Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

They [Explorers] need to take action now.

Letting the neighboring area jump on their faces for a day without retaliating isn't suitable.

At this time, panic is already starting to spread in the district channel of Area 188.

"Today, more than a dozen people died. What happened? Why are people dying today?"

"Someone must have killed them! They're looting resources from other treehouses!"

"Is it someone from this area? Is it one of you?"

"Stop creating internal conflicts, Boss Xu has already said, people from other areas have come into our area, we should all unite against them now."

"To suppress foreign threats, one must first secure the internal! Who knows if it wasn't you guys doing this!"

"Damn it, I'm not sleeping tonight, I'll see who dares to come! I bought a heavy crossbow from [Explorers], whoever dares to come, I'll shoot them dead!"

"What if it's one of the big shots from the Explorers killing people..."

"Are you crazy? If it weren't for the big shots, you'd be dead last night. They saved your life and then killed you?"

"You're right, then I'm relieved. If it's not the big shots, who am I afraid of? Whoever dares to come, I'll kill them!"

This isn't a good phenomenon, because they still don't know that they are actually surrounded by people from other areas.

They all suspect the killings are done by their own people.

Moreover, they still don't realize that they share fate within the same area, so they don't have the concept of companionship, which could lead to conflicts among them.

Some people in Area 188 definitely have thoughts of robbing other survivors, but under the current circumstances, they can't harm people from their own area.

The ones in Area 188 who can traverse dozens of kilometers to find other treehouses and kill people in someone else's territory are basically all in the Explorer group. Other people, even if they have thoughts, lack the strength; without action from the people in [Explorers], others have no ability to kill other survivors.

But, the Explorers ought to take action now.

Xu Xin opened the [Explorers] group.

After he and Ji Chaoyang posted the messages, the group became quiet. They should all have gone out to explore and look for treehouses.

Xu Xin: "How is your exploration going? Are there treehouses around you?"

The group immediately responded, as everyone has watches; even if they are outside, they can reply instantly.

Qin Yunlong: "I found a treehouse that had already died; it's a pity there's no treehouse core anymore, but I could still dig out the seeds."

Xu Xin: "Did you look for the core as I instructed?"

Qin Yunlong: "Yes, according to your method, the trunk is indeed hollow, but the bottom doesn't have the crystal-like core you described. I observed the soil and found it mixed with some shiny powder, which should be the core, but when the treehouse died, it shattered."

It seems his hypothesis was correct; the treehouse core must be extracted while the treehouse is still alive. Although extracting it will cause the treehouse to die, a dead treehouse doesn't hinder digging for seeds.

When seeing a treehouse that is still alive, to obtain all its resources, one must find a way to enter the treehouse — extract the core — dig the treehouse to obtain seeds.

By following this procedure, you can acquire all the resources.

Wang Lei: "I ran into a brother here from Area 189, this guy is genuine, haha, it's been so long since I talked to someone face-to-face!"

Area 189? It seems Wang Lei should be at a distance from him. He's in the mixed area of 187 and 188, while Wang Lei is in the mixed area of 188 and 189; it's definitely not close.

Wen Guixin: "...Didn't we agree that people from other areas are enemies? Why are you chatting with them?"

Wang Lei: "Don't worry, just talking; if it ever comes down to life and death, I won't hesitate."

Li Wenxi: "Have you all found other people's treehouses? Hmm... I was also looking for treehouses, but on the way, I discovered a mine and didn't continue. I actually don't really want to communicate with people from other regions, I'll rely on you guys."

Oh? Did she discover a new mine?

Just then, Ji Chaoyang spoke up.

He always has a methodical mind.

Ji Chaoyang: "I looked around and summarized some information. Compare it with what you found.

To the north and west of my treehouse are two nearly dead treehouses with owners who died in yesterday's defensive battle; I now have their cores and seeds.

To the south, I found a long-dead dry trunk after searching for a long time, received hints upon touching that it once was a treehouse. Its owner should have died early in previous activities.

Such long-dead and dried-up treehouses can't yield seeds, but fortunately, the protective zone around the treehouse is still there, supposedly the original three-kilometer range.

To the east is a three-story treehouse, the leaves are not yellowing like a dying treehouse, suggesting it's still alive. The person with a three-story treehouse should have comparable strength to you all, so I didn't approach but returned directly.

The other directions are mostly dangerous zones, the treehouse protection areas don't connect; if you step out of the protected zone, mutant vines will emerge from the ground to attack."

Ji Chaoyang's words had a piece of information even Xu Xin heard for the first time.

Long-dead treehouses can't have seeds extracted?

Apparently, there's a time limit for treehouse excavation after they die, and seeds can't be dug out after surpassing certain periods.

It's a pity, he had hoped to transplant all the treehouses of previously deceased survivors over to his side. With an area of more than ten thousand people, his area lost nearly seven thousand, and the neighboring area even more with over nine thousand dead. If feasible, wouldn't he have an abundant supply of parasitic treehouses?

