Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Zhao Xiaochuan: "Wenxi, you little beauty, are you really that rich?! How deep are you hiding?!"

Wen Guixin: "There seems to be some deeper connection between Xu Xin and Wenxi~"

Li Wenxi: "No, Sister Gui Xin, don't talk nonsense..."

Qin Yunlong: "Is this black metal the raw material for the lightning rod we talked about just now?"

Li Wenxi: "That's right, I have more materials now, and I can make one for each of you."

Ji Chaoyang: "There's no thunderstorm right now, so we don't need the lightning rod yet. Let's prioritize making the coordinates first."

Zhao Xiaochuan: "So, should we first confirm our locations and solve the coordinate issue, or should we just expand directly?"

Ji Chaoyang: "Do both simultaneously. Xu Xin and Li Wenxi will handle the coordinates. I'm close by, so I can help. Your task is to first explore the surroundings, kill or conquer people in other regions around you. Ensure the area around your safe zone is secure."

Xu Xin also added: "That's right. You don't need to consider what these other people think. If they're willing to work, let them. If not, get rid of them!"

Everyone in the [Explorer] group agreed with Xu Xin's plan.

Ji Chaoyang: "We still need some preparation. I'll explain everything in detail on the regional channel so that those who are afraid can understand our plan. I believe many will respond positively."

Xu Xin: "Alright, you take the lead. It's already dark today, we've all been busy all day and should rest. Starting tomorrow, we'll begin action officially."

Xu Xin exited the [Explorer] group and took a deep breath.

He looked at the time, and it was still early for bed.

He decided to engage in some artistic creation.

After all, to make the coordinates, the first challenge to overcome is the pitiful success rate of alchemy.

He didn't know the success rate for making the coordinates, but it surely wasn't high, so he needed more decorations and enhancement points to add to the alchemy room.

Otherwise, if the coordinate-making failed, the wasted materials would be significant.

That's forty pieces of blue-grade materials!

Even if Li Wenxi is rich, she probably couldn't afford such waste.

Just then, Li Wenxi sent him a video call.

Her expression was a bit worried, and it was the first time Xu Xin saw her like this.

"Xu Xin, do we really have to kill people from other regions? I feel unsuitable for this kind of thing, and my combat abilities aren't as strong as yours. I might not be able to beat others..." Her voice was small, a bit scared of Xu Xin scolding her.

Xu Xin was taken aback, as this was something he hadn't really considered.

Indeed, not everyone likes to fight, and Li Wenxi clearly didn't. Moreover, her abilities related to ores hadn't increased her combat strength significantly.

"Don't worry, just stay near me. I've cleared the tree houses around me, and tomorrow I can come to help you."

There were no enemies around him now, so he originally planned to help other survivors nearby, which perfectly aligned with helping Li Wenxi.

"Really? Ah? Then... then can we meet tomorrow?" Li Wenxi suddenly became nervous and ran a hand through her hair.

Xu Xin was speechless: "We're in video calls all the time, what's the difference in meeting?"

"Of course there's a difference!" Li Wenxi glared at him. Then her expression turned hesitant, as if she wanted to say something.

"What's up?" Xu Xin asked when he saw her hesitant demeanor.

"Um... nothing, oh never mind that. Xu Xin, guess what I discovered today!" Li Wenxi brushed off her previous worries and smiled brightly again.

"Did you find some new ore again?" Xu Xin recalled what she'd mentioned before.

"Hehe, I found a gold mine! Ta-da, gold! Ingots!" Li Wenxi stepped aside to reveal a few shiny gold ingots behind her.

A gold mine?

Gold!

Holy crap!

A real rich woman!

Gold dust is one of the raw materials for his universal alchemy material, which can replace black gold dust.

Moreover, gold has uses beyond that.

Compared to other metals, gold is much more stable, has excellent electrical conductivity, is soft and easy to process. On Earth, the modern electronics industry relies heavily on gold. Some people even buy old electronics to extract the gold and silver from them.

However, the usage of gold is relatively low compared to silver and copper, as gold is too precious.

Moreover, real gold doesn't fear fire; it's heat resistant, can effectively reflect visible light, and guard against cosmic rays. It reflects 98.44% of infrared radiation, making it widely used in the aerospace industry. A gold-plated layer on a satellite or spaceship is just like the atmosphere for humans.

Of course, right now, for Xu Xin, just talking about this function feels a bit exaggerated.

But the electrical conductivity cannot be ignored!

