Mushroom Lord in the Underground City-Chapter 365 - 357: Scrapped Case

Land of the Far North, the vast ice field north of the Stone Castle Dungeon.

"Hiss—! It’s so cold!"

"Indeed... I haven’t felt such biting cold in a long time. I should have brought a heat-emitting Puki!"

Two Mushroom Race members rubbed their almost frozen arms, sitting on a simple cart.

The cart was piled high with various magic materials, and pulling the cart were rows of tireless sledding Pukis, diligently running across the snow.

Their destination was a small open-air experimental site built against a steep ice wall.

This was a place Lin Jun had specially chosen for experimenting with dangerous Abyss Magic.

It’s remote enough, desolate, and surrounded by a wide fungal mat.

Even if an accident were to occur, there is enough buffer zone to handle it calmly.

Xing Huo had already arrived ahead of time and was currently drawing a complex magic array on the ground with materials.

The Abyss-related magic books obtained from Margas earlier contained profound upper-tier Abyss Magic, which Lin Jun could only vaguely understand.

But ever since picking up numerous foundational Abyssal Magic books in Stone Forest, Lin Jun finally realized one thing: it’s no wonder Abyss Magic hasn’t developed!

Its most notable feature is that all Abyss Magic must be cast through a complete "ritual," and there’s simply no type that can be instantly cast like the Fireball Technique.

Moreover, for magic of the same level, the complexity and taboo entries of Abyssal ceremonies far exceed those of other factions.

Take, for example, the relatively basic "Servant Summoning Ceremony" Lin Jun is preparing to try; the entire book has only a quarter discussing the materials and setup methods needed for the ritual, while the remaining three-quarters are endlessly listing various precautions, warning signals, and insurances!

For instance, besides the regular materials needed for the magic array core and a Low Tier Contract Scroll, the ceremony must also add an independent "Disruption Array" to ensure the spellcaster can forcibly interrupt the ceremony at any point before the summoning is complete.

Similar insurance measures are recorded extensively in the book, with the words seemingly soaked with lessons learned by previous generations through blood.

The offering is also a mandatory requirement of the ritual, and it must be a healthy, sober, and vibrant intelligent creature.

Their role is to "resist the Abyss’s erosion" at the crucial moment when the spellcaster initiates the ritual.

According to Lin Jun’s understanding, these offerings essentially act as "human buffers" carrying information noise, preventing the noise stream from directly impacting the spellcaster before they’re filled up and collapse.

However, Lin Jun does not intend to use offerings this time.

Every living intelligent creature, even those social scum collected, in his eyes are valuable talents, too precious to waste like that.

Moreover, Lin Jun was already planning to collect and analyze those "information noises," so not using offerings suits his purpose fine.

The most frustrating aspect of Abyss Magic is that even if meticulously prepared, the results are still fraught with huge uncertainty.

The book Lin Jun has lists dozens of anomalies that, if any signs appear, the Disruption Array must be activated immediately, which makes one’s scalp tingle, feeling as if the success rate of normal casting is despairingly low!

At the end of the book, there’s a concluding sentence written in bold: "The Abyss offers no gifts, only equivalent exchange. Every bit of power you gain is built on the ashes of offerings and the risk of you slipping toward the brink of collapse, with no exceptions."

Further below, there’s a different, slightly scribbled handwritten note, seeming like the lament of a former owner:

"They aren’t knowledge; they’re the manifestation of curses... but the power is real..."

Mysterious indeed.

After the setup was complete, Lin Jun sent the Mushroom Race members away, and a group of Pukis emerged from the fungal mat.

Controlling the Pukis, he carefully checked every detail of the array again, ensuring there were no errors.

Then, a few Pukis voluntarily crawled onto the magic nodes meant for live offerings, sitting quietly.

Finally, a Puki designated for casting activated the entire Ritual Array.

The jet-black magic patterns suddenly lit up, emitting an ominous glow.

Almost at the same instant the array activated, Lin Jun clearly felt those massive, unordered "information noises" again!

[Arm length: 1.2 meters, four-finger structure]

...

[Reproduction capability level: 3.3]

...

Perhaps due to the lower-level ceremony this time, the intensity and volume of the information stream was far less terrifying than facing the void last time.

It felt like an old radio with poor signal, continuously emitting ambiguous noise.

Lin Jun thought, with his current information processing ability, receiving them like this seems no big problem.

The only issue was that this temporary low-tier magic array underneath couldn’t support such duration...

So he temporarily set aside the information noise, focusing his main attention on the ritual itself.

The magic ceremony proceeded smoothly; in the center of the array, a chaotically blurred black fog appeared out of nowhere and began to gradually coalesce.

The fog rolled, within it seemed something struggling to form an entity.

Through the obscure mist, the silhouette slowly forming... looked like... a ball of yarn?

A tangled, continually writhing ball of yarn?

This form was not among the 7 known "safe" forms recorded in the magic book, nor was it on the blacklist of 42 "dangerous" forms.

For unknown forms, the safest approach, according to the book, is to immediately interrupt the ritual.

But Lin Jun did not do so. Because he already saw its panel information:

[Race: Shadow Worm (discarded case)]

[Level: Level 3]

[Skills: Melting Shadow Level 1]

The Adventurer’s Group actually comprised entangled worm bodies; they squirmed slightly, slowly blending into the shadows cast by the stone wall, not very fast.

Before it completely melded into the shadow and disappeared, Lin Jun forcefully issued a command through the pre-established contract link, pulling it slightly back from the shadow’s edge.

However, Lin Jun’s attention had already shifted away from the summoned creature itself.

Goddamn discarded case, when previously encountering Abyss information, it felt like those things were some sort of abandoned data, now it seems indeed so!

Could this world actually be a game?

If so, then who is the "designer" of the game?

Are they those legendary higher gods?

Lin Jun now feels uneasy; if this world is indeed just a planned game, then who exactly is he?

A player lost in it without knowing?

Or an NPC believing he has free will while his fate is already pre-written?

Then what about Xiao Hai, Norris, Little Pig, Hunter... What are they? 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Segments rich with backstories but can be reset or erased anytime?

What a vexing feeling, worse than being dried out...