CHAPTER 288: CHAPTER 248: THE FAMILIAR SCENE BEHIND THE WATERFALL_2

Hmm, the entrance to the salt mine will close as the walls crack, so it’s probably not a good idea...

After glancing again at the smooth, unmarked iron wall, Xu Xin turned back and said, "I feel it’s not wise to stay here too long, or we might get trapped inside again like before. We should hurry and get out to collect the resources outside."

"Alright."

The two humans and two beasts jumped out through the open door, into the lake, and swam back to the grassy field by the lakeshore.

"Should we take all of these things with us?" Xu Xin surveyed the flowers and trees and asked.

"Seems like it," Ji Chaoyang replied with a slight smile, "This place is truly a treasure land."

First, there’s the banyan tree.

Because the banyan tree is too large and heavy, even with the backpack’s weight reduction ability, they still couldn’t carry it, so they had to cut it down.

The two first checked again to see if there was anything unusual about these two banyan trees, and Xu Xin even had Keke climb up to check the inside of the tree crown.

"Squeak!" After a few dozen seconds, Keke jumped down from the banyan tree into Xu Xin’s arms.

It seems this banyan tree needs to be planted beside the treehouse to reveal its special features.

"Crack!"

The massive banyan tree fell with a crash as it was cut down, becoming blue-grade lumber in Xu Xin’s backpack, without any special wood, which was consistent with the treehouse. Previously, the trunks of the treehouse that Xu Xin had cut down also only yielded ordinary lumber of the same grade.

However, a banyan tree is still larger than a poplar, which yields only four to five pieces of lumber, while a banyan tree provides as much as ten pieces of blue-grade lumber, double the amount.

Xu Xin took out a shovel and dug up the banyan tree seeds.

[Banyan Tree Seeds: Plant in fertile soil (blue) or higher-grade soil to grow into a banyan tree. This tree possesses mystical powers, so remember to plant it within a hundred-meter radius of a treehouse!]

The banyan tree can only be planted in blue-grade soil?

This is different from treehouse seeds, which can be planted in soil of all grades, though the type of tree that grows varies.

Furthermore, treehouse seeds can utilize the soil’s strongest effect, growing a green treehouse in white-grade soil with a 100% chance, a blue-grade treehouse in green-grade soil, while in blue-grade soil, they grow into purple-grade, initially three-story, tall treehouses.

But these banyan tree seeds seem to be just ordinary seeds. In blue-grade soil, they are likely to grow into blue-grade banyan trees, as evidenced by these two banyan trees, which grew in blue-grade soil and both turned into blue-grade banyan trees.

After collecting the seeds, Xu Xin decided to dive down into the lake and haul up all the blue-grade and green-grade crystals.

"You go ahead; I’ll gather these flowers," Ji Chaoyang nodded to Xu Xin.

"Alright."

Xu Xin went to the lakeside and ate a piece of seagrass that enabled underwater breathing to quickly gather resources, then dove into the water.

Gradually, he descended to the bottom of the lake.

Just as he was about to collect the remaining crystals, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly spotted a large patch of blood-red color.

Blood-red?

His expression tightened as he quickly turned his head to look in the direction of the blood-red color.

The scene that entered his view shocked him, and he gasped underwater, planning to swim back up immediately!

In the dimly lit area at the bottom of the river entrance, dozens of large piranhas they had encountered before were swimming around. Some of the fish had noticed Xu Xin, staring at him with blood-red eyes and slightly parted mouths, revealing their chaotic and dense sharp teeth!

This was something he couldn’t handle; if it were just one-on-one, it might be doable, but looking at forty to fifty of them at a glance, facing a piranha shoal, and such large piranhas, it’s a recipe for disaster!

However, he managed to stabilize his posture.

Rushing to the surface too quickly could affect his body, so he hesitated for a moment.

Because of this hesitation, he suddenly noticed that these one-meter-long blood-red piranhas seemed unwilling to enter this lake!

In the lake, fish of various colors were swimming around, many had grown quite large, yet the piranhas didn’t come in to hunt, staying only in the area with dim white light and staring in this direction.

...Are these piranhas afraid of the white light?

Xu Xin didn’t swim up but continued picking up crystals from the lakebed while observing the piranhas’ behavior.

The lakebed not only had crystals but also some stones, with plenty of blue-grade ones. Although Li Wenxi had many, he adhered to the principle of not wasting and packed all the green-grade, blue-grade crystals, and blue-grade stones into his backpack.

Adding those he had collected earlier, the lakebed yielded one purple-grade crystal, twenty-four blue-grade crystals, and several blue-grade stones.

There were at least a hundred green-grade crystals, which Xu Xin packed entirely into his backpack. Although he didn’t need them now, others in [Explorer] and in Region 188 did! Items like these were never enough.

Until he had collected all the resources, the piranhas had all taken notice of him.

All the fish slightly parted their mouths, revealing full sets of sharp teeth, staring at him with blood-red eyes.

This scene was truly a bit creepy.

Yet, they still didn’t approach.

This time, a piranha quickly swam forward several meters and then hurriedly retreated. It seemed afraid of something or perhaps suffered some injury, its retreating speed several times faster than its forward movement.

The habit of the piranha shoal is that as long as one fish takes the lead, all the fish will follow suit. So, Xu Xin immediately witnessed a somewhat comical sight.

All the fish followed the first one, swimming a few meters forward, then collectively detected something unusual and swiftly swam back.

But with the shoal’s large numbers and each fish’s size, the retreating fish inevitably bumped into the ones swimming forward, unable to promptly return to the dimly lit area.

Suddenly, chaos erupted among the piranhas, raising underwater silt, making the entire deep-water zone murky and unclear.

Xu Xin wasn’t in too much of a hurry to go up; he wanted to see what the result of this farce would be.

The bottom gradually calmed down, and the murky water slowly cleared.

Originally, the piranha shoal had already swum to a far-off place, afraid to approach this area but still staring intently at Xu Xin.

And on the lakebed covered by the white light, there lay eight piranhas motionless, seemingly... dead?

Really?

Did exposure to the white light just kill them?

What on earth is that broken Treasure Pearl fragment?