Chapter Fifty-Seven: Has the Mushroom Withered?

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[You were devoured by the ‘Pig Boss,’ evolved in five days of normal mode by the player ‘Demon Lord of Two Faces, Life and Death.’]
[You were devoured by the ‘Tortoise Snake,’ evolved in one day of normal mode by the player ‘Baozi.’]
...

“Old Demon, should we switch to normal mode?”
“Yeah, let’s not play this berserk mode anymore, it’s just too punishing.”
“I thought this mode would be a thrilling contest of wits, but in reality, it’s more like experiencing the terror of being hunted by elite predators.”
“Old Demon’s died seven times already; it’s just too pitiful.”

After choosing to revive once more, Li Shan focused all his attention on the game, paying no further heed to the barrage of comments in the live stream. Having been killed so many times, his temper was flaring. Today, he refused to believe he couldn’t turn his fate around.

Upon reviving, he immediately became wary of his surroundings. This time, his respawn point was a crevice beneath a large rock, overgrown with a moss that resembled succulents. The narrow space finally allowed Li Shan a sigh of relief—this was the safest place he’d revived so far.

Seeing there was no immediate danger, he wasted no time and began directing his mycelium to spread toward the nearby moss. After seven deaths, his hunger bar’s depletion rate had increased by 70%, now dropping at a visibly alarming rate. If he starved to death, his run would end here.

Fortunately, he had resurrected in a good spot—there were edible plants within reach. Otherwise, he’d have been forced to leave the game in utter frustration.

Thin threads of mycelium quickly enveloped a small clump of moss and began to corrode and digest it. Soon, his hunger bar, which had dropped to half, started to rise again.

However, his luck seemed rather poor this time. Even after fully digesting that small patch of succulent moss, he didn’t obtain any genes useful for evolution.

Li Shan wasn’t discouraged—there was still plenty of moss nearby, and many chances to acquire the succulent moss gene.

He continued directing his mycelium to consume the moss one patch at a time. Soon, a wide area beneath the boulder was covered in white filaments, as if a thick spider’s web had been spun there.

When he’d devoured about half of the moss in the crevice, a notification popped up: he had acquired the succulent moss gene.

[Prompt: You have consumed fleshy moss.]
[Spore proliferation ability improved.]

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[By consuming hunger, you can now grow new main stems.]

Seeing this notification, Li Shan’s eyes brightened. Didn’t this mean he now had more lives? And with more main stems, the speed at which his mycelium could expand would greatly increase. This, in turn, would allow him to acquire genes and evolve even faster.

“It seems my luck is finally turning,” he murmured, and began testing out his newly evolved ability.

He focused his attention on the farthest strand of his mycelium. Soon, a thumb-sized mushroom cap pushed up from the earth and rapidly swelled until its stalk was as thick as two fingers.

This new main stem was different from Li Shan’s original body. Though still blue, the cap was tinged with a faint translucence—an apparent inheritance from the succulent moss gene. Li Shan didn’t dwell on this but immediately checked what changes had occurred after growing a new main stem.

He tried controlling his mycelium. The growth rate was unchanged, but he quickly discovered that whereas before he could only control one strand at a time, now he could manage two, each extending in a different direction.

“It seems that with each additional main stem, I can control one extra mycelial thread simultaneously,” he explained, glancing at his hunger bar to see how much it cost to grow a new main stem.

“Hm? Why has my hunger bar’s maximum doubled?”

Where previously it showed a maximum of one hundred, now it read two hundred. At the same time, he noticed that his hunger was depleting twice as fast as before. Now, it had dropped to just over twenty and was falling rapidly.

Startled, Li Shan immediately directed his mycelium to cover fresh patches of moss, replenishing his dwindling reserves. A few seconds later, as his hunger value began to rise again, he let out a sigh of relief.

“So, each new main stem is like gaining another body. Increased food consumption makes sense.”

Once his hunger bar was full again, he tried growing yet another main stem, keeping his eyes fixed on the hunger bar to monitor the cost of generating a new body.

After growing the third main stem, Li Shan calculated that each one cost him about fifty points of hunger—a reasonable amount.

Having tested his new gene, Li Shan’s worries returned. With his increased appetite, the remaining moss beneath the rock was no longer enough to satisfy him.

“I need to expand outward,” he decided.

He sent out one strand of mycelium to explore beyond the crevice, while the other two continued absorbing the last of the moss to provide energy for the advancing strand.

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Surrounding the stone was a small grove of trees—thirteen saplings in total, the thickest no broader than a baby’s arm. To a human, they were insignificant, but to Li Shan, now a mere mushroom, they were towering giants—enough to keep him fed for a long time.

“Let’s hope I get lucky and evolve again,” he thought, but reality quickly dashed his hopes.

Without the cover of the boulder, the soil outside was exposed directly to the sun, making it much drier than the shaded earth. The fine mycelial threads, deprived of moisture and baked by sunlight, lost what little water they had almost instantly, drying up like dead nerves and becoming completely unresponsive.

Li Shan frowned. “Looks like I’ll have to send the mycelium underground.”

He glanced at the dwindling moss left in the crevice, worry creeping into his heart. Underground, the mycelium would spread much more slowly than on the surface, and he feared the remaining moss wouldn’t suffice to fuel its journey to the saplings’ roots.

Even so, he had no other choice—the saplings were the closest food source on his mini-map.

Watching the moss deplete moment by moment, Li Shan dared not hesitate. He immediately sent his mycelium burrowing into the earth. At first, the soil was still damp, and though growth was slower than above ground, it wasn’t intolerable. But the farther he got from the boulder, the quicker the soil’s moisture waned.

By the time the humidity stabilized, the mycelium’s growth had slowed to a tenth of its former pace. Obstacles like rocks forced him to detour, further increasing his energy consumption.

The moss was quickly exhausted, and by the time it was all devoured, his mycelium was still seven or eight centimeters short of the sapling’s roots.

Li Shan checked his remaining hunger and made a swift calculation. He would just barely have enough to reach the sapling.

But as his hunger value was about to bottom out, he suddenly realized he’d overlooked something crucial: the process of decomposing and digesting with mycelium took at least three seconds.

But…

“Brothers, my mushroom’s done for.”

With only two points of hunger left, Li Shan spoke with bitter resignation.