Inside Cave No. 3, Lin Jun was testing out his newly acquired skill.
A strangely shaped Puji stood at the edge of the rock wall.
It was slightly taller than its kin, about 1.4 meters, looking like a lanky figure among normal Pujis.
Its oversized body made it wobble unsteadily when trying to stand upright, but fortunately, it had four legs at its base, straining to keep it from collapsing.
The Puji’s mushroom cap had been replaced with a gaping maw filled with three rows of jagged teeth.
“Gaping” only compared to its size—nothing like the colossal mouth of an earthworm.
Lying beside it was another Puji, charred and giving off a roasted mushroom smell. That one had proven the point: without pairing [High-Temperature Burrowing] with [Heat Resistance], the skill was nothing more than a recipe for grilled mushrooms.
At Lin Jun’s command, Burrowing Puji No. 2 activated the skill. Its triple rows of teeth glowed red, radiating heat.
The heated, brittle rock wall soon crumbled as the Puji twisted its body in circles, boring a hole into it.
Its four legs spun, driving its body like a drill, slowly burrowing into the rock.The speed wasn’t great, but that was only because the skill was still at LV1.
Even so, the progress was much faster than Lin Jun’s old methods of smashing stone with [Chitin Shell] or gnawing with [Rock-Eating].
But when more than half its body was buried in the wall, with only its rear sticking out, suddenly its four legs went limp—dead!
Dead? How? It hadn’t even been attacked…
A few regular Pujis dragged Burrowing No. 2 back out. Its body was torn to shreds with scrapes everywhere.
Inside the hole it left behind, strands of mycelium clung to the walls.
So it managed to scrape itself to death while burrowing?
[High-Temperature Burrowing] forced the Puji to expel the stone it ate, compressing it against the tunnel walls to reinforce them. But apparently, the Puji’s body wasn’t strong enough to withstand the pressure, and the stone pressed back, crushing it.
Thinking about it, the earthworm probably didn’t tunnel with soft flesh either—it must have armored itself with rock.
So [Rock-Eating] was actually a required skill after all!
It wasn’t until half a day later that Burrowing Puji No. 3 appeared, this time having been ordered to first coat itself with a layer of rocky armor using [Rock-Eating LV8].
Sure enough, with the protective shell, it managed to dig completely into the rock without injury.
With its four stubby legs spinning its body, it wasn’t as efficient as the earthworm’s natural, serpentine motions, but it was steady progress.
After all, Pujis weren’t built like worms. As long as it worked, it worked.
Efficiency could be sacrificed—Lin Jun could accept that.
Between dungeon floors, the barriers couldn’t be breached, but within a floor, this skill could dig hidden tunnels and embed fungal networks inside the walls.
Even the labyrinthine blue-brick walls of the First Floor could be tunneled through.
What Lin Jun really wanted to try was digging across the Sixth Floor Rift.
The sixth floor directly connected to the Deep Layer, where the thousand-spoked Mayflies dwelled.
Though Lin Jun had seized a foothold there, wresting one spot from them, he was far from being able to wipe them out.
Even now, Mayflies flew over every day to harass him, beaten back only by the hundred Pujis blocking the choke point.
But one day, a level-60+ giant might swoop in and reclaim it.
A severed fungal network would be devastating for the expeditionary force. Yet Lin Jun couldn’t afford to station hundreds of Pujis there constantly.
He couldn’t just keep seven or eight hundred Pujis there forever, waiting for an enemy that might never come.
But if he could dig one—or even several—fungal web tunnels deep within the stone walls of the rift, linking the upper and lower floors, then it would truly be secure.
He even considered using fungal tunnels to connect to the Deep Layer itself one day…
Hm?
Suddenly, Burrowing Puji No. 3 stopped moving.
Not because it had malfunctioned—but because there was no more stone!
It had broken into a void.
The Puji drifted farther and farther into the emptiness until, like every Puji that had ever fallen into the void, its connection suddenly vanished.
Lin Jun stared at the rift it had opened in the rock wall and sighed.
Who would expect to find a crack in the middle of solid rock?
But if there was one, there would surely be more.
At least he was used to his dungeon being full of holes by now.
…
With the burrowers tested, production began across the dungeon, and excavation quietly commenced.
Because burrowing caused faint vibrations and “crunching” noises, they were only allowed to work once Lin Jun confirmed no adventurers were nearby.
After all, once exposed, a fungal tunnel would lose its greatest advantage—secrecy.
The work wasn’t without challenges.
On the Third Floor Trap Zone, many passages were suspended boulders held by chains, making excavation highly inconvenient.
On the Sixth Floor, water seeped in everywhere. Digging shallow risked tangling with plant roots; digging deep risked flooding. Finding suitable paths was troublesome.
Even so, the fungal tunnel plan was progressing steadily—and in fact was proving more reliable than another skill Lin Jun had once pinned his hopes on.
[Chrysalis]
In the swamp zone, several Pujis were wrapped in mycelium cocoons. Inside, there was no movement at all.
Through the fungal web, Lin Jun could feel that they hadn’t transformed or gained new skills.
At first, they absorbed a lot of mana, but afterward… nothing. Just consuming the bare minimum mana for daily maintenance.
Lin Jun was beginning to suspect this skill was nothing more than a glorified bed-making ability, for giant bugs to nap in.
Maybe it was missing some requirement to advance to the next stage? He considered spying on other Mayflies’ cocoons for clues.
Or maybe it just needed more time, though he doubted it—since there’d been no changes inside at all.
In the end, he could only pin his hopes on fungal tunnels. Once complete, he could secretly monitor other giant bugs and see if there were discoveries.
…
As Lin Jun diligently built his glorious dungeon, a small incident caught his attention.
A soldier-like fellow rented a lighting Puji—then suddenly stabbed it to death when it wasn’t expecting it, carried the corpse, and fled the dungeon.
Through the vision in Yafeng Town, Lin Jun watched him run straight into the Adventurers’ Guild with the body.
What was this about?
Did someone issue a quest to capture a lighting Puji?
Whatever the reason, betrayal against service-type Pujis was unacceptable. Lin Jun blacklisted the man from the dungeon.