At the stairway to the sixth floor—

With magic flowing into it, the mycelium slowly began sprouting from the stone steps.

A green slime clung to the wall at the edge of the exit, greedily eating the fresh threads of mycelium.

Boom—

Several mushroom cannons hit it, blasting slime fluid everywhere.

But even after losing much of its body and shrinking in size, the green slime still clung stubbornly to the wall, trying to keep eating.

The Pujis had no choice but to fire two more volleys before its core was finally destroyed.

Yet before long, more slimes appeared…

Some were tiny enough to be killed in a single blast, but the mushroom cannon’s explosions also shredded the very mycelium they were trying to protect.

It was clear—the botanical-garden environment of the sixth floor was extremely suitable for slimes. Their numbers far exceeded those of previous floors.

There were even mutated variants, such as multi-core slimes formed by several merging together.

When the Pujis attacked one, it exploded into a swarm of smaller slimes, which then lunged from all directions, surrounding and half-digesting the unfortunate Puji before its companions managed to pull it free.

Though slimes were causing losses, to Lin Jun it was only a bit of wasted mana. The mycelium continued spreading steadily along the stone walls.

Once it reached the ceiling, just like on the upper floors, it would devour the glowgrass and replace it with luminous mushrooms.

The real headache, however, was the ground.

Unlike previous levels, the sixth floor’s botanical-garden terrain was densely partitioned.

Each flower sprite claimed a territory about ten meters wide. Any intruder—whether monster or plant—was either killed or driven out.

Fake flower vines strangled creatures lured in by their sweet scent. Even passing Pujis weren’t spared.

Phantom orchids gave off a blue charm-light to lure prey into their traps—thankfully, this had no effect on Pujis, who were under Lin Jun’s control.

In short, the floor was divided into countless small territories by plant-type monsters, with a few animal-types mixed in.

Unless Lin Jun resorted to another extermination campaign like on the fifth floor, his Pujis would struggle to move far across the ground.

And without Pujis on the surface to guard them, any mycelium that grew too far from the stairs would just become free food for slimes.

The fifth floor had been wiped clean because Lin Jun needed a secure base. But in the other levels, what he wanted were skills from the local monsters, not the floor itself.

On floors one through four, he had occupied unused spaces and suppressed slimes to expand.

But on the sixth floor, there was no such “unused” space.

Even if he forcefully carved out a path, it would mean endless battles with the local plants just to keep it open.

Too much effort for too little reward—not worth it.

So Lin Jun began considering other solutions.

If the ground couldn’t hold Pujis, then he would just let them climb the walls along with the mycelium!

Three skills were possible.

【Suction Cups LV3】

Taken from a small lizard during the magic tide, letting it cling to walls. But since Pujis had no hands, they would need to combine suction cups with mycelial tentacles for movement. Just imagining Pujis crawling up walls with tentacles already felt… uncanny.

【Digestive Slime LV6】

The green slimes’ method—like snails, secreting fluid that both digested and glued them to walls. With Corrosion Resistance, Pujis could probably use this. But there was a problem—when firing mushroom cannons, the recoil would likely knock them right off the wall.

【Rock-Eater LV4】

From the extinct rock lizards of the fifth floor. Allowed eating stone and forming a rocky armor layer. If walls lacked footholds, they could simply create them! Spawn Pujis directly on the wall, let them eat into the rock, then fuse their armor to the wall, turning into fixed turrets. Practical, stylish—but inefficient compared to mobile Pujis.

Fortunately, with the solar mana generator, Lin Jun wasn’t short on power. If the first two options failed, the third would serve as a fallback.

——

While Lin Jun was busy sculpting new Puji forms, a Big Black Shroom came down from the fifth floor.

“Gray? What are you up to today? Going to the seventh floor to beat turtles?”

“Beat green guys!”

“Gray, those are treants, not ‘green guys.’ You can’t just attack them, you understand?”

“Mm!”

“Mm” my ass! Lin Jun could tell from how quickly she agreed that she definitely hadn’t understood.

Since Gray never listened, he often had to repeat things until she did.

Over time, she had even learned to fake comprehension, nodding “mm mm mm” to brush him off.

Truly exhausting!

Still, last time at the treants’ grove, Lin Jun had spread spores to see if mushrooms could compete with moss for territory.

With Gray opening a path, he might as well check on it again.

He split off four Pujis to follow her, then immersed most of his awareness back into molding Puji bodies—a meticulous job where poorly shaped forms would waste their equipped skills.

But before he could focus for long, a strange voice cut through the fungal network.

“Mushroom… Master… you have appeared once more!”

???

Tracing the signal, he found… the treant grove?

What?

When Gray and her squad smashed their way through several plant-monster territories and reached the grove, Lin Jun finally saw the source—

A treant… with mushrooms growing from its body!

It looked familiar. Thinking hard, he realized—wasn’t this the treant Gray had once ripped apart limb by limb?

It had regrown! Plant monsters really did have insane recovery.

No—wait.

The real point was—these treants actually had higher intelligence?!

That voice just now had been clearer than anything Gray ever said.

Speaking of Gray, she was already stretching her arms, ready to brawl.

“Gray, wait! Don’t fight yet, okay?”

“Want to hit green guys!”

Still with the “green guys”!

But now wasn’t the time to argue.

Lin Jun used his newest trump card against Gray’s tantrums—

“Behave, and I’ll give you marbles later!”

Sure enough, the moment she heard “marbles,” she instantly turned into a good girl, squatting to yank at tree roots instead.

Meanwhile, a Puji back on the fifth floor waddled into Gray’s Mushroom House and dug through her pile of glass shards, retrieving two intact marbles to pay her with later.

With the brat pacified, Lin Jun finally turned to the treant, who had been standing awkwardly this whole time—fresh from death’s door once again.

“Uh… right…”

He checked the panel. No name. Just a barbarian.

“Mr. Treant, sneaking into my local network—what’s your business here?”