Chapter 23: Soloing Purgatory, Establishing the Mushroom Garden

Early in the morning, Lin Bo took a sip of steaming hot coffee. As his lingual perception activated, he quickly analyzed the medicinal properties of the brew.

"Hmm, roasted coffee beans—warm in nature and bitter in taste. It refreshes the mind, promotes blood circulation and qi, strengthens the stomach, and acts as a diuretic."

[Skill check successful... Final calculation: [Pharmacist’s Lingual Perception] proficiency +1.4]

Pharmacist’s Lingual Perception: Lv1 (50.4/50)
[Upgrade requirements met]

Having spent half the night reading medical texts and chewing over thirty different herbs, Lin Bo felt his entire mouth going numb; the roof of his mouth was nearly raw from grinding against the medicinal dregs.

"Upgrade."

A warm current, like a gentle rain, descended from his mind, gathering at the root of his tongue before spreading out in thin, thread-like pulses that wove through his body, connecting his internal organs, bones, and muscles.

Pharmacist’s Lingual Perception: Lv2 (0.4/150) – Through tasting medicinal materials, one can deduce their medicinal properties and mechanisms of action.

Lin Bo smacked his lips. His upgraded lingual perception was now more sensitive and had achieved a synergy with his body's meridians. Now, whenever any substance entered his mouth, he could instantly determine which part of his meridian system it would affect. His analysis of medicinal properties had indeed become significantly more profound.

At this rate, he would be able to upgrade again in four or five days. The progress for his "Surface Palpation and Internal Observation" method was moving along at a similar pace.

His plan for today was to keep grinding maps. From now on, Lin Bo intended to tackle the Purgatory difficulty solo, clearing it three times a day. In a week, he would reach Professional Level 4. After that, the [Abandoned Ancient Machinery Factory] instance would continue to serve him as a gold mine for farming gear to sell, a source of material for mechanical research, and a training ground for practicing Incantation Arts—hardly a waste of resources.

Lin Bo completed a session of meditation in the lighthouse to restore his energy, then set out for the East Coast Grotto.

The primordial omnipotent fungal strain had begun to sprout. The surface of the culture medium was covered in a layer of white mycelium, looking moist and resembling freshly harvested seaweed or a water-soaked wool blanket. The mage held his whale-oil lamp close to observe; tens of thousands of slender hyphae, like translucent plastic tubing, were filled with fluid, transporting nutrients to every corner. The scene was reminiscent of a vascular system, and he couldn't help but wonder if these hyphae possessed a heart to pump the cellular fluid.

On a whim, Lin Bo pressed his palm gently against the fungal mat. His sense of touch made full contact, and the feedback was damp and cool. As he flicked his fingers, a vibration rippled through the mat beneath his palm, as if a heart were beating. The mycelium, which had previously been silent toward the True-Name Mage, began to whisper in vague, blurred words.

"(Unknown magical language) ...growth... hunger... lack of water... need moist nutrients..."

Lin Bo shoveled some aged bird droppings, mixed them with the cool boiled water he carried with him, and sprinkled the mixture evenly over the culture medium. He used his touch to sense the mycelium's language again, and hearing their satisfied hum, he finally felt at ease.

The vitality of the omnipotent fungal strain was robust enough to save the grower a lot of worry. In a couple of days, when these hyphae matured further and sprouted fruiting bodies—that is, when the mushrooms grew—he could begin directional stimulation and selection to cultivate the desired traits. That would be the true test of his agricultural knowledge.

Many players poured their hearts and souls into cultivating fungal strains, only for the final results to fall short of expectations. Any deviation in external factors could lead to the most bizarre and varied failures. Either the yield of edible mushrooms failed to meet standards, performing worse than traditional crops, or the medicinal mushrooms developed unknown toxicities, leaving patients who consumed the decoction to end up in a coffin. Once the mutation of a strain became irreversible, one had to resort to extermination and cleaning, then either head back to the Multi-Link Multi-Exchange platform to buy a new primordial strain and start from scratch, or simply admit defeat and buy commercially mature strains.

Lin Bo thought to himself that if he could master the magical language and communicate directly with the hyphae, the cultivation process should become much easier. This was the value of foreign languages; whether for spellcasting or farming, everything relied on these "foreign" tongues.

The coastal wind was brisker than in previous days. The mage stood at the entrance of the grotto, bathing in the cool current alongside the gulls. The wind told him that moisture from the ocean was about to make landfall; there would be showers tonight, followed by several days of overcast and rainy weather. The noisy waves brought even worse news: a tropical cyclone near the equator had fully formed and was moving northward, estimated to reach the Sail Archipelago in half a month.

Although it was already autumn, hurricanes still occurred. When they arrived, most ports would close, and the flow of people and goods between the islands would be disrupted. Lin Bo was worried about the East Coast Grotto; it would be best to fortify the area within the next half-month to protect the mushroom garden from strong winds and torrential rain. As for where to get construction materials, he could only wholesale them from the machinery factory instance. As a lighthouse keeper, if he were to suddenly buy a pile of materials and start lugging them up and down the sea cliffs, he would surely frighten the townspeople.