Now it seems he's been thinking too much.

How could this world allow them to gain a parasitic tree house so easily?

To acquire a parasitic tree house, conquest is basically the only path, whether it's within the same area or outside.

However, Ji Chaoyang said there's a three-layer tree house to the east of him...

Xu Xin's west side also has a three-layer tree house; isn't it Lou Fei'Er's tree house?

He suddenly thought that Ji Chaoyang's location should be very close to him.

During the first jungle exploration activity, he, Ji Chaoyang, Li Wenxi, and Qi Xuefei, the four of them encountered mutated creatures guarding copper treasure chests; all of them were mutant vines. At that time, he had speculated that perhaps their proximity led them to encounter similar monsters.

And during the rainy season, Ji Chaoyang clearly mentioned that he could see two light points not too far away.

Could it be... Ji Chaoyang's tree house is located further west from Lou Fei'Er's tree house?

Xu Xin: "The three-layer tree house you found, is it planted by the stream? And does the tree house have a lot of heavy crossbows installed on it?"

Ji Chaoyang: "Exactly, it's planted by the stream. The entire tree canopy of the tree house is filled with heavy crossbows like a porcupine. Why, are you... near this tree house too?"

Xu Xin: "Then it should be correct. The light points you saw during the rainy season, were they to the east?"

Ji Chaoyang: "… Indeed, the two light points were both in the east."

Both were silent.

Both had realized that their proximity was very close, perhaps, they could truly meet.

Zhao Xiaochuan: "Whoa! Are the two bosses from our [Explorers] finally going to meet?"

Li Wenxi: "Really? That close? Speaking of which, I should be quite near Xu Xin too. Are you meeting? Take me along! I want to meet in person too!"

Qi Xuefei: "The light points during the rainy season? Are you talking about the two shining light points? I could see them back then too. Do you guys know what they were?"

Wang Lei: "Light points? What light points? I don't know."

Wen Guixin: "I didn't see anything either, were there any lights other than the lightning that day?"

Li Wenxi: "Can I tell? I guess I can now? Those two light points were actually my and Xu Xin's tree houses. We had installed lightning rods on the tree houses; the rods glowed really brightly after being struck by lightning too often."

Qin Yunlong: "Lightning rods?"

Zhao Xiaochuan: "You actually have lightning rods!"

The Explorers group started discussing the issue of lightning rods, while Xu Xin fell into deep thought.

His deduction wasn't off; he, Ji Chaoyang, Li Wenxi, and Qi Xuefei were indeed very close to each other.

Looking at it this way, this area truly breeds experts.

One must know, merely in their 188th area, there were initially ten thousand survivors, with the distance between each survivor's tree house generally exceeding ten kilometers. The distributed area of ten thousand tree houses amounts to a vast area over a million square kilometers, comparable, in analogy, to an area akin to Inner Mongolia.

Such a staggering size; Xu Xin's homeland is merely 9.6 million square kilometers. On Earth, countries exceeding a million square kilometers total less than thirty.

According to the multi-area mixed rankings, the largest number for an area was the jungle 200th area, suggesting there were totally two hundred jungle areas initially, meaning, they had two million people from the start!

This expanse is incredibly large!

Yet, within such a vast area, experts with special abilities were incredibly close, even basically adjacent.

Not only themselves, but Lou Fei'Er next door was also one of the top five experts of the region.

This made him somewhat skeptical, perhaps, many people nearby had been endowed with special abilities?

Were they randomly assigned, or had people with potential been gathered here?

Judging by Qi Xuefei's experiences and abilities, this capability selection wasn't random.

Coincidence? Xu Xin didn't think so, there must be deeper meaning in this.

Additionally, who is the one granting them stronger abilities than everyone else?

Could it be the mysterious voice that introduces activities each time?

He felt it wasn't.

Because there were some distinct differences between the mysterious voice and the voice during the unlocking of the creator's permissions.

Although both voices were similar synthesized sounds, the mysterious voice carried some emotion, occasionally even teasing, whereas the creator's permission unlocking voice was entirely mechanical, devoid of any emotion.

Xu Xin didn't understand what his special abilities represented.

Thinking over all this didn't lead to any useful conclusions, rather it left his head somewhat muddled.

Nonetheless, he could be certain that there were no weaklings around him.

The four survivors near him, including the seemingly careless Le Youfang, all survived until the tree house defense activity! Dying in the tree house defense battle didn't mean they weren't strong, it was simply because their leader Zhang Daoguang hadn't distributed heart fragments to them.

One must know, if Xu Xin and the others didn't share the fragments, half the Explorers would've died too, but this didn't mean the other Explorers weren't strong.

Shaking his head, he decided not to think about all these uncertainties for now. Xu Xin shared his latest findings with them.