As He was staring at it with intrigue, a burst of purple cloud was shot out from under the mushroom’s cap.
He thought about why the hell such a big fungus was walking around beneath his hideout for a moment, but then pushed the thought aside, since right now it wasn’t important. Instead he ordered his drone to fly down and take a closer look at the mushroom.
Just the day before, he had figured out how to connect to his drone’s live feed while walking through the forest.
Right after he connected, a window showing the perspective of the drone appeared in front of him.
As the drone flew closer to the mushroom he got a better view of what was going on beneath that big cap.
Under the mushroom were thousands of thin and tiny tendrils moving about, Jake was taken for a moment by the fluid movements the tendrils were making as they moved the mushroom around.
Another sight he found interesting was the base of the mushroom, which seemed to be made from the thousands of tendrils, intertwining into a sturdy base.
As his drone got within a few meters of the mushroom though, it suddenly froze.
Feeling that approaching any more right now would probably be a bad idea, he ordered his drone to halt, and just in case, he ordered it to fly away right away if the mushroom made any weird movements towards his drone.
Jake watched on, a little nervously as neither the mushroom or the drone moved, until suddenly thousands of tiny tendrils shot forwards at his drone, trying to grab it.
His drone immediately shot backwards, evading the attempt.
When his drone retreated far enough, the tendrils returned to the mushroom and it just continued on with its pattern of walking around and bursting out purple clouds.
Jake had to admit, he had gotten quite the scare after seeing a bunch of tendrils suddenly being shot at him through his drone.
The mushroom was quite the eerie sight, it kind of moved like an octopus, except this time it was a big red creepy mushroom on land.
It was posing quite the problem for him as-well, since as long as that mushroom was under his hideout, he wouldn’t be able to leave.
The question now was, how should he deal with the mushroom, he could either try killing it, or wait for it to leave.
Killing it right now would need both more effort, and its corpse could attract other monsters nearby.
So waiting would be the better solution for now, he could wait for a few hours and if it still hadn’t left after that, he could go and try to kill it.
Talking about killing monsters though, he still hadn’t checked out his weaponry creation skill that he had taken exactly for these types of situations.
And after his night of sleep, he had a full capacity of 100Mp to work with.
He quickly opened up the skill window.
Weaponry creation
Level of weaponry: Earth 1900–2000
Categories
- Melee weaponry
- Ranged weaponry
- Ammunition
So I get categories to choose from just like with Construction?
He opened up one of the categories to check out how it worked and looked, and just like with Construction he got an entire catalog filled with little images of the weapons he could buy, accompanied by their mana costs and a short description.
Taking a look at the different kinds of ranged weaponry he could buy, he soon found many guns, some very Mp expensive artillery, and even stuff like flamethrowers and stun guns.
When looking at the melee weaponry catalog, it was filled with knifes, swords, axes, tasers and anything else that could be used in melee combat. He even found shurikens in there.
His discovering of all the types of weapons got underbroken though when he was hit by another warning from Intuition.
He connected back to his drone and got a view of the big walking fungus again.
It seemed to be trying to reach up to where he was, as it was currently using its many tiny tendrils to start climbing up the wall.
Jake immediately jumped up, if that mushroom reached him he would not only be in hot water, but even if he survived a close encounter those weird purple clouds might turn out to be poison!
He would have to try holding it off from getting up to where he was, seems like he would have to try his idea of using his scout drone for combat purposes here and now.
He immediately ordered his drone to start attacking the big mushroom, and try to lure it away from him.
Meanwhile he quickly focused back on his weaponry creation skill, since getting something to kill that mushroom with besides a flying metal ball seemed like a good idea.
Granted, Jake was anything but an expert when it came to guns or weaponry, hell he had never even held or shot a gun in his life, so he just picked something he thought would do the job, and was affordable.
He soon found a gun that matched his conditions.
Pistol (Semi-automatic) - 75Mp
A basic 9mm semi-automatic pistol, the magazine can hold up to 12 bullets, 3 empty magazines are included.
He found some normal ammo he should be able to use too, but he was pretty sure using a normal bullet wouldn’t do much for killing a big walking fungus.
