The Mushroom Garden was flanked by rock walls on both sides. These rock walls, resembling the gnawed bones of a giant beast, had dark grey surfaces full of honeycomb-like erosion holes.
Some of the depressions were encrusted with clusters of dark purple crystals, sporadically distributed throughout the rock wall. Around these purple crystals, the concentration of magic power was always higher than in other places.
The so-called extraction zone was all about harvesting these purple crystals.
Inserting these purple crystals into the soil may not directly turn them into nutrients, but they can attract the free magic power in the air to gather, enhancing the efficiency of mycelium in collecting magic power.
In the extraction zone, there were many Puki equipped with the chitin shell skill. They formed a thick shell on their mushroom caps and used it to chisel out the crystals from the rock wall.
Honestly, with only a level 4 skill, the shell's hardness was insufficient, making the extraction efficiency quite low, and Puki easily got themselves killed by their own vibrations. However, given the limited resources, getting any crystals at all was already quite good.
Inanna had her eyes on a fist-sized purple crystal and was gripping it tightly with her little short legs.
"What are you doing?"
"Lin, Lin Jun?"
The pink Puki shuddered violently, tripping over the purple crystal beneath her feet.
"Don't talk in my head all of a sudden..."
"Do we have any other way to communicate? Better get used to it soon."
Inanna thought about it and realized it was true, but she still felt she could never get used to someone speaking in her mind at any time...
"You have a lot of demon crystals here." Picking up the purple crystal again, Inanna couldn't help but sound excited.
"Demon crystals? Are you referring to these purple crystals used for fertile land?"
"Fertile...fertile land?"
A green-capped Puki jumped out, lifting a big mushroom cap with its short legs, revealing half of a purple crystal inserted into the soil beneath.
"You, you, you, you're actually using demon crystals for fertile land?"
"What else would I use them for?"
"These are demon crystals! They could be used for making magic items, as an array base, even the small or broken ones can be used as casting materials! How can you use them for fertile land?"
Inanna looked both heartbroken and upset, making Lin Jun feel like he was squandering resources.
"Did you forget this is the Underground City? But true, they do have other uses besides fertile land."
From beneath the mushroom, a mycelium-formed tentacle extended, activating the skill [Entanglement Level 3], wrapping around a purple crystal the size of half a palm, binding Puki and the demon crystal together.
Then, endless magic power surged into the demon crystal, turning it from dim to shiny, then from shiny to sparkling. The overcharged magic power put the entire demon crystal into an overloaded state.
When cracks appeared on the demon crystal, emitting a cry of unbearable strain, Puki jumped with the demon crystal onto an open area.
Bang—
It exploded.
The explosion's aftermath made Inanna stumble again.
"It's very powerful, right? This thing is great for dealing with demons."
Rolling on the ground, Inanna didn't know what to say.
A C-level quality, a demon crystal that with a bit of processing could serve as the main material for a Silver Level adventurer's magic staff, was used as a disposable item to release an explosion equivalent to the Flame Burst Skill at LV4 level right before her eyes.
Even the most unsophisticated nouveau riche in the Federation wouldn't squander these precious magic materials like this!
Because even on her own exclusive magic wand was merely a B-level quality demon crystal embedded.
"By the way, you never said what you need the demon crystals for."
The sudden return to the topic made Inanna, who was inwardly cursing Lin Jun for being wasteful, blurt out her purpose directly:
"To, to use them for casting."
As soon as she said it, Inanna felt guilty, as 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 life might be at risk...
"Oh? Didn't you say you couldn't cast after turning into a Puki?"
Lin Jun seemed completely unconcerned about any threat, speaking with nothing but curiosity.
Inanna, secretly relieved, quickly explained, "Just trying it out. Maybe casting through the demon crystal can bypass the limitations of Puki's body."
"Then give it a try."
Another tentacle extended from underneath the mushroom, rolling up the demon crystal next to Inanna and bringing it towards her.
Faced with the suddenly approaching tentacle, Inanna instinctively took two steps back but was still entangled.
After wrapping around her twice, the tentacle tied the demon crystal to the top of her mushroom cap.
"Be careful, these tentacles are very fragile, don't break them."
After all, it's a stolen skill, forcibly used with mycelium, one can't expect it to truly bind securely.
At these words, Inanna didn't dare to move randomly, focusing her efforts on casting - the Glow Skill, a spell so easy that even an apprentice could cast it.
An orange-yellow light cluster appeared above Inanna's head, flickering as though the magic power maintaining it was very unstable.
After it flickered for a while, Inanna seemed to find the knack, and the brightness finally stabilized.
"It worked! Really!"
Excitedly, Inanna actually started bouncing up and down with her little short legs.
Snap—
The bound tentacle instantly snapped, the demon crystal fell to the ground, and the Glow Skill extinguished along with it—the mycelium tentacles were indeed very fragile.
"S-sorry..."
Lin Jun paid no heed to the lost mycelium, his entire attention focused on Inanna's spellcasting.
"Try casting again now."
"I can't cast without a demon crystal."
"It's okay to fail, cast, I want to see what's different."
See?
Inanna didn't quite understand what Lin Jun meant, but she still attempted to cast the Glow Skill alone.
Then, unsurprisingly, she failed, just like in her countless previous attempts.
However, Lin Jun, who had been observing her all along, saw more.
[Magic Perception Level 4]
This was acquired from a kind of magic vine called Noctis's Beard that originally lived in this zone of the Mushroom Garden. They sensed prey through magic perception, then strangled them with tendrils. It's worth mentioning that the Entanglement skill was also acquired from them.
Although these demon plants were not of low level, since they couldn't move, they were no different than a meal on a plate in Lin Jun's eyes. Now, they were extinct in this area.
Lin Jun felt a bit remorseful about this. The two skills from Noctis's Beard were quite practical. However, at that time he was only focused on acquiring territory and did not think far ahead. Otherwise, he could have left some behind, and like breeding Rolling Beetles and Slimes in the breeding zone, rearing them for periodic harvesting to increase skill proficiency would have been a good strategy.
In the magic vision, Lin Jun noticed that Inanna's magic power flow during casting was indeed smooth at the initial stage. However, the energy flow was blocked at each node, never forming a complete loop, as if her casting method was inherently flawed.
Since Inanna just cast the Glow Skill through a demon crystal, it naturally couldn't be that her casting method was wrong.
In Lin Jun's view, this seemed more like a difference caused by the different body structures between humans and Puki - in simpler terms, the hardware and system didn't match and couldn't operate properly.
And the demon crystal served as an independent environment, better matching the operation mode of these magics.
It felt somewhat similar to when he modified the Pukis, allowing them to use corresponding skills.
"Can you now use other magic?"
Lin Jun knew she was a dual-element level 4 mage and was eager to witness more spells.
"Uh, I might need more practice. I'm not yet familiar with outputting magic power using the Puki body, plus this demon crystal hasn't been polished yet. The cloudy areas inside might interfere with casting, so I need to get used to it."
"Cloudy? The purer the demon crystal, the better?"
Lin Jun indeed had no concept of this. He only knew that inserting it into the soil could gather magic, and differences in effect, he thought, might be due to size. As for exploding them... it seemed like purity didn't matter much.
"Of course, according to legend, the Great Mage Zoraya has a staff embedded with a completely pure S-level demon crystal, making any spell cast through that staff three times more powerful!"
"S-level? So there are tiers...wait a moment."
After a bit, amidst Inanna's puzzlement, two Pukis came to her with a large, crystalline clear demon crystal.
"A...A-level demon crystal? And it's as big as an arm!?"
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