Mushroom Lord in the Underground City

The pause in the war did not truly lead the Kingdom out of its gloom.

Although the Demon Race had suffered heavy losses and was temporarily incapable of fulfilling its ambition to wipe out the Kingdom, the fall of High Castle Fortress was like the Kingdom losing the gate to its citadel.

From then on, the Empire held absolute initiative, and once other problems were dealt with, it could make a comeback at any time.

Though there was still a mighty city like Oath City in the south of the Kingdom, no city could, like High Castle Fortress, rely on natural barriers to completely lock down the enemy’s offensive.

Not to mention that the vast northwestern occupied zone was still under Demon Race control, with sporadic conflicts and frictions never ceasing.

The oncoming mist had originally threatened the Demon Race’s sea routes; in the long term, it might have naturally curbed the activity range of the northwestern Demon Race and forced them back toward the vicinity of High Castle Fortress.

However, after the Battle of Three Mountains City ended, that mist quietly receded.

Now, standing on the West Coast and looking to the horizon where sea met sky, there was no trace of the mist, and as for where exactly it had withdrawn to, no one had yet gone to investigate in depth.

To respond to the threat, humans had no choice but to center on Oath City and begin constructing an unprecedentedly large defensive system.

Countless commoners and Mages, mobilized by the Kingdom, began to take part in this vast project, hoping to protect themselves in the next great war.

War brought countless pains; the little shop assistant at Puki’s House received notification that her father had fallen in battle, said to have sacrificed himself in the very early phase of the Battle of Three Mountains City.

Bianca and her mother received a substantial amount of compensation; City Lord Fa’er personally oversaw the matter, and no one dared to skim anything off the top.

Unfortunately, that money could not erase their grief.

Old Dylan had intended to give Bianca a vacation, but this stubborn girl still insisted on busying herself in the back kitchen.

Only when things quieted down, Dylan would faintly hear soft sobbing coming from the back, and sometimes the Puki maid outfit carrying dishes out would have damp patches where tears had not yet dried.

War likewise forged countless living heroes, and their names were sung from mouth to mouth.

For example, the demon-breaking archer Na Xi from a village on the western edge of the occupied zone.

After her hometown was destroyed, she, alone with her bow, emptied more than a dozen quivers, shooting until the flesh at the tips of her right-hand fingers was mangled, successfully covering the villagers’ retreat to Golden Valley City.

For example, the fortress Mage Olivia.

This elderly female Mage, when the city gate was breached, poured all her mana into the ground beneath her feet, using her exquisite earth Magic to raise layer upon layer of high walls within the city, buying precious time for the army and civilians inside to evacuate; she herself almost failed to escape and was finally saved by an Elf named Night Owl.

Of course, the brightest hero was still Inanna Saint Claire.

This Duke’s daughter perfectly embodied what it meant to have a tiger for a father and no whelps for daughters.

When the two Dukes and the remnant forces were trapped by the Demon Race in Dragon Roar Valley, in mortal peril, it was Inanna who appeared in the nick of time!

It was said that she controlled mighty storm Elements with her left hand and commanded endless Puki with her right, beating the invading Demon Race into a rout and preserving this crucial Power for humanity!

As people passed the tales along, the term Mushroom Race also gradually spread.

During the battle in Dragon Roar Valley, Number Ten Puki had been quite low-key, pretty much just following behind Pink Puki the whole time, guarding its safety.

But Number Four Puki was not the least bit able to sit still.

With Lin Jun not having explicitly forbidden it, it ran all over the valley every day and would even take the initiative to seek out Puki Masters to extol the glory of the Mushroom Race.

A talking Puki coming up to them had, at first, scared quite a few people.

And this was entirely beyond Alama and Lorenzo’s expectations.

How could they have known that Number Four Puki had absolutely no intention of hiding itself; not only did it not hide, it was this close to stepping onto a stage and holding a publicity rally.

To the point that the two Dukes had no choice but to come forward and give an explanation.

And after the battle of Dragon Roar Valley ended, the surviving Warriors naturally all liked these Puki that had saved their lives, so that now most of the stories in circulation were words of praise.

