On the morning of the fifteenth day after slaying the Crystal Rats, Logan awoke to a shocking sight. The air around him was overcome with spores. They drifted through the air in little glowing blue motes, each sparkling as they floated through the walls of his tent.

Logan sat up and immediately drew on the egg. Golden power flowed through his veins, but he didn’t cycle it around his body enough for his skin to erupt with flames. Still, it was enough to clear his mind of any foreign influence. He immediately felt himself focus and knew that he had been infected.

He quickly got up and grabbed his spear. After exiting his tent though, Logan found no enemies to kill. There were only spores and fungus. Half of the cavern was overrun with glowing blue fungus, and the other half was full of crystal. The cavern had always been layered in crystal growths, and so were the cells. Only now were the mushrooms pushing back and claiming more territory.

Logan watched as a spore landed on a head-sized crystal. It disappeared into the hard surface, causing the transparent mineral to glow before it cracked open. A mushroom grew out of it, almost like the crystal was a seed for its growth. The crystal slowly broke apart as the mushroom became too large, causing it to fall onto the ground and shatter into a puff of smoke and dust.

They were obviously enemies. Before, he had believed the crystal to be a side effect of getting infected by fungus, but now he could see that they were opposing forces. Those poor rats had been preyed on by two different pathogenic creatures and made to fight each other in a war.

Shaking his head, Logan ignored the crumbling crystals and rapidly growing mushrooms. He charged into the closest tent in hopes of cleansing his friends, but what he saw made him freeze. Amelia lay on her side as she slept soundly. Her breathing was relaxed and her eyes were closed, but every spore that touched her skin was sinking into her flesh before disappearing.

Without wasting another second, he grabbed her shoulder and infused her body with nourishing flames.

Amelia gasped and sat up. “What are you doing?”

She tried to pull away, but he didn’t let go until the flames saturated her body and cleansed all of the spores. Of course, he raised his other hand in surrender and moved back to appear as non-threatening as possible. At first glance, sneaking into a woman’s tent and grabbing her while she was asleep was not an appropriate thing to do, even if it was an emergency.

“Spores,” Logan said, not needing to say more as he let go of her shoulder and pointed at a glowing mote in front of her face. “And sorry for scaring you.”

“Wha-,” Amelia said, confusion and fear marring her features before her mind caught up. “Oh, crap. Is everyone else okay?”

“Remember the first Crystal Rat we killed? The infected one that was going insane? Wiping out the rat population has somehow given the fungus enough time to spread and grow strong.”

Amelia followed Logan out of the tent and went with him to wake everyone else up. Stephanie was also shocked by his presence, but since Amelia was also there, she didn’t seem as panicked by having a man invade her room while she was asleep.

A few minutes later, everyone was gathered together around the campfire. It burned away the spores in the air and kept them at bay for the time being. Despite that, some people still wore strips of cloth over their mouths in hopes that it would do something. Logan suspected that it wouldn’t. The spores could directly pierce through any kind of barrier, whether that be flesh or fabric. He obviously wouldn’t tell them to stop since it provided a sense of comfort.

“So,” James said, yawning. “How do you think this happened?”

Logan immediately understood what he meant. They had known about the infectious mushrooms for over a month now, so they all expected some kind of reaction from it. Without the crystal rats to destroy or ward off the fungus as they had been, it was inevitable that the fungus would grow.

The only problem was that Logan had checked on it every morning and found it virtually unchanged. Even when he made all eight of them travel in pairs through the tunnels, they were unable to find the source of the mushroom infection. Amelia hypothesised that there was one giant mushroom spreading everything, but after finding nothing but a sprawling carpet of glowing blue mycelium, they realised that there was no source.

It was just one extensive network of mushrooms.

“I don’t know,” Logan said, glancing up as another crystal broke apart and turned to dust, “but I’m guessing it has something to do with the rats. Or rather, the lack thereof.”

“Do you think they were eating the mushrooms, or what?” Tom said, moving closer to the fire when a spore brushed past his cheek.

