Chapter 307 - Centicrawler
The crystal mushrooms were very easy to produce en masse. Ed was nonetheless in no hurry. Planting all of them at once would be no different from killing himself.
‘I need to isolate a small zone and try things out’ The doom shroom had isolated itself after burning the mycelium, but that didn’t mean the same thing would happen with the other elements.
Mushrooms grew in moist areas so they’d have some amount of resistance to the water element. Of course, if the place where they tried to grow was soaked most would still drown, but mushrooms were too broad a category. Ed had to narrow it down.
‘Can I, a magic mushroom, survive the coursing of earth, wind, or water elements?’ That was the question he had to ask himself as he had no element to speak of.
‘Since fire burns me I do have weaknesses just as I have strengths, my best bet is water after all’ To further guarantee things he could provide the spirit smith the smallest water crystal he could find.
Similarly, he would need even smaller fire crystals. His previous pastime as a skeleton of crafting lots of fire crystals had thankfully left him with many tiny ones. Though if he had to he could also try splitting the crystals with the help of the forge.
Ed entered the forge room where the spirit smith was very busy crafting metal shrooms. That was also when Ed added some crystal mushrooms to the top of the queue.
The spirit smith which was about to replace an already finished metal shroom with the materials to make a new one quickly shifted gears. They went back to the holding box and grabbed the ones for crystal mushrooms instead.
The process was quick and smooth, the fire mushroom was the first out of the oven followed by the water crystal mushroom.
[Weak Fire Crystal Mushroom]
[ A gleaming mushroom that holds trace elements of fire ]
[Water Crystal Mushroom]
[ A dazzling mushroom that contains water elements ]
‘I’m glad it worked’ With both crystal shrooms available, all Ed had to do was plant them. Planting them in his immediate vicinity was a bit risky however so Ed was forced to split a part of himself and insert it into a more distant sentry shroom to enlarge his reach.
It was true that thanks to every single mushroom being technically him he could place them further than he normally would but as he had recently learned there was also a limit. He wasn’t a true hivemind so in order to definitely expand the reach, he’d have to split small parts of himself.
It was as if everything was clouded by fog but the moment he placed a single torch at the furthest visible point he was able to clear it away and double the distance he could see.
As for which spot Ed settled, it was a spot near a wall. He couldn’t place these shrooms in the center of business if things went wrong. All nuclear tests were conducted in barren lands so why not magical tests?
Using this as an example made him realize that he had been quite reckless with the doom shroom. It was literally called doom shroom and all. But he shouldn’t be harping on the topic as the past had passed.
The two mushrooms manifested themselves near a part of the cavern’s wall, due to not naturally possessing the spore skills, they remained there immobile. If Ed had chosen to create magic mushrooms as opposed to crystal mushrooms the result might have been them naturally obtaining magic spores but he hadn’t.
That was for good reason too. If they all started expanding but were a threat to him he’d be in trouble.
The mycelium soon sent signals towards the new mushrooms and they had replied in kind. The water and fire element signals they sent were however extinguishing one another.
But as the water crystal had been larger than the fire, faint water signals passed successfully through the network. The message they transmitted was pretty broken and weak.
Nevertheless, the eye of Ed’s sentry shroom still gleamed with exhilaration. Things were being passed on! That was enough even if it meant sacrificing many resources.
The death element, true to itself, was like a sort of natural killer to all things that weren’t the life element itself. But that only it made it better, it would technically cancel out everything else even if the conversion ratio wasn’t 1 to 1.
‘Good, now I have to drown it out but…’ The two mushrooms were facing one another and connected at the edge of the cavern. If he were to place them elsewhere however there would be many paths they could send signals towards. Ed either had to take the risk of them being burned, drowned, or disabled as a result, or plan something.
‘Let’s just take the risk’ The doom shroom which was twice as deadly had managed to sever the connection and nothing more. It didn’t poison him or the other mushrooms.
‘Plus, what if the mushrooms evolve slowly and get accustomed’ That would be great though Ed had no intention to pin his hopes on this.
Time continued to pass and the mushrooms had more than doubled in quantity. They could have perhaps tripled, but Ed was diverting all resources towards the doom shrooms. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
He had branded magic spores onto some water crystal shrooms and these shrooms helped put the death and fire at bay. This allowed Ed to grab the death shrooms and plant them elsewhere and new patches of death were being formed.
