The mushroom garden was flanked by rock walls on two sides—walls that looked like the skeletal remains of giant beasts, their dark gray surfaces pitted with countless honeycomb-like erosion holes.
Dark purple crystal clusters grew in some of the deeper depressions, scattered sparsely across the rock face. The magical concentration around these amethysts was always noticeably higher than in other areas.
The so-called mining area was where these amethysts were harvested.
Inserting the purple crystals into the soil didn't directly turn them into nutrients, but it attracted and gathered free magical energy from the surrounding air, greatly increasing the efficiency of the mycelium's magic absorption.
Many of the Puji working in the mining area had the Chitinous Shell skill; they generated thick carapaces over their mushroom caps and used them to chisel the crystals free from the rock.
To be honest, with only LV4 in the skill, the shell's hardness was insufficient, so mining efficiency was quite low. The Puji were also prone to injuring themselves from the recoil. Still, given the limited resources available, being able to mine anything at all was already a luxury.
Inanna had her eyes fixed on a fist-sized amethyst she had just mined, clutching it tightly with her short legs.
"What are you doing?"
"Lin… Lin Jun?"
The pink Puji shuddered and tripped over the crystal at her feet.
"Don't suddenly talk inside my head…"
"Do we have any other way to communicate? You'll get used to it."
Inanna thought about it and realized it was true, but she still felt she might never fully adapt to someone speaking directly in her mind at any time, anywhere…
"You have so many magic crystals here." She picked up the amethyst again, her voice brimming with excitement.
"Magic crystals? You mean these amethysts we use to fertilize the fields?"
"Fertilize… the fields?"
A green-capped Puji hopped over, using its stubby legs to lift the cap of a large mushroom nearby and reveal a half-buried amethyst embedded in the soil.
"You… you… you're actually using magic crystals to fertilize the fields?!"
"What else would I do with them?"
"These are magic crystals! They can be used to craft magical items, serve as the core for magic arrays, and even the smallest fragments can be used as casting materials! How could you just bury them in the dirt like fertilizer?"
Inanna looked utterly heartbroken, as if Lin Jun were the greatest waster of precious resources in existence.
"Have you forgotten this is a dungeon? But you're right—they do have other uses besides fertilizing."
A tentacle woven from mycelium extended from beneath a nearby mushroom. It activated [Entangle LV3], wrapping around a palm-sized piece of amethyst and binding both the crystal and a nearby Puji together.
Then a steady stream of magic power poured into the crystal. It changed from dull to lustrous, then from lustrous to brilliantly shimmering. The excessive magic overloaded the crystal until cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, accompanied by a faint, mournful whine of strain.
At that moment, the bound Puji—with the crystal still tied to it—slammed itself wildly into an open patch of ground.
Bang—
It exploded.
The shockwave from the blast sent Inanna tumbling head over cap once again.
"Pretty powerful, right? This stuff is really useful against monsters."
Still sprawled on the ground, Inanna was speechless.
A C-grade magic crystal—one that could easily be fashioned into the core of a silver-grade adventurer's staff—had just been treated like a disposable grenade, unleashing an explosion comparable to a LV4 Fireball spell.
Even the most ignorant nouveau riche in the Federation wouldn't squander magical materials like this!
For reference, even Inanna's own personal wand only had a B-grade magic crystal embedded in its tip.
"Oh, right—you still haven't told me what you wanted the magic crystal for."
The sudden return to the main topic caught Inanna off guard. She had still been mentally cursing Lin Jun for her wastefulness. Flustered, she blurted out the truth:
"I want to… I want to use it to cast spells."
As soon as the words left her, Inanna felt a pang of guilt. She wasn't sure whether Lin Jun would view the ability to cast spells as a threat. If Lin Jun decided she was dangerous, her life could be over in an instant…
"Oh? Didn't you say you couldn't cast spells after turning into a Puji?"
Lin Jun sounded completely unconcerned—only curious.
