"Say it again."
Duke Amara's knuckles clenched so tightly they turned white, and the mahogany armrests of his throne groaned under the pressure.
Cold sweat beaded on the back of butler Eric's neck, yet he still enunciated each syllable clearly.
"After Pero and Oakes tricked the young lady away under your name, they first went to the Amethyst Dungeon, and then crossed the border to escape into the Hermit Empire. Judging from the direction they took, they are most likely seeking refuge with Duke Sigismund."
"Damn traitors! Damn vampires!" The solid wood armrest splintered and shattered. The Duke's pupils blazed with blood-red flames. "Inanna is still alive—the tracking mark is still active, and the mark of vengeance hasn't transferred. I have to go save her."
"My lord!"
Seeing the Duke snatch up his greatsword and prepare to rush off to rescue his daughter without a second thought, Eric shouted urgently.
"The moment you leave, Sigismund will lead the Blood Knights to raze High Castle Fortress to the ground!
Once High Castle falls, there will be no defenses left. At that point, not only your duchy, but the entire Southern Federation will be in danger."
"So you want me to sit here and watch Inanna die?"
The bluestone floor beneath Amara's feet cracked; spiderweb-like fissures spread outward. The terrifying aura of a LV70 top-tier human powerhouse forced Eric down onto one knee.
"The Diamond-rank adventure team 'Silver Thorn' is active nearby. You can privately commission them to search for Miss Inanna inside the Amethyst Dungeon. As for High Castle Fortress, you should feign departure to lure Sigismund here—then deliver a crushing blow and avenge the assassination attempt."
Eric nearly collapsed after forcing the words out in one breath.
The oppressive pressure gradually lifted. Amara sat back down, reached out, and condensed Inanna's coordinates into a glowing crystal, which he handed to the butler.
"Do as you suggest. Tell those adventurers to bring Inanna back alive, and I'll give them a city!
But if anything happens to my daughter…"
"Yes, my lord."
————
Deep within the dungeon, in the mushroom garden.
Inanna—completely unaware that her father had already begun organizing a search for her—was watching the scene unfolding before her with a mixture of fear and fascination at the edge of the breeding area.
Beside the deep pit where slimes were being raised, a hollowed-out Puji was feeding a slime from a full sack of ordinary mushrooms. But as the slime finished devouring the offering, it suddenly bounced upward and glued itself to the Puji's foot, dragging the little mushroom creature down with it.
In the next second, the slimes in the pit swarmed over, completely enveloping the Puji.
The wrapped-up Puji was still struggling—seemingly still salvageable.
"Lin Jun! Lin Jun! Your slime ate a Puji!"
Lin Jun, busy elsewhere, heard the call and glanced over for only a moment.
"Okay, I'll send a new Puji over there. I already told you the breeding area is dangerous—stay away from it."
Inanna had wanted to say that wasn't what she meant, but when she saw the Puji inside the slime go completely still and begin to decompose, she swallowed her words.
The underground world was truly cruel.
————
The underground world was indeed cruel.
To survive in such a place, Lin Jun was never truly free.
Puji intelligence was limited at best—they could only automatically follow simple commands and find their way.
Whether it was breeding, mining, or defense, Lin Jun had to split her attention and micromanage everything. Not to mention that the edges of the mushroom garden were constantly under attack from various monsters.
Even with LV5 Mental Integration, Lin Jun still struggled to keep up.
Finding any time at all to help Inanna get familiar with the environment was already quite an achievement—though she didn't show it, Lin Jun was secretly delighted to have someone to talk to. At least now she didn't have to talk to herself just to keep her language skills from deteriorating.
But after that brief introduction, there was no more time to pay attention to her. Lin Jun had to focus entirely on the garden's perimeter—another swarm of fire mosquitoes was approaching.
These flying insects looked like oversized mosquitoes, each a bit larger than a Puji, and averaged around level 20.
They weren't the strongest magical beasts here, but they were definitely the most annoying.
They could fly, were extremely agile, and attacked in swarms. Whenever they got the chance, they would use their needle-sharp beaks to snatch away any lone Puji—making them Lin Jun's greatest early-game enemy.
Fortunately, she had already developed a reliable countermeasure.
Facing the incoming swarm, several specially modified Puji—whose caps had been replaced with nozzle-like structures—forcefully ejected a sky full of highly adhesive, corrosive slime.
Once the fire mosquitoes came into contact with it, they could no longer fly and were forced to crash to the ground.
At the same time, the purple mushrooms dotting the floor released clouds of hallucinogenic spores, rendering the fallen insects helpless and disoriented.
After losing seven of their number, the remaining fire mosquitoes fled without looking back.
But Lin Jun knew they would return—they never learned.
The chitin-armored Puji finished off the unconscious mosquitoes one by one. The monster corpses were then dragged back into the garden to serve as fresh fertilizer.
[Seven Sins of Greed Triggered]
[Plunder Skill: High Temperature Resistance LV5 → LV6]
Upgraded?
Good. Once her high temperature resistance was high enough, she could attempt to sneak into the Balrog's lair and see what the upper levels looked like.
She opened her panel.
[Race: Mushroom – Master]
[Level: LV42]
[HP: 420/420]
[Magic Power: 8045/12450]
[Racial Traits:
Magic Harvesting (Mycelium can absorb magic from the environment to continuously provide experience)
Carrion Feeding (Decompose corpses to obtain nutrients and experience)]
[Fixed Status: Connected to Fungal Network]
[Skills: Puji Creation LV5, Magic Storage LV4, Magic Perception LV4, Entangling LV3, Mushroom Cannon LV6, Precision LV4, Mimicry LV2, Storage Envelope LV4, Mycelial Network LV6, Familiar Control LV6, Mental Integration LV5, Airflow Perception LV6, High Temperature Resistance LV6, Evasion LV6, Peck LV7, Hallucinogenic Spores LV4, Chitinous Shell LV4, Digestive Mucus LV3, Rolling Charge LV5]
[Title:
Greed of the Seven Sins (Unique Title): Randomly steals skills/fixed buffs from corpses
Mosquito Killer: Increases damage to mosquitoes by 10%
Hero: Not restricted by race or level; can randomly draw one special title or skill (already used)]
Lin Jun's stat panel didn't even list basic attributes. Her true body was just an ordinary-looking mushroom. A level-42 mushroom having only 420 HP was laughable compared to Inanna's 3000+.
Her unusually high magic power actually represented the entire mushroom garden combined.
The most absurd entry was still the "Hero" title—even Lin Jun found it ridiculous.
How could a mushroom like her possibly have such a title?
She had never met her summoner and had no idea whether it was a mad archmage or a god with a very twisted sense of humor.
One thing was certain: whoever it was had definitely not been in their right mind.
Who in their right mind would deliberately summon a mushroom hero?
Thanks to that title, however, Lin Jun had drawn "Greed" through the Hero's Privilege. She then used Greed to continuously plunder skills from defeated underground monsters, eventually arming her Puji with them.
From being chased and nearly eaten by slimes in the beginning to now holding a fortified corner of the dungeon hierarchy—the journey had been full of hardship and near-death moments.
It was hard to imagine what would have happened if she hadn't drawn Greed. She'd probably have been turned into fertilizer long ago.
So why summon a mushroom in the first place?
That question had become almost an obsession for her—second only to reaching the surface.
…
After dealing with the fire mosquitoes, Lin Jun finally had a moment to check on the new kids.
Ah… they were stealing the amethysts they had just mined…