[Steel Bone LV2] — One of many unremarkable low-level skills in the skill library.
Though not a healing skill, just as expected, after equipping this skill and supplying it with mana, the shattered bones were indeed replaced by steel bones generated by the skill, effectively achieving bone-setting in practice.
[Claw Strike LV7] — A skill most beast-type monsters possess, but when installed on the puffshrooms, the claws actually grew from those stubby little feet…
Initially, after equipping it on Norris, his fingernails were replaced by 10-centimeter bone claws. After adding [Steel Bone], the bone claws began transforming into steel bone claws.
Lin Jun had long known about this kind of skill synergy, and it seemed equally effective on humans.
[Neurotoxin LV4] — After equipping it, he began being repeatedly paralyzed and losing health from toxins produced by his own body. Lin Jun had to add [Toxin Resistance LV5] and [Paralysis Resistance LV5] to prevent him from becoming a vegetable.
[Mushroom Cannon LV8]
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Norris lay unconsciously on the mycelium mat as skills were slowly added one by one.
Nearby, a puffshroom occasionally used its bladed tentacles to slice open his skin and flesh, observing the internal changes.
Below in the swamp area, the knight curled around a quill, recording everything on parchment.
Adding skills was a slow process — Norris’s first phase of modification would take about a week.
Naturally, Lin Jun couldn’t spend all his time on just this one task.
As a busy mushroom, he was simultaneously controlling scouts and commanding the battle on the sixth floor.
The scout situation was fine for now — Dylan had his big brother’s help, so everything was proceeding smoothly.
On the sixth floor, Lin Jun’s carrots for the treants had taken effect. More treants were willing to come out and work, now numbering nearly forty.
The original treant had directly pledged allegiance to Lin Jun, starting to call him “boss.”
For convenience, Lin Jun gave it a name — Little Green.
Lin Jun also found it odd to name an old tree bark “Little Green,” but since there was already Little Black, he thought maybe he could assemble a five-color squadron. He remembered there were blue-furred werewolves…
With the treants joining, Lin Jun opened up the situation on the surface.
The treants served as excellent pathfinders for the sixth floor while also being qualified meat shields with control skills.
Lin Jun had each of them command at least 10 puffshrooms to clear slimes on the surface.
With them, pressure on the rock walls greatly decreased. Lin Jun could spread mycelium mats over much larger areas at once. The furthest had now reached the dome ceiling where slimes couldn’t reach, beginning to devour the glowgrass.
The sixth floor battle could be said to be decided at this point.
However, these brainless slimes obviously couldn’t realize this, still jumping out from everywhere without pause.
Lin Jun’s focus also shifted from advancing the mycelium mats to finding the source of the slimes.
“Boss, please take a look at this,” Little Green seemed to have discovered something.
Honestly, being called “boss” by a treant’s aged voice was quite awkward — even more awkward than when Dylan said it…
Lin Jun shifted his vision over to find it guarding a patch of grass with twelve puffshrooms under its command.
What did this mean?
But Lin Jun quickly understood.
The grass in the center suddenly swayed, and before long, a red slime drilled out from within.
Before the slime could hop away, Little Green strode forward and exploded it with a [Tree Trunk Heavy Strike].
Then it pulled up all the surrounding weeds, revealing a half-meter-long crack no wider than a finger, from which came the faint sound of flowing water.
Underground flow?
No wonder he hadn’t found where the slimes were coming from despite occupying the rock walls with such good visibility. If they were using the underground water network to move to various positions before drilling out, that would make sense.
This was a blind spot in Lin Jun’s thinking.
After all, they were already “underground,” and the first five floors had nothing like underground water flows, so he really hadn’t thought of it.
But this made things troublesome. With slimes’ bodies, they could squeeze through any kind of crack, naturally moving unobstructed inside.
Though puffshrooms could deform slightly with effort, they definitely couldn’t compare to the former.
Even knowing the slime source was hidden in the underground water network, there was no way to follow this network to find it anytime soon.
Seeming to sense Lin Jun’s frustration, Little Green proactively suggested:
“I might be able to help you explore the underground water network.”
With that, Little Green stepped beside the crack, its foot roots moving downward and burrowing into the soil.
Lin Jun watched in amazement.
Unlike mushrooms, treants couldn’t directly collect mana from the air — or rather, they could, but very inefficiently.
When resting in forests, they would root themselves in the ground, absorbing nutrients and mana from the soil.
But he hadn’t expected they could use roots to explore underground!
Little Green proceeded like this, step by step, rooting as it followed the underground waterway bit by bit.
Now it had no spare energy to help the puffshrooms clear paths, even needing the puffshrooms’ protection since it couldn’t move quickly.
Facing monsters that came looking for trouble, Lin Jun wasn’t polite, ordering the puffshrooms to decisively fire back.
Clearing out small numbers of monsters at this time wouldn’t cause any problems for the sixth floor’s ecosystem.
Along the way, using the status panel to find those hidden plant-type monsters one by one and eliminate them from a distance, the puffshrooms didn’t even lose a single unit.
However, after moving for an hour, their mana ran out…
This was normal — Little Green’s team had been exploring for a long time, and this hour involved heavy mana consumption.
Just as Lin Jun was about to call for a pause, Little Green stopped first.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Jun asked.
“Sorry, boss. The underground waterway gets too deep from here — my roots can’t reach…”
The treant seemed somewhat embarrassed, since it had proposed the plan but ultimately failed and wasted so much time.
However, Lin Jun didn’t think it was a waste.
“Then let’s head back. I’ll give you all a map of the sixth floor later. Starting tomorrow, you’ll systematically explore the relatively shallow underground waterways across the entire sixth floor, then compile and mark them on the map.”
This wasn’t just said to Little Green, but also transmitted through the mycelium network to all treants active on the sixth floor.
Lin Jun’s idea was that if the slime production point was in the shallow waterways, the treants would find it directly.
If it was in an undetectable location, by compiling the waterway network, Lin Jun could roughly determine which areas had deeper waterways and focus his search there.
If necessary, he’d just dig straight down!
He wanted to see what exactly this thing was that could hide so sneakily!
Actually, Lin Jun harbored a small fantasy — this thing could produce so many slimes, meaning it had abundant energy!
Based on experience, maybe… it was another sun stone fragment?
Lin Jun’s current [Sun Stone (Damaged)] was the result of two fragments pieced together. The mana produced through [Photosynthesis] was roughly equivalent to the fifth floor’s total mana output.
If he added another fragment, wouldn’t the mana production increase by at least 50%?
With more mana, his future elite puffshroom plan might even achieve small-scale mass production!
“Yes.” After receiving Lin Jun’s orders, the treants replied one by one through the mycelium network.
Hmm?
Lin Jun keenly noticed one response was missing.
He sensed around and found that treant through a puffshroom that had fallen into idle mode after losing command, or rather, found its corpse…
