The mushrooms' bioluminescent light illuminated the surroundings a faint gray color. The hues of blue could also be spotted darted about. These colors were both overshadowed by another source of light, however.
Fireballs. The red-orange balls of fire arced through the sky and displaying their destructive beauty before exploding on impact with some earthen carapaces.
The first wave of attackers after using the new bait was surprisingly against a crowd of earthen worms. These were quite the tricky opponents. Just like the magic mole, the earthen worms were very well capable of digging through the ground.
Their speed was significantly less than the mole leaving them exposed when they tried it but with their tough rocky carapace, it was hard to say this placed them at much of a disadvantage. No matter how many fireballs catapulted over they were not able to land anywhere else and much of the impact was neglected.
Nevertheless, Ed still had a secret weapon.
'You utter fools' Some new sling shrooms got into action and a black-red object was launched from behind the perimeter line onto the sluggish worms. Soon after impact an explosion of fire and death sent pieces of stone flying off an earthen worm.
"SCREECCHHH!!!" The worm created a weird screeching sound feeling the sting from the attack, but Ed couldn't care less.
[Death Shroom Sling]
{ A sling shroom capable of catapulting forward death shrooms }
System science was the best in the whole world. The forge could be used to combine things, so what would happen if he combined a sling shroom with a doom shroom? The answer was not a death shroom sling.
What happened was in fact the system becoming confused by the incompatibility of the materials. Ed had waited for the system to combine them after a while too but realized that it wouldn't.
He took matters into his own hands and using the various tools darted about the forge room he managed to create the small masterpiece. The death shroom slings. They could grow small-sized death shrooms and toss them every more or less five minutes.
The rate wasn't very fast and neither was the explosion damage very great but compared to the plain old fireballs it was certainly an improvement.
Speaking of improvements…
[Name: Edw#&!]
Type: Magic Mushroom
Health: 16/16
Mana: 150/150
Vitality: 15
Constitution: 3
~Skills:~
[Transmission lvl. 6 (-3)] -Show-
[Fortified Mind lvl. 0] -Show-
[Assessment lvl. 2 (-1)] -Show-
[Assimilation lvl. 7] -Show-
[Thought Manifestation lvl. 2(-1)] -Show-
[Language lvl. 1] -Show-
[System Link lvl. 4] -Show-
[Eloquence lvl. 4(-1)] -Show-
[Sixth Sense lvl. 1(-1)] -Show-
[Body Recollection lvl. 2] -Show-
[Enhanced Spores lvl 1] -Show-
Not long before Ed had used the bait, his main body's spore skill was upgraded to enhanced spores which had confused Ed briefly. Enhanced spores didn't sound like too drastic a change but after analyzing the offsprings of his main body... he quickly changed his mind.
'Their skills start off higher and their mana capacity has doubled' The constitution also had a chance to be greater. Outside of that, the result of his various assimilations was plain to see. His vitality, mana, and constitution had all tripled.
These were all things that were helping Ed face the onslaught of worms. The higher vitality allowed Ed to…. Erm, the mana had made it possible for Ed to... The constitution was great because…
'I wasted my assimilations…' He had fortunately only done a couple, the rest were spent on his consciousness, but it was still a pity to find out his main body was so inflexible.
Nevertheless, Ed had to focus on what was happening before him, some worms had successfully retreated into the ground. Not even the bombardment by the death shroom slings had stopped them.
That spelled bad news for him under normal circumstances but…
'Come to me bait' Whenever the worms retreated into the ground as a form of approach all Ed had to do was get rid of the bait. The worms would almost immediately notice its disappearance and be forced to resurface.
Since this was the strategy Ed had employed, it was only natural that W was not inside the bait. Ed had given him something else instead.
[Sentinel 1Mushroom]
{ A tall outstanding mushroom capable of seeing far distances }
The sentinel mushrooms and sentry mushrooms were working together to relay lots of information for Ed. The sentinel mushroom was placed just behind the line of barbed shrooms meaning that the signal was quite poor. Its tall stature certainly didn't help it either.
'Ed, crawlers incoming' That was why W had to be placed into it. By the time Ed received the feed, he would have already been aware of the changes in the battlefield thanks to his transmissions.