Inanna let out a secret breath of relief and quickly explained, "I'm just trying it out. Maybe channeling spells through a magic crystal can bypass the limitations of this Puji body."
"Then try it."
Another mycelium tentacle emerged, snatched up the magic crystal beside Inanna, and carefully tied it to the top of her mushroom cap.
Inanna instinctively took two steps back, but the tentacle held firm.
"Be careful—these tentacles are very fragile. Don't break them."
After all, it was a stolen skill; forcing mycelium to mimic Entangle couldn't guarantee perfect durability.
Hearing the warning, Inanna didn't dare move. She focused her mind and began casting—a simple spell even an apprentice could manage.
A small orange-yellow ball of light flickered into existence above her head, its glow unsteady at first.
After a few moments of flickering, Inanna seemed to grasp the trick. The light finally stabilized into a steady, gentle glimmer.
"It worked! It really works!"
Inanna bounced excitedly on her short legs.
*Snap*—
The binding tentacle broke instantly. The magic crystal fell to the ground with a dull thud, and the glimmer winked out.
The mycelium tentacles really were fragile.
"I'm so sorry…"
Lin Jun completely ignored the damaged tendril. Her attention was fixed entirely on Inanna's successful casting.
"Try casting it again—without the crystal this time."
"I can't cast without the magic crystal."
"It doesn't matter if you fail. Just try. I want to see the difference."
Inanna didn't fully understand what Lin Jun was looking for, but she still attempted to cast Glimmer on her own.
As expected, she failed—just like every attempt before.
But Lin Jun, watching closely through [Magic Perception LV4], saw far more.
This skill had been plundered from a magical vine called Noctis's Beard, which once grew in this very area of the mushroom garden. The vines used magic perception to locate prey before strangling it. (Incidentally, the Entangle skill had also come from the same source.)
Although those high-level magical plants had been excellent, they were immobile and therefore easy prey in Lin Jun's eyes. They had since been driven to extinction in the area.
Lin Jun felt a twinge of regret. Both of Noctis's Beard's skills were incredibly useful, but back then she had only cared about claiming territory and hadn't thought ahead. Otherwise, she could have kept a few specimens, cultivated them like the rolling beetles and slimes in the breeding area, and periodically harvested them for skill proficiency.
Through her magical vision, Lin Jun observed that while Inanna's mana flowed smoothly during the initial stages of casting, the circulation always broke at every major node. It never formed a complete closed loop—as though the casting process itself was fundamentally incompatible.
Since Inanna had just successfully cast Glimmer using a magic crystal, the issue clearly wasn't her technique or knowledge.
In Lin Jun's view, the problem lay in the fundamental difference between human and Puji physiology—simply put, the "hardware" and "system" were incompatible.
A magic crystal, however, provided an independent medium that better aligned with how these spells were meant to function.
It felt somewhat similar to how Lin Jun modified Puji to wield skills that didn't originally belong to their race.
"Can you try other spells now?"
Lin Jun knew Inanna was a dual-elemental LV4 mage and was eager to see more.
"Um… I'll probably need more practice. I'm still not used to channeling magic power through this Puji body, and this crystal isn't polished—some of the cloudy inclusions inside interfere with the flow. I'll have to get accustomed to it."
"Cloudy inclusions? So the purer the magic crystal, the better?"
Lin Jun genuinely had no idea. She only knew that burying them in the soil gathered ambient magic, and she had assumed any differences came down to size. For self-destruct purposes, purity hadn't seemed to matter.
"Of course! It's said that Archmage Zorya's staff is embedded with a completely flawless S-rank magic crystal. Any spell cast through that staff has its power tripled!"
"S-rank? They even have rankings… Wait a moment."
A few seconds later, to Inanna's astonishment, two Puji appeared before her—each carrying an enormous, crystal-clear magic crystal the size of an arm.
"A… A-rank magic crystal? And that big?!"