"Could I take a look?" Xu Xin immediately put aside the matter of coordinates, eager to know if gold could be used to make electrical appliances! Could he, therefore, enter the era of electrical appliances?

"Sure, here you go." Li Wenxi sent him a trade request right away.

Xu Xin clicked to agree, and a heavy gold bar immediately appeared in his hand. Even with his current strength, he almost couldn't hold it steady.

[Gold Bar (Blue): A very stable metal block with excellent conductivity, soft texture, and easy to process; it is an essential material for some electrical appliances.]

Electrical appliances!

Xu Xin immediately went to his second-floor crafting room to check the crafting list on his [Basic Electrical Appliance Crafting Table].

However, the results left him very disappointed.

There were no new electrical appliances on the list.

It seems that even to make electrical appliances, copper and silver are still needed.

Gold, although highly conductive, cannot replace these two metals. Furthermore, looking at the name of this crafting table, [Basic Electrical Appliance Crafting Table], it seems the appliances here are quite basic and might not even require gold.

Unexpectedly, instead of finding copper and silver, Li Wenxi found gold first.

"But, if that's the case, gold isn't very useful..." Xu Xin muttered.

He still had the video on, so Li Wenxi could see his expression clearly. Hearing what he said, Li Wenxi naturally realized that gold bars couldn't be used to make electrical appliances.

She was a bit disappointed too, but she quickly snapped out of it.

"Don't be so disappointed! Have you forgotten another use of gold?" Li Wenxi tried to lift a gold bar on the table, but it was too heavy, and she almost dropped it. Nevertheless, she put her hands on her hips and said, "Gold can be circulated as currency!"

Currency?

"We have plans to build a big, big organization, and continuing barter trade at that time wouldn't be very professional! That's when gold bars will have their time to shine! Once we're settled, we can mint our own gold coins!"

What she said indeed made some sense.

Right now, survivors are engaging in the most primitive form of barter trade, with the only way to quantify value being the points in the points mall. But these points are tied to the survivor and can't be exchanged.

Such transactions have many disadvantages and will lead to a highly chaotic market. If an organization of tens of thousands of people were to form in the future, a currency would indeed be needed to measure the value of goods.

However, for them now, it's still somewhat distant.

Who knows when the next event will come, and how many people will die then. Gold in times of chaos is like dirt, after all.

Even though that mysterious voice once said that their survival rate in the second stage would greatly increase, he didn't dare to think about this yet, only waiting to see if things would stabilize completely before considering it.

He did not discourage Li Wenxi's enthusiasm. Not understanding much about economics, he asked, "If we really issue currency in the future, will you be in charge?"

"Ah?" Li Wenxi was taken aback, hurriedly waving her hand, "I don't understand these things; I was just saying it casually. Ah, by then, there will definitely be someone proficient in economics in our organization, let them handle it."

Xu Xin chuckled, it was a long and arduous road indeed.

Nonetheless, with the gold bars, his material pressure for making universal alchemy materials was significantly reduced, which is always a good thing.

"How many steel blocks do you have now? I want to try crafting a coordinate point first."

"Okay, I'll give you the materials!"

Li Wenxi traded all the materials to craft a coordinate point to him in one go.

Ten portions of steel blocks (Blue), ten portions of iron blocks (Blue), and ten portions of black gold blocks (Blue).

"Gold bars can replace black gold blocks, if there's no black gold, you can use gold bars instead." Xu Xin told Li Wenxi.

"Oh, okay, well I don't have that many gold bars either, better use black gold first, got plenty from the last harvest."

"Alright then, I'll give it a try."

"Alright. Uh, Xu Xin, are you really coming tomorrow? I should be just to your east."

"Did you forget about my Silver King? I probably won't even need half an hour to get to you."

"Really? That's a relief then! Hehe, see you tomorrow!"

After getting materials from Li Wenxi, Xu Xin went to the alchemy room.

First, he crafted ten portions of universal alchemy materials, then clicked on [Coordinate] to check the success rate of crafting.

[About to craft coordinate, success rate 56% (50%+6%), continue?]

Indeed, the basic success rate remained at 50%. The decoration boost points allocated to the coordinates were 60%, which only increased the success rate by 6%.

It seems better not to craft the coordinate just yet, and to improve the alchemy success rate first.

At this moment, Ji Chaoyang suddenly called him via voice chat.

The first thing he said made Xu Xin raise an eyebrow.

"Xu Xin, tomorrow, you, me, Li Wenxi, and Qi Xuefei, let's all meet up. The two of them aren't strong in combat, we can help them deal with any potential threats nearby."