I mean what was a tiny hole to a walking plant the size of a car right?
He would have to find something that was able to do some serious damage to the mushroom, and luckily for him, incendiary ammo got invented in 1938, which meant if he had enough mana he should be able to purchase some.
He was racing through the list of ammunitions until he finally found what he had been searching for.
9mm Incendiary ammo - 30Mp / 10 bullets.
This ammunition lights nearby flammable materials on fire upon impact.
If he wanted to buy both the ammo and the gun though, he would be short of 5Mp.
Regenerating 5Mp would take fifteen minutes, thus after buying the gun he would have to stall the big mushroom for just fifteen minutes.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He switched back to the drone’s perspective and saw the drone had already been able to do some damage to the mushroom.
three spots seemed smashed, and some sort of purple liquid was leaking from those places. Clearly the drone had been able to get a strike in three times already.
Did mushrooms bleed though? He was pretty sure they didn’t right? Was this a change due to the mushroom turning into a walking monster?
The mushroom in question had seemingly stopped climbing up the wall for a little bit, and was now busy trying to catch his drone.
His drone in the meantime was very busy looping and dodging between the many tiny tendrils, as it looked for an opening to get through and get another hit in.
Seemed like his idea to use the drone as a weapon wasn’t just some bad hope after all. In fact, it seemed to be doing quite well at dodging any incoming tendrils.
And although the damage it did wasn’t big, damage was damage.
He was sure if the drone’s next opponent wasn’t a plant but a boned mammal, it would be sure to be able to break a bone or two.
The little routine of the metal ball trying to get a hit in and the mushroom trying to catch his drone went on for a while, until seemingly the mushroom had, had enough.
It let go of the wall, and landed back on the ground, where it started spreading large amounts of the purple clouds into the surroundings.
So much so, his drone was unable to see the mushroom anymore through the thick purple cloud.
Talking about being able to see though, how was the mushroom able to see? Jake hadn’t seen any eyes on the thing, so how did it know where he or his drone was?
Then he remembered some information about mushrooms, mushrooms could detect vibrations through their roots, in fact high frequency vibrations even made mushrooms produce more spores.
Was this big mushroom detecting him or his drone via vibrations in the air and ground?
Were those many tiny little tendrils not only used for attacking or grabbing but also for the detection of prey?
If this were the case couldn’t he make use of that? If he started yelling out loud, would that confuse the mushroom? No, that would be a bad idea, it risked him attracting even more monsters besides the monster shroom.
What if he started throwing stuff down near the mushroom to create vibrations? If that worked, surely his drone would be able to get in a few more attacks right? Or at least be able to stall it enough for him to buy incendiary bullets.
He quickly went towards his backpack and started searching for stuff he could risk breaking.
He grabbed a can of anti insect spray, a bottle of sunscreen, and two hiking sticks. The rest he had in his backpack was stuff he really couldn’t risk losing, unless he wanted to make surviving even harder for himself.
Also it turned out the hiking sticks were only meant for older people that needed balance and better stability, so unless you were climbing a really steep mountain most people under the 40 didn’t need them while hiking.
He grabbed the things and quickly returned to the doorway, the purple smoke had let up a little, at least enough for him to be able to see the silhouette of the mushroom down below.
After making a few practice movements, he then threw out his first hiking stick on the ground near the mushroom.
And just as he had hoped, the mushroom got distracted and went straight to trying to grab it.
His drone using the opening to get another attack in, this time being able to smash straight through the cap of the mushroom.
Leaving roughly a fist or hand sized hole in the cap, purple blood dripping from it onto the ground.
The mushroom seemed to be agitated after this attack, as it proceeded to ignore the walking stick and started chasing after his drone.
Jake quickly threw the other hiking stick, but except for a moment’s hesitation, the mushroom fully ignored it.
He quickly threw the insect repellent, hitting the mushroom right on the cap. The tiny tendrils grabbing the repellent and crushing the can with ease.
The chase went on for a few more minutes, Jake waiting for the optimal moment to distract the mushroom with the sunscreen bottle he had yet to throw.
While waiting for the right moment, he took a quick look at his Mp, currently it was sitting at 29/100 which meant he needed to stall for just three more minutes.
