Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

This small knife is pitch-black throughout, but the blade is blood-red, as if dyed by fresh blood.

Xu Xin held the knife in his hand; it was heavy.

This knife was made of some kind of metal; he didn’t know what metal it was, but it was undeniably heavy—despite being about the same size as a boning knife, its weight felt at least five times that to Xu Xin.

This metal must be high-grade.

If he had the ability to restore tools to raw materials, he really wanted to break down this knife into a block of metal so he could unlock the blueprint for making this metal.

Wishful thinking, this knife undoubtedly has to be returned; at least for now, he didn’t even have the courage to face a tiger, let alone this so-called "god."

Speaking of which, do tigers count as big cats? They should be one of the sacrifices, right? The few tigers circling nearby didn’t approach the altar, probably because they feared it.

Not thinking too much now, it’s time to hunt wild boars, wolves, cats, and rabbits!

Xu Xin suddenly remembered the wild boar meat he hunted, left in the wild, wondering if it had been scavenged.

Why not bring it directly to the altar; although it’s not a wild boar tusk, it could still progress the wild boar stone pillar somewhat.

Xu Xin walked out of the altar’s range; Silver King was waiting at the edge. Xu Xin couldn’t help but glance at his wolf fangs.

Speaking of which, hunting its kind while riding on Silver King seemed a bit inappropriate.

In just a few minutes, Xu Xin rode Silver King back and forth. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

He placed the pork from three wild boars on the offering table; the previous scene occurred again, and this time Xu Xin observed the changes on the side of the stone table, finding that even if red patterns flowed onto the table surface, the red on the side did not dim even slightly.

Soon, the pork on the offering table also disappeared. Xu Xin looked at the stone pillar of the wild boar statue, and this time the increase was quite significant, rising about half a meter.

The stone pillar of the wild boar statue emitted an overwhelming heat, feeling like a stone-pillar-shaped furnace.

"I wonder what will happen when the entire stone pillar is soaked in red." Xu Xin muttered to himself, walked out of the altar, mounted Silver King who was waiting by the altar, and continued hunting.

He observed the map, bypassing those bright red dots, roaming the periphery of this resources-rich area within the hills.

Another rabbit sprang out from the grass, Xu Xin, quick-eyed and deft, dispatched it with a crossbow bolt.

Holding the rabbit by its two ears, Xu Xin pulled out the black and red knife.

"How is this supposed to be used?"

Xu Xin thought for a moment; the special thing on the rabbit was its ears, so he sliced at the rabbit’s ear base.

The knife didn’t appear very sharp but effortlessly and smoothly severed the rabbit ears from the body, inexplicably causing no bleeding.

[Rabbit Ear Offering (Green): One of the primary offerings to "gods."]

A rabbit could yield two rabbit ear offerings.

Xu Xin examined the cut below the rabbit ears, discovering it had already healed.

He sliced the rabbit’s body a few more times with the specialist knife, realizing that this knife couldn’t damage other parts, or even make a cut.

"It seems this is a tool solely for harvesting offerings." Xu Xin stored the earless rabbit carcass and ears in his backpack and continued on his hunt.

Silver King ran with incredible speed, combined with Xu Xin’s map which marked beast locations, resulting in high hunting efficiency.

[Hunted Rabbit, gained points: 1.]

[Hunted Venomous Snake, gained points: 5.]

[Hunted Wild Fox, gained points: 3.]

Moving forward, Xu Xin’s crossbow was constantly in use, felling numerous small game, while the points accumulated steadily.

He glanced at the map, surprised to find that, whether around the treehouse or his current location, the red dots hadn’t decreased due to hunting, but seemed to be increasing.

"What does this mean, someone is releasing beasts into the forest? Looks like I shouldn’t hold back either, too many beasts could cause survival issues within the forest."

The crossbow in Xu Xin’s hand kept working relentlessly.

"Silver King, stop!" Xu Xin suddenly whispered.

Xu Xin spotted another type of offering animal nearby—a wildcat.

Xu Xin had hunted wildcats before, around the same size as Keke, but this one wasn’t small.

"This wildcat is really big," Xu Xin mused, "probably around thirty kilograms."

This already categorized as a medium-sized feline like a lynx or caracal but appearing like a regular domestic cat from Earth.

It seems small felines in this jungle can grow this large.

The wildcat bowing its head, was feasting on a bird with white feathers it had just caught; the already dead bird wasn’t much smaller than the cat, its feathers plucked and scattered all around.

Feathers!

In fact, Xu Xin had raised cats at home, he really liked feline animals, and felt some reluctance in shooting cats.

But...

"Feathers are valuable; such waste is improper, better to kill it."—pulling out his crossbow, Xu Xin shot an arrow at the distant cat.

The feline, agile as it was, seemingly heard the twang of the bowstring; while eating, it leapt in place, turning a fatal arrow wound only into an injury on its hind leg, as it embedded with a "thud" into the tree trunk behind.

The wildcat let out a scream, collapsed to the ground. Its hind leg already broken, it hissed a warning at the wolf-riding Xu Xin while futilely dragging back with its forepaw and other hind leg.

Xu Xin hesitated not, firing another arrow, ending the cat’s life.

"May the cat star have no crossbows... lucky the forepaw wasn’t hurt earlier." Xu Xin took out the altar knife, swiftly severing the wildcat’s forepaw.

[Cat Paw Offering (Green): One of the primary offerings to "gods."]

After being cut off, there wasn’t a trace of blood on the cat paw.

Decomposing the wildcat’s body and storing it in the backpack, Xu Xin moved on.

As he hunted, he approached the lake within this resources-rich zone, seeing the sunlit rippling water through the forest gaps.

Xu Xin, riding the wolf, emerged from the forest by the lake. This lake, bigger than the one near his treehouse, was much more vibrant with many wild animals drinking at the water’s edge.

"Keke, Silver King, don’t make any noise!" Xu Xin feared scaring these wild grazing animals away.

"Yip." "Howl." Keke and Silver King softly responded.

The map showed few dense red dots at this lake’s center, meaning there were no piranha schools here.

"Why is it only the lake by my treehouse has piranhas, coincidence?" Xu Xin frowned. "Or did the giant boa bring them? Perhaps, that giant boa was attracted by my treehouse."

Though the lake center lacked red dots, the outskirts held a few brighter red spots, brighter than piranhas.

Before Xu Xin could ponder what the dots were, a calm lakeshore suddenly burst with a large crocodile, biting a water-drinking deer by the neck, whipping its head to throw the whole deer into the lake!

"Yip!" Keke gave a frightened yelp.

Xu Xin’s pupils constricted: "It’s a crocodile!"

At the waterside, panicked animals fled, while the thrown-in deer flailed desperately with little effect; the crocodile performed several death rolls, spreading blood, the water’s surface gradually returning to calm.

"There are crocodiles in this lake!" Xu Xin suddenly thought of something, pondering, "I wonder about the connection between the giant crocodile in that creek and these crocs."