CHAPTER 192: CHAPTER 181: THE BROKEN TREEHOUSE

Xu Xin called Afu in as well, and the man and two beasts quickly finished the meal.

On the first floor, Silver King and Mimi had mostly dealt with that pile of vines, scattering many shriveled vines around, while the ground held four barrels of mutant vine juice.

Seeing them handle the last vine, Xu Xin collected the mutant vine juice, totaling over four hundred kilograms, enough for a while.

"You two did well. Do you want to rest for a bit, or shall we set off now?"

"Aow!" Silver King barked, indicating it was full of energy and didn’t need a rest. Mimi also paced to its side, clearly eager to head out.

With the four beasts, he approached the treehouse. Love had already returned; it seemed she had roughly dealt with the cave there.

Next time he visits the cave, he’ll have to put some waterproof measures in place, or it would be problematic if it gets flooded by rain. The cave where Love lives as well.

Typically, pangolins don’t have fixed dwellings, changing places every two or three days, so Love likely didn’t have much awareness of waterproofing. But actually, soil handling water is usually fine; unless there’s a super-heavy downpour, moisture is usually absorbed by the earth.

Since Love still needs to care for two little ones, Xu Xin didn’t take her, plus her slow speed would hinder them.

He initially planned to have Love dig another hole near the treehouse for planting the red mist flower underground, creating their "sauna room." But after getting a steel frame structure, he dismissed the idea of underground construction.

It’s better to build a small room directly on the ground; there’s no worry about rainwater entering.

These plans would wait until his return; right now, he was eager to find other people’s treehouses!

Climbing onto the back of the wolf, Keke followed by climbing onto Silver King’s nape. Mimi paced back and forth beside them, while Afu lay atop her. All were ready to head out.

Xu Xin stroked Keke’s tail, pointing eastward, saying, "Let’s go that way! Don’t run too fast; I want to observe things carefully."

"Awoooo—" Silver King let out a habitual long howl and started running.

They quickly ran out of the resource zone, entering a place Xu Xin hadn’t explored before.

Using his identification ability, he knew there wasn’t a resource zone here, so he hadn’t explored this area before.

Usually, his activities were between the treehouse and the Northwest Hilly Resource Zone, only visiting the east when he acquired a copper chest during the [Jungle Exploration Activity].

But this place matched his expectation, very barren, likely due to the second phase. There wasn’t even a single fruit tree, just large areas of white-grade poplars accented occasionally by green glows, akin to the point of origin’s aridity.

Despite going this far, neither his identification ability found any usable resources on the ground, nor his alchemy ability detected any alchemical materials.

...This place was far too barren.

Xu Xin’s current treehouse protection range spanned nine kilometers, and now he’d reached roughly the edge of the pre-upgrade protection zone, around six kilometers.

A hundred meters ahead appeared a small hill of about ten to twenty meters; Xu Xin had Silver King run past it while he dismounted the wolf.

Honestly, he had an inexplicable fear of these small hills now, always suspecting they were monster disguises rising in the jungle.

"Keke, is there danger on this hill?"

"Ying?" Keke tilted its little head, indicating it hadn’t sensed any danger.

Indeed, if there were danger, it would first alert him itself.

Xu Xin climbed to the top of the hill in a few steps, with Mimi effortlessly leaping up alongside him.

He gazed eastward, seeing only dense jungle as far as the eye could see.

His identification ability had a range of one kilometer, and he didn’t spot any resource glows within this range, indicating there was nothing worthwhile to explore nearby.

"Is that...?"

In the east-southeast direction, about six or seven kilometers away, clearly within his current eyesight’s distinguishing distance, Xu Xin saw a special tree taller than others around it—its dense foliage unmistakably that of a banyan.

Found it, another survivor’s treehouse!

By the height, it should be a two-story treehouse; its crown was much smaller than his own, suggesting it was a small, single-layer treehouse with an added layer from underground activities.

Yes, an ordinary survivor’s treehouse.

"Can you see that tree similar to our treehouse?" Xu Xin asked Mimi.

Mimi’s pupils narrowed into a vertical line, nodding and lightly mewing in response.

This surprised Xu Xin.

Ordinary feline animals, though their visual range surpasses humans and vision sensitivity multiples that of humans, are usually nearsighted, seeing close objects clearly while distant ones are blurry.

He hadn’t expected Mimi to see things seven or eight kilometers away.

This mutation, could it enhance vision too? He increasingly couldn’t comprehend the direction of this mutation.

