Ashton came to a stop, right in front of the botanical gardens. He was breathing pretty heavily. Shortness of breath was something to be expected from having a chunk of your lung cut away, but it was still annoying. His body was still recovering, and Ashton didn't like the feeling.

  The only good part was that the 'resilience' stat actually helped with that. It improved stamina, the toughness of your body, your immune system, and even wound recovery. Because of that, at this point, Ashton had actually a pretty good idea of what exactly his physical 'resilience' looked like at the moment. That, and his 'spirit' stat, were the two that he had complete awareness of. Though, after that run, he came a bit closer to understanding the limits of his current 'speed', too. Maybe not 100% yet, but that would probably change within the thicket of the botanical gardens.

  There, it was likely that Ashton would have lots of opportunities to dodge and twist out of the way of random attacks. And so, he stepped inside. It had already gotten much denser than before, and Ashton could tell that it was far more dangerous, too.

  Poppy disappeared back in Ashton's vessel so that she wouldn't be trapped by one of the carnivorous plants. The last time he was here, Ashton spotted the bones of some pixies in them. It made sense that there were a lot of them in this place when all this started. Pixies were generally drawn to places that suited their personalities. The ones that died here were probably flower pixies like poppy was.

  But even so, there were quite a lot of bones, so Aston still found it weird that the only other fairy he had seen so far was Poppy. That gave Ashton a certain idea.

  It was possible that some pixies managed to survive, and in that case, they were probably pretty good at hiding, so it might not be all that surprising that Ashton hadn't seen any until now. But now that Ashton could see the world only through magic anyway, maybe he could find some living ones.

  For the time being, there was something else that he still had to worry about, though. Even if Ashton had taken down the Myconid boss monster last time, it was likely that there were still plenty of those little fellows around here. Their traps and the way that they attacked made for pretty good practice with his new sight.

  Right now, Ashton didn't have the limited cone vision that a normal human would have, he basically had all the information from his entire channelling range around him. It wasn't precise, but it was still a lot, and it was hard to concentrate on everything all at once. That was why, practicing in a place where attacks could come from literally every direction, would be pretty good for him. He had to get used to all of this as well as he could, and once he did, he might even be able to fight better than before. He might. Maybe not, but you never knew what kind of positive effects could come out of something terrible.

  And just as Ashton was thinking about it, he noticed a signature of mana nearby, entering his channelling range. It was moving quite fast, and in a group, too. Myconids.

  They were climbing up something, and it didn't quite seem like they were climbing up a normal tree. They were moving too fast for that. Myconids were agile, but they didn't exactly have particularly dexterous climbs. And all of them climbed that fast, without a single one dropping down. They must have built something like ladders to climb up the logs.

  Soon, the group of myconids spread out across the branches of the trees surrounding Ashton. They had been moving completely silently, without even a trace. If it weren't for Ashton's wisp-sight, he might not have noticed them, either.

  They stopped at specific branches, surrounding Ashton. He waited momentarily as he exhaled, turning that breath into the body of the sylph. He quickly fused the sylph's air magic with the wisp, and the moment that the myconids released their shots, with tiny, toothpick-sized blurs barrelling at him that Ashton could barely even notice at all, he activated the 'force' spell within the wisp.

  All the darts, or arrows, or whatever they were, were thrown back out by the strong gust. It even got so far that some of the myconids were thrown off the branches, just for Ashton to swing his temporary staff at them before they hit the ground.

  [You have killed a [Myconid]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 9 Coins]

  That much for just one myconid? It looked like Ashton would make quite the sum here today.

  All the myconids that fell were soon taken care of, and the ones that were still on the branches didn't have long left anymore, either. Ashton jumped up, pushing down on the ground with his staff at the same time to speed up just that little bit more, and then pulled the staff up and swung it at the main branch hanging above him. It tore apart the moment Ashton hit it. There was far too little resistance. The myconids on it fell down, so Ashton didn't exactly have much to complain about, but it was still weird.

  That was, until a few moments later when the 'branch' was hanging loosely from one of the trees. It wasn't a branch at all. The way it fell was more like some kind of hanging bridge.

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  "So you guys advanced a bit in the couple days I didn't see you, huh?" Ashton asked, a grin on his face, as he rushed to take care of the fallen myconids. But this time, he figured he might as well test out one of the elementals' new abilities in combat.

  He focused on the wisp, and it split apart into two. Both of them were still fused with air magic, but it was likely that Ashton could fuse each body with a separate element if he wanted to. He might try that out later. But for now, he started spinning his staff around, letting each of the wisp's bodies be directed by a different end of the metal bar.

  The two wisps shot through the thicket, tearing apart leaves and vines, and most importantly, the bodies of the myconids. A flurry of notifications appeared and disappeared around Ashton. He had the wisps fly around, destroying all of the bridges that had been hung up between the trees.

