Mushroom Lord in the Underground City-Chapter 231 - 228: Seal

Fifth Layer of the Mushroom Forest.

The once softly glowing Mushroom Forest had long since become a ruin, with mushroom trees toppled over in all directions, their broken branches and caps covered in fierce claw marks and bite marks.

In the center of the ruins, a rift about four meters long gaped menacingly.

On the other side of the rift was a lush, verdant, and primitive forest, full of vitality yet also quite deadly, as evidenced by the demons emerging from within it.

A worm with a heavy shell, attracted by the burnt smell wafting from the fifth layer, slowly extended its massive body from the rift, clumsily crawling out.

However, just as its shell-covered body managed to crawl halfway through, the rift suddenly contracted without warning!

The unsteady edges of the rift transformed into blades of space, easily slicing through the worm’s hard shell as if it were thin paper!

Even worse, the rift’s edges were deeply embedded in its soft flesh, causing it agony with every move, leaving it trapped in pain, quivering helplessly.

But it didn’t realize that this was its last chance to escape.

As time went on, the rift continued to shrink, slowly closing shut... until it vanished without a trace, leaving only half of a worm’s corpse on the ground.

...

Oh!

So this is what it feels like to repair a rift!

In the core region, the massive Crystal Stele still glowed with a pure azure light, with Lin Jun’s soul still lodged inside it.

The suction force emanating from the core hadn’t stopped, but Lin Jun was no longer worried about it draining him dry.

Once Lin Jun’s soul completely filled the Crystal Stele, a wondrous cycle formed!

The core continuously absorbed his soul essence at a constant rate, while simultaneously expelling it at the same rate.

Lin Jun’s soul, at this moment, was connected in a unique dual-channel circulation system in a dynamic balance, creating a semi-permanent link with the Dungeon Core.

It’s "semi-permanent" because, after gaining core permissions, Lin Jun could forcefully withdraw his soul from the core just by feeling.

However, the dungeon still required computational power to maintain, and a too violent withdrawal might cause unpredictable consequences, so maintaining the status quo was the safest way for now.

Gaining control over the core meant that Lin Jun now had significant authority within the Purple Crystal Dungeon.

Theoretically, he could control the dungeon’s punitive lightning, access permissions, even spatial transformations, and so on...

It’s theoretical because, in practice, it’s like debugging code, and Lin Jun was a complete novice, left to fumble his way through!

The previous electric arc on the Yellow-covered Book was purely because, within the core hall, invoking permissions was as direct as moving a finger, but once outside the core region, the complexity and difficulty of operations skyrocketed exponentially!

Fortunately, repairing the spatial rift didn’t require much "technical" skill.

He merely needed to direct the computational power provided by his soul to the rift’s location, and the rest would be automatically repaired by the dungeon.

Of course, since maintaining computational power through his soul had an impact on Lin Jun as well.

The most direct impact was that the Puki Army’s control capacity was permanently reduced by five hundred units, and during rift repairs, some additional capacity was occupied.

Thus, faced with the current devastated dungeon, Lin Jun could only adopt a conservative repair strategy — prioritizing the rifts that posed the greatest threat and might cause significant trouble, while slowly handling the rest.

As for the dungeon’s other complex functions, he had to repair and explore them at the same time.

However, Lin Jun had a strong intuition: the punitive lightning as a deterrent might be the button easiest to stumble upon in this set of complex permissions.

Aside from the core, Lin Jun also had an unexpected gain.

[Inspiration LV1]

Simply put, his perception had been pried open just a crack, though currently only LV1, with a faint perception where besides his own vast and clear azure soul, other souls remained obscured as if shrouded in thick mist, but it was a leap from 0 to 1!

This skill wasn’t plundered; it awakened after Lin Jun personally experienced his soul being tugged by the core.

The knowledge and power of the Soul Domain had always been a blind spot for Lin Jun.

As this crisis revealed, his carefully laid backup plans, be it body transfer or cutting the Fungal Network, were all physical-level measures.

As a result, on the soul level, he was easily outmaneuvered by the Yellow-covered Book, not even through some kind of soul attack, but merely a trap utilizing the core mechanism, almost causing his failure.

If he had this [Inspiration] earlier, he might’ve seen through the Yellow-covered Book’s tricks.

Speaking of the Yellow-covered Book, there’s a reason Lin Jun hadn’t just thrown it into the void yet; it’s currently in a delicate state, with a small part of his soul occupying its cover.

Initially, it tried to push Lin Jun out, but every time it did, Lin Jun pushed a bit more in, maintaining a dynamic balance until the Yellow-covered Book ultimately gave up.

This allowed Lin Jun to contact the essence of the Yellow-covered Book — something like a soul but not quite.

What it exactly is remains unclear, but evidently, as long as he enveloped and crushed it with his soul, he could easily eliminate the Yellow-covered Book, holding its life and death in his hands, even more directly than being parasitized by fungal threads.

With fungal parasitism, if you travel beyond the Fungal Network’s coverage, you’re no longer affected.

Yet from the experience of making soul contact regardless of space, Lin Jun could dispose of the Yellow-covered Book anytime, no matter how far it’s thrown away.

By the way, the Yellow-covered Book last mentioned having important information.

Snap—

Puki flicked a tentacle, tossing the ragged, yet still blue-patterned cover Yellow-covered Book onto the cold ground like garbage.

Now, just by the naked eye, it’s hard to associate this tattered book with the previous Holy Scripture.

Puki kicked the book: "Weren’t you claiming to have important information? Stop pretending to be dead and spill it!"

They waited a moment, but there was no response.

A small electric arc landed precisely, and a burnt smell rose with wisps of smoke.

Still silence.

Then... keep zapping!

Arc after arc lashed like a whip, until the Yellow-covered Book was about to become a Black-covered Book.

Finally, Puki uttered a surprised exclamation, "Oops! Sorry, Mr. Holy Scripture~! Forgot you can’t write on the cover without pages now!"

Outside the core, a Minotaur was quickly sacrificed to the Yellow-covered Book.

Feeling the faint soul enter the cover, Lin Jun gave a sharp squeeze to the Yellow-covered Book’s core.

"Listen up," Lin Jun’s voice emanated through voice-controlled Puki, "From now on, no soul is allowed to be stored in the cover! If you try it once, I’ll crush you! Got it?"

Under threat, the spine shook slightly, and a brand-new but clearly fragile page sprouted up with a desperate "will to survive."

As soon as the page formed, the Yellow-covered Book hurried to prove it still had value!

[Stop zapping! Stop zapping! I’ll tell you everything!]

[The secret is behind the core’s little door!]

...

...

...

A few Puki stood before the small door, and with his high authority, Lin Jun could easily push it open if he wished.

But —

"What do you mean there’s one-sixth of a Demon King sealed behind it?"