Mushroom Lord in the Underground City

Chapter 833: Chapter 818: The World

"Fortunately, the warehouse over there hasn’t suffered too much loss. At least it can support the basic restoration work for Oath City, so we don’t need to allocate resources from elsewhere for now..."

In the open-air council hall where the ceiling was gone, Lorenzo was discussing the reconstruction plan for Oath City.

There were a few muffled laughs from behind him. He turned around and saw Alama leaning against a broken wall, a smile on his lips, eyes vacant, lost in some silly amusement.

"Alama? Alama!"

"Huh?" Alama snapped back to reality, blinking his eyes, "What’s up?"

"Did you even hear what I said? What were you daydreaming about?"

"Oh, sorry, sorry, I was just having a video call with my daughter."

"Video call?" Lorenzo pondered for a moment before remembering that this was a feature of the Fungus Castle core members, akin to the advanced Communication Crystal’s image transmission, but with clearer images and more convenient connections. As long as both parties were within the Fungal Mat range, it’s almost a complete upgrade over the traditional Communication Crystals.

The only mystery was the cost, although from the fact that only core members could use it, even if it consumed less than a Communication Crystal, it couldn’t be much lower.

What he didn’t know was that the Fungal Network communication almost had no cost. It was restricted to core members purely because it required Lin Jun’s personal connection, and he found it troublesome, so he limited the number of users.

"Mycelium truly is convenient in so many ways!" Lorenzo marveled, giving Alama another glance, "You were so severely injured, and now just a few days later, you’re up and bouncing. And look at my eldest son, Keaton, who took a Regeneration Potion and is still in recovery, stuck in bed. Maybe I should let him become parasitized as well."

Alama tilted his head to look at him, hearing the change in his attitude: "I didn’t have a choice back then, but you...?"

Lorenzo waved his hand.

"I’ve realized that resistance and defense are meaningless, only stirring unnecessary conflicts." His gaze fell on the Fungal Mat outside, which was slowly and naturally expanding, "Besides... when I found Keaton, I almost thought he wouldn’t make it. At that moment, I wished he could resurrect after death, even if he became a Puki."

Alama sighed, resonating deeply with Lorenzo’s words.

However, this compromise-induced outcome left him feeling somewhat helpless.

...

On the other side, Inanna happily ended her video call with Alama.

Though she was worried about Alama’s severe injuries from the battle at Oath City, she was sincerely glad to see her father finally connecting to the Fungal Network.

In a good mood, Inanna picked up Number Four, who had been waiting nearby for a while, preparing to RUA, but was unexpectedly stopped by Number Four’s tentacle pressing against her hand!

"Pink Puki, wait!"

Number Four quickly took out a handsomely packaged box from its belly, and inside was a Memory Crystal.

Seeing Inanna’s puzzled look, Number Four proudly explained with its mushroom cap held high: "This is the memory of my heroic battle with a super Giant Dragon. It was earth-shattering, super cool! Super... anyway, I want to watch it with you!"

"Your heroic battle stance, Number Four? Then let me see!"

Inanna said, placing Number Four on her lap, and for the first time, Number Four activated the Memory Crystal.

In the image, Number Four was bitten, pounced on, and engulfed in Corrosive Dragon Breath by the Black Dragon, its mushroom body torn apart by dragon claws, with black threads drifting skyward.

Number Four watched with growing dismay.

It indeed showed its battle with the Black Dragon, but it remembered it wasn’t constantly being beaten up!

Clearly, it had also tangled with the Black Dragon, unleashing electricity, subsonic waves, and so on as counterattacks. Why wasn’t any of that in the crystal?

"This memory seems incomplete. I’ll go ask the Mushroom Lord. Mushroom Lord? Mushroom Lord?"

"Number Four!" Before Lin Jun could respond, Inanna tenderly cradled it in her arms and began squeezing it vigorously, "You must have suffered a lot, my poor Number Four! It’s all right now, it’s all right..."

"No... I wasn’t just getting beaten! It’s just this crystal... ah, the pressure is just right..."

Number Four initially struggled to explain, but with Inanna’s repeated comforting and long-missed vigorous squeezing, it soon lost itself, forfeiting all thought, turning into a Puki-shaped mycelium doll, squished and kneaded between Inanna’s fingers...

And as for Lin Jun, whom Number Four was calling? Lin Jun had no time to deal with it right now.

...

Setting power, initial velocity, preset launch trajectory... calculating required Magic Power...

A Fireball trailed afterimages in the air from a Puki’s tentacles, crashing at lightning speed into the newly appointed D Level personnel standing as a target on the other side, exploding atop his head and burning off his eyebrows and hair.

So, this is what it looks like to cast spells with the eyes of someone possessing the Ultimate Magic Guide?

No wonder they can control magic with such Precision, even forcibly redirecting others’ magic.

What was incomprehensible before is clear now, it was just fast movements, altering the trajectory parameters of incoming magic.

Magic, essentially, is just Magic Power + conversion formulas + firing parameters, much like playing a game.

In fact, it’s not just magic.

After synchronizing with the Ultimate Magic Guide, Lin Jun finally confirmed one thing — this is a data-driven world.

The sky is lines of code scrolling downwards, the ground is countless tiny text matrices. Every step you take, data undergoes change, interaction...

And those animated Pukis and humans are nothing but ever-changing coordinate data clusters.

"System, exit!"

After waiting for a while, nothing happened as expected.

Confirming this as a data-driven world didn’t surprise Lin Jun too much.

After all, what normal world has things like Blood Volume, Mana, Levels?

It was just a confirmation of his previous suspicions.

Lin Jun didn’t fall into thoughts like "this world is fake, everything is meaningless."

Because, in this virtual world, apart from infinite data, there are two truly existing things — Magic Power and Soul.

Among them, the concept of Magic Power is somewhat inaccurate; it should actually be referred to as Mist. Magic Power is merely something derived from Mist, evident after acquiring the Ultimate Magic Guide. Observing through the Fungal Mat near the Mist Edge shows this clearly.

In other words, the world’s Magic Power essentially originates from Mist, which explains why the Magic Power concentration is so high in the Mist — it’s the source of Magic Power, it would be strange if the concentration were low.

This also reminded Lin Jun of the Underground City. There’s no Mist in the Underground City, but its Magic Power concentration is far higher than the outside world. There must be a reason behind this, which Lin Jun plans to explore later.

And the other, the Soul!

This is also the main reason Lin Jun doesn’t think this could be explained as a simple virtual world.

If this world were just a purely virtual world, then a soul should just be a mass of data, not as distinctly separate as it is.

After being able to clearly see the world’s data, Lin Jun also solved a mystery regarding Demons.

Once he could observe souls, Lin Jun found the souls of intelligent life and low-intelligence demons to be completely different.

Humans and the Demon Race leave souls behind after decomposition, while demons leave nothing.

Now, Lin Jun "sees it even clearer."

Demons are just programs enveloped with Skills, and the so-called Skills are results of data using different formulas, fixing condensed Magic Power on a real/fake soul surface. This is the gray mist Lin Jun previously saw on the soul surface through Inspiration.

Lin Jun even specifically checked the little yellow book, and unfortunately, it’s just data too, or calling it AI might fit better?

In general, this world’s makeup consists of only three elements: data, soul, and Magic Power (Mist), and everything else is just the manifestation of the intersection and derivation of these three.

This also sparked a new curiosity for Lin Jun.

Since this world was created, what was the purpose behind its creation?

Is it an inhumane experiment? Or a whimsical game?

And outside this world... what is there?