  And as he did, he decided to shrink down his channelling range a little bit. Not by a lot, but just enough that he could tell a bit more about what was going on with these myconids. They felt a little different to before. Less than a week ago, when Ashton was here the last time together with Sam, they didn't have anything close to these bridges. Sure, they built traps, but they didn't create any sort of infrastructure to support themselves otherwise.

  Their weapons also seem to have gotten an upgrade. Instead of just being wooden spears, they were throwing around ones with stone spear-tips. Some of them were wearing actual protective armour made from bark, and others were just standing back and observing Ashton instead of attacking outright.

  Myconids were monsters that existed through something like a hivemind, created by their mycelium network. Not all of them had to be actively aggressive to be useful. There must be units in these groups that were solely here to observe and make plans.

  "Interesting," Ashton grinned excitedly, just as he tore through one of those exact spongy little bodies with the tip of his staff. Even if these guys got stronger and advanced a bit, they didn't get stronger faster than Ashton did.

  Their tools and weapons were still rudimentary, and really nothing that could harm Ashton. The worst thing they had to offer were poisoned darts and traps, but after dealing with that lizardman tribe literally earlier today, there was no way Ashton would fall victim to mere myconid poison.

  "Man, what a long day..." Ashton sighed to himself. Zombies, lizardmen, and now myconids. He really was shoving a bunch of stuff into a single day. The sun hadn't even gone down yet. At least, it felt like the sun was still shining on his skin when he was outside. Here, it was too shady and jungle-like. The botanical gardens were growing much faster than all the other plants outside. It really looked like this place was a 'field' that would soon turn into some kind of dungeon, even if the mana-well wasn't exactly active anymore, from what Ashton could tell. He couldn't sense enough mana for something like that to still be around here, at least. Right now, Ashton was actually more interested in finding the myconid village.

  If they were starting to build bridges and paths through the thicket, there must be some kind of central base where they lived, right? It might be interesting to learn what kind of homes myconids built.

  For the time being, Ashton decided to follow the paths created by the myconids. It mostly just ended up with him running into more groups that immediately tried to kill him, to no success. And in the end, he once more ended up at the greenhouse, where the boss fight was the last time he was here.

  There really were tons of carnivorous plants around here, even ones that were trying to attack Ashton. They were slinging parts of their roots around his legs, or were attempting to drip poison down onto him to hopefully paralyse him. There was also a sickly-sweet smell of honey nearby. It was pleasant, and made Ashton crave some sugar, but not something that any human would fall for. All he had to do was pop a small piece of candy into his mouth and the craving disappeared.

  But as Ashton tore into the greenhouse, which was blocked by thick vines, he managed to confirm that the mana well was no longer here. It wasn't all that big in the first place, technically. But there wasn't anything like a village here either. There was really just one thing of notice inside the entire greenhouse, and it made Ashton chuckle a bit.

  He walked into the centre of the space, where the mana well once stood, and soon found something like a statue standing on top of a moss-covered rock. It was made from wood and vines and leaves, all put together to depict a terrible creature swinging around a branch, trampling on myconids.

  "Huh, somehow they got my chin right," Ashton said as he leaned forward, looking at the depiction of himself at the centre of this place. It was covered in cuts and was clearly some kind of warning and something that the myconids took their frustration out on. When Ashton killed the boss monster, that must have created a deep impression within this tribe's mycelium network, and made them hate Ashton this much.

  No wonder that they came and prepared so much to attack Ashton earlier. "I'm a little flattered, actually."

  Just as Ashton said so, a slightly smug smile on his face, he glanced up at something floating a few feet above the statue. This was actually what drew his attention earlier, but this statue was a lot funnier.

  Right above the statue was a small 'hole', like the one that Ashton had found in the mana well in the middle of the lizardman tribe's base. But this one was different. It was still there, but instead of releasing a ton of mana, it was slowly but surely absorbing it. Not a lot, maybe as much as a handful of people would in their day-to-day by breathing and living their lives, but it was still surprising that it was doing this.

  Ashton was seriously interested in grabbing this and seeing what it was. Surely, it was a 'Veil Fragment', but from the description of the one that Ashton already acquired, it seemed there were different types. What if this one, now that the mana well itself was gone, turned into a different type? Or what if it was different to begin with?

  He was curious. But... he was honestly even more curious to see what it would turn into if it kept absorbing more and more mana in this place. Plus, the only way Ashton could even hope to grab that thing is through the mana stone-shattering technique, and he wasn't going to use techniques again until he actually created a core for himself. The integrity of his vessel would only suffer from that.

  So, for the time being, Ashton would have to leave it be. Not before tagging it with the Pen of Insight, of course, but he still had to leave. There were a few other places he wanted to go to look for some plants to turn into dye, and he also still wanted to find that myconid settlement.