Back in the unknown third dungeon layer, Ed's mushroom self was still proliferating at insane rates. This was all while he continued to investigate the mystery of the sentry mushroom he intended to create.
'Nothing seems to be working… Wait, maybe!' That was when Ed finally came up with a great idea. He grabbed back the sentry mushroom returning it to the system space before promptly returning to the system space himself.
Once there, he first walked over to the storeroom, and rather than grab the mushroom again Ed beelined towards an orc body.
'The state of the body still seems to be perfect' Time, therefore, did not flow in the space, or if it did it was at an abysmally slow rate. This wasn't his main intent in inspecting the body, however.
Ed was targeting the largest weakness of most living bodies. The eyes. He scooped it like one would ice scream using his wisp-like body and examined it only briefly before feeling sufficiently creeped out.
'It's like it's staring at my soul' He joked before hurrying over to the smithy not forgetting to also grab the sentry mushroom.
The spirit smith which was still looking just as stupid as it did when he first unlocked him watched as he entered with a mushroom and an eyeball in hand. It said nothing, not that it seemed capable of doing so.
Things only changed once Ed placed the eyeball into the holding box. At which point, the system took charge of things.
[Compatible materials detected, listing acquired possible combinations]
[Sentry Shroom] - Orc Eyeball
Upon seeing the option appear, Ed didn't know if to be disgusted or delighted.
'I'm delighted!' Maybe he did but to be fair the sentry shroom regardless of how it allowed sight would be a monumental step forward. For one, he had figured out a way to make the blood clot see though a bit morbid…
Another great discovery of this potentially working was the fact that it proved sight was directly linked to a hidden skill of the body. If Ed could find a way to transfer the skills from the eyeball to the blood clot he wouldn't have to make an alien slime!
'I should stop thinking and start demonstrating…' Ed grabbed the shroom fresh out of the oven and he had to say it was the spirit smiths' masterpiece.
'Ah, why is this thing so pleasing to the eye?' Aesthetically the thing was actually rather gross but at the sight of prospective profit what wouldn't seem beautiful?
[Sentry Shroom (Magic Mushroom)]
{ A magic mushroom variant brought to life following the crazy thoughts of the consciousness being Ed the scooper. Sentry shrooms are able to provide live video to the main fungi body. }
Ed's prompt assessment made him form a wide grin with his non-existent face as he exited the system space and returned to fungi. The sentry mushroom which he was grabbing fell near his body and with the help of his other mushroom bodies was once more settled into place.
A new assessment was in place though this assessment was different in nature...
[SS1]
Type: Sentry Shroom
Health: 50/50
Vitality: 1
Constitution: 5
[Eye Spy lvl. 0]
{ The origin of that uneasy feeling of being watched. Skill granted to beings capable of spying in plain sight. }
'I can check the status of all my mushrooms' This was something he figured out in his free time. It only stood to reason that if he could see the skills and their cooldowns that he could also see their status.
This meant that Ed had checked the status of other nearby mushrooms and the difference in stats between this sentry shroom and the regular grey ones was quite vast.
'The health is 10 times greater' This didn't come without its downsides and Ed could easily tell. Firstly, the spore skill seemed to have disappeared. Instead, a new innate skill called <Eye Spy lvl. 0> was formed.
Just as the skill was described, Ed was able to see things.
'Hahaha! This is perfect!' Ed could see his field of mushrooms glowing a grey color. The only downside was that the vision of this singular eyeball was in fact much shorter than that of an actual orc.
'The skill must need to upgrade itself' Thinking about it now, the fact that these sub-bodies could level up through the system as well was rather fascinating.
'Is it possible that this is no punishment at all? Or maybe the fight with the dungeon has opened up a couple of new alleys for the system?' That was to say, if the system hadn't revealed much of its hostility to the dungeon there might not have been such a unique service. At the same time, there was no way for Ed to know for certain.
'Hmm... I guess I can't solve this' It was something inconsequential and unsolvable. Not unless either of the involved parties spoke to him which was for some reason seemingly impossible.
