Lin Jun now felt as if his eyes were about to be blinded by the glare—
if he actually had eyes, that is.
Don't be fooled by how many puji there were in his mushroom garden. Standard puji were all basic models with the classic "five stats at 1 point each" and only 10 HP—absolute bottom-tier creatures on the food chain.
And now you're telling him there was a puji with over 3,000 HP?
Was that something an ordinary puji could ever reach?
Of course, Lin Jun could still handle her easily.
It was just that long list of fixed effects that made him—well—deeply jealous.
So jealous that he almost wanted to eat her and seize her abilities…
Just kidding.
It was rare to come across someone who could actually communicate.
Besides, judging from the status panel, this puji was very likely a human.
Eating a living person raw—Lin Jun hadn't quite sunk to the point of not being human anymore.
"Feeling calmer now?"
Lin Jun loosened his control slightly, ordering the puji restraining her to spread out a bit, so she wouldn't feel too much pressure.
A voice suddenly appeared in her mind, sending Inanna into a panic.
She still had no idea whether the other party was human or monster—she only knew that every puji around her was under this being's control.
Is this the continuation of some plot? Someone sent here to execute me?
"J-Just… just kill me if you're going to!"
"How did this turn into me wanting to kill you? Could you please calm down?"
"Eh?"
Foreign mushrooms really had no manners at all—she'd wrecked his mushroom garden and didn't even think to apologize.
"I'm the lord of all the mushrooms on this floor. You can call me Lin Jun. And you are?"
"Mushroom… lord…?"
Inanna genuinely couldn't understand how the words mushroom and lord could possibly belong together.
In her understanding, mushrooms had a level cap of 10.
Even at max level, they were still food for other monsters just a few levels higher—existences at the very bottom of the hierarchy.
But what she was seeing here didn't look like something a level-10 monster could ever possess.
Let alone this method of communication that felt eerily similar to fifth-tier magical telepathy.
And this was clearly more than just simple telepathy.
Ever since the connection was established, the range Inanna could sense expanded from just a few meters around her to far, far beyond.
It was also far more detailed and precise—almost as if she were receiving the perceptions of every mushroom in the vicinity.
Inanna had no way to judge what level of strength this Mushroom Lord truly possessed.
All she could do was try to pass herself off as an ordinary puji and muddle through.
"I—I'm also a puji. I don't really have a name…"
"Then I'll give you one. Let's call you Inanna."
…Huh?
How did he know?
Could this telepathy-like ability also include mind-reading?
The puji that had originally spread out slowly began to close in again.
Am I going to be killed for lying?
No, no, no!
Just as the remaining space was about to vanish, the puji stopped.
Lin Jun's voice sounded in her mind once more.
"I'm very friendly—but only if you don't try to play tricks on me. Otherwise, I don't mind adding a bit more fertilizer to enrich the soil. Understand?"
Inanna nodded her mushroom cap frantically.
"Alright, let's try again. Name."
"I—I… Inanna St. Clair…"
"Your identity?"
"Duke… Alarma's… daughter…"
A duke's daughter?
So the outside world followed a structure similar to the Middle Ages.
No wonder there was a Church's Blessing, a Fruit of Life, and even after being turned into a puji, she still had over 3,000 HP.
No matter the world, having a good father really was a shortcut through life.
"So tell me—how did a duke's daughter end up falling into my place?"
Now that everything was already out in the open, there was no need for Inanna to hide anything anymore.
She explained in detail how she had been set up and sent falling into the depths. After that, she answered all of Lin Jun's other questions honestly, one by one.
Lin Jun took the opportunity to learn a great deal of information.
For example, the place he was in turned out to be a dungeon located within Inanna's family territory—and not just any part of it, but the deep layers. No wonder there were monsters everywhere.
For another, the outside world was home to many different races, and humans were on the brink of war with the vampire race among the demon clans. The two traitors who wanted Inanna dead were very likely colluding with vampires.
More importantly, he realized that Inanna, a native of this world, seemed unable to see status panels. Otherwise, she wouldn't have tried to hide her name.
Perhaps this panel was a hidden perk exclusive to a "Hero"?
In any case, having gained a lot from the exchange, Lin Jun now found this pink puji much more agreeable to look at.
"Inanna," he said, "now that you've become a puji, what are your plans going forward?"
