The mushroom garden is bordered on two sides by rock walls. These rock walls resemble the bones gnawed by a giant beast, their dark gray surfaces covered in honeycomb-like erosions.
In some depressions, clusters of dark purple crystals have formed, scattered throughout the entire rock face. Around these amethyst crystals, the concentration of magic is always higher than elsewhere.
The so-called mining area is where these amethyst crystals are collected.
While burying these purple crystals in the soil doesn't directly turn them into nutrients, it attracts the free-floating magic in the surrounding air, increasing the efficiency of the mycelium in collecting magic.
There are many Puff in the mining area equipped with the Chitinous Shell skill. They generate a thick shell on their mushroom caps and use it to chisel crystals from within the rock wall.
Honestly, with only a Level 4 skill, the shell's hardness is insufficient, making the mining efficiency quite low. The Puff are also prone to being shaken to death by their own efforts. But given the limited conditions, being able to extract them at all is decent.
Inanna had her eye on a fist-sized purple crystal that had been extracted, gripping it tightly with her short legs.
"What are you doing?"
"Lin, Lin Jun?"
The pink Puff trembled violently, tripping over the purple crystal at its feet and taking a big tumble.
"Don't suddenly talk in my head..."
"Do we have any other way to communicate? Get used to it."
Inanna thought about it and realized it was true, but she still felt she might never get used to someone being able to talk in her head anytime, anywhere...
"You have so many Magic Crystals here," Inanna said, picking up the purple crystal again, her voice filled with uncontrollable excitement.
"Magic Crystals? Are you referring to these amethyst crystals used to fertilize the fields?"
"Fert... fertilize the fields?"
A green-capped Puff hopped out and used its short legs to lift the cap of a large mushroom nearby. Beneath it was clearly half of a purple crystal buried in the soil.
"You, you, you actually use Magic Crystals to fertilize the fields?"
"Otherwise?"
"These are Magic Crystals! These are Magic Crystals that can be used to make magical items, serve as bases for magic arrays, and even the small broken pieces can be used as casting materials! How can they be used to fertilize the fields?"
Inanna looked heartbroken, as if Lin Jun was squandering precious resources.
"Did you forget this is a dungeon? But besides fertilizing the fields, they do have other uses."
A tentacle woven from mycelium extended from beneath the mushroom, activating the skill [Entanglement LV3]. It wrapped around a piece of purple crystal about half the size of a palm, binding the Puff and the Magic Crystal together.
Then, a continuous stream of magic surged into the Magic Crystal. The Magic Crystal went from dull to lustrous, and from lustrous to sparkling. The excessive magic within put the entire Magic Crystal in an overloaded state.
When cracks appeared in the Magic Crystal and it let out a mournful cry of being overwhelmed, the Puff, carrying the Magic Crystal, frantically hopped to an open space.
Bang—
It exploded.
The aftermath of the explosion caused Inanna to fall over again.
"Quite powerful, isn't it? This thing is very useful for dealing with monsters."
Rolling on the ground, Inanna didn't know what to say anymore.
A C-grade Magic Crystal, which could be used as the main material for a silver-ranked adventurer's staff with a little processing, was treated as a disposable item in front of her eyes, releasing an explosion equivalent in power to a LV4 Fireball.
Even the most ignorant nouveau riche in the Federation wouldn't waste such precious magic materials like this!
One should know that even the Magic Crystal embedded in her own exclusive magic staff was only B-grade quality.
"Right, you still haven't said what you need Magic Crystals for."
The sudden return to the main topic caught Inanna, who was still inwardly cursing Lin Jun for being a spendthrift, off guard for a moment. She directly stated her purpose:
"To, to cast spells with it."
After saying that, Inanna felt guilty again, because she wasn't sure if Lin Jun would see her ability to cast spells as a threat. If Lin Jun thought she was a threat, her little life might be...
"Oh? Didn't you say you couldn't cast spells after turning into a Puff?"
Lin Jun seemed to have completely ignored the threat, his words filled only with curiosity.
