Chapter 70: 78 Want some mushrooms?

The next morning.

"Four intermediate healing potions, three primary magic potions, three bottles of general antidote. They are all here, guest, please keep them well."

The clerk pushed the potion box wrapped in oil paper to the opposite side of the counter, and Vila took it and put it away carefully.

Fei Ling went to buy food and small props like flint, Fei Yin said she wanted to prepare some medicine powder, and it should be almost ready when she went back.

Pushing open the wooden door of the shop, Vila was about to return when a guy who looked like a hooligan took the initiative to come up.

"Little brother, very unfamiliar?"

Vila frowned, took two steps back, wanting to bypass him.

Did he look easy to bully?

Why would this kind of inexplicable guy come up?

The hooligan seemed to be ignorant, actually stepped forward two steps and leaned to Vila's side.

Vila's hand was already on the curved knife; if it weren't for the range of the town, he would have drawn his weapon.

"Yo yo, little brother, I have no malice."

The

"Hey, I just wanted to ask if you, little brother, need any specialties from Mute Wind Town."

Specialties?

It wasn't as if Vira hadn't stayed in Mute Wind Town before.

If one really had to talk about specialties, were all the things in the dungeon considered specialties?

But there wasn't any one thing that stood out enough to represent all of Mute Wind Town, was there?

Surely he couldn't mean the bar in the Rotten Willow Tavern that had already closed down?

Vira soon learned the answer.

The thug reached into his clothes, fumbled around for a moment, and pulled out a small bag that didn't look very clean.

"Want some mushrooms?" he said, revealing the green mushroom scraps inside the bag.

Mushrooms, mushrooms everywhere.

This was Vira's current impression of Mute Wind Town.

That bowl of mushroom soup yesterday wasn't a specialty of that shop; now, almost every restaurant in Mute Wind Town had this "delicacy."

The reason was simple—it was cheap.

It cost almost nothing; anyone who ran a lap around the first floor of the dungeon could easily harvest a large amount of mushrooms.

This became most apparent to the three of them after they entered the dungeon.

The ground was fine, perhaps because of the constant foot traffic, it remained as it was.

But the ceiling and the cracks in the walls were completely covered in mycelium and glowing mushrooms.

This was the case from the first floor all the way to the fourth; wherever there was a gap, or a place where living things didn't easily step, there were bound to be mycelium and mushrooms.

It wasn't just the floors; the stairs connecting the different levels were the same, with large patches of mycelium spreading along the circular walls, as if the top and bottom were all connected into one.

However, this situation didn't cause any trouble for the adventurers.

On the contrary, if you didn't mind drinking glowing porridge every day, you could enter the dungeon without preparing any food at all.

You just had to be careful not to accidentally cook the green mushrooms in—all the mushrooms glowed, and if your eyesight wasn't good, you might confuse them.

And the green mushrooms weren't entirely useless; just like that thug earlier, they treated green mushrooms as cheap "sleep-aid powder."

If one really had to say what inconvenience the mushrooms brought to the dungeon, it was probably that the firefly grass had disappeared.

At least that was the case for the first five floors.

Without the warm orange glow of the firefly grass, the mushroom luminescence that replaced it raised the creepiness level of the entire dungeon by several notches!

As it was now, even if a few ghosts suddenly popped out, it wouldn't feel out of place at all.

Walking in the spiral passage leading to the fifth floor, the ghostly light of the mushrooms illuminated the steps beneath their feet.

Feiling couldn't help but say, "They should just rename this the Mushroom Dungeon."

Feiyin nodded in agreement, "All mushrooms, and Puji."

Along the way, they had already encountered two battles between Puji and Shi Laimu, and even managed to scavenge a bit of loot...

When they reached the latter half of the passage, they heard a noisy commotion coming from below.

At the bottom of the stairs, more than twenty adventurers were resting in small groups; some had even started campfires, looking as if they had been there for a while.

The arrival of the three didn't attract much attention from the other adventurers; several gazes merely sized them up a few times before looking away.

"What are they doing?" Feiling asked in a low voice.

Vira shrugged; how would he know?

However, he noticed a sign posted at the exit.

He walked up to it.

"Fifth Floor Rules..."

This set of rules looked like an expanded version of the "guide" he had obtained earlier.

The fact that the adventurers tacitly allowed this sign to stand there rather than destroying it meant that the rules on it were likely correct.

It was just the last line: If you see an all-black humanoid creature with wings, immediately flee back the way you came.

Someone had scratched a line through it, and in the blank space below, a row of different handwriting had been carved with a knife: Do not enter at night.

Do not enter at night?

Vira then noticed that almost all of these adventurers were carrying moonshadow stones.

But... judging by the time they entered the dungeon and their progress, it shouldn't be night yet, right?

He felt he needed to find someone to ask.

Vira looked around and locked onto a dwarf who was diligently wiping his axe.

When he first walked over, the dwarf even guardedly lifted his axe.

But when Vira stated his purpose and handed over a silver coin, the dwarf chatted with him as if he had met a long-lost friend.

"So, everything written on that sign is true?" Vira asked after declining the mushroom soup the dwarf offered.

The dwarf didn't mind, taking a swig himself and leaving a large patch of luminescence on his beard.

"Of course it's true. I don't know which kind-hearted adventurer put it up.

At first, some people didn't believe it, but they learned their lesson after being stripped clean by the Puji one by one."

As he spoke, the dwarf chuckled softly, as if recalling the scene.

Vira nodded and continued to ask, "What about that last line? Is there some danger on the fifth floor at night?"

The dwarf, looking as if he knew Vira would ask this, leaned in close to Vira and lowered his voice: "It's the Big Black Mushroom!"

"Big Black Mushroom?"

"That's right! A black Puji as tall as a man, with extra thick scales!

It's powerful; even Gold-rankers can't beat it. It roams the fifth and sixth floors every night.

You might not run into it, but if you do, you might get robbed by it!"

Vira's eyes widened in surprise: "It can move between two floors? Doesn't that mean it can enter the stairs?"

"I understand your surprise," the dwarf patted Vira on the shoulder, having been through it himself, "but that's the truth. This is probably one of the aftereffects of the Magic Tide."

Aftereffects of the Magic Tide.

Adventurers attributed most of the current changes in the dungeon to this so-called aftereffect, including the mushrooms that had spread throughout the first five floors.

"You said you might get robbed by it; why is it 'might'?"

"That depends on whether you have anything shiny on you—rings, magic crystals, glass beads; it robs whatever it likes.

That's why I said it's better not to go out at night; if you don't run into it, you're safe."

"Then why are you all resting here? It's not night yet, is it?" Vira asked his final question.

The dwarf chuckled and didn't hide it: "Because we're going to hunt it down!"

(Insert an image of the trio)