At the collapsed tunnel mouth, twenty digging Pujis hammered away at the fallen boulders, while ten ox-horse Pujis hauled chunks aside with reinforced mycelial tendrils.
This was Lin Jun’s oversight. He had thought placing some landmine Pujis at key points for automated defense was a good idea.
But he’d forgotten how fragile the caves were—and how much stronger the Pujis’ explosions had become.
This time, the blast hadn’t even gone off inside the tunnel, but more than ten meters away.
Moments like this made Lin Jun miss the Deep Zone, where no matter how you blasted, the tunnels never collapsed.
Come to think of it, wasn’t mining supposed to involve reinforcing the tunnels?
Lin Jun had no knowledge of civil engineering. The only method that came to mind was building some kind of wooden supports. Whether they’d actually help, who could say.
He wondered if this world had such knowledge. If only he could find a few experts…
After all, if he ever took full control of the dungeon, mining wouldn’t stop at the fifth floor. If it caved in every other day, nobody could stand it.
It took about a day, but finally the blocked exit was cleared.The trapped Pujis stumbled out to the fungal carpet to recharge.
Only about half of the original workers were still functional; the rest had gone dormant from lack of nutrition, with a few outright starved to death.
The ox-horse Pujis carried them out one by one.
Lin Jun checked the tunnels inside. The good news—almost none of them had collapsed. Losses were minimal.
He paid special attention to Tunnel #22, sending a Puji all the way down. It was intact.
That tunnel wasn’t for mining.
Its purpose—digging diagonally upward to break through the dungeon itself.
The dungeon only had one exit. If enemies who knew his situation ever decided to strike, they could destroy the fungal carpet at the gate in bulk, cutting him off from the outside.
At best, that would cause massive control delays.
That was why, when weighing expansion outward versus downward, Lin Jun prioritized the latter. Outward spread remained cautious, exploratory.
But if he could dig a second exit… even a third, fourth…
Those worries would vanish.
Not that he thought the dungeon would allow such a loophole. If it really existed, the place would be riddled with holes already.
Most likely, when he reached the boundary, he’d hit some kind of “air wall.”
But wasn’t he the Hero? With that privilege, maybe he could bypass it!
And the cost of trying was low—just a dozen Pujis working shifts every day.
…
The collapse hadn’t been pure loss. Lin Jun had gained something.
In a mushroom hut, Norris lay on a mycelial bed, his body wrapped in translucent threads.
His left arm and both legs were shattered, spine broken, organs damaged.
Even with fungal repair and several bottles of healing potion, his life had barely been saved.
The mycelium could heal flesh and organs, even set broken bones—but not when they were pulverized like this. Even if he woke, he’d be half-paralyzed.
Lin Jun knew the human world had regeneration potions—miracle items that could restore from the brink of death.
But he didn’t have any.
His supplies were all spoils from adventurers, and none of them carried such treasures.
And even if he had one, it would be classified as strategic stockpile, not wasted on a stranger.
So why was Norris a “gain”?
Because he had fewer skills than anyone Lin Jun had ever seen.
Normally, even low-ranked adventurers entering the dungeon had a pile of skills—weak, low-level, mostly useless, but there.
Older ones like Dilan had even more, making every skill injection cost exorbitant mana.
That was why Lin Jun could never hope to push Dilan up to diamond rank by stacking skills.
Similarly, Gray only got key skills, and even then, Lin Jun had to stockpile mana for each.
But this boy’s panel was… clean.
And unlike Dilan, who had his own standing with Lin Jun…
When they first met, Dilan freed Lin Jun, and Lin Jun saved him. They were even.
Their bond was more employer-employee than master-servant.
So Lin Jun couldn’t just casually experiment on him—turn him into a three-headed six-armed freak, for example. Even he would feel awkward.
But this youth was different.
The blame for his near-death lay with those two adventurers already rotting in the swamp.
Now Lin Jun had saved his life. Asking him to help test human-monster skill integration—that was fair.
But first, he had to investigate the boy’s background.
A Puji shuffled forward, smacking Norris’s face with mycelial tendrils.
“Mm—?”
Soon, Norris stirred awake. “Where… am I?”
He tried to rise, but only his right arm moved.
He quickly realized his condition. Though he didn’t know why he had been saved, it seemed worse than dying on the spot.
Numb to it all, he didn’t even wonder why a Puji stood by his bed.
“Do you remember answering that you wanted to live?” Lin Jun’s voice spoke inside his head.
Norris flinched, but then slumped back into despair. He muttered, “Who are you? Death? But I heard Death was supposed to be a goddess…”
“You don’t look much like someone who wants to live. Is it because you’re crippled? That can be fixed.”
“Really?” His eyes flickered with sudden light.
“Really. The cost is small… But that’s not important. Let me ask again. If you had a healthy body, would you want to live? Answer yes or no.”
Norris stayed silent.
He wanted to ask what the “cost” was. But the voice clearly wasn’t interested in explanations.
He remembered his death visions. And that fleeting glimpse of the girl who had stood up for him.
He wanted to meet her. To know her. To talk to her. To…
“I… want to live!”
“Good. Then let’s move on to Phase Two.”
Phase Two?
The mysterious voice brimmed with expectation.
Norris tried to think, but his focus blurred.
“Young man, now let’s hear your story.”
The voice filled his mind, irresistible.
——
Thanks to “The Miracle of Cicadas” for the Alliance Master support!