'For all-powerful entities that can revive the dead, you both really need to up your English skills' He wasn't expecting a neatly written formal letter but the robotic nature of the system messages through which both entities communicated their thoughts to him was not confusing at all, not in any way whatsoever.
After messing around a bit more with the sentry shroom, Ed promptly found that there was actually a delay between the captured images of the sentry shrooms and what was actually happening on the outside.
[Lightning Fire Fly Bug]
{ An extremely destructive bug species native to the Marsh Caverns. It is a known bane to prolificating magic mushrooms }
Ed first lost sensory detail on his sentry before receiving the image of this mutant abomination.
It looked like a firefly with its wings buzzing electricity. The speed at which it flew past his sentry shroom made Ed surprised he even managed to capture it on camera.
[You've been dealt damage. -50 hp]
'Wha-' Before Ed could even retaliate, he felt his consciousness start to waver and his thoughts drifted away like sand in the wind.
[Recalling Champion Soul]
Returning to the endless dark and deactivating his sixth sense skill Ed only had one thought in his mind.
'That's it?' He asked himself in disbelief. A single freak of nature flew by and laid waste to his one day's worth of hard work. That sounded like nothing at all but if such natural disasters were to continue to happen... he would never be able to make any progress.
[1 minute before respawning]
'You are toying with me!' Ed shouted out after briefly processing the message. The dungeon was definitely toying with him!
For starters, it picked the absolute lowest thing it could think to viably put him inside of in the good chain. Outside of that, it also made sure that this thing had plenty of predators and would face plenty of setbacks.
Otherwise, why not make him a nice patch of grass or something? Why would it pick a mushroom in some creepy magic cavern?
Ed was now even starting to suspect that the bug was a custom creation of the dungeon sent specifically to destroy his work. All things considered, this was actually not impossible.
The dungeon could make as many mushroom bodies as it wanted judging by the short one-minute timer and creating bugs was likely equally effortless.
In conclusion, this punishment was supposed to be a weird state of torturing limbo. He could only suffer in silence while waiting for the dungeon to whim his salvation.
'Thankfully, my skills in my new body should stay the same' With things like that even without the dungeon's interference he would eventually manage to break out of this limbo.
The spores skill was not too far from leveling up for example and any advancement tended to be a good advancement.
[Summoning Dungeon Champion]
After seeing the message appear a vacuum in the dark space opened up and for a brief second the thought of resistance flashed past Ed's mind. This thought was quickly thrown away however lest the dungeon summons him as a pebble.
By the time he came to be, Ed found himself in a different place than he had actually expected. It was a cavern without a doubt but… that was what made it doubtful.
He quickly stood up and examined his body. A grin of joyful surprise appeared on his face noticing that he was finally back into his orc body. This also however meant that his limbo theory was complete b*llshit.
'Unless…!?! The orcs!' The dungeon might not have wanted him to prioritize the saving of the orcs but that didn't mean it could just leave it be either.
Anyway, after showing what it was capable of doing to him it was very well possible that the dungeon was satisfied with just this. If he continued to be disobedient then he would return to being a mushroom.
With the orcs in his mind, Ed took a step towards the exit of the boss room but just as he was about to dash off back towards the settlement was forced to halt.
[Champion is advised to chase after the escaped intruder]
'A- Again!?!?' Ed shouted inwardly. Why was it that the dungeon was so insistent!?! Did it really not have anything prepared on the next floor?
'To be fair I did spawn in as a mushroom' There did seem to be plenty of weak creatures in that case.
'Or maybe it's because Eon can become invisible' Thinking about it again this was what made the most sense. If Eon was allowed to saunter over to the boss room and concoct a powerful spell he could easily continue conquering floor after floor.
Ed didn't know how far this dungeon reached but Eon would get to the heart of the dungeon or the core eventually.
'But the orcs…' He couldn't refuse but he still couldn't just turn back and go, was he to repeat the earlier events?
