Chapter 123

A pitch-black tunnel, surrounded by "walls" woven from mycelium.

Norris carefully climbed up bit by bit with his hands and feet, so as not to slide back down accidentally.

Today was a special day, for Norris.

The Yellow Book was tucked into his pants; although the Yellow Book had emphasized several times that it was a noble holy scripture and shouldn't be treated so casually, Norris really didn't have any extra hands to take care of it.

Finally, a light appeared above; he was about to climb to the exit.

When Norris climbed out of the tunnel with half his body, what he saw was a mushroom forest!

The tender branches planted by the tree demons hadn't even grown into demon wood yet, but the mycelium planted at the same time had already grown into huge mushroom trees.

For a moment, Norris couldn't tell whether this was the fifth or sixth layer.

After Norris came out, a group of Puji surrounded him, and there was even a big black mushroom among them.

At the same time, the boss shouted in the fungal network: "Congratulations on getting out of prison!"

The Puji immediately threw a large number of petals into the air; if one looked closely, one could recognize them as petals from the flower demons.

Ding ding ding—

It seemed that some glass shards had been mixed into the petals, hitting Norris's scales...

The Puji stretched out their mycelial tentacles and lifted Norris out entirely.

The Puji patted him with their tentacles, knocking off the dust and stuck mycelium.

Facing the Puji who cared about him, although he knew they were all controlled by the boss, Norris still felt a feeling he had never had before—the taste of being cared about.

If the few pats from the big black mushroom hadn't been so heavy, almost knocking him to the ground, it would have been better...

Facing this newcomer, Lin Jun also said earnestly:

"Norris, now that you're out, you must turn over a new leaf and be a new mushroom.

Next time you want to slaughter someone, remember to report and apply in advance, and act only after approval.

You can't act without organization or discipline again.

You have to believe that the Mushroom Garden is always on your side; it's your home!"

Hearing the word "home," Norris couldn't control his tears anymore, crying and saying excitedly: "Yes! Boss!"

A Puji suddenly brought out a bowl of soup.

"You could only gnaw on mushrooms down there every day; it was hard for you. Come, drink some meat soup!"

Norris wiped his tears and didn't act coy.

He picked up the bowl of soup covered with a slice of meat, first smelled the long-lost meat scent, and then drank it in one gulp.

After drinking, Norris smacked his lips; it was actually mushroom meat soup, he thought it was pure meat soup, but it was not bad.

The meat and soup in the bowl were gone, and there were two mushroom petals left; not wanting to waste the boss's intention, Norris decided to eat them clean.

Hmm?

Picking up a mushroom petal... why was it green...

Norris rolled his eyes and collapsed to the ground.

Several Puji rolled up the unconscious Norris—he had to accept the second round of strengthening.

The Yellow Book at Norris's waist was also pulled out; during the days Norris was lying down, it had to go back to the Happy Hut.

Besides the regular force enhancement in the second round, Lin Jun also planned to add some other functions to Norris.

The current list was: [Rolling Charge lv7], [Sonic Detection lv6], [Evasion lv7], [Acceleration lv6], [Saliva Arrow lv5].

[Saliva Arrow] was intended to cooperate with the neurotoxin Norris already had.

As for [Rolling Charge]... Lin Jun really wanted to know what it would look like when a human used it!

The Puji carried Norris away, and Little Black also enthusiastically went to help.

While helping, it accidentally knocked off two silver scales; seeing that Norris didn't react, it accidentally knocked off two more...

When Norris returned to the Mushroom House, a small patch on his back was already bald.

...Handling Norris, Lin Jun turned his attention back to the seventh layer.

During this time, through diligent "fishing," Lin Jun had gathered the skills needed for the minimum requirements of underwater exploration.

The first batch of diving Puji had been produced.

[Underwater Adaptation lv6] + [Wake Jet lv3] + [Water Flow Perception lv4] + [Sonic Detection lv6] + [Swimming lv4] + [Scale Armor lv6] + [Infrasonic Attack lv6]

Seven skills, and even agility was pointed to 10 points; they were definitely an expensive variety among cannon fodder.

Among them, [Scale Armor] had to be added; without scales, any small fish in the water would want to come over and take a bite; the main function of the scales was to defend against small fish.

He couldn't just use infrasonic waves to kill his way through everywhere he swam, right?

Through [Water Flow Perception], not only could he discover danger, but if there were any leaking cracks nearby, they would also be sensed.

And because of the [Swimming] skill, without Lin Jun's interference, the lower bodies of the Puji all turned into fish tail shapes, although they were still composed of mycelium.

According to the naming method of this world, it seemed there was no problem calling them Puji-fish now.

These diving Puji could only flop on the shore now, and pushing them into the water required the help of other Puji.

The first batch of diving Puji totaled 60, in groups of 5, exploring from different locations.

Under Lin Jun's unified order, now, officially enter the water!

Tentacles pushed the diving Puji down.

At one of the entry points, a big catfish that didn't know how long it had been waiting surfaced, opened its big mouth, and swallowed all five diving Puji.

!!!

Not giving me face, huh!

In a fit of anger, Lin Jun... changed his perspective.

55 diving Puji successfully entered the water and began exploration!

The seventh layer was different from other layers; take the fifth and sixth layers, which had the largest area, for example; because there was no layering, although the space was relatively large, the actual explorable area wasn't too outrageous.

And in the seventh layer, over 80% of the space was underwater, and the ecology in the water was distributed in three dimensions.

So even if the overall size was a bit smaller than the sixth layer, the effort required for complete exploration was several times that of the sixth layer.

The underwater space of the seventh layer was roughly divided into three layers.

The top layer was an area like a sewer, with crisscrossing waterways plus mountain terrain that inverted from the ceiling into the water on both sides.

The middle layer was a pure water area with nothing.

And the bottom layer, which was the bottom of the seventh layer, had some ancient buildings covered in water grass.

These buildings obviously weren't in the water at the beginning; he didn't know why they became like this.

Could it be that the seventh layer was actually a layer without water before?

The first to be explored was the upper waterway area, which was considered the area with the smallest area and the easiest to explore.

But even in this easy-difficulty area, nearly 20 diving Puji were lost before it was cleared—no cracks were found.

And after the Puji came to the middle layer, the survival difficulty became even greater.

Due to terrain restrictions in the upper area, the fish were limited in size; in the middle layer, without restrictions, the Puji soon encountered monsters with larger sizes and higher danger.

They either relied on their large size and speed to catch up to the Puji and eat them in one bite.

Or they possessed unique skills.

For example, sucking the Puji over from more than twenty meters away, or mouthparts that could extend to thirty meters for precise predation.

Many of the guys made Lin Jun almost develop deep-sea phobia.

Only two hours after entering the middle layer area, Lin Jun only had the last three diving Puji left.

And Lin Jun also entered the strongest manual operation mode!

Two minutes later, the first batch of diving Puji was wiped out...