Inanna, who had secretly breathed a sigh of relief, quickly explained, "Just trying. Casting through a Magic Crystal might bypass the limitations of the Puff body."
"Then give it a try."
Another tendril extended from under the mushroom, coiled around the Magic Crystal next to Inanna, and reached out to her.
Facing the suddenly approaching tendril, Inanna instinctively took two steps back, but was still entangled. The Magic Crystal was tied to the top of her mushroom cap.
"Be careful, these tendrils are very fragile, don't break them."
After all, it was a stolen skill, and using it forcefully with mycelium couldn't be expected to hold firmly.
Hearing this, Inanna didn't dare to move randomly anymore. She focused her energy on casting – Lesser Glow, a spell that even an apprentice could easily cast.
An orange-yellow ball of light appeared above Inanna's head, flickering on and off, seemingly indicating that the magic power maintaining it was very unstable.
After flickering like this for a while, Inanna seemed to have found the knack, and the brightness finally stabilized.
"It worked! It really works!"
Inanna was so excited that she actually bounced up and down on her short legs.
Snap—
The bound tendril instantly broke, the Magic Crystal fell to the ground, and the Lesser Glow also extinguished – the mycelium tendrils were indeed very fragile.
"S-sorry..."
Lin Jun didn't care about the consumed mycelium at all. All his attention was focused on Inanna's spellcasting.
"Try casting it again now."
"Can't cast without a Magic Crystal."
"It doesn't matter if you fail, just cast it. I want to see what's different."
See?
Inanna didn't quite understand what Lin Jun meant, but she still tried to cast Lesser Glow by herself.
Then, unsurprisingly, she failed, just like the countless times she had tried before.
However, Lin Jun, who had been observing her, saw more.
Magic Perception LV4
This was taken from a type of magic vine called Noctis Tendrils that originally lived in the mushroom garden area. They relied on Magic Perception to find prey and then used their vines to strangle them. It's worth mentioning that the Entanglement skill was also obtained from them.
Although these magic plants were not low-level, they couldn't move, so in Lin Jun's eyes, they were no different from food on a plate. Now, they were extinct in this area.
Lin Jun felt a bit regretful about this. Both skills of the Noctis Tendrils were quite practical. However, at the time, he was focused on securing a territory and didn't think too far ahead. Otherwise, he would have left some to plant, just like the Rolling Beetles and Slimes in the breeding area, raising them to regularly slaughter and extract skill proficiency.
In his magic vision, Lin Jun observed that Inanna's magic flow during casting was indeed smooth in the initial stage. However, the energy flow was blocked at every node, and it was always unable to form a complete closed loop, as if her casting method was wrong.
Inanna had just cast Lesser Glow using a Magic Crystal, so it was naturally impossible for her casting method to be wrong now.
In Lin Jun's opinion, this was more likely due to the different physical structures of humans and Puff – simply put, the hardware and system were incompatible and couldn't run.
And the Magic Crystal was an independent environment that could better match the operation methods of these spells.
It felt somewhat similar to how he had to modify the Puff before they could use the corresponding skills.
"Can you use other magic now?"
Lin Jun knew she was a dual-element Level 4 mage, and he also wanted to see more spells.
"Uh, I'm afraid I need to practice more. I'm not very familiar with outputting magic with a Puff body, and this Magic Crystal hasn't been polished. Some cloudy areas inside will also interfere with casting. I need to get used to it."
"Cloudy? The purer the Magic Crystal, the better?"
Lin Jun really had no concept of this. He only knew that inserting it into the soil could gather magic. He thought the different effects were due to size, and as for using it to self-destruct... purity didn't seem to have any impact.
"Of course! It is said that the great mage Zorya's staff is inlaid with a completely pure S-grade Magic Crystal. Any spell cast through that staff will have its power tripled!"
"S-grade? There are also levels... Wait a moment."
After a while, to Inanna's confusion, two Puff together carried a large piece of crystal-clear Magic Crystal and came before her.
"A... A-grade Magic Crystal? And it's the size of an arm!?"