Level 50, New Skill

Magic cannon shells exploded in the swamp, blasting black mud and fragments of half-rotted bark into the air.

After several months, fierce artillery fire descended upon the Swamp Zone once more.

But this time, there were only two Orc enemies.

When they realized they had been surrounded, Inigo and Milo both fixed their beastly eyes on the forest.

If they could break out of the Swamp Zone, then even if there were enemies farther out, they could use the forest's complex terrain to escape.

Of course, that was assuming they could break out of the swamp.

Neither of them had any intention of fighting. There were simply too many Puji.

So many that even if they stood still and let them hack away, the Puji could exhaust them half to death.

Only by breaking through before the encirclement closed could they have even a sliver of hope of survival.

As they sprinted, several Mushroom Cannons tore through the air and fell toward them.

[Acceleration LV6]

[Refraction Flash LV7]

Both used their respective skills to evade the attacks, but this was merely the prelude.

The nearly saturated fire coverage made the entire swamp boil. They darted and leaped through the mud, able only to do their best to avoid direct hits.

As for the shockwaves from the explosions, they could only endure them head-on.

Inigo considered himself tougher, so he charged forward even more fiercely and wildly.

As he neared the edge of the encirclement, dozens of scattered Puji stood before him.

Inigo raised his longsword and used Charge to flash behind one Puji, sending its upper body flying into the air.

His nimble footwork and the Orc's exceptional battle instincts allowed Inigo to precisely find gaps in the killing formation, breaking outward all the way.

Almost at the edge!

Several Puji rolled themselves into balls and charged at Inigo at the same time.

The sight nearly made the Tiger-man laugh.

He truly did not dare take those Magic Cannons head-on, but were soft, squishy things like Puji really going to fight him in close combat?

With his blade held across his body, he could clash with them and instantly...

Amid a string of Self-Destruct explosions, the Tiger-man burst out, charred all over.

At the very last moment, his instincts had made him react and flee, but he had still been slightly too late.

Everything below Inigo's left knee had vanished.

He collapsed to the ground, unable to stand again.

Meanwhile, the Puji aimed their Mushroom Cannons at him from afar.

"Fifth Floor... cough, cough... They're going to laugh me to death over this. This is worse than hanging in the Mist."

At the very end, he looked toward Milo.

He saw the figure that had been blasted into the air.

The way he had been flung was so ridiculous that Inigo could not hold it in and laughed aloud.

"Pfft!"

Bang—

Having finally dealt with the two Adventurers who had come looking for trouble, Linden was preparing to assess his losses.

Then, a message he had been longing for appeared in his mind.

[Level Up LV49→LV50]

[New Optional Racial Skill+]

Finally!

He had finally reached level 50!

Leveling up had been far too difficult. When he had first arrived on the Fifth Floor, he had already been LV48.

First, he had eaten nearly all the monsters on the Fifth Floor. Then, he had spent several months gathering through the Mycelium spread across the entire floor.

He had finally completed that final step now!

He was so moved he nearly cried.

From Linden's experience, every skill granted every ten levels was compatible with his own race.

Skills like Mushroom Cannon were clearly tailored specifically for the Mushroom race, making them more useful than most randomly stolen skills.

Quick, what skills could he choose from?

[Optional Skills:

Long-Distance Propagation (greatly increases the distance spores can drift, allowing propagation over extremely long distances)

Mycelium Reorganization (regardless of whether an individual is alive or dead, it can automatically repair itself using mycelium as the unit)

Delicious (an unparalleled flavor)]

Was this Delicious option serious?

Was he supposed to aspire to become the freshest, most delicious ingredient in another world?

Come to think of it, Juicy had appeared as an option before.

So did the Mushroom race really have an upgrade path to become super ingredients?

That was beyond ridiculous.

Setting Delicious aside, the first option, Long-Distance Propagation, was not particularly meaningful to Linden either.

If the Mycelium was not connected into one whole, Linden's consciousness could not travel through it, and he could not manage it.

It was like the Mushroom Garden in the Deep Zone. Once he went too far away, he could no longer sense it at all.

Looking at it, there did not seem to be much room for choice.

[Skill Acquired: Mycelium Reorganization LV1]

Very soon, an experimental Puji was rapidly grown in the Swamp Zone.

A small knife, wrapped in a tentacle, stabbed into the Puji's body.

The Puji, with only 10 HP, died on the spot.

He waited for a long time, but the Puji seemed to show no reaction.

However, Linden, who had been watching closely, could clearly see that the skill was indeed working.

The intact Mycelium around the wound slowly gathered magic power, splitting off new Mycelium to replace the severed parts.

It was just an extremely slow process.

Only after a long while did the Puji stand up again.

[HP: 1/10]

The wound had not fully healed yet, but the Puji had already regained its mobility.

Linden stabbed it again. This time, he cut the Puji directly in half.

Then,

The Puji was truly dead...

After repeating the experiment several times, Linden finally figured it out.

A Puji needed to retain over 80% integrity to have any chance of being repaired, and the more severely damaged it was, the slower the repair process.

Being cut in half, crushed flat, burned, frozen to death, and the like were all beyond recovery.

At the same time, because new Mycelium had to be created to fill the wound, it consumed magic power from the surrounding environment.

If the Puji itself possessed a skill like [Magic Storage], its repair speed could increase by more than half.

Overall, it was not as useful as Linden had imagined. He had thought it would be like a Slime, able to grow back after being reduced to a tiny lump as long as it received some magic power.

Maybe that was because it was only LV1.

Still, even at LV1, it seemed there might be somewhere it could be put to use.

At the bottom of the Cave Zone, near Old Bat's cave.

A Hallucination Puji swaggered out of the passageway.

Just as before, it was instantly killed by Infrasound the moment it showed itself.

The Puji, which had burst open with several tiny internal wounds, collapsed where it stood among the rotting remains of its predecessors.

Old Bat only glanced at it before losing interest.

Every one of these Mushrooms was poisonous and inedible. He had no interest in them and only found them annoying.

What he did not know was that the Mycelium inside this Puji was slowly repairing itself.

After a long time, the Puji jumped back up.

Old Bat, who had been sleeping with his eyes closed, instantly awoke at the sound and killed the Puji again after it had barely run two steps.

This time, Old Bat gave the Puji a couple more looks, but still could not figure out what was happening.

When the Puji stood up yet again, Old Bat finally snapped.

He stomped the Puji apart with one claw.

This time, it would not regenerate, but the violent destruction directly caused the Hallucinogenic Spores on the Puji's body to burst out.

Old Bat was too close. Though he frantically flapped his wings and retreated, he still inhaled a little of the spores.

Fortunately, it was not much. Old Bat only felt slightly unwell, and after hanging upside down to rest for a while, he returned to normal.

Yet an ominous feeling lingered in his heart.

Of course he should feel uneasy.

On Linden's side, now that he had confirmed it worked, another hundred Specialized Puji for Old Bat had already entered the production line.

Once this force was deployed, those three S-Rank Magic Crystals would be Linden's for the taking!