Augusta withdrew her hand from the Mushroom People leader's mushroom cap.
At the same time, a faint ripple of spiritual power rose from her mind and connected with Benjamin's.
It was the complete intelligence she had extracted from the depths of the Mushroom People leader's soul.
As Benjamin "watched" the scenes displayed by the spiritual power in his Spirit Sea, he quickly learned the full story behind the Mushroom People race.
Just as Benjamin had previously guessed, the Mushroom People were indeed the product of artificial modification.
In the distant past, the ancestors of this race had merely been ordinary creatures at the very bottom of a plane's food chain.
These Mushroom People possessed no combat power whatsoever. Their sole advantage was that they reproduced quickly and grew quickly, barely sustaining their race through sheer numbers.
One day, a scientist selected them as experimental subjects for genetic modification, transforming them into biological tools specifically used for mining minerals.
The earliest modified Mushroom People truly performed remarkably in mining, even becoming fairly popular mining tools in that plane.
But the Mushroom People still suffered from low intelligence, making it far too troublesome to issue them commands.
Later, another scientist developed a set of Soul-Linking Technology.
That scientist's original intention had merely been to allow the biological tools to receive commands more efficiently.
Yet through this Soul-Linking Technology, once the Mushroom People population expanded to a certain critical point, the soul fragments scattered throughout every individual unexpectedly integrated themselves through the linking network.
Without any external intervention, a Mushroom Person at the very top developed consciousness.
It was the Mushroom People leader Benjamin and the others had encountered.
What followed was a standard script of an experiment running out of control: rampage, backlash, loss of control, suppression, counter-suppression—over and over again.
Relying