Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 57: Chapter 57 The Joy of the Mounted Archer

A sika deer has 10 points, and he gained 50 points when he tamed the Wolf King. It seems points are indeed divided according to the difficulty of the hunt.

Xu Xin pulled the crossbow arrow from the sika deer, turning it from a poisoned arrow into a regular crossbow arrow.

After retrieving the regular crossbow arrows he had previously missed, Xu Xin took out his boning knife (blue).

Sika deer are often hunted on Earth and are a first-class protected animal in Xu Xin’s country, as well as an endangered species. This also indicates that the sika deer are valuable.

”Blue, blue, blue!” Xu Xin silently chanted in his heart as he used the boning knife to dissect the sika deer.

However, no blue-colored resources appeared; it was still a pile of green resources.

The sinew and bones are already very common, but among them were two resources he had not obtained before.

[Deer Antler (Green): The unossified, hairy young antlers of a male sika deer, a valuable medicinal material, used as a raw material for certain medications.]

It’s deer antler. The deer he killed happened to have antlers in the state of deer antler.

Unfortunately, it’s not of blue grade. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be a method to make medicine, and on the trading platform, only hemostatic herbs are available.

He threw a portion of the deer meat to Silver King, who lowered his head and began to gnaw. The meal earlier was interrupted by the brown bear, so it hadn’t eaten its fill.

Although this deer was killed by snake arrow poison, the venom is only effective when it enters the bloodstream. Under normal circumstances, as long as there are no wounds in the mouth, drinking a bottle of snake venom would pose no issue. So the meat of an animal shot by a poisoned arrow is also edible.

”Chirp.” Keke on his shoulder prodded him with little claws, pointing to a nearby bush.

”Oh?” Xu Xin looked over, the bush swayed slightly in the wind, showing no unusual signs. He glanced at the map and discovered a very faint red dot in that location.

Xu Xin observed the bush closely and finally noticed a hint of white.

”It should be something like a wild rabbit.” Xu Xin licked his lips, loaded a regular arrow onto his crossbow, and shot at the white spot.

A cry of anguish emerged from the bush, then there was no more movement.

[Hunted a wild rabbit, earned points: 1.]

Sure enough, it was a wild rabbit, but it was only worth one point... Xu Xin immediately lost much of his interest in the rabbit.

He walked up to it, in the bush, the crossbow arrow was lodged in the forehead of the rabbit he had shot.

”I almost thought I was a crossbow master,” Xu Xin laughed, pulling out the arrow and dissecting the rabbit.

Nothing particularly useful emerged, so Xu Xin tossed the materials into his backpack.

Xu Xin checked the new activity leaderboard on his watch, which didn’t show rankings or points. Points don’t update in real-time; they should be announced at the end, as before. So he didn’t know where his current 61 points stood overall.

He glanced at the regional channel.

There weren’t many people talking in the regional channel; most had gone hunting. This time, fifty people still had to die, and no one wanted to be among the last fifty.

”Hahaha! I just stepped out and chopped a snake with a stone sword, and it was a venomous one; I got 5 points!”

”Damn, a toad is only worth 0.5 points, that’s way too little!”

”Toads have points too? Is it safe below? If toads have points, I want to go down and get some points, too...”

”Safe or not, you have to go down! Staying cooped up in a treehouse is certain death, gotta go, that snake gave me a tendon, I’m just up to make a bow and brag; see ya, I’m off to shoot beasts!”

Just by watching the decreasing number of people in the regional channel, one could tell how dangerous it is outside. Unlucky folks like Xu Xin who encountered a pack of wolves and brown bears around their treehouse at the start of the activity aren’t few.

”Seems like larger carnivores have higher points.” Xu Xin mused, ”I wonder if those carnivores would be attracted to blue-grade fruits.”

Xu Xin pulled a large red berry from his backpack, and both Keke on his shoulder and recently fed Silver King turned their heads toward the berry in his hand.

”Chirp!” Keke remembered that Xu Xin hadn’t given it high-grade fruit today and immediately demanded it with rightful indignation.

