The array couldn’t draw enough mana from the earth?
Lin Jun looked at his vast network of mycelium threads spread beneath the Demonborn tribe… Hah, how strange. He really had no idea what could’ve caused that…
Lin Jun swore to Dylan’s broken gravestone—he truly hadn’t done it on purpose!
His pitiful knowledge of arrays wasn’t even enough to put together a standalone third-tier formation, let alone understand the intricately combined one inside the cradle. How could he have known it relied so heavily on leyline mana?
Still… this worked out nicely.
Hearing the voice in his mind, Shou’s heart sank, but he still asked: “Do you have a way?”
A fluttering sound came from above, and a bat Puji wobbled down, landing perfectly in the curve of Shou’s horns—it couldn’t be helped, those horns bent just right to make a convenient perch.
“Can I go in?” Lin Jun asked.
Xinghuo stared blankly at the sudden appearance of the Puji. As the tribe’s new priest, he had never gone to the Mushroom Garden “to work,” nor had he been parasitized. This was his first time seeing the so-called mushroom spirit in person.
Some of the other Demonborn also noticed the Puji, though they hadn’t yet figured out what was happening.Shou gave Xinghuo and the others a brief glance. After only a moment’s thought, he lowered his head carefully so as not to knock the Puji against the doorway and walked into the stone house.
Inside, the newborn Demonborn boy lay silently on the ground. From the faintly glowing core in his chest spread dim blue magic patterns, extending only as far as his arm before breaking off.
The ceremony had clearly been interrupted before completion. The broken markings were dull, ineffective. On his status panel, there was no [Cold Resistance].
What surprised Lin Jun most was that Demonborn were born in adolescent form.
No wonder they could reproduce without sexes, like mushrooms—the efficiency was leagues beyond those double-sexed creatures that needed to raise infants slowly.
The boy hadn’t woken yet, but his body shivered instinctively in the cold.
His health bar was already dropping. Soon he would die in his sleep.
They could wrap him in hides and warm him by fire, but it would only prolong his suffering. There was no way he could survive the journey across the frozen north.
But for Lin Jun, this deadly problem was nothing more than adding a skill to a blank slate.
Of course, first things first…
Noise rose outside, and soon more Pujis squeezed into the house.
Unlike the bat Puji, these were burrowing Pujis Lin Jun had quickly spawned for heating—though naturally, they had come “running in from outside the village.”
The Pujis gathered around the newborn, but didn’t start heating right away. Lin Jun waited until the boy’s HP had dropped to about a quarter.
Then, with a hum, four burrowing Pujis began radiating warmth. The temperature inside the house rose rapidly, and the boy’s fading life stabilized.
At that moment, the bat Puji perched on Shou’s horns hopped down onto the boy’s chest. It shook its cap, releasing a fine dusting of spores.
Shou recognized the act. Every tribesman linked to the fungal network was marked with spores.
Apparently, being bitten by the vampire hadn’t been a required step after all…
Parasitism complete.
Now, for the Mycelium Carpet connection…
One burrowing Puji ran to a corner of the stone house where no array was drawn and began tunneling down.
Shou instinctively raised a hand as though to stop it, but in the end chose to remain silent and let it work.
Within ten minutes, strands of fungus appeared in the hole.
Minutes later, a patch of Mycelium Carpet had spread in the corner of the stone house.
Shou’s eyelids twitched violently.
He had worked under the Pujis long enough to know how the Mycelium Carpet spread, and that it existed beyond the Dungeon as well.
But he had never expected it could extend into their tribe in less than half an hour. That meant there had already been a vast network beneath them for some time!
Everything happening here confirmed it—the tribe, despite appearances, was already surrounded by Pujis. Even the earlier “mana shortage” could very well have been because of them…
Lin Jun didn’t care what Shou was thinking. Even if he knew, it wouldn’t matter.
After fully understanding the so-called “cradle” and “birth ceremony,” Lin Jun was certain that the Demonborn would never again be able to separate from him—as long as he displayed this “gift.”
The Pujis moved the newborn onto the Mycelium Carpet. Fungal threads connected instantly, mana surging into the boy’s body.
The incomplete ice-blue magic patterns on his skin flared briefly, then dimmed again.
Lin Jun didn’t know what that flash meant, but in that instant—[Cold Resistance LV8] had been applied!
The mana cost was negligible, even less than spawning an Artillery Puji. After all, the newborn had no other skills yet.
The burrowing Pujis stopped heating. The warmth faded from the house, and Shou’s heart rose to his throat.
Yet the boy did not shiver. Instead, his face smoothed into peaceful rest, his breathing calm, as if he were in the most comfortable place in the world.
“This…?!” Shou’s voice trembled in disbelief.
Lin Jun’s voice whispered into his mind, gentle and tinged with just the right amount of allure: “It’s nothing special. Just a little trick I have for granting power to my ‘followers.’”
“Followers…” Shou repeated the word.
“Of course,” Lin Jun admitted candidly, “don’t think it was effortless. The cost is heavy. If you weren’t truly my people, why would I bother? But don’t worry—I mean nothing else by it. You’ve helped me plenty lately. Consider this a small gift in return.”
…
Shou carried the newborn Demonborn out of the stone house. Looking over the gathered clansmen with worried faces, he took a deep breath and declared: “The ceremony… was a success! We have a new clansman!”
For a moment, silence. Then an earth-shaking cheer erupted!
The Demonborn embraced, leapt into the air, some even breaking into ritual dances.
Cauldrons were quickly set up. A broth of insect meat, mushrooms, and a few prized Delicious Mushrooms began to boil—the feast for a new life, the tribe’s only true holiday.
Only Xinghuo’s face was clouded with shock and confusion.
The newborn was laid to rest in the main tent, upon a bed as comfortable as the tribe could offer.
Typically, a newly born Demonborn would slumber for several days while its consciousness formed.
Xinghuo followed closely, carefully examining the still-incomplete patterns on the boy’s skin. Baffled, he asked: “How was this done?”
“This… is Puji power,” Shou said.
“Puji… power?”
Shou did not explain further. Slowly, he drew out the magic core the elder had entrusted to him before death, deep in thought.
He thought of many things: the state of the tribe, the clansmen already fused with fungus, Qiong’s obsession with Delicious Mushrooms, the massive fungal network beneath them, and above all—the Pujis’ powers, rivaling those of the legendary Demon Kings!
At last, he raised his head to Xinghuo—the last remaining upper-rank warrior and priest besides himself—and said firmly, word by word:
“Xinghuo, we… shall follow the mushrooms.”