“My assumption is that the rats were using mental attacks to damage or kill it,” James replied. “Eating the mushrooms would only infect them, and it seems that’s exactly what happened with the first Crystal Rat we encountered.”

“How would that work against a mushroom? It’s not like they have brains.”

“Mycelium can form networks that span entire forests. Research also suggests that they connect nearby trees and even support many plant species, possibly facilitating the transfer of nutrients between them. So while they aren’t sapient, they’re sentient and capable of communicating in their own unique way.”

“Also,” Logan said, “these mushrooms aren’t normal. They’re some kind of magical species rather than something found on Earth. Judging them without seeing the full picture is like trying to compare the Rat King to a regular sewer rat.”

“You kids have clearly never been to New York,” Ron said, smirking. “I would much rather fight the crystal one before I see another subway rat.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter why this is happening, so let’s just say that the rats were using soul attacks against the fungus. Now that it’s had time to recover from the extensive damage, it’s beginning to spread out and devour these crystals.”

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Amelia frowned. “Since the rats can eat the crystals and evolve into soul-aligned variants, the mycelium network can probably digest them in their own way. That must be why the crystals are turning to dust.”

Everyone glanced at each other, realising that the mycelium network would likely evolve if it was devouring soul energy. Regular flames could keep it at bay for now, but what about after it evolved? What if it became immune to fire? Or if it wasn’t able to, could it directly drag them into an illusion and trick them into walking out of the campfire’s protection?

A few variations of these thoughts were bouncing around the group’s mind, so Logan spoke up. “I think we should pack up and leave as quickly as possible.”

“I agree,” Amelia said, followed by a chorus of nods.

After that, everyone began to dismantle their tents and pack them away. Logan had spent an exorbitant sum of two million credits on an item called a Spatial Ring. The price was insane, but its utility was impossible to replace. It was directly connected to a dimensional space that could store items. It even had a little under two metres of cubic space. He stored all their camping gear there and had also been putting away any excess food.

They began to walk down the hallway when a roar broke the silence. Logan froze and turned around to look at the stairwell to the prison cells, the others doing the same.

“Did that sound like…”

No one heard what James said after that because over a hundred more cries filled the air. Only they weren’t beastly roars but the shouts of an enraged army. Following that was the growing sound of footsteps, each one deep and rhythmic. Whatever was coming, it seemed that there were two different species, and they were both pissed off.

Logan moved to the side as he pulled out a coiled rope. He put it over James’ shoulder and yelled at them to run, not even bothering to say what they should do with the rope. They all knew about the plan to climb up into the biodome. If none of them could figure out why he handed over a rope then they didn’t deserve to survive.

Once they were gone, Logan held his hand out to the side and gave a mental command. A spear appeared in his palm a moment later. The ashen black wood of the shaft was warm to the touch, and it glowed with a dull orange light, almost as if it were dormant. Or better yet, it looked like a smouldering stick in a campfire.

The orange light from the spear radiated out from within the diamond head of the spear. It also glowed with a dull orange light, appearing like a hot coal, but that was nothing compared to the inscriptions. Tiny symbols at the base of the head were burning, three smaller shapes surrounding a larger one in the middle.

This was Logan’s spear-cum-glaive, its official name being Obsidian End. This was a reference to the two most important parts of the weapon. The spear’s shaft was made from the tap root of an Obsidian Ash Tree, and the diamond was formed within a Terrestrial Pearl, which was just a fancy way of describing how some carbon was wrapped up in a pearl-like ball of ash. It only formed when the volcano collapsed and the pressure skyrocketed, the landmark reaching its ‘end’.

It was an impressive item that would only show its true value once Logan advanced out of Body Tempering. Still, as a Rare weapon with a Sharpness inscription, it was more than powerful enough to directly injure a Rare monster. The quality was no different than what a steel sword could do to a regular animal.

