This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 156, Section 155: Traces of Cave Dwellers
In the largest passage of Cave 3, cattle and horses are busily spreading spores.

Although it would be fine to let the fungal carpet spread on its own, Lin Jun clearly intended to speed things up.

This yellow book is quite capable, but it lacks unity and is always pursuing its own selfish interests.

The passage twists and turns, ending at a desolate cave.

The cave contained only a few mosses and tiny insects. Although the space was not small, it was almost completely exposed and could not hide anything at all.

The only type of monster is a large, slow-moving snail, which hides in twos and threes inside its shell and quietly clings to the rock wall.

Compared to the snake pit that the pig was attacking, this place seemed much more desolate.

Moreover, no cave dwellers were seen.

Lin Jun didn't immediately turn back to confront Huang Pishu. Instead, she had the Puji search around and, sure enough, they found something—some footprints with three toes.

This matches the characteristics of the cave dwellers that Lin Jun had seen.

Unfortunately, this only proves that cave dwellers have been here, but we don't know where they came from.

Unlike the soft soil in the cave, the passageways were reinforced by earthworms, making it difficult to leave any traces.

Like most caves in the deep zone, this cave is connected by more than ten passages.

Lin Jun didn't bother with any exhaustive search method because she didn't have many spare Puji right now. The Great Expedition was like a bottomless pit; no matter how many Puji she threw in, it wouldn't be enough.

The footprints were relatively fresh, indicating that cave dwellers had visited recently.

Lin Jun turned some of the mimicry poopi into the shape of stones, waiting for them to come to them.

Two days passed, during which time even a mimicking Puji was spotted by the giant snail, and by the time Lin Jun noticed, it had already been half-eaten.

Fortunately, Lin Jun's wait was not in vain.

Seven cave dwellers carried a huge, curved piece of bark out of a relatively gentle slope.

Once they came out, most of them lay down on the ground and began collecting moss and placing it on the bark that had been brought over.

So that's how it is; eating moss does fit their image and status.

But... why is there still one standing there without doing anything?

Only the standing caveman held a simple spear; the other cavemen were empty-handed.

Keeping watch?

Cave dwellers would use simple tools, so it seems natural that they would cooperate and divide tasks.

However, the man with the spear didn't seem like a sentry to Lin Jun.

There was neither vigilance nor shooing away the snails that got too close and disturbed the cave dwellers' moss collection.

He simply held his spear, leaned against the rock wall, and waited for the other cave dwellers to fill the bark with what Lin Jun considered a very lazy attitude.

A word involuntarily came to Lin Jun's mind—supervisor.

The main reason is that its behavior is too consistent with its identity. Its existence seems to be only about "being present," using oppression to drive the slave workers to work, while it does not have to do any physical labor itself. The spear in its hand is more about intimidating its own kind than defending against external enemies.

What happened next almost confirmed Lin Jun's guess.

While a slave worker was scraping a large patch of thick moss, his movements were a little too vigorous, and he accidentally flung a piece of moss covered in wet mud, which landed right on the paw of the "overseer" leaning against the rock wall.

"Hiss!" A sharp, piercing hiss suddenly burst from the overseer's mouth, filled with obvious rage.

It didn't even bother to wipe the mud off its paws, but instead took a sudden step forward, its spear whistling through the air as it stabbed the terrified slave who had raised his head!

The target was not the vital point, but rather the tail of the slave workers.

"Pfft!" The tip of the stone spear pierced the slave worker's tail with slight resistance, clearly indicating that this crude weapon was barely usable even when used against its own kind.

The slave let out a painful howl, clutched his injured tail, curled up on the ground, and whimpered in fear.

The other slaves froze instantly, their bodies bowed low, trembling, not daring to even breathe.

The overseer seemed quite satisfied with the result. He casually rubbed the blood-stained spearhead on the moss, ignoring the wounded slave, and let out a series of low, threatening sounds from his throat, as if warning everyone to keep working and not to stop.

The wounded slave endured the pain, grabbed a handful of moss with trembling hands, pressed it onto the wound to stop the bleeding, then gritted his teeth and continued to scrape off the moss, his movements more cautious and filled with fear than before.

Seeing this, the "overseer" slowly walked back to the rock wall and resumed his leaning posture.

Little did it know that a rock ten steps away was actually a mimicking Puji, and that something had been watching its performance with great interest.

They really enjoyed it.

A group of cave dwellers actually developed a system of slavery!
Moreover, it's not the kind of slavery that relies solely on individual violence. The difference between the overseers and slaves on the character panel is negligible, and these slaves could easily tear the overseers apart if they swarmed together.

But they dared not resist the abuse of the overseers.

This shows that the slavery system of the cave dwellers was already a relatively complete social form.

They are clearly the same species, and there is not much difference between them.

However, this is good news for Lin Jun.

I originally thought they were just primitive beings, but now it seems they are more intelligent than I expected.

Instead of having Puji suddenly grab the cave dwellers, he quietly watched as they filled the tree bark with moss mixed with some soil, and then carried it back under the overseer's command.

Meanwhile, a scout Puji, under the control of [Family Control], followed them from a distance.

Although cave dwellers also have the skill of [vibration perception], their level is only around LV3.

Lin Jun's detection skill level is higher than theirs, and its range is larger, making tracking them effortless.

The cave dwellers ascended, passing through several completely desolate caves devoid of monsters, presumably "safe passages" explored by the cave dwellers themselves.

However, Lin Jun still had a strange feeling...

When they arrived at a peculiar cave riddled with holes by earthworms, Lin Jun realized the source of the strangeness—wasn't this the place where they had fought the earthworms before?
So this is not far from my hometown?

Cave dwellers just happened to live nearby?

Lin Jun must have never seen cave dwellers before, so it seems that the cave dwellers must have come from the wave of the demonic tide.

As several cavemen climbed up a familiar passage, a guess emerged in the mushroom cap.

No way……

Following behind the cave dwellers, we walked through familiar paths and passages.

After several hours of trekking, the cave where the old mushroom garden was located finally came into view...

So, after I left, the cave dwellers took over this place?

The scene before me bore no resemblance whatsoever to the mushroom farm I remembered.

The entrance to the passage, once guarded by the fighting Puji, is now completely sealed off by a massive living tree.

The giant tree's thick, gnarled, dark brown trunk is deeply embedded in the rock.

On the side of the giant tree facing the passage, there is an irregularly shaped entrance that has been roughly dug out, with claw marks and gnaw marks remaining on the edges, like an ugly scar.

Several cavemen armed with rudimentary weapons guarded the entrance.

At the entrance, Lin Jun even discovered the traps they had set.

Several pits covered with vegetation; huge rocks suspended by vines.

These traps weren't well disguised, probably because the usual enemies were just mindless monsters that were hard to recognize.

The scene before us could easily be described as a primitive and simple castle.

Clearly, it was no accident that these weak cave dwellers were able to survive in the deep layers.

However... they didn't seem to have removed the mushrooms that were originally growing here. Through the living wood fortress, Lin Jun could sense that there were a lot of fungal carpets, mushrooms, and even... plops?
(End of this chapter)