This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms - Chapter 587

Watching the Puji slowly extend its tentacle toward him, Norris felt his heartbeat accelerate uncontrollably.

It wasn’t that he was cowardly. Two full years of surviving in the Mushroom Garden had taught him one thing very clearly: whenever the boss happily called him over alone, it was never for anything good.

Last time, he’d been electrocuted by an experimental Pikachu Puji, his entire body paralyzed as he lay sprawled on the fungal carpet, unable to move.

Kind-hearted Gray Sis had dragged him back to his mushroom hut, though he’d lost quite a few scales along the way from all the bumps.

So what was it this time?

Despite his fear, Norris forced himself not to pull his hand back. That would only make things worse…

The Puji’s tentacle slowly approached… slowly… closer…

Norris had already mentally prepared himself for a quick, decisive end, but the tentacle kept approaching without actually wrapping around him, which only made his nerves worse.

Thirty seconds later, the sensation finally coiled around his wrist.

In the past, although the soul resided within the body, physical contact could never truly touch the soul itself.

But this time…

[Soul Touch LV1]

Along the point of contact, Lin Jun’s soul flowed outward, transforming into countless fine threads that slowly spread across the surface of Norris’s soul light cluster.

Lacking the appropriate perception, Norris noticed nothing at all. He only darted his eyes around nervously, trying to figure out what exactly the boss was planning to do.

The wrapping wasn’t fast, likely because the skill was only at LV1.

After holding on like this for three minutes, the surface of Norris’s soul was completely covered by Lin Jun’s soul.

Lin Jun pulled a Charm Mushroom from the nearby fungal carpet and cranked its output to maximum. Norris, however, was completely unaffected.

It was effectively as if Lin Jun had become his mental armor.

That said, the practicality was limited. Lin Jun had to keep his focus entirely on Norris to maintain this soul-layer protection.

Once Lin Jun shifted his attention away, the soul would rapidly revert to its original state, returning to a condition of mutual non-interference.

After letting the lizardman leave—still scratching his head in confusion—Lin Jun moved the experiment into its second phase.

This part, however, wasn’t suitable for Norris.

…

“I—I can’t feel my feet anymore! What are you doing? Stop it! Don’t touch me again—!”

Deep within a cavern glowing with scattered luminescence, layers of interwoven mycelium sealed off the entrance. All sound was completely absorbed, not a single noise escaping outside.

Since souls could indeed be touched, there were naturally many possible applications.

Damage. Pulling. Drilling in…

After consuming roughly a dozen valuable test subjects, Lin Jun gained a rough understanding of what was feasible.

Destruction was the simplest. Once contact was established, it was a matter of collision and attrition.

At its core, it was an exchange that hurt the enemy a thousand while injuring oneself a hundred. Fortunately, Lin Jun had the resources to afford it.

Those whose souls were damaged felt no physical pain, but they fell into prolonged mental disarray—listless, unfocused, and unable to concentrate on casting spells.

As the damage worsened, they gradually lost control over parts of their body. It wasn’t necessarily the area touched. It could be a left hand that suddenly wouldn’t move, or a nose that could no longer sense breathing.

Like Lin Jun, ordinary people’s souls also possessed self-repair capabilities, just at a much slower rate. The more severe the damage, the slower the recovery.

And once the damage reached its limit, the result was what lay before him now.

The Puji’s tentacles wrapped around the man’s body, steadily and relentlessly grinding away at his already shattered soul.

He felt no pain, yet sensed himself vanishing from his limbs inward, as if his body were slowly becoming an empty shell unrelated to him.

This assassin, once infamous for his cold cruelty, now emitted the cries of a child—rambling threats, incoherent babbling, and finally pitiful pleas.

His voice grew softer, more slurred, until only meaningless drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. The last trace of light faded from his pupils.

His soul had been completely crushed.

It hadn’t vanished—only ceased to exist within this body.

The shattered soul merged back into the world. Perhaps it would one day re-form somewhere distant and unknown.

But regardless, the humanoid mass of flesh before him still breathed, yet no longer even had a status panel. For all intents and purposes, it was dead.

After decomposing this body whose soul had been utterly destroyed, Lin Jun indeed gained no skills at all.

As for attempting to turn his soul into threads and drill into another soul to exert control, that experiment failed. This skill simply wasn’t advanced enough for that.

Put simply, as long as a Puji could latch onto someone’s thigh, Lin Jun could kill even a god for you.

Of course, that was only theoretical.

Crushing the soul of that D-rank personnel had taken a full four minutes.

Anyone who could be continuously entangled by a Puji for four minutes was someone Lin Jun could easily deal with even without using Soul Touch.

Was there really a powerful existence that couldn’t move at all, one that would just let a Puji cling to it?

Lin Jun’s gaze unconsciously drifted toward the center of the Divine Wood Dungeon, to that tiny sapling…

No. Not yet.

He still didn’t know what tricks that old bastard had up its sleeve. Soul Touch LV1 alone probably wasn’t enough to threaten it.

Setting that aside, the skill’s current output was simply too low. Despite Lin Jun’s massive soul capacity, he couldn’t instantly kill others. This was likely a level issue.

Moreover, the damage inflicted on souls didn’t vary based on the target’s strength.

The effect depended entirely on how large the target’s soul was.

And in this world, the vast majority of people’s souls weren’t that different in size.

Crushing a LV20 individual and crushing a LV40 individual both took roughly four minutes.

Additionally, Lin Jun discovered that Soul Touch couldn’t interact with the souls of ordinary plants or monsters at all, as if whatever they possessed didn’t quite qualify as souls.

As for the Yellow Book, Lin Jun gave it a try as well.

He could actually touch it.

The sensation was strange, though—nothing like Norris’s proper soul.

On the defensive side, while Lin Jun couldn’t maintain that “soul mantle” on others for long, using it at critical moments to isolate or strip away certain mental-level negative effects proved remarkably effective.

For example, when facing the charm control of the Yellow Skin Book’s textual version, even if the target had already been completely dominated, Lin Jun could envelop them with his own soul, forming a sealed soul barrier that forcibly severed the external mental link, instantly lifting the control.

Overall, the results of this round of testing left Lin Jun quite satisfied.

As the skill’s level increased, this ability to touch the essence of souls might truly become a hidden trump card against top-tier existences.

The only problem now was that leveling the skill required frequent collision-based consumption.

And the household supply of D-rank personnel…

seemed a bit insufficient.