Logan stood there with his spear ready and waiting. That was enough time to scold himself for being so lazy, which wasn’t really the truth. He had been overworking himself recently, and even if it was for a good reason, too much hard work would only harm him in the end. That was why Logan had been training less and taking more breaks, the extra time to relax allowing him to progress that much faster.

Even if it only would’ve harmed him in the end, he wished he had worked harder. The main reason he thought that was because he still hadn’t learned his new intermediate technique. Nearly two weeks of work and he was stuck at another bottleneck. No matter how hard he practised, he could only pull off the technique every one in two attempts.

Sometimes, he would succeed nearly twenty times in a row, but others he would fail just as much, if not more. This would keep happening until he comprehended the mechanism behind it. Thankfully, this difficulty was only helping increase his mastery over the concept of vibration. He would likely pick up a master-level technique by that point.

Finally, after minutes of waiting, a monster appeared from the stairwell. Or rather, two monsters. The first thing Logan saw was the feathered head of a velociraptor. It looked incredibly similar to the movies but could be described as its larger, angrier, and more crystalline cousin. It stood low to the ground at just over a meter and a half tall. This was about the same size as a horse, only instead of flat molars to chew grass and hay, it had razor-sharp fangs made of crystal.

It snarled at Logan when it noticed him, and he immediately felt a mental attack strike at him. Luckily, it was only a slight wave of pressure since he wore the circlet around his neck. But while Logan was untouched, the mycelium network was not. The blue light in the cavern visibly died down as mushrooms began to shrivel and turn brown.

The mycelium even made a quiet squeak of pain, but Logan barely heard it over the clamour originating from behind the velociraptor. Once the beast stepped out of the stairwell and into the dull blue light, Logan saw what was on its back. A giant humanoid creature that he could only call a goblin was riding the velociraptor like a pet.

It was also quite bulky and wore armour. Logan felt a mental attack arrive again, but it wasn’t the general wave that the Crystal Rats could use. It was the focused acid blast that only the Lucid Rat had been able to conjure. However, what really shocked Logan was how much more powerful the attack was. Even the circlet couldn’t block the entire blast, his mind feeling like it was under a heat lamp.

Suddenly, the moment of discomfort passed. The human-sized goblin blinked and wept a tear of blood. Otherwise, it was completely unaffected by the failed attack. The horse-sized dinosaur lumbered forward as it stared at Logan, making way for a horde of smaller velociraptors and their riders. The sight made Logan sigh in relief. The big one was the leader, the other dinosaurs being the size of ponies. The goblins would also be considered short and slender compared to normal humans.

Despite that, all of them were muscled and wearing armour, their grey skin visible through crystalline chest plates and helmets. The goblin chief at the front lumbered forward on his mount. He quickly reached Logan, stopping less than a few metres in front of him as it looked him up and down.

This gave Logan a chance to do the same. The man was tall, had no body fat, and wore more elaborate armour than his subordinates. Logan searched for a strap or some kind of weakness that he could target, but his search only made him realise that the chest plate was, more or less, floating on the goblin chief.

The sight made Logan pause as he realised that the goblins weren’t wearing armour. Like the velociraptors with their crystal feather, these humanoids had their own innate protection. The smaller ones had a crystal cap on their heads, some lines on their faces, and various other plates covered their bodies. Most were concentrated on the goblin’s chest, thighs, and stomach with some smaller plates on their arms and legs.

As for the chief, his armour was much more elaborate. He had a helmet and a face plate with thin joins between them, and yet his eyes and mouth were unprotected. This allowed him to talk and move without hindrance, but it also didn’t fully defend all of his vulnerable areas. He also had crystalline plates on all his limbs, covering nearly every inch besides some random points for flexibility, the biggest ones being its crotch and under his arms.

These gaps were small and its body looked sturdy, but all of these weren’t enough to give Logan pause. And neither was the army it had behind it, the beasts prowling around the cavern as they launched mental attacks on the mycelium.

What made Logan pause was its ability to talk.