closer look sent a storm of shock through his heart.

The wound had been filled with mycelium, and a small mushroom had even grown on top of it...

He had seen scenes like this before, on people captured and parasitized by parasitic trees.

No wonder the mutated Pujiji didn't attack him. No wonder he felt the Pujiji were close to him. It turned out he had been parasitized.

But his consciousness was still relatively clear, and he wasn't bound like those captured by parasitic trees.

Before being completely controlled, he seemed to still have a little time.

He looked at the remains of those parasitic trees. Many tree seeds still hung on them. A bold idea arose in his mind.

Dylan didn't care about his own life or death, or whether he would be controlled by the parasitic infection. He only wanted to get money to save his daughter. If his time ran out, he would entrust Fatty to help him save his daughter.

What he needed now was to take the parasitic tree seeds back to the surface.

He climbed to the side of a parasitic tree, carefully plucked a seed, and stuffed it into his chest.

Looking around, the Pujiji seemed to pay no attention to his actions.

This put his mind at ease. He collected every seed in the room one by one.

That's enough. This many is definitely enough.

Holding the seeds, he came to the stone door and looked back once more. The Pujiji were still acting as usual.

Truly... strange.

————

Watching Dylan disappear outside the stone door, Lin Jun had not exchanged a single word with him from start to finish, even though he was currently connected to the mycelial network.

Saving him was his principle; it did not mean he trusted him.

Dylan was indeed parasitized, and in a state where the final step was imminent.

As long as Lin Jun wished, the mycelium inside Dylan would completely destroy his mind, turning him into a puppet-like existence.

However, that would contradict his original intention of saving him.

Let him be. Having saved his life and given him tree seeds, Lin Jun had already repaid the debt of opening the door enough. Whatever happened next had nothing to do with him.

Come to think of it, this person took such a huge risk just for the tree seeds. They must be good stuff. Should I stock up on some too?

They might be useful later. Anyway, decomposing them directly would only yield a trifling amount of magic power.

While Dylan was unconscious, he took the Pujiji out for a stroll and hunted some fertilizer.

On the way, he used the panel to take a look around and basically confirmed this was the Fifth Layer based on the levels.

That teleportation maze really was unreasonable, dumping him straight from the Eighth Layer to the Fifth Layer. Could there be teleportation arrays that dumped people to the Tenth Layer or even the Deep Zones?

Fortunately, he hadn't encountered one. Silently, he marked the Eighth Layer as extremely dangerous in his mind.

What Lin Jun cared about most now was selecting a site for the new mushroom garden.

Although this treasure chest room had magical water, first, the supply was actually not very large. Once the pool stored there was used up, the place would lose much of its value.

Second, he was beginning to understand how this dungeon operated. It probably wouldn't let him keep the door open forever. Who knows when some mechanism might trigger? If he were still inside at that time, it would be disastrous.

As for bursting out of the dungeon in one breath to bask in the sun?

He would like to, but he dares not.

The dungeon has only one exit; he would inevitably clash with a large number of humans, and there might well be experts among them.

He does not wish to fall before dawn.

Steady is better; even if it takes a little longer, now that he can see hope, he can endure it.

Regarding the new mushroom garden, he wanted to choose a location that was both safe and convenient for hunting to snatch skills.

And in reality, he discovered that this swamp area was indeed suitable.

Adventurers rarely choose to pass through the dangerous swamp terrain; even if they enter, their movements are sluggish.

But the omnipresent swamp makes little difference to the shell-less, lightly armored Pujis compared to solid ground.

And if the mushroom garden is in the swamp, his true form can hide beneath the swamp, which is also a quite secure method.

It is just that the local residents are slightly troublesome.

When Lin Jun first started dealing with those five parasitic trees, he had not taken them to heart, but when he went out for a stroll, he fought a hard battle.

These parasitic trees love to call friends and companions to gang up on others; they are very shameless.

They possess a wide variety of skills and magic of varying levels.

Lin Jun encountered a parasitic tree parasitizing an LV36 mage; without checking the status panel first, he carelessly suffered a loss and lost several Pujis.

Before this, how could he have imagined that such a high-level mage would fall here...

At this rate, there are probably countless powerful ones parasitized throughout the entire swamp; if there were one at level fifty-something... that shouldn't happen, right...

More crucially, the actual gain from fighting these parasitic trees is not high; this is the most important point.

The skills possessed by parasitic trees are very monotonous: just 【Fusion Parasitism】, 【Entanglement】, 【Resilience】, plus a few various resistances.

What is truly formidable are the bizarre moves of those who are parasitized.

But Lin Jun tried; decomposing these parasitized shells yielded no skills whatsoever, and even mana was scarce, as if the interior had been completely drained.

Fighting them just for the few skills of the parasitic trees themselves, the difficulty clearly does not match the gain.

But if one adds the need to seize territory to build a new mushroom garden, it seems barely acceptable.

After a brief thought, Lin Jun still decided on the swamp area.

With the target set, once he produces another batch of Pujis adapted to the swamp terrain, he will begin the conquest plan!

(End of this chapter)