Fifth floor, the Mushroom Forest.
A towering three-meter-tall Heavy Armor Puji appeared, clad in scales, covered again with a thick layer of rock armor, and even able to breathe poisonous mist. It carried 50 points of Constitution and 30 points of Strength—making its dazzling debut!
Worth noting: to save on skills, the rock armor wasn’t self-generated. Instead, another Fatty Puji used [Rock-Eating] to grow it, and then the armor was stripped off and transferred.
Of course, this process involved peeling off a layer of mycelium from the donor Fatty Puji, but it could regrow, so it wasn’t a big problem.
Among the Heavy Armor Puji’s possible variants, [Mushroom Artillery] was the first Lin Jun eliminated.
The issue was the sheer number of support skills required—the cost was too high, and the stat distribution leaned toward Intelligence, which didn’t fit the Heavy Armor Puji’s role at all.
[Illusion Spores] were a better match, at least not restricted by attributes.
Actually, the most synergistic would have been [Self-Destruct]—the higher the Constitution, the stronger the explosion.
But… these Heavy Armor Pujis were meant to be tanks.
Behind them were all the damage dealers. If one blew itself up, wouldn’t that cause massive friendly fire?As for why this Heavy Armor Puji was created on the fifth floor instead of deeper down—
It was because Lin Jun needed Gray to help test its defense. This one wasn’t equipped with [Magic Resistance LV6], but with [Physical Resistance LV7].
“Gray, wake up, don’t sleep anymore.”
“Uuuh…”
Inside a room glittering with silver scales, Gray’s head poked out from a pile of glass beads.
She dazedly blinked for a long time before realizing her boss was calling.
She carefully tried to wriggle her body free from the pile, but even though she moved lightly, there came two crisp crack sounds.
Holding two crushed beads in her claws, Gray’s expression visibly sank.
Lin Jun sighed helplessly.
Ever since the room had been filled with collected glass beads, Gray went through this every morning.
Normally he’d let her mope until she calmed down, but today he needed the test. So—
“Gray, come help. Finish this and I’ll give you a ruby!”
At once her sadness vanished. Her golden eyes lit up brighter!
A gem!
She knew those were shinier and prettier than glass beads!
Like the pair hanging as earrings from her tail scales!
Too bad gems were much harder to find—usually only her boss had them.
Though she stopped crying, she still buried the two broken beads in a little pit beside her mushroom hut, then hurried to the clearing as ordered.
The Heavy Armor Puji, with its thick rocky plating, was twice her height. Side by side, it looked like it could kick her flying with one step.
“Gray, hit it!”
“Hit… Puji?” Gray was puzzled.
Though she loved eating Pujis, she never hit them—they were too fragile. A single touch could break them.
“Yes. Hit that Puji in front of you with all your strength, and you’ll get a ruby!”
Still confused, but since her boss said so, she obediently raised her not-so-small claw, drawing her body taut like a bow.
Lin Jun was confident. In terms of defense, this Puji outclassed even a knight.
After all, knights didn’t wrap themselves in a layer of rock armor.
And this armor wasn’t ordinary stone—it was grown by [Rock-Eating LV8], incredibly dense and durable. With scales and resistance on top, it could even withstand a barrage of Artillery Pujis for quite some time.
Even Gray’s full-strength blows should take several hits!
A shadow flashed—
BOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!
The three-meter-tall Heavy Armor Puji, together with its indestructible rock armor, exploded completely as if packed with dynamite, without the slightest warning!
Dust and smoke filled the air. Fragments of rock and Puji rained down like hail, shattered beyond repair.
“Uh… well… you didn’t need to go that hard…”
This time it was Lin Jun’s turn to want to cry.
Wait—was his strongest defense really this fragile?
Were level-sixties always this terrifying?!
Gray stood in the wreckage, claws rubbing together nervously.
“Can I… have the gem?”
“Yes, yes, yes…”
A nearby Puji presented a sparkling ruby. Gray happily took both Puji and gem, hugging them back to her nest.
Lin Jun noticed one of the black scales on her paw was slightly askew, with a tiny thread of blood.
Checking her status, it showed she had lost a few drops of HP—though it immediately regenerated.
So… was that really a full-power strike, just barely enough to break through?
That made him feel a bit better.
At least this costly unit wasn’t as weak as trash mobs. Otherwise, the mana investment would’ve been wasted!
…
Meanwhile, in the deep layers—just as Lin Jun deployed twenty Heavy Armor Pujis, news arrived from the front.
“Boss! W-we lost!”
Piggy, covered in dust and dirt, staggered back to the forward base in the Snake Lair with barely a hundred Pujis left.
Behind them, Chiss(Qis)’ fierce pursuit pressed close.
But the Snake Lair was no longer the same.
After relentless remodeling by the Pujis, the once-twisting narrow natural maze had been turned into a death fortress.
Corridors were reinforced, filled with hidden artillery slits and lethal crossfire points.
Exploding Pujis were buried beneath the floors, while Illusion Pujis lurked in the ceilings, ready to unleash toxic fog.
Reinforced by a hundred defenders already stationed inside, Louisa relied on fortifications to finally halt Chiss(Qis)’ advance, and with reinforcements arriving, repelled the attack.
“B-boss…”
Louisa, now a defeated general, knelt with head bowed, obedient and quiet. Behind her stood five Heavy Armor Pujis who had rushed in as emergency support.
But Lin Jun didn’t blame Piggy this time—it truly hadn’t been her fault.
The expedition force had been fighting dungeon beasts when Chiss(Qis) suddenly ambushed from a rear passage, catching them completely off guard.
This time it wasn’t just one unit type—it was a mixed force led by an Evil Eye. In addition to Beetles and Six-Clawed types, Lin Jun even saw many other kinds of Chiss(Qis).
The Evil Eye’s presence was a calamity for the Pujis. Wave after wave of cannon fodder turned into stone.
Louisa tried to assassinate it, but Chiss(Qis)’ fearless soldiers blocked her path with flesh and blood.
Her closest attempt came when she used the terrain and, under the cover of several self-detonating Pujis, carved a bloody path through, closing to within a hundred meters of the Evil Eye!
She condensed the blood of slain Chiss(Qis) into a violet spear and hurled it at the Evil Eye.
But the Mana Shield held for a crucial moment. That lethal strike ended up piercing only the tip of a flailing tentacle.
The assassination failed. The Puji army was decimated. Louisa barely managed to retreat with the survivors under relentless pursuit.
These Chiss(Qis), after suffering a setback, rushed eagerly for revenge.
What they didn’t know was—Lin Jun had only planned to use six hundred Pujis in small-scale raids in the deep layers, keeping the main expedition undisturbed.
But since Chiss(Qis) had directly attacked the expedition force…
Then the scale of this war—would be raised to the maximum!