Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 196: Chapter 185: Treehouse with Survivors

According to Xu Xin’s estimate, the distance between his treehouse and the previous one is about eleven or twelve kilometers.

Although the initial planting locations for each survivor’s treehouse might have slight deviations, they are mostly near the starting point, so the distance between adjacent treehouses should generally be between ten to fifteen kilometers.

Therefore, if the protection zone range of the two treehouses is both six kilometers in radius, the protection zones might connect.

His protection zone range is nine kilometers, which poses no problem; even if the protection zone of the nearby treehouses is only three kilometers in radius, it should still be no issue.

Still, caution is necessary.

The protection zones are all circular, so even if the protection zones touch, there will still be areas not covered by either zone, belonging to dangerous areas. These areas are places ordinary survivors should not tread.

However, if he is careful, it shouldn’t be a problem. He even considers repeatedly venturing into such places to gather vine sap.

Proceeding in the direction previously determined, he soon reaches the edge of the treehouse protection zone.

Not rushing to step out of the protection zone, he finds a relatively high spot, climbs up, and looks in the direction imprinted in his memory. Sure enough, there is another fig tree there, identical to the previous one.

It’s a low two-story small treehouse, belonging to an ordinary survivor who has explored the underground city.

Encountering this type of treehouse is quite normal.

Single-story treehouses are even lower than the nearby poplars; even with his super sight yesterday, he wouldn’t have seen them as they were hidden in the jungle. The ones he can see are certainly at least two stories tall.

Calculating the distance and ensuring stepping out of his protection zone indeed leads him into that treehouse’s protection zone, Xu Xin confidently mounts the wolf and heads toward that treehouse.

This journey’s resources are still extremely scarce, with no new alchemical materials discovered. It’s understandable; what advanced resources could be planted near low, small treehouses?

Silver King speeds forward, weaving through the dense jungle, while Mimi follows at the same pace behind, and Afu lies on Mimi’s back. Its flying speed cannot match Silver King Mimi’s running speed, so it is merely carried along.

Keke has long become fully accustomed to Silver King’s speed and no longer clings to Silver King’s neck fur, immobilized by fear once they start running. Instead, she snuggles into Xu Xin’s embrace, her little head twisting as she takes in the fleeting scenery on either side.

Very quickly, Xu Xin arrives beneath this treehouse.

”... Another broken treehouse?”

This treehouse is identical to the previous one, its trunk entirely dilapidated, its leaves slightly yellowing, obviously in a state nearing death.

Xu Xin reaches out to touch the broken treehouse.

[Near-death low, small treehouse (green): A broken treehouse that lost its owner. Without its owner, the treehouse will wither and die in 24 hours. Remaining survival time: 2 hours and 43 minutes.]

From the time remaining, the treehouse’s owner was another survivor who died under last night’s blood patterned vine and ant swarm attack.

”It seems Ji Chaoyang’s guess was right. Our area likely overlaps with neighboring areas.”

These deceased survivors must be from other regions.

Perhaps it’s due to this region’s failure to kill the mutant plants’ heart, or the person who killed the heart is unwilling to share resources. In any case, these survivors failed to stop the attack of the blood patterned vine and naturally didn’t have the ability to fend off the treehouse-eating ants. In the end, their tree and lives met an untimely demise.

Xu Xin carries Keke into the dilapidated treehouse and chisels open the floor at the center of the first level. Sure enough, there’s a treehouse core buried halfway in the soil, the other half emitting a soft white glow.

”Keke, help me take that core up.”

”Ee!” Keke skillfully jumps into the vacuum tree cavity in the trunk, digs out the core, clamps it in her mouth, and jumps repeatedly left and right before emerging.

Patting Keke’s little head, Xu Xin takes the soft white Treasure Pearl, just like last time, which can upgrade blue material to purple level material from the [Low Small Treehouse Core]. This way, he effectively possesses two portions of basic purple material, which will offer more options upon returning.

Next is the extraction of treehouse seeds.

The whole treehouse has begun to wither and collapse, and after a rapid sweep of the first and second floors, confirming no valuable items remain, Xu Xin quickly descends from the treehouse. Within tens of seconds, the low treehouse, deprived of its core, is reduced to merely half its trunk.

Xu Xin begins digging under the treehouse with a shovel.

He is armed with a blue-grade shovel, yet still requires over half an hour to excavate the seed.

Because this treehouse has lost its owner, he can proceed in this manner. If any survivors were present within, forcibly extracting the treehouse seed would be impossible. No one would allow a person to dig for half an hour under their treehouse.

Therefore, plundering another’s treehouse is not an easy task. It generally requires the owner’s consent or bringing about the owner’s demise. A treehouse is indeed a fortress easy to defend and hard to assault for survivors.