Surrounding these patches were mushrooms that glowed a brilliant blue. Ed’s area was no longer one featured in a noir film as it had gained some color.
The distant magic mushrooms which glowed a dazzling plethora of colors would have to be on high alert as Ed’s expansion was not yet over. A new source of nutrients to aid in his growth was fast approaching!
[Centicrawler]
The centicrawler, Ed could get even more resources now! He could feel the signals rush to his main body. Every fiber in his bodies felt ready!
The centicrawler which seemed to be the same one from before started approaching towards an edge of the cavern sparsely darted with gray shrooms and holding some water crystal shrooms.
‘Eh? Wait! What are you doing!?!’ The centicrawler opened its mandibles and started biting at the water crystal mushroom. Ed’s pileus 1nearly drooped to the floor from surprise.
Ed hadn’t expected the centicrawler to come back not for food… but for a drink! But that didn’t really matter too much, what mattered was that it was in the radius of the death shrooms.
‘Explode!’ The water shrooms were placed near them specifically after all and with the signal sent… A large explosion was to follow!
The patch near the centicrawler which was full of limp and dry mushrooms suddenly puffed up and within less than five seconds all burst. The destructive fire alongside the vile death expanded outwards and covered the monster and its vicinity.
The explosion shook the everything and Ed could feel the vibrations through his roots. It was a pretty damn powerful blast he had to say.
Debris started to settle and soon Ed was welcomed to a scorched figure. It was the centicrawler!
But before Ed could rejoice the creature shook fiercely and the black scorch marks started to dissipate rapidly.
A loud screech then escaped from the centicrawler’s mandible which, if Ed had ears, would have definitely shocked him.
‘It’s essentially intact’ Ed commented in awe seeing the creature screech at the mushrooms responsible. It was justified in feeling this way. A clear yellowish liquid Ed presumed was blood still oozed out of it.
‘I underestimated these things’ He was inside a dungeon which increased in difficulty with each floor, the mobs in it couldn’t be pushovers. The centicrawler seemed to have grown human-level emotion as rage overtook its senses. Mushrooms had done it dirty!
With a new screech, it opened its jaws and charged towards the forest of gray with mandibles wide open. It could totally eat mushrooms!
They were slightly meaty, contained mana, and also moisture. They were pretty well-rounded snacks. But well-rounded did not feed a stomach, the energy it would expend to eat so many mushrooms wasn’t worth it.
But who thought rationally when angry?! Definitely not the centicrawler!
‘Ah, my sentry shroom!’ The creature even managed to bulldoze right through a field of metal shrooms and attack one of Ed’s sentry. Thanks to the brief proximity Ed could see its disgusting injured appearance. He was quite honestly frightened by it perhaps a result of the death element lingering on its scarred body.
But that didn’t mean he was petrified. The centicrawler could kill as many mushrooms as it wanted just by bulldozing through but it would never truly kill the mushrooms.
An explosion suddenly occurred next to the centicrawler. It was previously mad but now it was incensed. It started charging in the direction of the explosion but that only met it with another explosion.
‘Too stupid’ Ed’s mycelium was everywhere! He could therefore summon some death shrooms from his storeroom at a moment’s notice! The feeds were a bit delayed so there were times when the centicrawler escaped mostly unharmed but yellowish blood kept on raining over Ed’s mushroom.
The mycelium quickly absorbed it all as if it were delicious soup and Ed had new nutrients enter the network. The explosions didn’t discriminate and were destroying his own mycelium but with the new nutrients, he could promptly grow more!
Explosions rang out one after the other until the centicrawler was led in its blind fit of rage towards another patch of death shrooms!
Another big explosion, but this time, the centicrawler had been atop of the patch. The sight of the death shrooms puffing up and bursting seemed that much more deadly to Ed as he saw the centicrawlers body parts fly in multiple directions.
As he covered most of the area, most of the parts fell atop the mycelium and the mushrooms. Quickly, the fungi expanded and consumed it leaving nothing but empty air.
In a matter of moments, the centicrawler disappeared. The only traces of change were the patches of blown up fungi which was being regrown at a visible pace.