This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

Inside the puji dungeon, within the gladiatorial cavern that was never opened to outsiders.

Sticky blood had soaked large swathes of the fungal carpet a dark red, though the color was visibly fading as the mycelium tirelessly carried out its work of decomposition.

Around the arena lay more than a dozen figures sprawled in every direction, all of them D-rank personnel. Some bodies were still largely intact, merely unconscious or severely wounded. Others were horribly incomplete, severed limbs and exposed organs scattered about.

Those barely clinging to life let out painful groans, while many more had already fallen completely silent.

Only Ming, drenched head to toe in blood as if hauled straight out of a gore-filled pool, remained standing in the center of the arena, gasping for breath.

In his hand, he was still holding a D-rank captive whose legs had been crushed.

“P-please… mercy…” the prisoner begged in broken fragments, forcing the words through swollen lips.

Before he could finish—

Bang!

With a dull crash, Ming slammed the man’s head straight into the hard rock wall at the side. Blood slurry trickled down from the dented stone.

“You already won. Why do you keep beating them?” a clear voice called down from above.

The little elf Riel was sitting on a higher viewing platform, swinging her legs back and forth.

She held a bottle of emerald-green potion in one hand, while pinching her small nose with the other. The heavy stench of blood below was a bit much for her.

Two mushroomkin apprentices, acting as assistants, stood beside her.

“Sister Riel!” Ming looked up, his face smeared with blood, and flashed a bright, sunny grin. “Boss said it already. These people were all supposed to die anyway.”

Riel knew that much. She didn’t feel sympathy for these D-rank personnel.

Some of them had even been members of the Ark who nearly got her strangled to death by a berserk giant tree back then—though those few hadn’t survived to today.

She just felt that Ming was being a bit too violent.

Riel handed him the bottle of specially brewed life-water potion, mixed with multiple precious ingredients, as Ming climbed up. She couldn’t help nagging, “But if you beat them all to death, who’s going to spar with you in the future? Me?”

Ming took the potion and downed it in one go. He froze for a moment at her words, scratching his head, which was caked with clotted blood.

He hadn’t really thought about that. He only knew that if he won, the boss would praise him.

“What are you doing next?” Riel asked.

“Another round,” Ming wiped his mouth, battle intent flickering in his eyes. “This time, I want to try fighting a full gold-rank party.”

“Sigh… fight, fight, fight. That’s all you ever think about.” Riel sighed like a little adult. Even though she was two heads shorter than Ming, she spoke with the air of an older sister. “I told you to come learn some basic magic with me at Teacher Xīnghuǒ’s place, but you wouldn’t. Your aptitude is clearly very good.”

As she spoke, she raised her small hand. Mana flowed, and a large, clear water sphere formed above Ming’s head.

With a splash, it poured down, washing away most of the blood on him.

“I… I can’t remember it…” Ming squinted as the water ran over his face, his voice muffled and a little embarrassed. “Those winding mana circuits and incantations… my head starts spinning after looking at them for a while.”

In truth, this wasn’t really Ming’s fault. His actual age was less than one year.

There was no issue with intelligence or comprehension, but magic as a discipline—even if Lin Jun directly granted him related skills—still required Ming to personally learn how to guide, control, and apply mana.

The accumulation of knowledge was a long and often tedious process.

By comparison, close-quarters combat gave him a natural advantage.

With physical immunity, as long as he fully immersed himself in battle, his level and practical combat experience would skyrocket on their own. The improvement was far more direct and explosive than chewing through obscure magical theory.

But Riel didn’t care about those objective reasons. In her view, learning some magic would always benefit Ming’s future.

“No more fighting this afternoon. You’re coming with me to Teacher Xīnghuǒ’s class!” she said, already tugging on Ming’s arm, trying to drag him toward puji fort.

Just then, Lin Jun’s recruitment call echoed simultaneously in both of their minds.

Ming, who had looked a bit dejected at being forced to study, instantly lit up.

“Boss! I want to go!” he responded through the link without a second thought, brimming with excitement.

“Ming? Ah… um… sure.” Lin Jun paused briefly, then agreed.

He couldn’t see panels for those “seafood monsters,” but he could see the fishmen’s levels.

If fishmen whose strongest members were only diamond rank could hold out against the invasion—even with the advantage of secret passages—then the average strength of the enemies probably wasn’t absurdly high.

It was indeed time to let Ming out to temper himself in a more complex environment.

There was no way he could become some “Ten-Mile Slope War God” just by training in this closed gladiatorial pit at home.

Of course, he still needed companions, so Lin Jun started picking people from the Mushroom Garden.

Once permission was granted, Ming jumped up. “Yes!”

He turned to the little elf beside him, wearing a smile mixed with apology and pleading. “Sister Riel, uh… you see?”

Riel puffed her cheeks, her face full of displeasure, but she still let go of his arm.

Ming gave an embarrassed grin, then turned and sprinted toward the Mushroom Garden like a gust of wind.

…

Lin Jun quickly assembled the party.

Since there was no fungal carpet on the other side, and spreading it underwater was difficult, the main force would still be puji masters.

They didn’t need large numbers—just a selection of elites—commanded by Little Pig.

Little Pig was clearly eager to test the performance of her mana-crystal battle armor, though Lin Jun wasn’t sure if there would be a suitable opponent for her.

After all, it was hard to imagine enemies with lord-level strength.

Norris also signed up, wanting to test the combat performance of his new jida.

Lin Jun simply assigned him to be Ming’s babysitter.

With Norris heading out, the Yellow Book stayed behind with Xīnghuǒ. The deployment of the city-defense magic arrays still needed its guidance.

That should have been enough, but Lin Jun still hauled up Little Black, who was sleeping groggily.

It wasn’t that he needed her to fight anything in particular—he just couldn’t let her keep eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating.

After months without battle, her biggest daily exercise was chasing delicious puji.

Even with thick scales to hide it, it was obvious that Little Black had gained quite a bit of weight.

Thinking back to when they first met on the fifth layer, if you ignored her black scales, her body proportions had actually been quite lean.

Now… she was clearly on the path to becoming a fat lizard.

The cautionary tale of Little Xi losing combat power due to weight gain was right there as a warning. Lin Jun couldn’t let Little Black repeat that mistake.

So he dragged her along to get some exercise, lest she grow so fat she couldn’t fly anymore.

As for Little Black’s own thoughts—

After Lin Jun showed her a few huge, round, shiny pearls from the seabed, she couldn’t wait to set off.

Unfortunately, there were still many preparations needed before going underwater.

…

Two days later, in front of the enlarged rift leading to the seventh layer.

“Boss… do we really have to do this?” Norris scratched his head, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“This is called a sense of ceremony! Do you even get it? A declaration before setting out is important—it can… it can boost morale! Stop dawdling, hurry up! Once it’s done, we’ll depart properly!”

Faced with the boss’s demand, Norris could only steel himself.

“Silver Flash, Little White!” he blurted out at lightning speed, the words almost slurred, then tried to shrink away like a thief.

“Crimson Killer, Little Pig!” Louisa spoke expressionlessly, her voice flat and precise, like she was reading a report.

“Diamond Body, Little Ming!” Ming practically jumped forward, his face glowing with the excitement of going on a spring outing.

“Aa—woo—!” Six whole characters. Little Black couldn’t remember them.