"My plans after this…?"
Inanna hesitated. "You're really not going to turn me into fertilizer, are you?" After being pressured earlier, she was genuinely a little afraid of Lin Jun now.
"I promise."
"I want to go back to the surface…"
Not only did Inanna want to return to the surface—she also wanted to find her father, dispel the polymorph, and take revenge on the two traitors.
"Ah, back to the surface…"
Lin Jun couldn't help but laugh when he heard that.
"I want to go to the surface too!"
"But as you can see, you're a mushroom and I'm a mushroom. How exactly are we supposed to fight our way through a dungeon full of terrifying monsters and reach the surface?"
"Not to mention anything else—on this floor alone, the upward passage is located right in the lair of a Flame Demon."
"A Flame Demon—that's a high-tier monster of at least LV55!"
Even if Inanna hadn't been polymorphed, there was no way she could defeat it.
If she ran into one, whether she could even escape alive would be questionable.
"By the way," Lin Jun asked, "won't your duke father come to rescue you?"
"He probably will…"
But remembering what the two traitors had said—that her father was about to be finished—Inanna had no real confidence.
Her pink mushroom cap visibly drooped.
Right. After becoming a puji, she couldn't even use the magic she was best at. How could she possibly return to the surface now?
"Alright, alright. Since you're already here, make the best of it," Lin Jun said casually.
"You've made such a fuss for so long—you must be hungry. Come eat something first. Can't let a newly picked-up curiosity starve to death."
A green umbrella-capped puji hopped out of the mushroom field and walked up to Inanna to lead the way. And indeed, Inanna realized she was feeling a bit hungry.
"Is that… you?"
"Yes and no. Every mushroom here is me."
In truth, he did have a main mushroom body—but he had no intention of mentioning that.
Inanna nodded, half-understanding. The two of them then arrived at a fungal carpet formed by densely intertwined mycelial threads.
Thoughtfully, Lin Jun demonstrated how a puji ate.
The puji he controlled lay down on the spot, allowing the mycelial threads on the ground to connect and deliver nutrients. In less than five minutes, the replenishment was complete.
Watching this, Inanna's mushroom cap actually changed color.
What… was this?
Letting a mass of mycelial threads pierce into the body and inject unknown substances?
The scene before her was something Inanna—who for sixteen years had always eaten food with her mouth—found impossible to accept all at once.
Lin Jun didn't rush her. If a kid refused to eat, it only meant they weren't hungry enough yet. Once hunger really set in, they'd figure it out themselves.
As her body gradually weakened, Inanna finally lay down on the fungal carpet.
This feeling…!
Nutrients surged in through countless connection points beneath her, and a sense of being fed—of being filled—rose naturally within her.
So happy…
Only after her nutrition was completely replenished and the mycelial threads stopped supplying it did Inanna reluctantly get up.
Being a mushroom… actually didn't seem so bad?
No, no, no—what am I even thinking?!
Inanna, have you turned into a mushroom so completely that even your brain has become one?
Oh… her brain really had turned into a mushroom cap. And it was pink, too…
Lin Jun had no idea about these little thoughts running through Inanna's head. Seeing that she had finished eating, he began introducing the various areas of the mushroom garden to her.
"You already know the cafeteria. You've also seen the puji cultivation area—that's where you knocked over my puji earlier."
"See that rock wall over there? Beneath it is the mining area."
"That side is the breeding area. We raise pill beetles and slimes there. They're all aggressive, so don't go over casually."
"See that giant mushroom on the right? That's the division-of-labor zone. It's a bit troublesome to explain—you'll understand if you go take a look yourself later."
"Don't go in that direction. Past there is outside the mushroom garden's range—it's unsafe."
Lin Jun went on introducing everything at his own pace, while Inanna, standing to the side, had already crashed mentally from the very first term.
What cultivation area? What breeding zone?
It felt less like Lin Jun was describing sections of a dungeon, and more like he was introducing a fully functional little town.
I'm still in the Amethyst Dungeon… right?
Where are all the other monsters?
More importantly—how could a bunch of mushrooms possibly hold such a vast territory deep within an extremely dangerous dungeon?
Inanna's head filled with question marks. The more she thought about it, the more confused she became, feeling that the dungeon's depths were unbelievably bizarre—so strange that even common sense no longer seemed to exist here.