Amethyst Dungeon, 5th Floor – the swamps.

Bloodied mud seeped between his fingers as Dilan braced against the slick rock wall, a gaping wound through his abdomen making every step torture.

He had failed. Failed right from the start.

He hadn’t managed to use the Sleep Dust before being discovered by the lone Parasitic Tree.

Now he was bleeding out, unarmed, while more Parasitic Trees converged from afar, drawn by the signal.

“Bella…”

His daughter’s name left his lips, and a fire of survival burned in his eyes. He could not die yet.

Bella, the child of him and his late wife—clever, kind, and talented.

She had already reached Silver rank at such a young age. She had a brilliant future ahead, far beyond her useless father.

She could not die now. She could not become one of those grotesque blood ghouls.

So he had to live. He still had four packets of Sleep Dust. There was still a chance—if only he could escape this swamp.

“Dead end…”

At some point, the path was blocked by a wall of stone.

Turning back was impossible. Five Parasitic Trees had already sealed his retreat, pale roots twitching, waiting to seize him.

If he were uninjured, he might have broken through before the net closed. But with his gut torn open? Impossible.

He grabbed a hanging vine, tried to climb the wall. But the vine tore free in his hands—revealing a hidden stone door behind it.

“Hah… cough cough… hahahah… a hidden room…”

All these years, and this was his first time stumbling across one. Under other circumstances, he would have been ecstatic—hidden rooms always meant treasure.

But now…

The trees were less than twenty meters behind. He had no choice but to press the protruding switch.

All he could do was pray for some legendary artifact inside to turn his fate.

Stone groaned. Dust fell as the heavy door swung open.

Boom boom boom!

Mana shells streaked from the darkness, smashing into the lead Parasitic Tree and blasting it in half.

One after another, faintly glowing mushroom caps lit up in the shadows, rows of plump, round puffshrooms appearing before his eyes.

—I have been imprisoned for ten thousand years…

And you dare intrude into my domain…

Truly—holy crap! What kind of disgusting treemen are those!?

———

Life in the treasure chest room had been… well, comfortable.

No hunger, no thirst.

And utterly boring.

Less fun than his mushroom garden—at least there, he could fight monsters every day.

Here, Lin Jun was so bored he had eaten all the glowing moss in the room—gaining a low-cost glow skill in the process.

But his levels rose quickly.

The entire pool brimmed with dense mana. By draining most of it, he’d already reached Level 47.

Then came the leftover prize from before: one-tenth of a Lava Heart.

The Flame Demon’s core fragment still radiated staggering heat.

If not for his Heat Resistance Lv.7, his mycelium wouldn’t even stick.

Breaking it down granted him another level, and a new skill:

【Self-Destruct Lv.3】

Now his suicide puffshrooms no longer needed mana crystals.

Lucky that the Flame Demon had died suddenly—if it had triggered self-destruct, Lin Jun might have survived, but those three adventurers definitely wouldn’t.

Now, the real issue was escape.

He had already produced forty puffshrooms.

The room was too cramped for quantity, so he invested in quality—five to seven skills loaded into each puffshroom.

Even a concentrated bombardment hadn’t scratched the stone door.

Clearly, treasure rooms had special reinforcement. Otherwise, breaking rock would be trivial.

As for blowing it with Self-Destruct? He didn’t dare—too much power in too small a space. He might blow himself away.

But then, something interesting happened—

The treasure chest refreshed.

Mana pulsed, the stone lid reset. Inside was a ring.

Disappointing: no stat boosts, just three casts of Ice Spike per day.

Its power was on par with his mushroom cannon. Useless.

So Lin Jun could only wait for another refresh, praying for a teleport scroll or something.

But before the chest refreshed again—

The stone door opened from the outside.

———

Light spilled in, shining upon Lin Jun’s true body at the pool’s edge.

Freedom!

At once, his puffshrooms sealed the entrance, blocking light and any possible attack.

His strongest puffshroom carefully tucked his true body into its shell, safe at last.

Only then did Lin Jun survey the situation.

A gravely wounded adventurer lay collapsed at the doorway.

So this man had freed him? Not bad.

Beyond, several hideous treemen—grotesque monsters.

One glance at their panel told him: 【Fusion Parasite】. That explained it.

Firepower unleashed.

The trees counterattacked—one even tried casting Fireball.

But his bombardment overwhelmed them. The half-formed Fireball fizzled, igniting its own caster instead.

The Parasitic Trees fell in moments. Only the adventurer remained.

Not to kill—Lin Jun wasn’t about to silence witnesses.

As long as his true body remained hidden, rumors of “a strange army of puffshrooms” didn’t matter.

The man had freed him. Saving him was fair trade.

The problem was—he was dying. His health ticked steadily downward.

To simply let him die violated Lin Jun’s mushroom principles. He had to at least try.

But… Lin Jun knew no healing skills.

Puffshrooms were disposable—damaged ones could be discarded, or patched with mycelium. But a human couldn’t just be patched with fungus… could they?

Call other adventurers?

He didn’t even know where this was. And if found, conflict was inevitable.

Then Lin Jun remembered 【Fusion Parasite】. His gaze fell on the Parasitic Tree corpses soaking in the swamp.

Yes… maybe this could work.

His puffshrooms dragged the unconscious Dilan and the tree remains back into the treasure room.

Lin Jun accelerated decomposition with his mycelium.

It cost more mana than it returned—hugely wasteful.

But he obtained what he needed.

【Seven Sins of Greed: Triggered】

【Skill Plundered: Fusion Parasite Lv.1】

His true body spread spores into Dilan’s wound. Mycelium, reinforced with mana, fused with flesh, closing the mortal injury.

Even restoring some of his life force.

So in the end… he did patch a human with fungus.

Sensing this strange, neither-human-nor-mushroom entity within his mycelial web, Lin Jun couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

Had the purity of his organism… just gone down?