Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 72: Chapter 72: The Poisoned Tiger

The Blood Patterned Cat had its neck bitten off by the tiger, and Xu Xin received a kill notification.

From a distance, that tiger was seen tearing into the yellow and white wild cat covered in blood-red patterns.

”My beast skin...” Xu Xin felt a bit heartbroken. The wild cat meat wasn’t of much concern, but the beast skin, once torn, would become a broken resource, costing him a blue-grade resource.

The tiger was still feasting with no intention of stopping. Even from a distance, the air was filled with a heavy smell of blood, making the Silver King beside him restless.

After all, this mutated meat was an irresistible temptation for beasts.

”But didn’t it die?” Xu Xin, looking at the still vigorous tiger, frowned, ”Does it have to be cut out with a boning knife for it to have that property? No way, even if not cut out, it’s still mutated beast meat.”

”Ying?” Keke suddenly made a puzzled sound.

”What’s up, Keke?”

Keke pointed at the tiger and then made a limp motion on Xu Xin’s shoulder.

”You’re saying this tiger is going to die?”

”Ying.” Keke nodded its little head.

Xu Xin looked over but didn’t see anything unusual about the tiger; it was still eating.

Just when Xu Xin thought Keke’s intuition was off, suddenly, the tiger stopped its eating motions.

No struggle, no roar, no frenzy, it just staggered forward a few steps before collapsing to the ground, motionless.

[Jungle Tiger defeated, score earned: 200 points.]

Wonderful! The tiger’s points were counted towards him!

However, these points were much less than those for mutated beasts, even though it took only two rounds to bite the Blood Patterned Cat to death.

It seems that the mysterious voice wants them to deal with mutated creatures as the main enemies.

Of course, if Xu Xin hadn’t exhausted the Blood Patterned Cat to the point of fatigue and caused it some injuries, the tiger wouldn’t have had such an easy time. Had the Blood Patterned Cat struck out before dying, it could’ve shattered one of the tiger’s legs into pieces.

After all, its mutated claws could easily shred a tree trunk into several parts.

Xu Xin looked at Keke curiously, ”Keke, how did you know it was going to die?”

”Ying?” Keke kept tilting its little head at Xu Xin.

Seems like asking won’t get much out of this little guy. It’s such a mystery.

Xu Xin felt that the only thing he could completely trust now was the silly wolf beside him, eyeing the wild cat’s carcass with drooling interest, seemingly forgetting it was once a Wolf King.

”You better not eat it, or you’ll end up like that tiger, dead on the spot!” Xu Xin warned the Silver King, feeling that if he didn’t speak up, it would charge forward to gnaw on it.

”Awoo...” The Silver King lay down, covering its nose and eyes with its front paws.

What are you, a silly dog? If you can’t see it or smell it, you don’t want to eat it, huh.

Xu Xin tossed some meat to the Silver King to satisfy its craving, then walked up to the corpses of the cat and tiger.

”Being the fisherman sure is rewarding, this mutated wild cat sure helped me out with a major enemy.” Xu Xin checked the map, noticing that the three bright red dots near the altar had reduced to two.

Unfortunately, the materials on the tiger were wasted.

Xu Xin took out the boning knife and began dissecting the remains of the Blood Patterned Cat.

He obtained: [Shattered Mutated Wild Cat Skin (Green), Mutated Wild Cat Tendons (Blue), Mutated Wild Cat Bones (Blue), Contaminated Mutated Wild Cat Meat (Gray) *30kg, Mutated Wild Cat Paws (Blue) *2]

The wild cat skin was downgraded to green because it was torn, and the wild cat meat was reduced to thirty kilograms after consumption.

But these didn’t matter much. Xu Xin focused on the mutated wild cat’s paws.

[Mutated Wild Cat’s Paws (Blue): Material for crafting weapons, can replace metal pieces, making the crafted weapons extremely tough and sharp!]

As expected, special materials, similar function to rabbit ears, only used for crafting enhanced weapons.

Xu Xin was slightly disappointed; he actually wanted to craft a set of enhanced armor.

