Mushroom Lord in the Underground City

Chapter 570 - 560: Gains and Losses

"Will this... be able to be taken out later?" Lin Jun gazed at the scepter firmly embedded in the seal, feeling a pang of heartache.

"As long as the seal is repaired, it can be taken out," the Elder Fishman explained.

"And you..."

"Lord Puki, I’m sorry, I don’t know much about this seal," said the Elder.

Well, the greatest gain of this trip has turned into a seal patch that can only be looked at but not touched in an instant.

And without the scepter, even the advantage of freely passing through secret passages...

No, how did Tanaka, who betrayed the path of the Hero and chose to collude with the Demon King, navigate the secret passage?

Lin Jun immediately ordered all the magical items left by Tanaka to be gathered in front of him.

After trying them one by one, he quickly locked onto a seemingly simple silver ring.

By injecting a little Magic Power, intricate rune circuits appeared on the surface of the ring. No matter which secret passage entrance it was pointed at, some part of the runes would resonate with the activation patterns of the passage, making it truly a master key crafted for the Tide Sanctuary.

Although the runes were highly integrated and structurally complex, the production process was not difficult, and replicating it would not be challenging.

Lin Jun could completely have his craftsmen produce a batch of replicas based on this template.

But this also meant that there might be other holders, equally possessing this kind of key.

The secret passages could no longer be assumed to be an exclusive advantage, otherwise, they would suffer losses like this time.

Besides this key ring, other items such as protective bracelets, underwater breathing pendants, and concealment rings might be a considerable fortune for a lone Adventurer, but to Lin Jun, they were not considered rare.

However, this broken sealing stone slab, it could actually destroy the Demon King’s seal!

The Pujie Dungeon similarly stored a part of the Demon King, which Lin Jun had thoroughly studied. That seal was almost inseparable from the Dungeon’s structure and nearly impossible to break by brute force.

But this stone slab accomplished it.

Without a doubt, it’s a treasure.

It’s just unknown whether its effectiveness is only targeted towards the Demon King’s seal or if it has miraculous effects on all magical seals and even Arrays... It definitely needs to be analyzed thoroughly later.

Lin Jun noticed that the Elder Fishman was staring at the broken metal ring beside him, seemingly lost in thought, and asked, "Is there something special about this object?"

Through the Elder Fishman’s explanation, Lin Jun learned that there used to be a Water Elemental Lord guarding here.

The gigantic ring with a diameter of over ten meters in front of them was something from that Lord’s body.

However, even such a powerful Water Elemental Lord disappeared silently during the mist’s shrouding.

So there really was a watchdog here, just taken away by the mist!

Thinking about it, the core of every Underground City seems to have a similar guardian.

Putting aside the Stone Castle Dungeon, which had fallen into such decline that it couldn’t even maintain its rules.

Pujie Dungeon had two S Level Combat Puppets, the Divine Wood Dungeon had those Pale Pilgrimage or simply Old Deng himself guarding, and although the Dwarf Dungeon hadn’t been deeply explored yet, the Fire Elemental Lord that had turned the Dwarf realm upside down was probably also a gatekeeper in essence.

What about the Scarecrow Abyss?

It seems that no one has ever found the true location of its core to this day. That Dungeon’s mechanism is too strange, involving multi-layered spatial overlap, making exploration far more challenging than other places.

As for the Underground Cities within the Empire’s borders, Lin Jun wasn’t very knowledgeable about them.

"Boss, that... Slime Man just now, who was that?" Norris asked.

Lin Jun thought for a moment and felt that it was okay to tell the core members: "Just a piece of the Demon King."

"The Demon King?!" Norris shuddered instinctively.

Almost simultaneously, fragments of old memories long sitting in the corners of memory surged forth; stories heard from bards and drunk veteran Adventurers when she was still chased by debts.

It is said that humans once lived for generations in the fertile fields of the central regions.

Until the Demon King descended, ruling countless evil races and sparking boundless slaughter.

Survivors were forced to abandon their homeland and flee to the southern wilderness, living on in the gaps between miasma and Demons with difficulty.

But even so, the Demon King was still not satisfied.

He longed to hold the entire Continent in his palm, enslaving all Races so that only the Empire would exist on the Continent.

Truly too... there wasn’t...

For some reason, at this moment, Norris’s mind conjured the image of a Fungal Mat spreading across the land, with various Races coexisting with Mycelium on it.

He shook his head sharply, dispelling this sudden association from his mind.

Although the boss always loves to experiment on people and secretly uses criminals for scalp-numbing experiments, Norris still believes deep down that the boss is good at heart.

At least... probably... can’t be compared to such a legendary evil entity as the Demon King, right?

Realizing that the shadow earlier was the Demon King, the slight goodwill that arose from "being recognized as human" instantly melted away.

No human dislikes the creator of the Empire.

If it hadn’t been for the Hero’s emergence, today’s humans would probably have long become livestock to the Blood Race or worse.

The Demon King’s reputation struck fear and worry into Norris, but Ming’s reaction was completely different; he felt nothing.

If Xing Huo, Hunting, or Qiong were present, they might fall into a brief silence and reflection.

Though their new generation hadn’t lived through the era of the Demon King’s rule, they had heard of that era’s splendor from elders reminiscing on past times.

Now facing a shift in allegiance and standing against the legendary Demon King, it would inevitably stir complex emotions.

But not Ming; he was a trueborn of the Mushroom Race, harboring no feelings toward the Demon King, who to him was just an enemy of the boss, a strong and abominable enemy!

As for Little Pig’s reaction, it was much more interesting.

Upon first hearing the word "Demon King," her pupils contracted, and a subtle fear flickered across her face instinctively.

But then, whatever she thought of seemed to rapidly dispel that fear.

Instead, a nearly burning light ignited in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth raised slightly with barely concealed excitement.

Lin Jun wasn’t sure why she was excited, but it was certainly better than being simply afraid.

The matter of the seal and the scepter could only be left as is for now.

However, the Tide Sanctuary’s cleanup work was not yet complete.

They had successfully taken over the gate, set up a defensive line, and continued to kill all the mist monsters entering the Dungeon in succession.

These mist monsters seemed brainless, not understanding the necessity to gather a wave of numbers before attacking en masse.

Though they had occupied the gate, a significant number of mist monsters continued to wander inside the Tide Sanctuary, needing to be cleared.

This wasn’t just for the Fishman deal; the Tide Sanctuary itself held considerable value.

The underwater environment allowed Lin Jun to use it as a base to develop the Puki Navy.

The Dungeon’s inherent auxiliary spaces also tempted Lin Jun.

If he could control the auxiliary space here, there wouldn’t be a need to struggle to find that unknown space within the Empire’s borders; at least not urgently.

Furthermore, the Tide Sanctuary’s exit was now quite near the edge of the mist, which was the reason for the presence of so many mist monsters here.

For everyone else, the mist was a disaster to be avoided at all costs.

But since Lin Jun intended to save the world for himself, the mist was an unavoidable challenge.

Instead of waiting on the Continent for the mist to spread back, threatening his base,

using the Tide Sanctuary as a kind of front-line base to study the mist thoroughly ahead of time seemed much better.

If one day the mist truly engulfed the Tide Sanctuary, Lin Jun could just retreat, and the loss wouldn’t be significant.

At Lin Jun’s orders, Little Pig began the sweep within the Tide Sanctuary.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the delegation led by Inanna, after a long journey, finally reached the borders of the Dwarf Mountain Kingdom.

However, the gazes the Dwarves cast upon the delegation did not seem friendly.