Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 348: Chapter 279 Preparation Before Danger

Forget it, let’s not think about it for now. At least this strange thing hasn’t happened to the survivors in their District 188 yet.

”You know what, Xu Xin? Zhang Daoguang has already discovered that Ma Hongwei’s name has gone silent in the District 187 channel, and now he’s furious. He even privately messaged us top ten, demanding that I find the culprit at all costs. It cracks me up, asking the culprit to find the culprit, haha!”

”...I was set up by you guys...” Ma Hongwei’s voice sounded a bit helpless and aggrieved.

”...Just don’t blow our cover,” Xu Xin smiled slightly. He was somewhat intrigued by this Zhang Daoguang.

”Don’t worry, there’s no way I’m getting caught!”

”Ma Hongwei, make a few more control panels,” Xu Xin instructed Ma Hongwei. ”And also, fifty green-grade crossbows to start with. Do you have enough materials?” As he spoke, Xu Xin traded him a bunch of materials — fine green-grade wood and beast tendons.

”It’s more than enough,” Ma Hongwei nodded. ”I’ll trade them to you once I finish.”

Ending the call, Xu Xin thought for a moment and placed a control panel next to the screen in the treehouse.

The control panel itself gives a view in all directions. If placed by the window, it might get attacked easily while operating, so it’s better to have it placed further inside.

Swiping open the panel, the scenery around his treehouse as if drone-captured from above appeared on the panel. The heavy crossbows mounted on his treehouse could now be operated through the panel.

However, the crossbow on the western wall was gone, because his crossbow was placed on the first floor, and the newly planted banyan tree had its crown enveloping the west, expanding a new space, causing the original crossbow to disappear.

Xu Xin tried to control a crossbow to fire at a tree a hundred meters away.

Immediately, the mechanical sound of a crossbow firing echoed from outside the treehouse, followed by a loud ”crack” sound. The tree he targeted on the control panel was hit accurately and broke.

”Ying!?” Keke, on the sofa, was startled awake by the sudden noise from outside the treehouse and jumped up from the sofa.

Silver King and Mimi also stood up cautiously. Only Afu turned its head, glanced out the window, and then continued hanging on the windowsill.

Xu Xin calmed them down, then looked back at the control panel.

”This thing is really amazing,” Xu Xin marveled.

Even though he had seen such operations at Qi Xuefei’s place, it was his first time operating it himself, feeling incredibly smooth and truly a tool that provides a strong sense of security.

The attack range of the panel-controlled crossbows isn’t determined by the panel but by the crossbows themselves.

Mounted on his treehouse are various levels of crossbows. Clicking on a green-grade or blue-grade crossbow shows a faint red circle indicating the shooting range, and the blue-grade crossbow’s range is clearly about twice that of the green-grade crossbow.

Apparently, even for crossbows loaded with explosive bolts, the blue-grade is stronger than the green-grade since it can shoot further.

As for blue-grade crossbows, Ma Hongwei can currently only make blue-grade wooden crossbows, which require blue-grade fine wood. This kind of wood needs to be cultivated, and though there are plenty of seeds, not many people use blue-grade soil to plant birch, making blue-grade fine wood very scarce.

But once he develops blue-grade iron or even steel crossbows, things will be different. Although blue-grade iron mines and steel blocks are much harder to obtain than blue-grade fine wood for others, they are abundant for them. With Li Wenxi and him around, these resources are plentiful.

For now, let Ma Hongwei make some green-grade crossbows.

He still had two more in hand, and Xu Xin first traded one each to Ji Chaoyang and Li Wenxi.

Ji Chaoyang immediately agreed to the trade.

Li Wenxi was still outside and couldn’t trade directly, but she immediately sent Xu Xin a voice message.

”Can the control panels be mass-produced now?” Li Wenxi asked with a hint of surprise.

Her voice echoed, indicating she was inside a mine. If not in the mine, she would’ve sent a video instead of a voice message.

Xu Xin informed her not yet; they could only supply explorers for now.

”Round wood? Zhao Xiaochuan seems to have a planting house over there; why not let him plant blue-grade round wood?” Li Wenxi suggested.

”No, pine trees are nearly ten meters tall and can’t be planted indoors, only outdoors. The planting house is useless,” Xu Xin shook his head.

Li Wenxi didn’t have a planting house and only casually planted some vegetables and fruits, so it was normal for her not to realize this.

”Oh right. Then this control panel will have to be treated as high-end weaponry for now.”

”By the way, could you extract more nitre today? We need to start mass-producing explosive bolts. Do you have enough nitre reserves?”

”Worried about reserves? Rest assured, there’s plenty, enough to supply our entire district!” Li Wenxi assured him.

”Supplying the whole district? Won’t you exhaust yourself?” Xu Xin joked.

”Huh? Are you really planning to supply the whole district...?” Li Wenxi’s tone suddenly became deflated, ”No way, that’ll really wear me out...”

”Well... just extract as much as you can today. I’ll send you some manpower this afternoon, and let Lou Fei’Er help you too.”

Xu Xin was, of course, referring to Le Youfang. Le Youfang supposedly didn’t have any special abilities, so Xu Xin wasn’t planning to transplant his treehouse here; sending him to Li Wenxi to mine was just right.