The mushroom fields were growing rapidly, almost wildly in fact. The dull gray that illuminated only a single corner of the cavernous area was now occupying a large space. After the Millicrawler was eliminated, there was no more lack of nutrition.
While Ed wasn't sure what exactly did it take for a centicrawler to turn into a millicrawler or if they were even the same species, he was certain that the millicrawler was very nutritious.
'Just a bit more…' The gray mushrooms were less than two humans away from the world of color that were the other mushrooms.
Ed was looking forward to entering that world. He was really curious as to how exactly the magic mushrooms were supposed to live. I mean, who would be curious to learn about nature?
Well, he was mainly quite curious as to what different skills they might possess, but that was learning about nature all the same. Did one of them have hypnotism or parasitism? What were those humanoid mushrooms? How did they make it?
While Ed could do some of these things and some more through the system, apart from the humanoid mushroom, the hypnotism he could perform was not very practical.
He could for example remove the consciousness of his octocrawler friend and reinsert it to make it be at his command. But even after he got the spider it could refuse his commands if it had a sufficiently strong will. It was also easier said than done as a mushroom. Only the living mushroom puppet might help, but Ed was afraid to damage it.
Thus, Ed spent the rest of his time farming. He used the assimilation skill on a few consciousnesses but apart from that, he worked on getting different adventurer items into mushrooms.
The rare metals were ones he was particularly keen on. If he could give good armor to all of his skeletons and orcs he would be more than set to become the unrivaled champions of those floors.
Of course, he wasn't neglecting the mages. While they were many options he could try and explore to get a mage armor combo working… getting them robes was far simpler.
[Web Mushroom]
That was why Ed had W collect some webs. Ed had been initially afraid that he'd have to end the life of his only friend in this place, but the mob was surprisingly smart. As in, it knew its place pretty well.
Though it had settled in Ed's gray mushroom field to be a big fish in a small pond, it learned that this field was more dangerous than the others. Fortunately, the real big fish didn't mind keeping it as a fake big fish.
With the approval of his friend, the web shrooms were the designated base of future robe materials. The octocrawler was a mob, not a regular spider, so its webs were very sturdy.
While Ed's knowledge of equipment ranks came almost exclusively from the mob encyclopedia, he could say that a robe that was woven from Octocrawler webbing was at least a C-rank robe.
A C-rank robe was not much especially since it wasn't even a magic robe1 but with the forge that was the least of Ed's worries. He could almost guarantee any regular equipment that fell into his hands could be turned into a magical one.
Soon enough, Ed's fungi reached his neighbors' yards. The neighbors were not happy to welcome him though. On the contrary, they were acting as if he had stumbled upon their sacred land and committed sacrilege.
All the fungi retaliated, all of them! This retaliation took the form of a battle of resources. They started eating away at his mycelium and if he tried to do the same he would fail miserably.
Some were even going a bit further claiming some of his area slowly but surely. It was as if he had provoked something that shouldn't have been provoked and was now suffering the consequences.
Ed as a single party was at a disadvantage.
'...Guess I should have expected this much' Fortunately, Ed was a smart fungus. While he was definitely capable of holding the fort through a battle of resources, he was better off using his offensive shrooms to pack a punch.
Ed removed some death shroom slings before returning to the system space and creating some more sentry shrooms. The bugs had eyes even if they weren't the best eyes to use.
[Sentry Mushroom (Millicrawler)]
[ A sentry shroom with one thousand perspectives ]
The aforementioned thousand perspectives weren't actually any good but he only needed these sentries to house consciousnesses to increase the range of storing and manifesting objects.
He could have used normal mushrooms but It'd be a waste of the limited intelligence mushrooms with pieces of himself had. Plus, this way they served as surveillance cameras capable of returning all information once he retrieved them.
'Hm? I can actually use these everywhere then' The eye spy skill was described as giving one a sense of being spied on, but most things wouldn't suspect the mushroom was responsible.
'Well, it does have an eye' But any tall creature would only see a mushroom cap.
With all of this preparation, the death shroom slings were put on the border with ease. They immediately started bombarding the wicked neighbors. They almost immediately backed off, well died, and didn't continue expanding.
The death element was too much for any of the elemental shrooms that had been attacking him.
'So stupid!' The death sling shrooms would just chip away at them if they didn't continue their assault! Ed wanted to gloat but beating a bunch of mushrooms at a game of wit wasn't actually that great an achievement.
That wasn't what halted his gloating for real though, virtue would never stop his silent gloating.
[Recalling Champion's Soul]
It was a message brought to him by the combined efforts of the dungeon and system. His thoughts had grown astray and he only spared W a final glance before being swooped away. His remnant thoughts were of W.
Would W be able to watch his farm, erm, territory in his absence? Without the system, W was relying solely on controlling the growth of mushrooms. In that case, the battle against the shrooms might put some things at stake after all.
Ed's consciousness was brought back to reality after a short while. He was inside the endless black space that was likely the inside of the dungeon. As usual, it was actually red at the beginning.
The sixth sense skill never failed him.
[Sixth Sense has leveled up]
'You really are a good skill' Some of his skills were already being matched by his sixth sense skill after all.
[Name: Edw#&!]
Type: Level 7 Consciousness.
Health: 544/587
Bodies: Skeleton, Orc, Mushroom
~Skills~
[Transmission lvl. 4] -Show-
[Fortified Mind lvl. 0] -Show-
[Assessment lvl. 2] -Show-
[Assimilation lvl. 7] -Show-
[Thought Manifestation lvl. 2(-1)] -Show-
[Language lvl. 1] -Show-
[System Link lvl. 4] -Show-
[Eloquence lvl. 4] -Show-
[Sixth Sense lvl. 0] -Show-
[Body Recollection lvl. 2] -Show-
'Looks like a lot of my health has regenerated' It seemed that assimilating consciousnesses didn't just increase his max health but also healed him up in the process.
Other than that, there was not much for Ed to look at. Some skills had lost levels due to having to share with W but the closest skill to leveling up was the assimilation skill. His own level up was delayed.
'Dungeon, are you going to level me up?' Usually, it would send him a message shortly after he entered but right now it was awfully quiet. Ed had nothing against peace and quiet, but things were different with the dungeon.
It was like being brought into a room by a serial killer and having them simply stare at you with one hand on their chin and a knife on the other. Were they thinking to let you go, or what was the best angle to slice your body? Or was it that you were perhaps a little too handsome?
'Timer!' Ed decided to ask the system for help.
[3 minutes before respawning]
'Huh, so you are giving me the silent treatment?' The system was really obedient! Not giving him an update as soon as he entered. It only took a second for Ed to realize there was a problem with that.
It was as if both entities had divorced but still hung out together and expressed their love for one another. Was he being played?
It was possible. It was also possible that the dungeon only relayed the information after he asked for it allowing the system to obtain it.
It was possible. But then again...
'Too much is possible' Ed could not be sure, and as a vacuum in space opened up, he wouldn't be sure right then and there. He was sucked away to who knows where.
When his consciousness regained its clarity, Ed was able to let out a breath of relief. Well, no, he couldn't.
The place he was situated was dark and gloomy. There were dim lights illuminating the area and most importantly there were white skeletons occasionally patrolling around old furniture.
He was back in his skeleton body with no items to his name.
'This place isn't familiar either' He had been placed in a new floor or the dungeon had been expanding faster than he thought. Whatever the case, he had to find out why the dungeon had summoned him.
Was his punishment over? Or was it expecting something? Like humans maybe.
'If it's humans…' They had to come from the outside. He had exterminated the others after all.
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