Ah——!
Sunlight!
Gentle breeze!
Finally… finally able to feel it!
Outside the dungeon, atop the cap of a massive mushroom tree, Knight Puffshroom steadily held aloft Lin Jun’s main body, greedily enjoying the long-awaited sunbath!
With humans having fled the area completely and his split-bodies serving as insurance, Lin Jun could finally let his main body emerge with peace of mind, embracing the sun he had dreamed of day and night!
This was the taste of freedom!
Half a minute later, Knight silently withdrew the main body back inside, fluttering its small wings as it gracefully descended from the mushroom tree.
Lin Jun had discovered a cruel truth—he still preferred the cold, damp swamp environment…
The sunlight on the surface, when basked in for too long, gave his main body a dry sensation. Clearly he possessed [High Temperature Resistance] and shouldn’t fear the sun, but perhaps this was racial instinct?
“Wuuu——”
A low bestial roar echoed beneath the mushroom tree as a wind wolf emerged from behind the bushes. Its yellow-brown eyes warily fixed on the scale-wrapped puffshroom before it, fangs slightly bared, front paws restlessly scraping the ground, seemingly hesitating whether to attack.
Lin Jun kindly helped it resolve this dilemma.
A tentacle blade “swooshed” across, and the wind wolf couldn’t even manage a dying wail before being neatly split from head to tail, collapsing onto the mycelial carpet.
After the humans departed, some low-tier magical beasts began tentatively moving about the surrounding areas.
However, most were trash mobs like this wind wolf, hardly worth Lin Jun’s attention.
Similarly, without human interference, Lin Jun’s mycelial carpet expansion became utterly unrestrained—even the Adventurer’s Guild wasn’t spared!
The surface’s magical power concentration was far lower than the dungeon’s, making naturally occurring slimes extremely rare. Without these natural enemies, Lin Jun didn’t even need to deploy puffshrooms to patrol the mycelial carpet.
Here, the efficiency of photosynthesis producing magical power under sunlight was considerably higher than in the Far North. Laying mycelial carpet wherever sunlight could reach was a guaranteed profit!
The magic-infused mushrooms growing everywhere were also one of the main reasons attracting those low-level magical beasts.
Lin Jun wouldn’t deliberately hunt these creatures, merely fulfilling his role as both producer and decomposer.
Meanwhile, construction of the surface mycelial network tunnels had also begun.
Considering that humans would return later, the tunnels were dug very deep. Building another “dungeon” beside the existing dungeon—just thinking about it was thrilling.
While the surface flourished, order was gradually being restored within the dungeon.
Several major spatial rifts that had been spewing forth large quantities of monsters were all sealed by Lin Jun, with other rifts of various sizes being cleared one by one.
Regarding the rifts, Lin Jun hadn’t been completely ruthless—he still left a few small openings that puffshrooms could use for entry and exit, keeping them for future neighbor visits.
Not to mention anything else, that verdant forest with its rich biodiversity looked perfect for laying mycelial carpet and cultivating puffshrooms—it deserved to become Mushroom Garden No. 4!
At times like these, Lin Jun couldn’t help but think of poor Dylan.
An early startup employee who had only experienced the days when Lin Jun was cowering on the fifth floor, hiding here and there. Now that success had arrived and the entire dungeon had been purchased, Dylan had no chance to enjoy it.
Given Dylan’s rotten luck, Lin Jun truly didn’t expect him to return successfully.
He’d find a stone tablet later and erect a cenotaph for him on the fifth floor!
Additionally, Lin Jun discovered that perhaps due to daily high-intensity corpse decomposition and close observation of soul dissipation processes, his [Inspiration] skill was leveling rapidly—in just a few days, it had reached level three!
Thanks to this skill, he could now barely perceive the soul states of decomposed subjects.
Lin Jun then made a very distinct discovery about souls being divided into two types.
One type, like the minotaurs, would leave behind a small, solid soul core after being decomposed and devoured. This core would then slowly merge with the surrounding world, like water droplets flowing into the ocean.
The other type, like Mirage, ordinary slimes, and flower sprites, would only release thin, formless fragments after decomposition, quickly dissipating into the air like dust without leaving a trace.
Through repeated observation and verification, Lin Jun had basically determined that the dividing line between these two was “wisdom.”
Although minotaurs had simple, brutish behavioral patterns with muscle-brained thinking, they were still genuine intelligent beings.
Lin Jun planned to study the differences between souls of various intelligent races when he had the opportunity.
Lin Jun hadn’t forgotten about another group of intelligent beings in the dungeon—those werewolves living on the tenth floor.
The mycelial carpet had already spread into the tenth floor.
Like the unfortunate fifth floor, the tenth floor had also become a disaster zone for foreign magical beast invasions.
However, unlike the devastation left on the fifth floor after its mauling, all monsters emerging from rifts on the tenth floor had been cleaned up completely by the werewolves.
If not for the remaining dark brown bloodstains on the ground and chaotic drag marks from friction, one might even get the illusion that this place had never been invaded.
Through the mycelial carpet’s perception, Lin Jun had also observed the werewolf tribe from afar.
These werewolves all had round, full bellies, and their fur seemed more lustrous than before—completely different from his previous impression.
They clearly had no intention of leaving the tenth floor to explore the other side of the rifts, instead choosing to defend their homeland, turning all “delivery food” that dared intrude into reserve provisions.
Unfortunately, these vigilant werewolves had obviously noticed the mycelial carpet’s spread. Some werewolves would actively clear the fungal threads around their tribal settlement, moving efficiently and preventing Lin Jun from conducting deep surveillance.
Regarding this pack of werewolves with growth potential rivaling vampires, Lin Jun naturally intended to recruit them.
However, there was no rush. With the entire dungeon under his control, they couldn’t escape.
Lin Jun decided to spend more time observing, understanding their habits, social structure, and even weaknesses before determining which “cordial and friendly” approach to use for in-depth communication.
The mycelial carpet installation on the tenth floor was generally smooth, but the ninth floor encountered difficulties.
Those flesh creatures on the ninth floor truly ate everything—laying mycelial carpet there was basically delivering food. No matter how much was laid, that much would be devoured, and they’d even climb up the long walls to eat!
Lin Jun could only rely on the rule-protected stairways to observe some conditions on the ninth floor.
If the Purple Crystal Dungeon was the passive victim of aggression on other floors, then on the ninth floor, these crazed flesh monsters had become the active aggressors!
Lin Jun witnessed many flesh monsters drilling into rifts leading to unknown regions, even willing to have parts of their limbs severed by the twisted spatial forces at unstable rift edges, as if there were delicious delicacies on the other side.
And none of them returned after going through.
He wondered which poor souls lived on the other side. Lin Jun could only silently light a candle for his unknown neighbors.
While Lin Jun happily played at rebuilding his homeland, the demon descendants who had been accumulating contribution points for a long time made their first exchange request for something other than mushrooms…
T/N: The missing chapter 199 is uploaded. Really sorry for the inconvenience you guys had to face.
Man, humans are going to be soooo surprised after returning.