The blue-grade iron armor wasn’t very effective against these mutated beasts. If he could create armor as hard as his spear, capable of withstanding mutated beast attacks, it would greatly enhance his survival.

Storing the materials, Xu Xin proceeded to the tiger’s corpse. Even though the tiger’s material might be unusable, he still wanted to try.

After cutting up the tiger with the boning knife for a while with no notification of obtaining anything, the tiger’s meat revealed an ominous purplish-red color after being cut, clearly poisonous.

Could this poisonous meat attract beasts?

Xu Xin gestured to the poisonous meat sliced on the ground and asked Keke, ”Keke, do you want to eat this meat?”

”Ying.” Keke shook its little head and even covered its nose with its paws, backing away a few steps as if the meat emitted an unpleasant odor.

”Looks like no usable materials can be obtained from beasts poisoned like this. These are just ordinary flesh and skin.” Although he’d anticipated the outcome, he still felt regret as this was a tiger, possibly holding materials he never obtained before.

Standing up, Xu Xin mounted the Silver King, while Keke climbed up onto the Silver King’s back.

”Let’s go hunting first. There’s still half a day left, don’t want to waste it.”

Currently, the altar still had two pillars that weren’t entirely dyed red, the Pig Statue Pillar and the Wolf Statue Pillar, but Xu Xin didn’t plan on hunting these mutated beasts today.

Both the Pig Statue and Wolf Statue were much larger than the cats and rabbits. Summoning them was out of the question until he got stronger.

Most importantly, after the Blood Pattern Giant incident, Xu Xin felt unsafe around the hills near this resource area. If unnecessary, he didn’t want to stay here anymore.

Before leaving, he rode the wolf through the resource area, hunting while searching for blue resources in this area. To his surprise, he found a lot, even discovering new resources.

”Is this... an apricot tree?” Xu Xin’s eyes lit up as he gazed at the apricot tree glowing blue, quickly picking a ripe apricot.

[Apricot (Blue): Edible fruit, tastes sweet and sour, gradually restores stamina within an hour of consumption.]

Oh wow, a stamina-restoring fruit!

Eating red berries grants night vision, oranges restore spiritual power, and this apricot gradually restores stamina! If resources are abundant, one might never need to rest!

Impressive!

It’s a pity that the soil beneath this apricot tree wasn’t [Fertile Soil]. Xu Xin hadn’t seen any fertile soil in this resource area yet.

Quickly picking all the apricots from the small apricot tree, Xu Xin ended up with a total of 120 fruits.

”So many! I wonder how often these apricots ripen; can’t tell since it’s not planted by me.” Xu Xin was tempted to transplant this apricot tree to his resource area, but his shovel couldn’t transplant.

Wait, does the iron shovel at blue level have a transplanting function?

Iron tools don’t require blueprint unlocking, just like his grill and weapon crafting station, which could be made even before acquiring the gold chest. Xu Xin assumed Li Wenxi had already swapped all tools for iron ones.

So Xu Xin sent a message to Li Wenxi: ”Have you made an iron shovel? Can the iron shovel transplant plants?”

Li Wenxi didn’t reply immediately, probably because she’s still hunting.

”Yingying!”

Keke, who was dozing on Xu Xin’s shoulder, became restless, calling out and licking his cheek in a placating way.

”What, you want to eat?” Xu Xin waved the apricot in his hand.

”Ying!” Keke eagerly nodded its little head, even the Silver King sat down with its tongue out, watching Xu Xin.

Xu Xin shook his head, placed one in Keke’s lap, and tossed another to the Silver King, who caught the apricot in its mouth perfectly.

Petting Keke, who was blissfully nibbling the apricot, Xu Xin also tossed a blue-grade apricot into his mouth.

A gentle warmth started flowing from his heart to his limbs and back, and although it didn’t expel the fatigue from his body, it left Xu Xin feeling like he was lounging on a soft sofa, with a tangible sense of stamina recovering bit by bit.

This stamina recovery speed seemed perfectly offset by the energy used for jogging.

”If I eat an apricot before setting out, as long as I don’t engage in strenuous activities, my stamina and condition could probably stay at their peak.”

Refreshed by the apricot, Xu Xin resumed hunting.