Chương 9: Glowing Mushrooms and Cocktails

"You're awake."

Frillie's voice came from beneath him, and Shane opened his eyes in a daze.

Bang.

Bang bang.

A few crisp impacts instantly cleared his previously confused eyes.

He was being lifted up by Frilian's levitation magic, suspended in mid-air, his head occasionally bumping into the hanging stalactites.

"pain……"

Hearing Shane's groan, Frilian lowered her staff slightly, adjusting her levitation height.

Why did you faint? What happened?

Xia En touched his still slightly swollen temples, feeling lingering fear.

The final eye contact with that madman was terrifying; those scarlet eyes still haunt my mind.

But he didn't know how to explain it. He couldn't very well say that the other party had used evil magic to experiment on him and that he was a time traveler, could he?

"I can't really explain it, I was just inexplicably pulled into an illusion... and I saw a bunch of random things."

Frillie nodded after listening, without asking for further details.

Many powerful mages do indeed leave behind various defensive formations in their former residences or places of death to repel malicious visitors. Psychedelic magic is a relatively common type.

Xia En breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Where are we going?"

"After you fainted, the room collapsed. This is the path that was exposed after the collapse. I guess that should be the exit."

"oh."

"Can you walk on your own now?"

"Ouch, I feel dizzy..."

And so, the two of them remained, one floating, the other walking.

It wasn't that Xia En was deliberately being lazy and didn't want to walk; he was just really dizzy and lightheaded, and couldn't muster any energy.

Not long after they started walking, Frillie suddenly stopped. Bang! Shane's head hit a rock again.

Before he could even cry out in pain, he couldn't help but widen his eyes.

At the corner ahead of the passage, pale blue, fluorescent mushrooms grew in abundance. Their dreamlike, flowing, ethereal blue hue created a scene reminiscent of a fairyland.

Frilian put Shane down and walked to the mushroom.

The girl crouched down, her silver hair falling beside her ears. She gently touched the hair with her fingertips, picked one of the flowers, and a hint of surprise flashed in her eyes.

"It's a [Gloomy Mushroom], a very rare magical material."

Xia En rubbed his head, stood up unsteadily, and moved over.

"Before entering the maze, the hotel owner told me that a kind of glowing mushroom grows here and can be used to make very delicious cocktails. It turns out it's true."

Xia En was in a great mood.

This trip through the maze was not entirely fruitless.

He quickly threw out his backpack, ready to go on a big picking spree, but when he looked down, he saw something that made his eyebrows twitch.

He began to doubt whether he had seen it wrong.

He stepped on the ground uncertainly and asked:

"Hey, Frilian, what are these black, soft, and slightly fishy-smelling clods of dirt on the ground?"

"The python's feces."

"..."

"The 'Ghostly Mushroom' grows on the feces of the Poisonous Dragon. The Giant Python is a hybrid subspecies, and it seems that its feces have the same effect," Frilian explained.

Upon hearing this, Xia En silently withdrew his hand that was about to pick mushrooms, and then rubbed the soles of his feet hard against the stone next to him.

Don't let anything dirty touch me.

"When I was traveling in the Central Kingdoms, I saw shops selling this material, it seemed to be... 5 silver coins per pound."

So valuable!

Xia En immediately reached out and picked a mushroom without hesitation.

What filth? Don't talk nonsense. This is clearly a noble ingredient that rises from the mud unsullied.

Having spent three years navigating this world, Shane is well aware of the price levels here.

One gold coin can be exchanged for 100 silver coins, and one silver coin can be exchanged for 100 copper coins. A piece of black bread costs 2 copper coins, and the most ordinary inn he stayed in costs 20 copper coins per night.

We can pick at least three or four pounds of mushrooms here.

They've become incredibly wealthy!

I can finally pay off the rent and food expenses I owe.

Suddenly, Xia En's dizziness and leg pain disappeared, and he picked mushrooms with great enthusiasm.

……

squeak- The town gates slowly opened.

The morning mist had not yet completely dissipated when the soldiers guarding the city slowly made their way to their posts, yawning as they did so.

Xia En's disheveled appearance startled the soldiers who were still not fully awake.

After a brief questioning, the two were released without incident.

After a day and a night of maze adventure, Frilian was already drowsy, and Shane practically dragged her back to the inn.

As soon as I entered, the enthusiastic hotel owner greeted me with a sway of her chest.

"Oh Goddess, poor Xia En, you must be exhausted."

Before she could even get close, she saw Frillie staggering behind Shane.

"Wait, who is this?"

The white-haired, twin-tailed fairy girl was very beautiful. She was dozing off and nestled beside Xia En, like a white butterfly alighting on a rose.

The proprietress was stunned.

"Hmm... she's an adventurer I met on the road. Madam, please get me another room; she needs to rest."

Upon hearing the word "partner," the proprietress's expression visibly fell, and even her carefully styled hair looked somewhat deflated.

call-- After settling Frillie in, Shane finally returned to his room and buried himself in the covers.

He was clearly very tired and wanted to take a nap, but strangely, his mind was unusually clear and racing.

I am completely unable to fall asleep.

He unconsciously recalled his encounter in the labyrinth, and a few words from the hooded figure particularly bothered him. It seemed the other party had gone to great lengths to bring him here, all in order to win the war between humans and demons?

But wasn't the Demon King already defeated?

Will the demons repeat the "War of Slaughter" in the future, continuing to kill nine-tenths of humanity and restarting the war?

This is not a good thing.

Most importantly, the blood and mangled limbs from past failed experiments had left him with deep psychological trauma. He had been summoned by a magic circle; were there any side effects? Would the magic one day malfunction, and he too become a pile of mangled flesh?

Xia En shuddered involuntarily.

"I remember, the magic book that madman kept analyzing and referring to was called 'The Notebook of Sage Evish.' In the original story, during the trip to the Holy Capital, Haita asked Frilian for help in deciphering this book."

"I wonder if the book that was burned and the one in Haita's possession contained the same content."

The feeling of having no idea about one's future and constantly worrying about being "cannon fodder and wiped out" is simply too unbearable.

Xia En disliked it very much.

It seems necessary to go and see Haita.

With this in mind, Xia En made his next plan.

"Wait, did I forget something? What about my three glittering legendary stats?"