"What… what is this?!"
At the edge of the mushroom garden, 120 Puuji stood neatly in six rows.
40 Turret Puuji: [Mana Storage LV4] + [Mushroom Cannon LV6] + [Precision LV4]40 Slime Puuji: [Mana Storage LV4] + [Mushroom Cannon LV6] + [Digestive Slime LV3]20 Hallucinogenic Puuji: [Hallucinogenic Spores LV4] + [Chitin Shell LV4]20 Ox-Horse Puuji: [Storage Pack LV4] + [Entangle LV3]
This was the configuration of Lin Huan's 14th expedition team.
It wasn't that Lin Huan didn't want to stuff all skills into a single Puuji, but the more skills a Puuji had, the more mana and time were required for production.And the increase in consumption was exponential, so keeping the number of skills within four was the most cost-effective and practical choice.
"So Puuji have so many types!"
Inanna deeply felt how limited her knowledge was. She hadn't even heard that Puuji had so many subspecies.
Some had mushroom caps shaped like kettles.Some had full-body armor, but unlike the miner Puuji in the mining area, their shells had many air holes.Some even had tentacles!
So nice… if she also had tentacles, she wouldn't need to tie the magic crystal to her head anymore…
"Lin Huan, you said they're an expedition team. What are they going to do?"
"This is a dungeon. Of course, they're going to hunt monsters."
"E… Earth worms?"
Inanna looked like, If it's earth worms, I'm not going, because she really didn't think earth worms were something Puuji could kill just by numbers.
"I already said it's not earth worms. This time the target is fire mosquitoes. Those parasites that fly into the mushroom garden whenever they want, produce nothing themselves, and only live by plundering! This time we're wiping out their nest completely!"
Lin Huan had long been fed up with being harassed from the sky every few days. He had already found the fire mosquitoes' nest. The reason he hadn't wiped them out earlier was to sustainably stack the High-Temperature Resistance skill.
Now that High-Temperature Resistance was already LV6, wiping out the fire mosquitoes in one go would probably raise it to LV7, which was enough.
Moreover, his priority escape plan had changed to using Inanna to hunt earth worms instead of sneaking past the Flame Demon's eyes, so there was even less reason to keep these annoying insects around.
Let them make their final contribution and become the team's whetstone.
"Inanna, stay in the middle of the formation and follow my commands."
"Got it, got it."
Hearing that they were going to fight mosquitoes, Inanna felt relieved.
She knew about fire mosquitoes. Their average level was LV20. Their attacks were straightforward and not too hard to deal with.The troublesome part was that they could fly, had evasion skills, were hard to hit, and liked to appear in groups.
But against them, even if she couldn't win, she could still protect herself with magic.
Come to think of it, this also counted as a war—although it was a war between monsters.
The old man never allowed her to get involved in military adventures before. Facing this for the first time, she felt a bit excited inside.
And these Puuji marched in neat formation with synchronized steps. Even an army couldn't compare, right?
Was it because they were all controlled by Lin Huan?
Indeed, that was the reason.
Relying on the skills Vassal Control, Mycelium Network, and Mental Integration, Lin Huan controlled these Puuji like an RTS game—just with greater mental strain.
It was precisely because of this unified command advantage that he could establish himself in the dungeon using Puuji whose total attributes were all only 1.
After all, using tactics like luring the enemy deep or feinting east and attacking west against monsters with almost no intelligence was a true dimensionality-reduction strike.
But this time, there was no need for tactics.
Tactics were only needed when the weak fought the strong.
And now, compared to the fire mosquitoes—
He was the strong one.
Wouldn't it feel great to just F1–F3 and rush in?
He could also show his strength along the way and boost the confidence of the newly joined little fan.
The so-called deep layers of the dungeon referred to all levels below the 10th floor, because from there onward, there were no longer clear passages connecting different tiers.
The entire deep-layer region had countless crisscrossing three-dimensional tunnels, connecting one huge cavern after another—just like how the fire mosquitoes' nest and Lin Huan's mushroom garden were connected by a tunnel over fifty meters in diameter.
Between the cracks in the rocks along the way, sparse mushrooms grew hidden. These were both Lin Huan's extended eyes and relay stations that helped him expand the fungal network beyond the mushroom garden.
The mycelium network allowed Lin Huan to command the Puuji army in a semi-autonomous manner.
Otherwise, relying solely on Vassal Control and manual operation would be far more exhausting.
The short legs of the Puuji stepped on the ground, making "puji puji" sounds that echoed through the tunnel. Suddenly, several crimson light spots appeared three hundred meters ahead—several fire mosquitoes had discovered the expedition team.
"Ice Blade!"
A two-meter-long ice blade shot out, but it had no accuracy at all. The fire mosquitoes didn't even need to use their evasion skills, and the ice blade embedded itself into the rock wall above.
"Rookie, don't waste mana."
"Y-yes, sorry…"
Only then did Inanna realize that the surrounding Puuji kept moving forward at a steady pace, not stopping at all because of the fire mosquitoes.
And the few fire mosquitoes didn't approach either. Instead, seeing the expedition team getting closer, they chose to flee and quickly flew away.
Watching the fire mosquitoes disappear from sight, Inanna asked worriedly, "Won't they go back and report this?"
"Of course they will."
"Even if they're low-intelligence monsters, they still have the instinct to protect their nest. We'll definitely face swarms of fire mosquitoes soon."
Inanna really wanted to say, Aren't you also a monster…
"Then why let them go?"
Because they were too far to hit.
"Of course, it's to wipe them out in one net."
Under the steam-churning dome, hundreds of fire mosquitoes flew up and down around a large central pool, producing deafening buzzing sounds.
Fire mosquitoes needed high-temperature pools like hot springs to reproduce. Their entire larval stage took place in the pool, waiting for adult mosquitoes to feed them. So as long as this pool was destroyed, the fire mosquitoes in this area would naturally perish.
The fire mosquitoes would, of course, do everything they could to defend their nest.
So when Inanna followed the Puuji to the end of the tunnel, all the fire mosquitoes' abdominal luminous glands lit up orange—the color of danger.
Several nearby fire mosquitoes took the lead and flapped their wings to fly over.
"Water Serpent Spell!"
It was Inanna again. Facing the flying monsters, she couldn't help but cast a spell first.
Better than last time—at least she knew to use a spell like Water Serpent that allowed some directional control, instead of a straight-line ice blade. Unfortunately, it wasn't much better.
The target was fire mosquitoes with evasion skills. The water serpent brushed against one, but it only fell a few meters before regaining balance.
Lin Huan shook his head.
"Sigh, rookie."