Chapter 126 To Dominate (3)

~It spoke of the shu'hakan, a fighting tournament,~ Lucius thought to himself as he stalked the forest in search of something to hunt.

~Hmm, if these... behemoth races are gathering there, then that's probably my best chance to get information about this world. Not to mention the fact they might have valuable items, and techniques I could trade for,~ he thought to himself.

~Though I'll need something of equal value to trade with,~ he realized, spotting a mushroom buck in the distance.

~Man, this just keeps getting more and more exciting,~ he smiled to himself, before sniping down the deer with solar beam. He modified the spell so that the beam was thinner, and packed less of a punch.

[Quest complete.]

[+300 exp]

During the hunt, he killed seven mushroom deers, three unrecognizable mushroom creatures, and a large snake-like creature that seemed to have mushroom skin.

Of course, he could've killed much more, though logistics was a problem. Walking through the forest with a larger haul would just be begging for trouble.

He used Elmado to morph the surrounding mushrooms into a large cart that could he use for transport. Each individual part had to be crafted on its own until he could put them all together.

He had to do this a great number of times, compressing and layering his build so that the weak mushroom material could withstand the weight of his load.

After several minutes of compression and layering, the build was done and he could feel that his strength in Elmando had increased.

He loaded his haul onto the cart and used Elmando to make all the wheels turn in unison. He managed to achieve quite a considerable speed, though he would've been faster on foot.

After around 20 minutes of moving the wheels, his mind was beginning to fail him, and he realized he was at his limit.

Solar cleanse wouldn't work to reset this, as he would just take on his own mental exhaustion, and make it even worse. So he pulled it himself the rest of the way.

Though once again his strength in the skill felt like it had increased, which was what he had been hoping for.

During the journey back, the smell attracted a few hunters, but with a bit of intimidation from his crux, they all backed down. Whenever he sensed a larger one that he deemed would be too much of a hassle to handle, he would just pick up the pace, and make detours to avoid it.

***

"Lighted One, you're back," Pagan said, running to meet Lucius as he pulled the cart towards the first pillar.

The shrooms began whispering excitedly as they saw the large haul that he was carrying. In fact, the creatures were stacked so high on top of each other that the shrooms couldn't even see the top.

"This should be enough to feed these guys for a while," Lucius replied.

"I want the skin, horns, and bones, so make sure not to destroy those," he announced.

"Pagan, can you go collect mushrooms? Just make a cart similar to this one and bring back as many as you can. We need to make an airtight storage to prevent monsters from coming," Lucius ordered.

*

An hour later Pagan returned with close to 1000 mushrooms, though you could tell that he was completely exhausted from doing so.

┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓

─────⋅☾ Creature Details ☽⋅─────•

[Pagan Elwood ]

[Level 9: 50/900]

[Leaf Being [Photosynthesis Variation] lvl.8- [100/800]]

─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────•

[Agility: 160]

[Strength: 71>200]

[Stamina: 78>230]

┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛

~Perhaps I should send him on more of these. It's doing wonders for his stats,~ Lucius thought to himself.

~Solar cleanse,~ he chanted, healing Pagan of his fatigue.

"Please go get more. You're doing quite well," Lucius ordered. Pagan was shocked at this, pure disbelief fraught on his face.

"I need to make a spell for this," Pagan whispered to himself, walking back towards the clan lands like a zombie.

An hour later Pagan returned with 3000 mushrooms. His strength stat had increased to 300, and his stamina to 310.

Lucius was tempted to have him go out again, though constantly doing this might be seen as some sort of pattern to onlooking hunters, and as a result, might coax an ambush. So Lucius decided that it was enough for now.

He and Pagan used around 3000 mushrooms to create a sort of air-tight silo in the first pillar. It was cylindrical in structure, with an inner radius of 2 meters, and an outer radius of 2.5 meters. Its ceiling was 4 meters off the ground, and its roof was 0.5 meters above that.

Lucius designed the door using the theory of suction, so it required a great deal of strength to open, meaning that only he and Pagan were capable of doing it.

He could've made more layers instead of maxing out the dimensions this way, however, he wasn't trying to make a stronghold. The only purpose this served was to prevent hunters from smelling their reserves.

"Perfect. Let's take the remaining few of these toward's Asclepius's cabin. I have to build housing for the chieftains," Lucius said, turning toward Pagan.

Of course, Pagan would've made the shrooms do all this work if they were strong enough, but sadly this was completely out of their realm.

"Weak, useless things," Pagan whispered to himself as he dragged one of the carts behind Lucius.

Once they got to Asclpepius's cabin, they used the remaining 1000 mushrooms to create a large dome-like residence for the chieftains. It had an inner radius of 40 centimeters, an outer radius of 45 centimeters, and a ceiling 80 centimeters of the ground.

He made sure to layer and compress the mushroom paste multiple times in order to make sure it could withstand a hit. So he had to compensate on the dimensions a little.

"We'll head out later to gather materials to build ours, for now, let's rest," Lucius said once they were done. They were both mentally exhausted, doing any more would probably cause them to pass out.

"Pagan, how well do you think you'd fare in combat against me?" Lucius asked as they sat down in front of their most recent build. The chieftains were currently exploring their new home, which to them was like a mansion.

"Combat? As in a fight?" Pagan asked.