This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms - Chapter 585

Upon a pitch-black, desolate, perfectly flat expanse of land, countless coffins were arranged in neat rows.

Row after row, column after column, orderly and uniform, stretching all the way to the edge of vision…

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Another humanoid mist creature with a fish tail, shrimp-like pincers, and a grotesquely twisted form sprouted mushrooms after being completely parasitized by mycelium, becoming a full-fledged puppet.

After the internal threat within the Tidal Sanctum was cleared out, the monsters that continued to emerge from the mist not only failed to place any new pressure on Lin Jun, but instead became another sustainable source of troops.

Lin Jun issued orders for his subordinates to select the stronger individuals among the mist monsters, spare their lives, and convert them into controlled puppets to supplement underwater combat power.

The only side effect was that every time Lin Jun implanted mycelium into these monsters, a certain image would always flood into his consciousness.

Although the viewing angle differed slightly each time—sometimes standing among the coffins, sometimes overlooking the entire formation—the core elements never changed: coffins, towering mountains, and a pitch-black sky.

After seeing it several times, Lin Jun lost all sense of novelty. From then on, the moment the image surfaced, he would directly use his powerful mental strength to skip it entirely.

An ordinary person would probably need to struggle quite a bit to forcibly awaken themselves from such intrusive visions, but with Lin Jun’s vast mental power, this was no trouble at all.

Everything was now advancing according to plan.

On the Mushroom Garden side, reserves of conventional troops and combat puji had already reached saturation. Even the puji god-soldier—a strategic weapon formed by combining large numbers of puji—had already been assembled and could be activated at any time.

The only reason they were all still holed up inside Puji Fort was that the temperature had dropped so low that even Cold Resistance LV10 could no longer allow normal outdoor activity.

All that remained was for Inanna to return from the dwarven territories with the Ring of Restraint, capture the frost elemental lord in the north that constantly radiated extreme cold, and seal it into the ring.

Once that was done, the Mushroom Garden would undergo full-scale expansion and truly bring the entire northern region under its control.

As for the Empire, Thirteen had already been arranged to infiltrate from within.

Duke Elinor… was not particularly sharp-minded, making her an ideal breakthrough point.

Something like a mycelial carpet was easy to spread, but once laid down, removing it later would be nearly impossible.

According to information Lin Jun obtained from Little Xi’s intelligence network, Elinor had recently been driven to distraction by Qis. Under such pressure, how could she possibly resist using a mushroomfolk force that was proactively delivered right to her doorstep?

As for Qis…

That guy really had slipped into the sea, and judging by the situation, had developed surprisingly well.

Even though it was a defeated opponent, Lin Jun never underestimated those insects.

If given more time to grow, they might genuinely become a major hidden threat.

For enemies that could snowball their strength just like himself, the best approach was naturally to crush them at the appropriate stage.

When Qis first escaped, it had been weak, with only a small swarm, and hid deep in the ocean, making it difficult for Lin Jun to lock onto its whereabouts.

But now things were different. As its foundation grew thicker, it was forced to venture out on a large scale to forage, fully exposing its movements.

Lin Jun’s naval force had been prepared precisely for Qis, aside from dealing with the sea mist.

Recently, several new puji variants had been cultivated:

Floating puji that kept their caps above the water surface, linking with surrounding mycelium and aquatic plants to perform photosynthesis and store magic power; sea-monster puji that relied on the Colossus skill to become mobile underwater fortresses capable of carrying large numbers of torpedo puji; and a new-generation jida that used jet propulsion for high-speed underwater maneuvering and was equipped with multiple aquatic combat skills.

Lin Jun was working overtime to mass-produce these new puji types in order to rapidly strengthen his navy.

At the same time, more and more merfolk were being connected to the fungal network.

The old merfolk Gugulu was extremely cooperative.

After reclaiming the Tidal Sanctum, it allowed Lin Jun to absorb merfolk and let mycelium spread throughout the dungeon, while it focused entirely on repairing the damaged statues.

Unfortunately, in Lin Jun’s perception, even after being repaired, these statues no longer possessed their original flickering spiritual vitality. Some unknown function appeared to have been permanently lost.

The only one that still retained that soul-like radiance was the statue originally rescued by Norris and Ming.

Although the merfolk cooperated enthusiastically in most matters, there was one thing they stubbornly insisted on.

That was that their dying kin must die within their sacrificial ritual.

Because mycelial parasitism granted hosts an extremely strong ability to cling to life, this ritual was now mainly directed at merfolk who had reached the end of their natural lifespan.

Although Lin Jun was dissatisfied with the inability to decompose corpses, considering that the merfolk had submitted voluntarily and that he was not currently lacking those skill gains, he temporarily allowed them to continue their traditions.

Lin Jun had even observed the ritual several times, and the process was indeed very similar to that of the Hand of Crossing Death cultists.

The only difference was that the merfolk sacrificed themselves, while the Hand of Crossing Death sacrificed others.

Through the Inspiration perspective, Lin Jun clearly saw the changes in their souls during the ritual.

The gray substances attached to the surface of the sacrificed individual’s soul peeled off in large quantities under the ritual’s pull and were entirely absorbed by the old merfolk presiding over the ceremony.

On the interface, this process manifested as the disappearance of skills.

This matched Lin Jun’s earlier suspicions: those attachments on the surface of souls were very likely related to skills, or perhaps were the skills themselves.

However, this was still different from being decomposed by Lin Jun’s Greed.

First, the ritual clearly could not strip the attachments as thoroughly as he could. When the soul left the ritual and merged into the world, a significant amount of gray matter still remained on its surface.

Whether this was good or bad for the soul itself was unclear.

Second, although the old merfolk presiding over the rituals absorbed a large amount of these attachments, over many years its soul, in Lin Jun’s spiritual vision, had almost been stained pitch-black.

Yet none of those absorbed attachments granted it any new skills.

All in all, in Lin Jun’s view, these rituals brought no obvious benefit to either the old merfolk or the sacrificed individuals.

Perhaps… if sustained long enough, that so-called god of death would eventually bestow some blessing?

Like the Sage title on the old merfolk?

And Lin Jun was also a little curious.

If he were to decompose an old merfolk that had accumulated so many attachments, what would happen?

Would he only obtain the old merfolk’s own skills?

Or would he also gain the skills of all the merfolk previously sacrificed by it?

Lin Jun recalled that the normal lifespan of merfolk in this world was only thirty to forty years.

He glanced at the old merfolk currently organizing the careful restoration of the statues. Unfortunately, age was not displayed on the interface, so he had no idea how long it would be before it died of old age…

Suddenly, Lin Jun—deep in thought with a researcher’s mindset about the nature of soul attachments—froze.

Level up: LV69 → LV70

Huh?!

Finally…

The lord mushroom makes its grand debut!

Lin Jun could not wait to open the interface, scroll the long skill list all the way to the bottom, and tap the newly appeared plus sign at the very end.