Although Lynn was not a glutton like Lupa, he didn't use a fork either, in order to guarantee the effects of the fungus cake. Instead, he copied Lupa and took a direct bite of the cake.
As he bit through the soft, springy outer crust, which resembled a chiffon cake, the sweet yet slightly salty filling slid directly down his throat.
It felt like biting into a cream puff filled with black truffle cream and savory meat floss.
The main flavor was the sweetness of cream, powdered sugar, and a hint of cinnamon.
But once it reached his throat, the woody, roasted-nut aroma of the glowing mushrooms truly bloomed. The subtle hint of savory saltiness kept the sweetness of the fungus cake from becoming too cloying.
With just one bite, his tongue and stomach were instantly satisfied.
Immediately after, the four types of mushrooms began to exert their power simultaneously, and a mild wave of dizziness washed over him.
It wasn't a head-spinning sensation, but more like the pleasant buzz of being slightly tipsy.
Lynn looked up at the moon in the sky again.
After eating the fungus cake, the moon began to sway in his vision. Gradually, it seemed to split from one into three.
Lynn thought to himself, No wonder the elves call their Moon Goddess the 'Three Moons Goddess'...
Seeing the two of them eating in such a dizzy, disoriented state, Aurora smiled softly.
She then used her fork to slice off a small piece of the fungus cake and put it in her mouth.
It had been a very long time since she had tasted moon dust fungus after leaving her tribe.
As the effects of the fungus cake kicked in, Aurora's gaze gradually grew hazy.
“Lady Moon Goddess?”
Looking at the moonlight draped over Lynn, Aurora almost mistook him for the Moon Goddess.
Shaking her head slightly to dispel her stray thoughts, Aurora also gazed up at the full moon in the sky.
But the Moon Goddess's gaze did not seem to be on her, an elf.
As for Lynn, his appetite had been completely whetted after that first bite.
In just two or three bites, he finished the first piece of fungus cake.
To prevent the stimulation from being too intense, Lynn did not immediately eat the second piece. Instead, he planned to wait for the aftereffects of the first piece to pass.
A wave of dizziness gradually surged.
The sounds around his ears faded, growing distant.
Lynn blinked, trying to steady his drifting vision.
But the three moons in the sky did not merge back into one. Instead, they transformed into the form of a deity whose face could not be clearly seen.
The Moon Goddess?
The silver moonlight radiating from the lunar discs flowed down like molten mercury, pouring across the night sky toward him.
What about his Feat 【Truesight】? Did it have no effect on this kind of illusion?
Or was this not an illusion at all?
“The effects of the Moon Fungus Cake are kicking in,” Aurora's voice drifted over slowly. “An elven festival treat is not meant simply to fill the stomach.”
Hearing this, Lynn suddenly felt a strange sense of detachment from reality.
A faint, ethereal humming seemed to echo in his ears, though he couldn't tell if it was an auditory hallucination or the whisper of a deity.
Is it truly the Moon Goddess?
Lynn raised a hand to rub his throbbing temples; his skin felt burning hot.
In his vision, the moonlight continued to descend.
Or rather, was he floating up into the sky?
Even though he was clearly still sitting on the bench, his body felt the illusion of slowly floating upward.
The stone bench beneath him became as soft as cotton, as if his entire being was cradled by the moonlight, slowly drifting toward the Three Moons Goddess in the heavens.
It felt like a dream.
Was this the power of the mushrooms?
The Three Moons Goddess above reached out a slender hand toward Lynn. The massive amount of moonlight cradled in her palm poured into his body.
As his body absorbed the moonlight, his maximum mana capacity steadily expanded.
At a certain point, Lynn suddenly felt the mana seed in his mind, as if it were about to sprout.
At this critical moment, his consciousness grew increasingly clear, and the moonlight pouring into him began to taper off.
The effects of the mushrooms were fading.
Lynn quickly swallowed the second piece of fungus cake.
The moonlight flowed down once more.
Lynn watched as he was gradually filled to the brim by the moonlight bestowed by the Moon Goddess.