Finally, Xu Xin digs out the treehouse and retrieves the second [Parasitic Treehouse Seed] from the pit.

Although he doesn’t know how to utilize these surplus parasitic treehouses for now, having more is certainly better than less.

Riding Silver King, Xu Xin returns to his protection zone’s edge and begins searching along the perimeter. Whenever he finds especially high hills or peaks, he climbs to observe if there are other treehouses in the vicinity.

At last, to the south of his treehouse, he spots another treehouse, not far away.

”Silver King, over there!” Xu Xin points the way, and Silver King dashes in that direction.

Mimi is showing signs of fatigue by now; endurance has never been its strong suit.

”After we get there, let’s take a break.”

Soon, Xu Xin got close to the treehouse.

”Stop!” Xu Xin commanded Silver King to halt about a hundred meters from the treehouse.

Mimi flopped onto the ground to rest; the long run was exhausting for it.

”Oh!” Keke suddenly pointed at the treehouse less than a hundred meters ahead and called out.

Xu Xin understood what Keke meant.

With his extraordinary hearing at the moment, he could hear human voices coming from the treehouse.

It was the first time he encountered real humans in this world, survivors from the same realm. That was why he stopped Silver King, intending not to alarm the other party, but to first listen to what they were talking about, to see if this survivor was from their region or from other areas.

”I’ve finally decided to put all the decorative enhancements on the planting house! Damn it, starving for a whole day and night, I never want to be hungry again. From today onwards, I want to be self-sufficient in food!”

”Huh? Kitchen? What’s the use of adding a kitchen?”

”Oh oh, that works, huh? The meals made are more filling? Impressive.”

”My fruits are about to ripen soon, finally, I can have a proper meal.”

”You guys haven’t gone out either, right? There’s nothing below except trees. Why go down? Too weak from hunger to go outdoors.”

It sounded like a monologue, but Xu Xin knew he was using voice input to talk in a regional channel or group. Xu Xin glanced at their regional channel; it was lively, but he didn’t find what the person had said.

”Ah? Is it possible to meet other survivors now?”

”Oh right, let me tell you guys, there’s probably a big shot near my treehouse!”

”During the previous storm season, there was always a glaring light point shining from the north!”

... Is this person talking about me?

”How would I know what the light point is, but the tornado over there disappeared suddenly before the sky even got dark! It must’ve been cleared by the big shot over there!”

”Really! Why would I lie? At first, I thought he must be on the leaderboard and wanted to ally, but during the storm season leaderboard, there wasn’t anyone from our area...”

No one from their region?

It seemed that this survivor wasn’t from the Jungle 188 region. You should know, during that leaderboard, first and second were him and Ji Chaoyang; their region was buzzing with excitement for quite a while.

Xu Xin squinted, pulled out the crossbow, already loaded with a blast arrow.

Since he’s not from the same region, he’s an enemy who might become a life and death adversary in the future. Should I just eliminate him and seize his treehouse?

After pondering for a moment, Xu Xin decided to abandon this idea.

Because he didn’t know whether killing another survivor would trigger a leaderboard or ranking list, having his name displayed would be a loss. After all, not many realize that there exists life and death conflicts between regions; their region still wants peaceful development for now.

Xu Xin observed the treehouse, confirmed that there was no hidden crossbow around, nor armor on the treehouse trunk. Just an ordinary survivor; it’s unclear how he survived last night’s activity.

Rather, perhaps engage in friendly communication? After all, they’re neighbors.

Xu Xin instructed Silver King Mimi and Afu to stay in the jungle. These three creatures with blood patterns are visibly mutant beasts, each bigger than the next, even the smallest Afu with a wingspan over two meters. Bringing them along would cause excessive caution from the other side.

He only took Keke and approached the treehouse, shouting, ”Excuse me, is anyone there?”

A low exclamation instantly came from the treehouse, ”Damn! Damn!!”

”People outside my treehouse!!”

”Holy... must be a big shot... who else would dare to come out at this time...”

The last sentence was not input via regional channel voice but a mutter.

Luckily, this guy had the guts and didn’t hide inside the treehouse but cautiously approached the window. His movements were careful, but Xu Xin, with his extraordinary hearing, could clearly track his actions.

Then, half a head peeked out from the window corner on the first floor, locking eyes with Xu Xin.

The other person was startled and shrunk back.

”Hello, I mean no harm. I just felt the protection zone might have expanded, so perhaps we could find other survivors, which is why I came to take a look.” Xu Xin tried to appear friendly.

He genuinely wanted to learn about the situation in other regions outside their 188 region.

”Oh! Oh oh!” Keke also made an unusually cute sound to help Xu Xin attract the person above.