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Slowly, things started to settle down once more in Ed\'s mushroom forest. The things that settled included magical mosquitoes, which were somehow using his mushrooms to increase in numbers, and other sorts of bugs that benefitted from the water mana in the area.

\'The other forests are still too competitive for them\' But that didn\'t mean Ed could relax. On the contrary, that all of these weaklings were coming to him was horrible.

They were all starved or battle-hardened from having escaped the hell of the other mushrooms. The mosquitoes for example had managed to kill more than just a couple of water mushrooms.

They would suck water out of them as if they had just run a marathon. Some would drink this monstrous amount of water and others would transport it somewhere to position their nests.

How could Ed solve this?

[Colossal Octocrawler]

[ Crawler arachnid lauded for suppressing magical pests ]

\'Oh, I guess I didn\'t have to think about it too hard\' A spider! If it started to form webs everything would work out. The mosquitoes would start to be preyed on and he could focus on his things.

A screech abruptly shook the environment. The colossal octocrawler was the origin.

[Magma Fly]

Ed couldn\'t even muster the courage to look at the assessment of the approaching creature. He was afraid that his feeble heart might not be able to take it. As a mushroom, anything with fire had to burn in… wait...

Shaking the silly thoughts out of his head, Ed started thinking about the repercussions of eliminating the previous predator. The centicrawler had been newly introduced, its reign was short and its strength was weak.

But it still served as a small deterrent for the likes of the Colossal octocrawler. It certainly wouldn\'t have been so casual in its entrance to the place. That on its own was no problem, but big game attracted bigger game.

The octocrawler was tempting enough for other magical creatures to want a bite at it. The octocrawler was at least half as tall as the average human. Its fangs seemed to be laced with venomous green liquid, but Ed presumed some of these weird beasts might think it was no more than wasabi. Which to be fair, was pretty hot.

Not hotter than the magma fly which came to a sudden halt. Its deep orange glow became radiant as a fire started to briefly manifest itself around it.

The octocrawler which was at least 16 times larger than the fly began to radiate electric sparks. Its hairs stood on end and the arcs of electricity jumped from between them without rhyme or reason. One even shot towards the nearby flying pest.

Receiving a large shock, the magma fly was no longer interested. The fire which it had manifested then fell on top of Ed\'s gray mushrooms setting some on fire.

Ed sighed and prepared a perimeter of water shrooms to protect himself from the mushroom fire.

\'Static maybe…?\' He then began to try and understand the anatomy of these magical creatures. He promptly gave up however. This wouldn\'t be the first altercation on his turf, that highlighted an issue that was more pressing than science.

\'I need a body as soon as possible. If the magma fly wasn\'t scared off by the colossal spider, umm octocrawler, it might not have been a small fire\' Thankfully, he had a guarding octocrawler.

Ed really wanted to give it a name or something, but that was a bit rude of him as the monsters had some trace of intellect. The colossal octocrawler probably had its own pride. Plus, the creature was partly to blame.

With a wary sentry shroom, Ed returned to the system space and walked into the storeroom. He searched around for something.

[Earth Statue]

The earth puppets Ed used in battle last time had been pretty effective. The  statues were just a step behind them.

\'But that doesn\'t have to be the case\' Ed grabbed the statue and headed to the forge room. He made some room for himself and tossed the statue into the cold white flames. The spirit smith asked no questions, it continued to make metal shrooms.

Ed then brought out some mushrooms as well and tossed them into the fire with the statue.

\'I needed something sturdy that I can give skills to\' The earth statue was made of the earth so it would work quite well with the mushrooms which Ed had proven could get skills.

Yet, there was no prompt.

\'Why?\' Ed asked the system who took a short moment to respond.

[Unknown Combination of Compatible materials]

Ed was left a bit disappointed by the response but he was also intrigued. There was something the system didn\'t know? If the materials were compatible the system should be able to foresee the combination, no?

\'This sucks but…\' The materials melted almost entirely by this point, nothing was stopping Ed from considering if he had to combine them himself. Except for a new message that popped up.