The overflowing moonlight spilled from his body and dispersed in all directions, most of it being absorbed by Lupa and Aurora beside him.
After absorbing the moonlight, a layer of glowing white condensed on the skin of both girls.
The power of the moonlight seemed to be improving their physical constitutions.
Meanwhile, within Lynn's body, the dimensions of the mana seed continued to grow, yet it never broke through its shell.
Lynn felt that the 'seed' inside him had actually reached the point where it could sprout. It was simply accumulating more vitality now, waiting for the perfect moment to burst forth with accumulated power in the future.
Perhaps only when he condensed his spellcasting class would this seed truly unleash its power.
As the enhancement and hallucinatory sensations brought by the fungus cake gradually faded,
his consciousness returned to his physical body.
Beside him, the wolf-girl slumped on the table suddenly mumbled to him,
“Huh? Lynn, your face is so red.”
Red?
Lynn raised a hand to touch his face. It was indeed still a bit hot.
Whose face was he touching?
Lynn didn't even know.
Lupa remained slumped on the stone table, her cheek pressed against the stone in an attempt to use its coolness to stay awake, though her wolf ears had already drooped listlessly.
However, her tail was still wagging lazily back and forth, catching Lynn's eye.
Perhaps because the effects of the fungus cake hadn't completely worn off, Lynn's head was still a bit foggy.
He subconsciously reached out his large hand and grabbed it, instantly 'refining' it with his touch!
“Eek!”
A startled cry slipped from the corner of Lupa's mouth as her weak point was seized, but she quickly drifted back into a daze.
No matter how Lynn toyed with it, she only let out unconscious, soft whimpers from her throat.
As for Aurora next to them, her state was even worse.
Although the elven blood flowing through her veins gave her a much better affinity for mana than ordinary humans, she was still far from being able to ignore the mental stimulation of moon dust fungus and glowing mushrooms.
Thus, under the influence of the fungus cake, the elf's body had collapsed onto the table like a puddle of mush.
Her eyes were unfocused, her tongue was slightly tied, and she kept babbling unintelligible nonsense.
The three of them sat lazily in the autumn night courtyard, enjoying this brief moment of peace.
It felt like a sweet, blissful slice of life.
He wondered how Betty, far away in the royal capital, was doing now.
Lynn stroked the wolf-girl's tail with one hand after another. The texture was incredibly soft and satisfying.
At the same time, he opened the 《Monster Identification Manual》.
On his character panel, the number in the Intelligence column had already changed from “9” to “12”.
It had actually increased by three points.
According to Gray, the Moon Fungus Cake was supposed to increase a mage apprentice's Intelligence by two points.
Yet Lynn had gained an extra point.
Could it be related to the apparition of the Moon Goddess he had seen?
Or perhaps it was because he had learned multiple spells during this period.
In this world, to condense a class, two conditions had to be met.
First was attributes, and second was skill levels.
To increase attributes, one needed to practice repeatedly to raise skill levels, thereby expanding the bodily vessel.
Once the bodily vessel was expanded, one only needed to fill it with the corresponding “contents” to complete the attribute increase.
When Lynn's Stealth and Backstab skills had leveled up before, he had also relied on his Rapid Digestion passive to consume large amounts of meat to boost his attributes.
And for the Intelligence attribute, he likely needed magical plants like moon dust fungus and glowing mushrooms to fill his vessel.
In any case, his Intelligence had finally broken past ten points.
Furthermore, all of Lynn's attributes had now reached ten points or higher.
An attribute of ten might not seem high, but it was already the level of a Tier 1 class-holder's primary attribute.
For example, while a Tier 1 Mage's Intelligence would exceed ten points, their other attributes, such as Agility and Constitution, would often be far inferior.
With every single one of his attributes reaching ten, Lynn was effectively a perfect class-holder with absolutely no weaknesses in terms of physical attributes.
He estimated that even a Tier 2 monster like a Psionic Corpse could not compare to him in terms of the combined total of all attributes.
Rate on N.U.