Xu Xin popped the red berry into Keke’s mouth and pulled out another berry: ”Silver King, do you want it? Sit if you want to eat.”

”Howl!” Silver King immediately sat down, just like an obedient big dog.

Xu Xin tossed the red berry to Silver King, who caught it in its mouth. The small red berry was tiny in Silver King’s large mouth; it swallowed it down in one gulp, wearing an expression similar to Keke’s on its wolf face.

Looks like this thing can attract carnivorous beasts too.

”Alright, I need to get serious now.”

Having acquired a mount, mastered the crossbow, and confirmed the effect of blue food, Xu Xin was ready to go on a killing spree.

He took a few oranges out from his backpack and stuffed them into the armor, becoming a walking beast attractor.

He mounted the wolf’s back, pointing in the direction with the most red dots: ”Silver King, go!”

Silver King let out a bold howl, charging swiftly in the indicated direction.

The surrounding small beasts were startled; Xu Xin saw rabbits and foxes scurrying everywhere and birds taking off in alarm.

Xu Xin aimed his crossbow at a rabbit standing still, as if attracted by the blue-grade fruit he carried, watching Xu Xin charging on the wolf with unmoved attention.

Xu Xin pulled the crossbow trigger, and the arrow hit the rabbit accurately.

[Hunted a wild rabbit, earned points: 1.]

He didn’t have Silver King stop but reached out to grab the lifeless rabbit, tossing the rabbit body with the arrow into his backpack to deal with later.

Sitting on the wolf’s back, Xu Xin reloaded his crossbow. Loading directly is more strenuous than using his foot, but it’s still doable with his current strength.

Another arrow flew out from the crossbow.

[Hunted a wild fox, earned points: 3.]

Xu Xin repeated the same technique, once again throwing the fox with the arrow into his backpack.

”Haha!” He felt extremely exhilarated; being on the wolf’s back due to the contract, he didn’t worry about falling off, hunting the small beasts like a mounted archer.

Keke was the one somewhat frightened, crawling from his shoulder onto Silver King’s neck, clutching its wolf fur to avoid being thrown off.

[Hunted a wild rabbit, earned points: 1.]

[Hunted a badger, earned points: 3.]

[Hunted a wild cat, earned points: 3.]

[Hunted a chipmunk, earned points: 1.]

Drawn by the blue-grade food he carried, small beasts stood still or even ran toward him, and Xu Xin accepted them all, bringing them into his collection.

Yet quickly, he lost interest in these small animals. After all his efforts, despite the palpable satisfaction of control, the points earned were not even half of taming the Wolf King.

Xu Xin had Silver King stop and dismantled the bodies of these small animals. To his disappointment, he only extracted animal hides (green), not even getting sinew, let alone anything of blue grade.

”After all, these small animals don’t yield anything worthwhile,” Xu Xin reflected somewhat helplessly.

Images of the map filled Xu Xin’s mind, and he looked toward the northwest, where he had been yesterday.

The number of beasts there had decreased significantly, as most had spread throughout the forest. But some powerful beasts like wild boars were obviously more abundant there than here.

”It’s a good opportunity to check out that building I discovered before.”

Xu Xin first rode Silver King back to the treehouse in a few minutes, storing the freshly hunted meat in the treehouse and listed them on the trading platform, using the hides and bones to craft a set of leather armor.

Because he only had animal hides (green), this was just a green-grade leather armor with no set effects, but it still offered protection against clawing and biting, and most importantly, it made no sound.

There must be some powerful beasts around that peculiar building; Xu Xin decided to stealthily approach, hoping to avoid direct confrontation with those beasts; if he had to hunt them, ambushing with poisoned crossbow arrows would be the best strategy.

He took off his armor, packed it away for future use, and put the blue-grade fruits into his backpack.

Descending from the treehouse, Xu Xin mounted Silver King, Keke stayed off his shoulder, opting to lie on the back of the Wolf King.

”Let’s set off and see what that strange building is all about!”