[Level 6 achieved]
As soon as I calmed down after the biggest battle in my mushroom life, I looked at the notifications. Nice. Goblins seem to give quite a bit of experience. I was not far from level 7. But first things first, I had to start decomposing these goblins.
It would take about five days to decompose the two smaller goblins and nine days for the brute. In total, I assumed I would be well over level 9 by the time I had fully decomposed them. The goblins gave double their exp value in mana, like the leaf and the squirrel. I still did not know why the acorn had given me equal parts mana and exp.
The barracks mushroom was immense when I took a more careful look at it. It was a tall and wide mushroom. At least 70 cm tall and 2 meters wide, maybe. It had a light gray rectangular stalk that served as the walls of the barracks. It had a cap that was dark gray and looked to be entirely flat on top. The cap was maybe 5 cm tall and looked like the battlements you would see on top of a castle wall.
I had a look at the rest of the notifications. I could choose a new skill, and my choices were:
[Directed Mycelium Expansion] Which was a previous choice I had skipped. Maybe it is like a basic skill, and I''d keep being offered it as long as I did not pick it?
The other skill was [Enhanced Senses], which was the skill the goblin scout had. It was a simple skill that allowed me to sense danger, mana, or strong emotions of living things.
I was not keen on picking directed mycelium growth even now. I still had no specific place I needed to reach. If I had found a resource of some sort I wanted, I would for sure want the skill. But as it was, my mycelium had doubled in size since I started. I had stupidly not shut off the [Mycelium Expansion] skill all this time. I could have saved mana for the battle earlier if I had just shut off my mana-draining skills. But I guess at this point it no longer matters.
Enhanced senses just appeared as the better choice here. If I could sense danger more easily, I would be safer. So I picked it. It was as if a filter had been placed over my eyes as the skill activated and showed me the faint streams of mana that emanated in the environment. I decided that I wanted a little bit more vision range, so I planted small puffcaps at a 2 meter interval around the edge of my mycelium. The plants outside my area also emitted mana, but it was in a sporadic and irregular pattern. The trees, however, seemed to emit a small bit of mana along their entire trunk. I tried shutting off the mana part of the enhanced senses skill. It took me a while, but I managed to keep the skill active while shutting off the mana vision. It was simply too distracting to see mana at all times.
I had sent out Freddy earlier to forage and sent Bobby back to recharge. I did not quite have the wood to construct anything at the moment, and I wanted Freddy and Bobby on different schedules. My warriors did not need to recharge if they were not hurt. However, if they were hurt, it cost both mana and time to heal them, depending on the injury. However, the warriors did need breaks every now and then, or else their loyalty would start to decrease. There was no stat that I could see on them for loyalty, so I assumed it was just the same as back on earth. I could not work my warriors like in a sweatshop. That was fine with me, so I made a schedule so there would always be three warriors on patrol and two taking a break.
The most urgent thing I had to do now was to get the research lab up. Poor Ricky hadn''t done anything since his promotion. Although I did not think he felt sad or, in fact, any emotions at all, I still needed the lab. Compared to the warriors, the workers seemed like autonomous drones. I could not connect to them with my telepathic link. Instead, they just knew what I wanted, and I knew where they were at all times.
---
Two days later, I have gotten the wood together for the research lab. The research lab was the cheapest in wood, but it took Freddy longer and longer to get wood. I assumed he had emptied the immediate area of what usable wood there was. I had also planted 8 new firecaps throughout my area. The goblins were giving me too much mana, so if I did not spend it, it would just overflow.
Bobby had already dug out the underground area for the lab days ago, so I simply ordered him to build the lab there as well. It only took 1 hour. As soon as it was done, I ordered Bobby to go to sleep (also known as recharging) and sent out Ricky to the lab for the first time. The underground lab was simple. It had a wooden frame to hold up the roof and a wooden plank floor. There was a research desk and nothing else down there.
Instead of paper, there were small cutouts of leaves and a sharpened stick that Ricky could use to carve the leaf to take notes. That seemed way too primitive for any sort of research, but I assumed the system was going to be fine with it. As soon as Ricky stepped down into the underground lab, I got access to the [Research Tree]. It was not an actual physical tree but a massive branching path type research menu. I had three choices for my first research.
[Size I] Increases the size and therefore the toughness of all stationary mushrooms.
[Crafting] Unlocks the crafting lodge and the ability to promote [Fungal Workers] into [Fungal Crafters].Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
[Symbiosis] Unlocks the ability to create symbiotic relationships with other plants through my mycelium.
I wanted them all. The benefits of [Size I] were apparent. I needed to continually increase my toughness or I might die.
[Crafting] would allow me to get more wood, which I sorely needed. I remembered I had unlocked [Tool Crafting] earlier, and looking at it made it seem as if I could only use that with a crafting lodge.
And [symbiosis] might be the most vague choice. But on earth, mushrooms that had a symbiotic nature often exchanged different things with trees to get access to carbohydrates that they themselves couldn''t produce without photosynthesis. In other words, I would probably be able to trade my random elements in storage for sugar with any of the trees around her. I don''t know if I need sugar, though.
