“Oooohhh! Could it be? Could it be?!”
A Puji Master stared in excitement as a freshly matured Fatty Puji twisted its plump body, gradually breaking free of the mycelium tethering it to the carpet. With a soft “plop,” it landed solidly on the ground.
The instant it touched down, a clear sense of connected minds bridged into the Puji Master’s consciousness.
He froze at first, then erupted in a primal howl, unable to contain himself—tears even welled in his eyes!
A Fatty Puji! Without a doubt, an elite-grade Puji!
Today, his luck was off the charts!
Caressing its soft, springy bulk with trembling hands, he suddenly remembered something important.
“Right, right, I’ve got to see what skills it has besides self-detonation…”
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than his body felt heavier, as though invisible pressure bore down on his shoulders.
“This… is a gravity effect?!” He was thrilled yet slightly disappointed.A skill unseen in other Pujis was certainly rare—but judging by the effect, the level wasn’t very high.
Watching the Puji Master leave with his new treasure, Lin Jun decided the next one to draw should get an elite lightning Puji.
Not long ago, corpses of the electric rats and earth bears from Dylan’s bounty had been delivered. Skills like 【Gravity Field】, 【Thunder Armor】, 【Lightning Acceleration】, and 【Arc】 had all been added into the Puji skill pool.
As for “elite Pujis”?
There was no such thing as random draws. Lin Jun simply handpicked a few lucky ones he found pleasing.
True randomness only produced weaklings with slightly fluctuating stats, but otherwise indistinguishable.
Of course, he gave out plenty of those too.
Not only had he siphoned off a 【Gourmet LV7】 Puji from Gray’s food supply, but he had also handed out several elite Pujis afterward.
At present, the Puji Master path held little attraction for gold-ranked and above experts—but what about when someone assembled a full squad of elites?
Imagine: as an adventurer, if you weren’t a Puji Master, it would mean you were inherently weaker in competition against your peers!
By then, the pressure would naturally push the hesitant and wavering mid-tier powerhouses to join, swelling the Spore Network’s outer ranks.
The more Puji Masters there were, the smoother Lin Jun’s infiltration and expansion into human society would be. They would also serve as the main force for training and leveling up his collection of obscure skills.
Lin Jun’s skill library brimmed with variety, but he always defaulted to a handful in daily use.
Partly because they were reliable, but also because the others were simply too low-level.
Take [Stomp], for example, a martial skill plundered from human corpses. There was no way to rely on [Greed] theft to raise its level quickly.
And Lin Jun himself had no time to grind every skill personally.
Thus, low-level skills inevitably fell into disuse.
But now, he only had to bundle two or three random skills into a Puji and hand it off to some human.
With their innate curiosity and drive, Puji Masters would rack their brains to find uses, grinding those skills on Lin Jun’s behalf.
And once those levels rose, even the most ordinary-looking skills might prove invaluable at a crucial moment.
The Puji Master trend was already set. Lin Jun didn’t need to meddle—only to regulate the spawn rates.
But the werewolves required more of his attention.
…
In the vast cavern once home to the Flame Demon, Norris and Qiong were saying farewell to two towering werewolves.
“Come play again next time!” Norris waved vigorously.
[Come play again next time!] His yellow book fulfilled its translation duty, the pages glowing with demonic script.
The werewolf didn’t answer in words. Instead, she stepped forward and pulled Norris into a crushingly firm, fur-covered hug, so strong it made him stumble, and even left gray-blue hairs stuck in the seams of his scales.
On the other side, Qiong chatted with another werewolf without any language barrier. They laughed together, even making plans to visit the northern landscapes on their next meeting.
Watching the wolves disappear up the stairway, Qiong glanced at Norris, who was staring blankly after them.
“What’s wrong? They live just one floor up. You’ll see them again soon. No need to be so sentimental.”
“It’s not that… uh… it’s just…” Norris’s expression was complicated, hesitant. “She… turns out she was a female wolf…”
[Not just female. She seems quite taken with you, too.] The yellow book’s lines practically radiated schadenfreude.
“Senior, don’t joke with me…” Norris recalled her burly form—two heads taller than him, muscles bulging—and his eye twitched uncontrollably.
[I’m not joking.]
[When she hugged you, the emotional waves she sent through contact… they were already close to mating-season intensity.]
“But… but I’m a half-lizardman!” Norris stammered, voice tinged with disbelief and panic. In such moments, even being “human” didn’t seem to matter anymore.
[It’s not like she’s asking you to raise a litter of wolf pups. Just some fun. Maybe she happens to prefer the… let’s say, ‘smaller build.’]
In truth, Norris stood nearly 1.8 meters tall with well-trained muscles—not small at all.
But compared to Louisa, or the werewolves, he did indeed seem petite.
Qiong gave him a helplessly sympathetic look. As a demon-blooded, he had no such concerns or troubles.
Gulp—
Norris swallowed hard, silently resolving to request reassignment from the Boss—to guard the northern prisoner camps instead…
…
Tenth floor, werewolf settlement.
The two werewolves returned to their den area, only to find the white-maned elder and a group of old wolves waiting.
Farther back, many others gathered to watch.
“Lang, Karen,” the elder growled. Though his beard was white, his body still bulged with explosive muscle. “Where have you been?”
“I… we…” Lang tried to explain, but Karen clamped a paw over his mouth.
Fearless, Karen stepped forward and declared boldly:
“We went down! We saw the world outside!”
“Fools!” one elder wolf roared. “We forbade going near the stairway long ago. You dared to break the tribe’s command and descend without leave?!”