It did all happened just like that, not even 15 seconds later Ed received the feed of the horde of centicrawlers that were fast approaching. There were also occasional decacrawlers which seemed like a lesser version of the centicrawler.
These beasts were fast approaching compared to the slow earthen worms. The situation was quite worrying actually.
Ed hadn't spent the extra 15 seconds from W for granted, he had been thinking of countermeasures. The best one he could think of was trusting his preparations, the following in particularly was sure to stop them.
[Mud Magic Mushroom]
{ Mud pseudo-element magic mushroom imbued with skills by mushroom Ed }
The mud magic mushroom was a very weird creation of Ed. That was because it could secrete mud. This was all thanks to the skill he extracted from the earthen worm.1
The skill allowed the earthen worms to excrement dirt. While it sounded useless, Ed managed to turn that into a mushroom that secreted mud. These mud secreting mushrooms had been doing just that and by now a sticky mud wall had formed.
The centicrawlers were the first to crash onto the wall of mud even before the earthen worms which were slowly resurfacing from their holes. Mud was flung everywhere but the centicrawlers were put to an almost immediate stop.
Some centicrawlers even ran into ones in front of themselves causing some collateral damage much to Ed's delight. His delight had not ended just there either, the centicrawlers became angry and fought amongst themselves! How crazy was that!
It was perfectly sane and very well encouraged!
'You guys rock!' Ed could already see their consciousnesses inside his system space and they had yet to even die! The situation was turning increasingly favorable.
The mudslinging centicrawlers were eventually caught up to by the decacrawlers who scooted past them and continued their mad dash. Ed thought they were being quite stupid and the reason made itself known very soon.
The decacrawlers ran across the barbed shroom perimeters and ended up stabbing themselves with their charges. Yet, the poor bugs were still unyielding as they continued to charge past. The bait had returned by this point as the worms had resurfaced explaining why the decacrawlers tried so hard.
A charge was a charge though so a few decacrawlers were able to break the perimeter and enter Ed's realm of mushrooms.
That was also when the decacrawler was blown to bits by a doom shroom. The decacrawlers were much weaker than their centicrawler counterparts making them die instantly. Ed suspected they didn't possess the tough exoskeleton skill like the centicrawler.
Soon more and more crawlers were starting to perish and at this point, Ed had stored and retrieved the bait numerous times. The nutrients coursing through his mycelium network were quite honestly unbelievable.
With just a few more creatures left, Ed took back his bait. It was losing effectiveness the more it lingered. It wasn't that the smell was dissipating but rather that all the creatures in the small area of effect were already dead. The waves were getting gradually easier instead of harder as they progressed.
'Ed, big trouble! Millicrawler incoming!' W said after having scanned a dust cloud approaching from afar.
[Millicrawler]
{ A crawler with one thousand legs all which though numerous are very thin. Nevertheless, the Millicrawler manages to sweep past its predecessors in terms of speed. }
After reading the scan, Ed couldn't help but feel bitter. It just so happened that extraordinary speed was a trait in bugs that he greatly despised. Even with this formidable opponent, Ed did not back down. His brain quickly went into overdrive, the final boss was here!
Ed had no idea why this big potato had appeared at the end but he did know he needed to defeat it ASAP. But before the feed could catch up and allow Ed to see the Millicrawler for himself, W was already narrating a pitiful tale.
'The millicrawler has breached the mud wall' W transmitted as mud flew up into the air forming a clear path. This wall done by the charge of the millicrawler and it hardly lost any speed! Its thousand film-like legs were not to be underestimated!
'The barbed mushroom perimeter has been breached' The feeds were just now showing the millicrawler when W transmitted this. W was seeing a different picture after all.
It was that of the clear liquid-like blood of the millicrawler soaking into the soil after its mad dash caused it significant damage. It was recoil damage since W knew its tough armor could not be easily torn through otherwise.
'There is no bait, what is it even aiming for?!?' Ed couldn't help but ask himself with much frustration. If the big bug was still charging towards the end of the dead end then it had to be looking for him.
'W, help me locate this thing' Since Ed's eyes were living in the past he had to get some help from someone in the present. Only then could he try to blow it to smithereens!