Speaking of trade, didn''t I unlock the [Trading] skill earlier? I went through my skill list and read up on what that skill did. It enables offering trade contracts, which, if agreed to by both parties, can''t be broken without a heavy punishment befalling the one who breaks them.
Who would I trade with in this deep forest? The goblins? Those bastards are not interested in trade, and I would not trade with them even if I were starving.
As for my choice of research, I decided to start with [crafting] as I needed more wood. It would take three days and would require me to consume quite a bit of mana. Fortunately, I had a surplus of mana in the form of ugly stinky goblins, so it was a perfect time to rush through some research.
"An intruder has entered your territory.".
What? Is it the goblins?! I quickly swapped my vision to where my warriors were patrolling. The warriors were still patrolling in a disciplined, albeit slightly monotonous, way. I tried sensing where the intrusion occurred and found it instantly. It was an ant. It had walked up to one of my newly grown puffcaps.
Out of mostly curiosity, I tried to use [Telepathic Link] on the ant. It connected. It was as if I suddenly were surrounded by thousands upon thousands of voices all trying to speak to me at the same time. I tried breaking the link but could not, and the voices just kept increasing in intensity and number. After a while, I don''t know how long, the voices quieted down and a deep female voice spoke to me. It was a dignified voice full of authority.
"And pray, tell who might you be to invade my children''s minds." It spoke in a slightly accusatory manner.
"Ehrm, sorry, I was simply attempting to speak to this ant over here, and I was suddenly overcome with a lot of voices."
"Who are you?"
"I am a mushroom... territory. I am named Mafu. Who are you?"
"I am the queen of the hive, Taressa." The queen sounded extremely proud of herself.
"Oh, hello, nice to meet you, Queen Taressa." I was quite uncertain where this conversation was going, but other than my warriors, this was the first time I''ve spoken with someone with words since I came to this world. It felt awkward somehow.
"Do you lay claim to the land where you came upon my child?" Taressa spoke.
"Yes. My mycelium does spread there, so therefore it kind of automatically claims the land."
"I see. Can you choose to withdraw your mycelium?"
I was quite sure this was not going the way I wanted, and I was not really up to fight an entire colony of ants.
"No, it just spreads by itself. Did you want that piece of land?"
"It is close to our nest. It makes my children agitated. For generations, we have held our ground against all manners of enemies. Ants, beetles, even that infernal rodent."
Infernal rodent? Does she mean the green nutrat? Hang on; we might be able to be friends here.
"With rodent, are you referring to the green one with the brown stripes?"
"Yes, it sometimes swipes our nest or throws acorns at us for fun. We have bitten it, but it yet lives."
I KNEW IT! That bastard did it on purpose! 20%! Just for fun. JUST FOR FUN?!
I tried calming myself a bit before speaking to the Queen again.
"In that case, you might be happy to know that I have killed that rodent and consumed its corpse." That sounded much more brutal than I meant for it to sound. Hopefully it does not scare them away.
"Truly? Can I verify?"
"Verify? Yeah, okay, but how?" I asked
I felt a pressure on my mind as my memories since coming to this world started showing inside my head. The memories of my battle with the nutrat played, followed by the goblins and my warriors. Then, as quick as the pressure started, it faded away.
"Impressive, you have fought enemies much stronger than the infernal rodent." She sounds much more friendly now.
"Thank you."
"I have a proposition for you, Mafu."
"What kind of proposition?"
"We will obey you, and you may spread your mycelium as you please throughout what has been my territory for generations. We shall pay taxes on leaves and other materials. In turn, you and your warriors will protect us from enemies much larger than us."
"Only enemies much larger than you?" I asked. I was a little bit perplexed, as this deal seemed far too lopsided in my favor.
"Yes, for the beetles and the other ants, my children will fight alone. This is how it must be for them to grow strong."
Ah, she wants them to level up. That makes sense. I still needed to ask a few more questions.
"When you say larger enemies, do you have any specific enemies in mind?"
"There are two I know of that roam these woods. One is a snouted animal that consumes my children by the thousands every time it wanders close. The other one is a large winged creature that leaves its newborn chicks to feast upon my children."
So an anteater and a bird of some sort. That seems doable. To be honest, if I get the archery range up, it should not be hard. The warriors were much stronger than I assumed they would be. Therefore, the archer types are probably also on or above a goblin level.
"That is an acceptable deal for me." I said.
"Then we will be your subordinates from now on."
I immediately got a system notification.
Due to having subordinated the colony of "Mind-invading Ants," new research options have been unlocked.
Mind-invading ants seemed like a proper name for them. According to the system, they invade the minds of larger prey and overwhelm it to the point where the mind collapses, and then they feast on the creature''s body while it still lives. That is kind of brutal as well; maybe they liked my comment about the rodent corpse after all.
I felt a sudden surge in my mycelium and my mushrooms as the territory effect of having 50,000 or so new subordinates started affecting my stats. One of the weirder feelings was that I could sense where the ants were now if I focused enough. And they were everywhere except my mycelium. They had me completely surrounded.
If I had attacked any ants during any of these days, I would have probably been eaten alive while having my mind collapse.
Scary thoughts.