[Combining…]

Ed was surprised, he hadn\'t told the system to combine anything just yet.

\'You are learning something at last\' That didn\'t mean he was complaining though. Of course, he wanted to see what the combination would look like!

The brown liquid of the earth and the grayness of the mushrooms started to form together. The gray expanded like moss and eventually covered the thing in its entirety.

The earth statue had become something new.

[Living Earth Statue]

\'...or not\' The statute was now a living earth statue which Ed had achieved previously by inserting a consciousness into the body.

\'Whatever, this is good\' It was living because of the mushrooms, a shared name meant next to nothing in comparison to acknowledging that the mushrooms lived.

Ed grabbed the statue out which was still in the process of solidifying and took it to the branding room. The branding machine had a hundred legs skill ink still in it.

[Brand <(Centipede) Hundred Legs lvl. 3>? Y/N]

[< Charge lvl. 0> has been branded]

\'It works…?\' Ed was a bit surprised to see that the skill was branded, the statue hadn\'t finished its cooling after all.

\'I won\'t complain\' Ed branded two other floating consciousnesses, this was his way to store them for future use. He then placed a new skill ink in.

[Brand <(Arthropod) Tough Exoskeleton lvl. 3>? Y/N]

If he was going to have a body it had to be the strongest available, so of course he wanted to brand the skill.

[< Tough lvl. 0> has been branded]

\'Tough huh…\' It was a predictable general skill to acquire Ed had to say but as long as it got the job done.

\'Now for some field testing\' The statue had all the skills it needed and all that was left was for Ed to split himself.

[You\'ve been dealt -230 hp]

\'Argh! Damn thing!\' Ed complained inwardly before being tossed out of the forge. He had learned a perk to the Fortified Mind skill was that it also offset damage from splitting. To be more specific, it offset the pain as he was still dealt the same amount of damage.

This allowed Ed to stay awake through the whole thing. It also helped that Ed started out relatively small. The hp was about half of his current, but a quarter of his max.

Ed finally had all the materials. He grabbed a smaller himself and the statue and exited the system space.

The living earth statue fell out and almost instantly started to try and connect itself with Ed\'s mycelium network.

\'It can do that…\' Ed muttered inwardly before activating his sixth sense. He saw himself enter the statue through a nearby sentry shroom and proceeded to promptly deactivate the skill.

\'How is it?\' Ed asked. He and W2 had discussed their skills to make sure both could use transmission.

\'It\'s...  It\'s different\' W2 who was not related to finances transmitted back.

I see- is what Ed would say if that had actually explained anything. Fortunately, he wasn\'t too stupid.

W\'s body which was just a gray humanoid figure started to writhe with plant-like tendrils.

\'It\'s different from what I expected\' W transmitted this time in full. Ed had to close out of his sentry shroom\'s vision a couple of times and look again, but the situation still hadn\'t changed. He hadn\'t spent this time of verification in vain, he came up with an idea.

As W was connected to the mycelium network through the fungi part of the mix, Ed was able to forcibly interfere.

\'Wha-?\' W asked stunned by the sudden action. The transmission was cut off however as the tendrils of gray started to calm down. W only watched as nutrients also started to now flow in and the roots of the mushrooms started to expand further and further inward. The statue and the mushrooms became inseparable from one another after only a moment.

[Mushroom Earth Statue]

\'Perfect\' Ed thought. That was also when W was finally given the ok to move and his arm reacted accordingly.

\'It\'s rigid but…\' W threw out a punch. The air almost split from the sudden motion and the colossal octocrawler who had been minding its own business and building webs could not help but be startled.

It watched carefully fearing that the thing might intend to threaten it when it finally started to move. One step forward, another step forward, the intimidating walk put the colossal creature on high alert.

But no matter how alert it was, it never saw the next thing coming!

\'F*ck!\' W ran straight into a metal mushroom forest and tripped headfirst.

\'Why am I cursing when I should curse!?! My mushrooms!\' Ed screamed into W\'s mind.

The watching octocrawler was suddenly reassured.. Its life in the next couple of years would be a cozy one for sure.