Chapter 99: 98 Underground Runoff

【Steel Bone lv2】

One of the many inconspicuous low-level skills in the skill library.

Although it is not a healing skill, just as expected, after installing this skill and supplying mana, the shattered bones were indeed replaced by the steel bones generated by the skill, effectively achieving the effect of setting bones.

【Claw Strike lv7】

A skill possessed by most beast-type monsters, but when installed on Pujiji, the place where claws grew turned out to be those two tiny short feet...

When first installed on Norris, his fingernails were replaced by ten-centimeter-long bone claws; after adding 【Steel Bone】, the bone claws began to transform into steel bone claws.

Lin Jun had long known about this kind of synergy between skills; now it seems it is equally effective on humans.

【Neurotoxin lv4】

After installation, he began to be repeatedly paralyzed by toxins produced by his own body and lose health, so 【Toxin Resistance lv5】 and 【Paralysis Resistance lv5】 had to be added to him to avoid turning into a vegetable.

【Mushroom Cannon lv8】

Norris lay unconscious on the mycelial carpet as skill after skill was slowly added.

Nearby, Pujiji occasionally used its bladed tentacles to slice open his flesh and observe the changes inside his body.

Beneath the swamp zone, the knight rolled up his pen and recorded all of this on a piece of parchment.

Adding skills is a slow process; Norris's first-stage modification will take about a week.

During this time, Lin Jun naturally could not do only this one thing.

As a very busy mushroom, he was simultaneously controlling the scouts and commanding the battle on the sixth layer.

The scouts are fine for now; with the help of his good older brother, Dylan is managing everything smoothly for the moment.

On the sixth layer, Lin Jun's carrot for the treants has taken effect; the number of treants willing to come out and work is gradually increasing, now totaling nearly forty.

And that very first treant has directly pledged allegiance to Lin Jun and started calling him "Boss."

To make it easier to address him, Lin Jun even gave it a name—Xiao Lu.

Lin Jun also thought it was strange to name an old tree bark "Xiao Lu," but since there was already Seeing Xiao Hei, he wondered if they could form a five-color team; he remembered there was a blue-furred werewolf...

With the treants joining, Lin Jun opened up the situation on the surface.

Treants serve as excellent vanguard pioneers on the sixth layer and are also qualified tanks with control skills.

Lin Jun had each of them command at least ten Pujiji to clear slimes on the ground.

With them, the pressure on the rock walls decreased significantly; Lin Jun could now spread the mycelial carpet over a much larger area at once, and the farthest extent has now reached the dome beyond the slimes' reach, where it has begun devouring firefly grass.

It can be said that regarding the battle on the sixth layer up to now, the overall outcome is already decided.

It's just that these unintelligent slimes obviously do not realize this and keep jumping out from everywhere nonstop.

Lin Jun's focus has shifted from advancing the mycelial carpet to searching for the source of the slimes.

"Boss, please take a look." Xiao Lu seemed to have made some discovery.

To be honest, being called "Boss" by such an elderly-sounding treant was quite awkward, even more so than when Dylan called him that...

Lin Jun shifted his vision and found it, along with its dozen Pujiji subordinates, guarding a patch of grass.

What does this mean?

But soon Lin Jun understood.

The grass in the middle suddenly swayed, and a moment later, a red slime crawled out from within.

Before the slime could jump away, Xiao Lu strode forward and smashed this slime to pieces with a single 【Trunk Strike】.

It then pulled out all the surrounding weeds, revealing a half-meter-long gap no wider than a finger, from within which the sound of flowing water could faintly be heard.

Underground runoff? No wonder my view of the rock walls was so good yet I couldn't find where the slimes were coming from; if they first moved through the groundwater network to various locations before drilling out, that would make sense.

This was also a blind spot in Lin Jun's thinking.

After all, since we are already "underground," and the first five layers had no such thing as underground water flow, it truly didn't occur to me at the time.

But this makes things troublesome; with a slime's body, it can squeeze through any kind of gap, so it naturally moves freely inside.

Although Pujiji can also squeeze and deform a little with effort, it certainly cannot compare to the former.

Even knowing the slime's source is hidden within the groundwater network, there is no way to follow this network to find it for the time being.

Seeming to see Lin Jun's trouble, Xiao Lu proactively suggested:

"Perhaps I can help you explore the groundwater network."

As it spoke, Xiao Lu stepped one foot onto the edge of the crack, and the roots on its foot moved downward, piercing into the soil.

This left Lin Jun utterly stunned.

Come to think of it, treants are different from mushrooms; they cannot directly collect mana from the air, or rather, they can, but the efficiency is very low.

When resting in Lin Zili, they always root themselves in the ground, absorbing nutrients and mana from the soil.

I never expected they could use their roots to explore underground!

Thus, Xiao Lu advanced step by step, rooting at each step, along the underground waterways.

At this time, it had no time to clear the way for the Pujiji; in fact, the Pujiji now had to protect it because it was inconvenient for it to move quickly.

Facing monsters that came knocking, Lin Jun did not hesitate; he ordered the Pujiji to decisively open fire and counterattack.

At this time, eliminating a small number of monsters would not cause any trouble to the sixth layer's ecosystem.

Along the way, using the panel to locate each hidden plant-type monster one by one and strike them from afar, the Pujiji did not even lose a single one.

However, after moving for an hour, the mana was exhausted...

This was normal; the team Xiao Lu brought had already been exploring for a long time, and this past hour consumed a huge amount of mana.

Just as Lin Jun was about to call for a pause, Xiao Lu stopped first.

"What's wrong?" Lin Jun asked.

"Sorry, boss, the underground waterways here are too deep; the roots can't reach..."

The tree demon seemed somewhat embarrassed, after all, the plan he proposed ultimately failed and wasted so much time.

However, Lin Jun did not feel it was a waste.

"Then let's return first. I'll give you a map of the sixth layer later. Starting tomorrow, you'll begin exploring the relatively shallow underground waterways of the entire sixth layer, then consolidate and draw them onto the map."

These words were not only spoken to Little Green but also transmitted to all tree demons active in the sixth layer through the fungal network.

Lin Jun's Thoughts were that if the slime production point was in the shallow waterways, the tree demons would find it directly.

If it was in an unexplorable location, by consolidating the waterway network, Lin Jun could roughly determine which area contained the deeper waterways, and at that time, conduct a focused search in those positions.

If necessary, just dig straight down.

He wanted to see what kind of thing it was that could hide so sneakily!

Actually, Lin Jun still had a small fantasy—this thing can produce so many slimes, which means the energy supply is sufficient!

And based on experience, perhaps... it's another fragment of the Sun Stone?

Currently, Lin Jun's 【Sun Stone (Fragment)】 is the result of two fragments spliced together; the mana volume produced through 【Photosynthesis】 is roughly equivalent to the total mana production of the fifth layer.

If another fragment is added, wouldn't the mana production increase by at least another 50%?

With more mana, perhaps his future elite Pooji project could be mass-produced on a small scale?

"Yes." After receiving Lin Jun's order, the tree demons replied one by one through the fungal network.

Hmm?

Lin Jun keenly noticed that one reply was missing.

Sensing around, he found that tree demon, or rather, found its corpse, in a Pooji that had fallen into idle status after losing command.

(End of this chapter)