The severed tentacle of the mushroom cannon twitched and writhed, its end slowly reweaving itself into a sharp conical point.

The knight’s six mycelium tentacles, under the effects of [Mycelium Reconstitution LV2], had now nearly returned to normal.

Only the color was a little paler than the rest of his body.

The claw marks on the knight’s shell, however, were still clearly visible.

Since the shell was the product of a skill, it lay outside the scope of reconstitution. To repair it, he would need to generate an entirely new shell later.

Outside, the Demon Tide was finally drawing to a close. The monsters began retreating back to their proper layers, even the dragon-beasts squeezing one by one into the fissures again.

Hostilities between monsters returned as well.

Lin Jun saw a Split-tooth Beast snatch a small dragon-beast by the tailfin before leaving, dragging its prey up the stairs.

Some monsters that wandered the fifth floor, unable to find their way home—if they were above LV25—gained a new debuff:

【Fixed State: Soul Siphon (gradual loss of attributes and skill proficiency)】

Clearly, this was the Dungeon’s way of restoring order after a Demon Tide.

If they couldn’t return, their very souls would be drained away.

Just the thought made Lin Jun shudder.

Thankfully, he didn’t have that debuff.

And neither did the Dragonkin.

That matched his guess—neither of them were truly part of the Demon Tide.

For Lin Jun, that was obvious; the Dungeon had never truly accepted him as one of its own.

As for the Dragonkin, her behavior gave it away.

During the supposed “monster harmony” of the Tide, she still fought other monsters over food. Instead of charging upward with the others, she wandered the fifth floor searching for Pujis to eat.

Lin Jun’s special status came from his Hero title.

Hers, likely from being the offspring of an Ancient Dragon.

Speaking of the Dragonkin…

“Hungry…”

In a collapsed cave of less than twenty square meters, she crouched in a corner, claws on her knees, golden eyes fixed on the handful of battery Pujis nearby—nearly drooling.

Sigh—

One of the battery Pujis waddled across the rubble, “pu pu,” approaching her.

She scooped it up, rubbing her cheek affectionately against it. The scales on her face soon cut shallow lines into its cap.

Just like Dylan after being parasitized, she too felt affection for Pujis now.

At least she hadn’t woken up and immediately tried to kill his knight-body. She was even willing to listen to him a little.

Of course… she still ate them.

The battery Puji, with only 10 HP, was scraped to death by her scales and then happily gnawed on.

This Dragonkin wasn’t very bright.

When Lin Jun briefly linked her into the Spore Network and tried communicating, her mind felt like that of a child.

That lined up with how she had acted on the fifth floor.

But logically, with one parent a human and the other an Ancient Dragon, neither low-intelligence beings, why was she so dull?

Other half-dragons Lin Jun had seen showed no such deficiency.

The answer lay in her status panel:

【Fixed State: Congenital Defect – Intelligence (Intelligence reduced by 80%)】

Though the intelligence attribute usually governed spellcasting and not raw IQ, with such a congenital defect, she was clearly born impaired.

And that wasn’t her only defect.

【Fixed State: Congenital Defect – Mana Leakage (Mana drains naturally over time)】

Had she offended the heavens in a past life?

Mana was the foundation for most skills.

Not just spells—even things like [Assault Leap] required small amounts of it.

An empty mana pool didn’t just prevent skill use; it caused dizziness, nausea, even unconsciousness.

Lin Jun knew this all too well. Back when he first arrived, ignorant of everything, he had blundered into that pitfall many times.

So that explained why she didn’t eat hallucinogenic Pujis.

The ones she chose all had [Mana Storage].

She was refueling herself.

Sure enough, as she munched on the Puji in her arms, Lin Jun saw her panel refill the one-third of her mana she had lost.

Of course, their delicious taste was probably also part of it.

After swallowing the Puji’s last leg, she licked her lips, still unsatisfied.

“Full yet?” Lin Jun asked.

Her golden pupils flicked away from the remaining battery Pujis to his knight-body.

In her mind, the knight was the one speaking to her—a tasty, but very strong creature.

“Still want more!”

Lin Jun glanced at her panel.

Her mana was already full!

“How about this—you help me first. When you’re done, I’ll let you eat again, okay?”

She glanced at the three remaining battery Pujis, then nodded hard.

All he needed was for her to dig them out.

The battle had collapsed most of the cave, and the digging Pujis had all been crushed.

The knight could dig, but nowhere near her level.

She had [Sharpness LV9], after all!

But Lin Jun had misunderstood.

She wasn’t actually digging—her claws only loosened stone. She forced her way through mostly by brute strength, squeezing through the rock.

When she pushed through, the dirt and stone closed up behind her, impossible for Pujis to follow.

The knight barely managed to squeeze through right after her, kicked countless times in the process—his shell the only thing that saved him.

As for the three shell-less battery Pujis… they never made it past the first squeeze.

So when the Dragonkin turned back expectantly for her promised Pujis, Lin Jun was sweating buckets.

What if she decided to eat him instead?

Not that he feared being killed—if necessary, he could finish the final step of parasitization and turn her into a puppet.

But then?

That would essentially be brain death. Would it trigger her Vengeance Mark?

Lin Jun didn’t know, and had no desire to find out.

He needed to stall this gluttonous fool.

“Uh… over there.”

The knight pointed a tentacle toward the forest. “Food is that way. You’ll find it if you go.”

At the same time, Lin Jun scrambled through the Spore Network to locate a patch of intact mycelium—near Dylan’s ruined cabin, one of the few places that had survived the monster stampede.

On it, he forced two new battery Pujis to mature.

The fifth floor still wasn’t safe. Plenty of monsters still roamed, searching for their way back.

But with a Dragonkin by his side, most ignored him—or avoided him outright.

The stupid ones who didn’t? Lin Jun silently thanked them. Every distraction bought him more time.

…

Beside Dylan’s ruined cabin.

The Dragonkin eagerly seized one of the freshly grown Pujis, not yet fully charged with mana, and bit in. After exerting herself just now, she was hungry again.

Soon after, her confused voice echoed across the Spore Network:

“This one… doesn’t taste as good…”