Chapter 9: Exploding Soldiers! The Flaming Demon Moves!
"Don't these need to be buried underground?"
"I'm not a plant..."
Do the people of this world still not know the difference between fungi and plants?
The cows and horses have already transported all the fragments of the fire mosquitoes and their larvae back to the mushroom garden.
Fire mosquitoes, which rely on agility and evasion, have low physical strength. After being hit by mushroom cannons or crushed by armored puji, they rarely leave intact corpses.
Now they are evenly spread across the planting area, and the first batch brought back already has fungal threads sprouting from them.
The decomposition of these magical creature corpses simultaneously provides Lin Jun with skill proficiency and magical power. While a single fire mosquito contains little magical power, the sheer volume makes up for it.
Lin Jun will invest all this magical power into the production of new Puji.
The mushroom garden can currently accommodate approximately 300 Puji through natural magic absorption, with 100 of them being logistics units to maintain the mushroom garden's daily operations, and the remainder being combat Puji.
This time, Lin Jun plans to exceed the limit and produce 400 combat Puji at once, then deploy them all in the upcoming operation to hunt the earthworms.
Anyway, after the operation, if there are too many survivors, they can be eliminated later. Ensuring success is the most critical factor.
There is no other fire mosquito nest nearby that can so easily provide such a large amount of nutrients. If this attempt fails, it is unclear when the next round can be organized.
"Lin Jun, look! I think I've gained a new talent!"
Inanna had somehow activated her Water Snake Technique beside him. Lin Jun had seen her use this skill in battle before—it wasn't exactly invincible, but it wasn't entirely useless either.
Not only was its range short and its power lacking, but even a direct hit couldn't kill a fire mosquito in one strike. The only advantage was that it could be controlled to some extent after being fired, but under Inanna's abysmal technique, it became a negative effect.
Compared to the Ice Blade, it was utterly outclassed.
Inanna must have realized this herself, as she stopped using it after two attempts.
However, now the Water Snake technique Inanna was using was moving around her with surprising agility, like a miniature protective green dragon.
This was clearly not Inanna's usual level, so Lin Jun quickly pulled up her stats panel again.
Sure enough, her level had risen to LV30. Even a small portion of the experience from hundreds of fire mosquitoes had allowed her to level up twice.
A new fixed effect had been added: [Favor of the Elemental Spirit: The Elemental Spirit assists the caster in controlling spells].
"Try attacking that rock with Ice Blade."
Lin Jun's target was 100 meters away from Inanna, a distance where a puff of air would hardly miss.
"Huh? I'll give it a try."
The moment the ice blade was fired, Lin Jun knew she had missed again, but the ice blade miraculously adjusted itself mid-flight and ended up slicing the corner of the stone.
"It… actually hit!"
Inanna looked utterly disbelieving.
In fact, if her launch angle hadn't been so wildly off, the ice blade should have hit the bullseye. Even when it was so off-target, it still managed to graze the target. The elemental spirit is truly powerful.
Lin Jun also noticed that when Inanna used the ice blade, the water snake spell surrounding her wasn't canceled.
So is it a ability similar to AI-assisted control?
It's just that the elemental spirit here replaces the function of AI.
Speaking of which, this world actually has the concept of elemental spirits. I thought magic was just plain magic.
Lin Jun also figured out that humans, like himself, naturally obtain a fixed effect or skill that matches them every ten levels, just like his mushroom cannon and fungal net.
Inanna referred to this as a talent.
It seems this isn't unique to him; humans are like this, and I suppose other races or monsters are the same.
However, there are some differences. Perhaps because he can't see the interface, Inanna's talent is automatically obtained, while he has an additional three-choice selection process.
Lin Jun glanced at his current Level 44 and realized he still had a long way to go before the next talent selection.
————
In the following days, Lin Jun immersed himself in a large-scale project called "Mass Production."
The good news was that the long-stagnant Mental Integration skill had finally reached LV6, otherwise Lin Jun wouldn't have been able to control so many Puji at once.
But even so, he didn't have time to chat with Inanna.
However, Inanna didn't mind. She was currently obsessed with exploring her new talent.
The Elemental Spirit could help her adjust trajectories for auto-aiming, and other abilities like Active Follow for Illumination and 360-degree automatic defense with Water Mirror Reflection were far more efficient than when she used them herself.
However, spells like Purification and Swamp Magic remained unchanged—the Elemental Spirit did not enhance the spells' inherent power.
As the days passed and everything seemed ready, a strong magical fluctuation suddenly emanated from outside the mushroom garden.
"Lin Jun, what's happening? Why does it suddenly feel so oppressive?"
Like the aftershocks of an 8.0 earthquake in the distance, even Inanna, who lacked magical perception skills, sensed something was amiss. Lin Jun directly observed the magical vibrations surging like waves, one after another, causing him discomfort.
Lin Jun checked the surveillance he had set up outside. These scattered small clusters of mushrooms couldn't provide Lin Jun with a clear view, but they could sense the magical fluctuations around them.
Soon, Lin Jun figured out the source of the fluctuations—the direction of the Flame Demon's lair.
Now that he knew it was coming from the direction of the Flame Demon, Lin Jun felt at ease. He casually comforted the frightened Inanna and continued to focus on finishing the final preparations for the mass production of troops.
It wasn't that Lin Jun wasn't afraid of the Flame Demon; on the contrary, as the strongest magical creature discovered so far, Lin Jun had always been vigilant about the Flame Demon's movements.
If he ever discovered the Flame Demon moving toward the mushroom garden, he would immediately grab a bucket and flee.
Fortunately, such an incident had never occurred.
In fact, based on Lin Jun's observations, the Flame Demon was almost a hermit.
Unlike himself, who is rooted to the ground and finds it inconvenient to move, the Flame Demon simply doesn't feel like moving, as if soaking in lava alone can satisfy most of its needs.
However, being a homebody doesn't mean it never goes out. Surveillance has recorded three instances of the Flame Demon leaving its lair so far.
Each time it went out, it caused magical fluctuations in the vicinity, just like today. Lin Jun suspects it went to fight.
However, he has no idea who it fought or where the fight took place, nor does he know what kind of opponent could match the Flame Demon in battle. The part of the deep layers that Lin Jun has explored is still too small compared to the entire area.
Lin Jun's original plan was to take advantage of the Flame Demon's absence to sneak through its lair and reach the upper layers.
However, this plan is quite risky, as the most critical factor is that he cannot predict when the Flame Demon will return.
Among the three recorded instances, the shortest lasted only a few hours, while the longest was estimated to be three or four days.
The smuggling plan was essentially a gamble with his life, so it was replaced by the tunnel-digging plan.
It was unclear how long the Flame Demon would be gone this time, but he hoped it wouldn't cause any disruptions to his hunting of the earthworms.
(End of this chapter)