It seemed that as long as one’s mind didn’t lose will, this mutation entirely progressed favorably; it could perhaps truly be considered evolution.

Xu Xin and Mimi came down the hill, mounted the wolf, and pointed in the direction of the treehouse, saying, "Silver King, head in that direction."

Silver King responded with a howl and started running again.

At this phase, there were no wild beasts or mutant creatures present around, allowing man and four beasts to advance unhindered.

One or two minutes later, Silver King had almost reached nine kilometers or so, about to cross the boundary line.

"Silver King, slow down!" Xu Xin remained very cautious.

According to the distance, he should have already stepped into the protection zone of the treehouse they just saw. The current location should be the overlapping part of his treehouse protection zone and that of the other treehouse.

After taking a few more steps forward, a sudden voice rang out.

[Reminder, do not exceed nine kilometers from your treehouse, or else something you don’t want to see will happen.]

"Stop!" Xu Xin called Silver King and Mimi to a halt.

"Eh?" Keke turned his head, not understanding why Xu Xin stopped.

Again, this alert sound. What does it mean? Could other people’s treehouses not protect him?

However, judging by Keke’s attitude, there didn’t seem to be any danger, but Xu Xin still thought it best to be cautious. He pointed to the forest ahead and said to Mimi, "Mimi, quickly take a round through the front forest, but be careful."

Mimi was not afraid of those things emerging from the ground.

Mimi instantly sprang forward, with one leap she was outside the protection zone, then glanced back at Xu Xin before leisurely strolling around.

Xu Xin: "..."

He felt a sense of disdain directed at him.

"Let’s go." Xu Xin said resignedly to Silver King.

He suddenly realized that out of the entire group, he seemed to be the only one unable to detect the presence of underground mutated creatures.

Silver King, Mimi, and Afu are all mutated beasts that should be able to sense whether there are any mutated creatures around, and Keke, being quite special, could too. Only he could only see if there were enemy units above ground on the map.

But it’s all right, they are his contract beasts, and their abilities are his abilities too. It seems he won’t need to be so cautious in the future, as they will naturally alert him.

Silver King stepped out of the protection zone.

[Exiting the protection zone, the survivor will no longer be under the treehouse’s protection, it is recommended to return immediately!]

This warning is really intimidating. If someone unaware of the facts hears it, they would truly dare not proceed forward.

The group of one person and four beasts continued towards that treehouse.

"It’s really desolate around here..." Xu Xin remarked with some lament.

He indeed had good luck, finding a place with mountains, water, and a resource zone. Although there were more fierce beasts when the beasts awakened, and a giant anaconda in the lake, at least nothing was lacking around.

Establishing a treehouse in a place like this in the early days would be very challenging.

Proceeding forward, a patch of green appeared before Xu Xin.

It wasn’t the green of a resource zone, but a small patch of green, the color emitted by the treehouse, and a small patch of green-grade trees planted near the treehouse by a survivor.

These green-grade trees must have been planted after the soil was fertilized.

Other than that, the surroundings remained desolate.

Xu Xin reached the base of the treehouse quickly.

Looking at this treehouse, he frowned.

What’s going on? Why is the tree trunk so badly damaged?

Although the treetop seemed flourishing, the leaves had already started to yellow, and the trunk appeared as though slashed numerous times, having no treehouse armor installed, it was covered in scratches several centimeters deep, and even some piercing holes.

Clearly, this was a treehouse that endured vine assaults during yesterday’s activities.

This treehouse should be nearing its demise.

His hearing was very acute now, capable of catching the slightest sounds around, but the whole treehouse was exceedingly quiet, as if no one was present within.

Being so close to his treehouse, the owner should belong to the same region as him.

Could it be the treehouse of those who died during the day ignoring warnings, and therefore got attacked at night like this?

Xu Xin came to the base of the treehouse and touched the trunk.

[A dying low treehouse (Green): A broken treehouse that lost its owner. A treehouse without an owner will wither and die within 24 hours. Remaining survival time of this treehouse: 5 hours 21 minutes.]

As expected, there’s no one in the treehouse, its owner already perished!

Moreover, the timing is off!

Based on the timing calculation, the owner of this treehouse perished during last night’s vine and ant swarm attack.

...Something’s not right?

In their region, some people died during the day ignoring warnings, but after Xu Xin and others distributed the heart fragments last night, the region channel’s population count never decreased.

Xu Xin double-checked the region channel’s population count, 3016 people, everything was correct, it was indeed this many people last night.

What’s going on? Is the owner of this treehouse not from their region?