[Instance selected: Abandoned Ancient Machinery Factory]
[Current difficulty: Purgatory]

On the third floor of the factory, there was no rogue to disable the traps this time, so Lin Bo had to do it himself. He dodged the electromagnetic cannons of the Shield Guards while flying toward the walls to shut off the control valves for the acid sprayers overhead. Once the pressure plates on the floor were triggered, they would shoot pillars of fire; Lin Bo had to ensure he didn't touch the ground while being careful of the two elite monsters' positioning, lest they trigger the fire traps and roast the mage in mid-air.

Next came the rail-mounted launchers that deployed explosive bombs, installed on two rows of tracks high on the walls. Shaped like baseball pitching machines, they moved left and right, bombarding the arena with explosives. Lin Bo severed the wires to the launchers and snatched an explosive bomb into his hand.

Having observed his teammates fight the Shield Guards so many times, the mage had long since grasped the patterns. The Shield Guards and Sword Guards operated in pairs; they would not stray far from each other, and if one moved more than five meters away, the other would execute a support command. Because of this, forcing the combat to break down into two duels required a bit of finesse to forcibly separate the two robots.

Lin Bo lunged toward the Shield Guard. Seeing it raise its electromagnetic cannon, he threw a short spear, forcing the guard to close its shields into a consolidated defensive posture. The Sword Guard raised its double-headed sword and, calculating Lin Bo's landing point, launched a charge. But midway through, the mage suddenly performed a nimble aerial maneuver, letting the charging Sword Guard miss him entirely. Timing his move, he activated his leg exoskeletons and delivered a long-prepared [Passionate Kick] into the small of the Sword Guard's back, booting it straight into the fire pillar erupting from a floor trap.

Seeing the mage attacking ferociously, the Shield Guard raised its right shield to strike, the whistling air gathering on the surface of the heavy shield with a thunderous roar that would make anyone's heart tremble. However, such a powerful, heavy blow landed on empty air; the aerial-assaulting mage had vanished from the guard's field of vision like a ghost.

In reality, Lin Bo had curled his body and pressed against the left shield—the guard's blind spot. At that moment, as the guard's left and right shields parted, exposing a wide gap, Lin Bo quietly extended an arm between the shields and shoved an explosive bomb, its pin pulled seconds ago, into the guard's chest cannon.

The explosion occurred instantly. The shockwave and flames were blocked by the shields, leaving Lin Bo, who had pulled his hand back in time, unscathed. After a booming crash, the Shield Guard collapsed; it hadn't even lasted a single exchange.

The Sword Guard, having just crawled out of the sea of fire, was powerless to save its partner, and seeking revenge on Lin Bo was a death sentence. After receiving a few kicks, it popped its maintenance panel open, looking for all the world like a butcher knocked to the ground by Lu Tixia, begging for mercy.

The battle had been even simpler than Lin Bo expected. These two elite monsters held no secrets from him. Their range of motion, power limits, and design flaws were all clear to him; especially the Sword Guard, which he had dismantled and studied—he could toy with it at will. This wasn't a crushing display of raw power, but a victory of technique.

At the East Coast Grotto, a deep purple spacetime vortex opened. The heavy Shield Guard was pushed laboriously through the portal, followed by the wreckage of the Sword Guard. Finally, after quite a while, Lin Bo emerged, carrying a large bundle of waterproof tarpaulins, moving like a hermit crab.

"Whew!" He leaned on his knees and caught his breath. It was thanks to the exoskeleton armor increasing his load capacity that his burden was lightened. There were two blue-quality leg exoskeletons in the instance, and the other was modified from the Shield Guard, which could significantly increase load-bearing capacity. Lin Bo’s luck had been average these past two days; he hadn't pulled any blue gear.

He had scavenged the machinery factory, but there weren't many materials suitable for construction—mainly tarpaulins, iron nails, bolts, ropes, and thin sheets of iron scattered around the perimeter. After three runs, Lin Bo had brought back a small portion of the mechanical debris, spending most of his time packing up construction materials. By the afternoon, when his daily challenge limit was exhausted, he officially set to work.

He laid the tarpaulins out on the ground and tried to fix them with iron nails, but found the grotto's rock layer too hard; the nails bent under the pressure. He had no choice but to punch holes in the tarpaulins and tie them together with rope, creating a massive sheet to cover the entire atrium area.

By the time he finished, it was nearly dark. Running out of time for the next step, he had to hurriedly build a triangular shelter for the mushroom culture medium to block the rain. Lin Bo unbuckled his clothes, chanted his True Name, and flew into the sea for a refreshing bath to wash away his fatigue. Only then did he dress, tidy up, and return to the lighthouse for some night reading.

It was on an evening much like this, with the sky overcast, that most of the small fishing boats stayed in port. Shortly after the lighthouse lit up, the rain began to fall. The pitter-patter of the rain curtains tapped against the windows, and the wind howled. The people of Stone Tower Town, like the night watchman, hid within their sturdy homes, just as their ancestors had hidden in caves to listen to the rain—safe, cozy, and without fear of beasts.