Jake ordered his drone to just focus on running away, try to lure the mushroom away from where he was.
When his Mp finally hit 30 he wasted no time on buying the incendiary bullets, putting them in the magazine and loading it into the gun.
He took aim at the mushroom, and was about to fire when a realization hit him.
He had never shot a gun before, so his aim probably wouldn’t be amazing. And if he missed and hit a nearby tree or bush? He could risk setting the forest on fire, and unless he wanted to die from lack of oxygen, he wouldn’t want to create a forest fire.
Though there was the chance the forest wasn’t dry enough for a fire to really spread, he wasn’t taking that gamble.
So he would just have to get closer to the mushroom, he took of his shirt and put it in his mouth to serve as a filter. He didn’t want to breathe in whatever those purple clouds were after all.
Even if they were just spores, they looked like bad news.
With the shirt in his mouth and the gun in his hand he started descending to about halfway down his ladder.
When he got into position he ordered his scout drone to start luring the mushroom towards him.
As the mushroom drew closer, Jake grew more nervous, what if he fumbled and got poisoned? What if for some reason his gun didn’t work? What if he set the forest on fire and he died because of terrible aim?
He slapped himself on the face, calm yourself down Jake, the more you doubt the less your chances of surviving and hitting the dumb mushroom are.
Just focus on shooting it, dont think about anything else, just shoot it.
The mushroom and the drone were now just a few steps away from him, Jake took aim and waited, he waited calmly for the mushroom to just get even the smallest step closer.
The mushroom seemingly noticed him as it launched tendrils at him. But Jake didn’t move even if he was terrified by the creepy slimy tendrils, he just held his hand steady while holding onto the ladder with his other.
And then he shot, three successive shots fired into the cap of the mushroom.
Immediately the mushroom stopped chasing after the drone or reaching out to him with its tendrils, it started screeching, a loud screech hurting Jake’s ears.
A few seconds later smoke started rising from the holes in the Mushroom, and just a few more seconds later he saw flames flickering in the bullet holes.
The mushroom collapsed onto the ground, spasming its many tendrils for a minute, until finally all movement stopped.
Creeper Cap Level 3 Killed + 140 Xp
Requirements met..
User has leveled up to level 2!
Jake let out a deep sigh of relief, this really hadn’t been what he wanted to wake up to.
This morning just wasn’t boding well for him, first a panther attack? And now a surprise wake-up call from a big walking fungus? This forest was really out to get him.
Then another feeling pried itself into his mind, he started to feel a sense of tugging towards the mushroom's corpse.
It felt kind of similar to the warnings Intuition gave him, so it didn’t take long to make the connection.
Clearly Intuition was telling him to go look at that dead corpse.
Jake walked a little closer, wondering about why he was getting such a strong pull from this body.
It didn’t want him to start digging through this disgusting dead mushroom right? Surely not? Right?
Immediately the tugging sensation intensified as the horrible realization dawned upon Jake.
“No, I'm not doing it! I won't!”
In return he felt an even stronger tugging.
“But I really don't want to! If I get dirty I cannot even shower right now, is it that important?!”
A somehow annoyed tug came his way.
Jake just let out a deep frustrated sigh, took of his clothes to avoid getting them dirty. And started digging through the disgusting corpse of the Creeper Cap.
He would just need to find a river or build a shower later to wash all the disgusting smells and juices he would surely cover himself in off.
As Jake made his way through the body he really tried avoiding the slimy wriggly tendrils as he slowly made his way towards the source of the tugging sensation, he kept digging, his hands and body getting covered in disgusting purple mushroom blood, until he hit something tough.
His intuition told him, this was what he was digging through the corpse for. So he got it loose and pulled it out.
In his hand, he held a tiny blue stone giving off a dim blue light, covered in the purple blood.
Jake wiped off some of the purple blood and admired the small blue stone that was now illuminating his hand in a blue glow.
He wondered why this stone was so special that Intuition had wanted him to start digging through the mushroom corpse, when suddenly a message popped up.
Would you like to absorb; minor mana stone (lv3) for 220 Mp?