It wasn’t that there were no "Mushroom Threat Theory" types, but such rhetoric was mostly concentrated among minor nobles and scholars.

In taverns, a one-armed veteran would slap the table and refute the doubters: "To hell with those scholars! If it weren’t for those talking mushrooms, I’d have long since turned into a pile of dry bones in that gorge!"

Such first-hand testimony obviously carried more weight with ordinary soldiers and Adventurers.

As for great nobles like Alama and Lorenzo, they never made any public statement regarding the matter.

The Mushroom Race likewise attracted the attention of the Demon Race.

The battle of Dragon Roar Valley had practically changed the entire course of the war, and since Puki were one of the most important factors in that battle, they could not possibly escape the notice of the Demon Race.

Through intelligence gathered by spies planted within the Kingdom, the Demon Race quickly obtained relevant information on the Mushroom Race.

Quite a few of the Demon Race linked the Mushroom Race to the Demon Tribe that had suddenly risen in the Northern Territory earlier and speculated that that tribe very likely also controlled at least one Mushroom Race individual.

However, the Northern Territory had now almost become a dead ice field, and the Demon Race could not even be sure how many of the tribes surviving on that land were still alive.

When the Demon lords of the northern border gathered, their priority for discussion was how to find the source of this abnormal climate. If they could not resolve this bizarre weather problem, their territories would soon become empty cities.

Overall, the Demon Race was now both preventing the Fungal Mat from spreading into the Empire’s borders and having every lord send their subordinates to search out and gather intelligence on the Mushroom Race, attempting to locate or seize one to study and see if it could be safely utilized.

As for the Emperor, he simply had no time to concern himself with any Puki or Mushroom Race.

At present, all the Power under the Emperor’s hand, be it Blood Guard or spies, had been dispatched to search for something akin to a Slime.

He did not loudly proclaim that the Demon King had escaped its seal; in fact, there were very few among the Demon Race who even knew that Muling Castle held the sealed remains of the Demon King.

And the fact that the Demon King’s Race was not the Demon Race was also not something just anyone knew.

Only a very small number of those who knew a bit of the inside story could, from the Emperor’s moves, harbor some guesses in their hearts; these people were smart enough not to spread anything, and at least Sigmund knew nothing.

...

In any case, with the external situation having eased for the moment, Lin Jun finally had time to tally up his gains.

[Level: Level 69]

Generally speaking, Lin Jun leveled up through the Fungal Mat’s automatic harvesting.

Compared to the experience provided by the vast expanse of Fungal Mat, the experience gained from routinely breaking down corpses was simply not on the same level.

But as it happened, this time there were just too many corpses!

When the Mushroom Forest covered Three Mountains City and finished decomposing all the corpses, Lin Jun was just one last step away from lord rank!

Of course, experience gains were secondary; in this battle, what improved the most were the various Combat Techniques Skills.

Heavy Strike, Trample, Swordsmanship, Bow Skill, Blade Storm, Casting Level...

A large number of commonly used Skills had reached Full Level, and even some rather niche Skills had been added to his compendium.

Lin Jun even obtained two new Titles because of this.

[Weapon Master: Damage increased by 10% when using weapons]

[All-School Proficiency: Casting effect increased by 10%]

For Lin Jun, the latter was a bit more useful than the former; the automated Puki army was still clumsy when using weapons, and only by handing the corresponding Skills over to the numbered Puki could their maximum combat effectiveness be brought out.

And of course, there was the greatest gain—[Extreme Sword].

It was as if countless Skills had been compressed and condensed together in a special way; this thing was too tough for Lin Jun to bite through and could only slowly dissolve in his soul bit by bit.

Recently, Lin Jun had been checking his progress several times a day; he was growing impatient, yet could do nothing.

On this day, while re-resurrecting the numbered Puki who had died in the battle of Three Mountains City, including Number Four...

Lin Jun stared at his Sunstone, then looked at the Sword Saint’s soul hanging from the other end of [Extreme Sword], and suddenly felt like running an experiment.