Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse
Chapter 141 - 140: Mountain Giant?

Chapter 141: Chapter 140: Mountain Giant?

After the salt mine cave, this is the second bottomless pit he found today.

Could it be that this pit also leads to the underground world?

Xu Xin looked into the pit, and despite having the night vision ability from the red berries, he still couldn’t see the bottom. Below was still pitch black.

He bent down and grabbed a handful of soil at the mouth of the pit.

[Polluted Soil (Gray): Soil contaminated by unknown forces, useless for survivors.]

As expected, it’s this kind of soil again!

Was this pit originally here?

Thinking of the newly appeared ground hole in the salt mine cave, Xu Xin seemed to understand something.

Perhaps these ground holes that might connect to the underground world are related to their second stage of survival.

In the second stage, they will likely start to truly come into contact with the underground world!

Xu Xin took one last look at the deep lake pit before turning and swimming back to the shore.

He didn’t dare to jump in like the Chang Yin Family; who knows how deep this pit is. The Chang Yin Family are stones, unaffected by water pressure, and can jump down, but he can’t.

At the lakeside, the three beasts were still waiting. Keke was peering over the rocks at the lakeshore, worriedly watching the lake surface that had been quiet for over ten minutes.

Upon seeing Xu Xin’s figure swimming upward, it finally breathed a sigh of relief, uttered a "chirp," and signaled to Xu Xin that it was over there.

Following the sound, Xu Xin saw that the three beasts were no longer in their original position. They were now on the other side of the lake, where the Silver King and Mimi were scratching at something on the ground.

What’s happened, why did they go over there?

Xu Xin swam over and stood up from the lake.

His body was wet, but fortunately, the Scale Armor didn’t absorb water, and now near noon, the sun was shining, the weather was hot, and the air wasn’t humid. His body would dry in just a few minutes.

Walking to the Silver King and Mimi’s side, Xu Xin found they were still digging.

"What’s wrong? Is there something below?" he asked as he approached.

"Chirp chirp chirp!" Keke waved its little paws at him, gesturing something.

"A small knife?... Sacrificial knife?" Xu Xin’s eyes brightened, "Did you find it?"

"Chirp!" Keke nodded.

Xu Xin reached out and rubbed Keke’s little head, "Nice work!"

"Chirp!" Keke puffed out its little chest and then climbed onto Xu Xin’s shoulder along his arm.

At this point, the Silver King and Mimi had already half excavated the sacrificial knife, which was stuck in the ground with the blade pointed down, seemingly thrown in directly—something not impossible with the Chang Yin Family’s strength.

Pulling out the sacrificial knife, Xu Xin glanced worriedly at the lake bottom.

Who knows what their situation is. He thought he’d come back tonight for another look, maybe something would really change at the altar.

Riding the Silver King, Xu Xin first went to the altar and put the sacrificial knife back in its original position, so as not to attract more monsters.

There was nothing much left to explore around, so he started heading back.

Returning the same way.

As he passed near the salt mine cave, he subconsciously glanced at it.

No problem looking—seeing it made him break out in a cold sweat.

"Stop! Silver King, let’s go to that mine cave!"

"Awoo!" The Silver King spun around and arrived at the mine cave’s edge in seconds.

The cave entrance, which Xu Xin had previously blocked with large chunks of rock, was inexplicably open now!

And the rocks that blocked the cave entrance were nowhere to be found; he couldn’t find them near the cave entrance.

Looking into the mine cave, everything still seemed ordinary, appearing utterly like a regular mine cave.

But it was precisely this ordinariness that made Xu Xin notice something.

The ground was too clean.

Those broken vines he had shot arrows into, and the scattered stones and salt mine debris on the ground, where had they all gone?

Could the mine cave not only self-repair but also self-clean?

Was something inside tidying up the mine cave and removed the rocks blocking the entrance?

Xu Xin thought of something, suddenly his expression changed as he observed the hill where the salt mine was located, retreating slowly, and the appearance of the entire hill gradually unfolded before him.

"I... damn..."

Xu Xin’s complexion changed dramatically; he felt cold all over.

Without thinking in a certain direction, he couldn’t see it. With this association, a cold feeling rose from his core.

If this hill were seen as a giant head, then this mine cave would be just its opened mouth!

And above the cave, there was a ridge-like protrusion, resembling a person’s nose bridge.

Looking further up, the two concave pits on the hill perfectly match the position of eyes, resembling eye sockets!

And above each pit, there grows a slanted tree on the hillside, which from this angle looks exactly like two raised eyebrows above the eye sockets!

The more he looked, the more it resembled, the more he thought, the more it seemed like it.

He really wanted to convince himself that this was just a coincidence, but considering the previous occurrences, the mine’s interior would automatically heal, things inside and outside the mine mysteriously disappeared, and the mine even wasn’t protected by the treehouse...

The likelihood of it being a coincidence was just too small.

Speaking of the deep pit inside, could it be the esophagus of a giant monster? Perhaps it swallowed the stones by its mouth and those things, which is why the inside and outside of the mine are so clean now!

What is this? A mountain giant? This is too magical...

Xu Xin took a deep breath, slightly stabilizing his emotions.

The thought of possibly mining salt inside a giant monster’s mouth made his hands tremble, so he quickly ate a blueberry-flavored strawberry to calm down.

Once calmed down, he burst out laughing. He really seemed like an addict relapsing for his fix.

No, he can’t rely too much on the effect of strawberries in the future. Emotions, he has to learn to control them himself.

"Ying?" Keke called out in confusion from his shoulder, puzzled by his behavior.

Xu Xin suddenly wanted to tease Keke.

"Keke, look, doesn’t this little hill look like a human head?" Xu Xin lifted Keke to face the direction of the hill.

Keke was baffled by what Xu Xin said and could only gaze at the hill in confusion.

"Ying?... Yingin!" At first, Keke tilted its head and remained motionless, but once it saw clearly, it immediately broke free from Xu Xin’s hands, hanging onto his back again.

Even so, it couldn’t help but peek its little head out towards the hill.

Seeing Keke’s adorable demeanor, Xu Xin smiled and stroked its little head.

Not just Keke, even the Silver King and Mimi, after hearing what he said, changed their demeanor after looking at the overall appearance of the hill.

The Silver King bared its teeth towards the direction of the hill, growling from its throat, while Mimi arched its back, fur standing on end, tail swaying slightly at the back, posing ready to attack at any moment.

Xu Xin continued to scrutinize this "head," growing more amazed the more he looked.

If this were merely nature’s masterpiece, calling it a five-star scenic spot on Earth wouldn’t be too much. But if Xu Xin’s speculation were true, then this mountain giant is enormous indeed.

A hill six to seventy meters high would be just a head. Even if this giant had seven-eighths proportions, its full height would be from four hundred to five hundred meters!

Four to five hundred meters is the height of the Magic City Pearl or Yangcheng Tower, and it would be much broader than those slender buildings.

If it really appeared, the visual impact would be unparalleled.

The Blood Pattern Giant Xu Xin saw nearby before was only about thirty to forty meters tall.

Wow, so he underestimated this series of hills earlier? How could the Blood Pattern Giant compare to this gigantic beast?

Feeling complex, Xu Xin glanced at the mine, flipped onto the Silver King’s back, and said, "Let’s go, let’s check Black Bear Cave."

Let’s find the giant croc to see if it survived the storm season. Besides, he could also ask the giant beast about the issues here, although he couldn’t understand, Keke could translate for him.

He also wanted to see if there were any changes in Black Bear Cave. Now he was a bit paranoid and felt he had to explore all possibilities.

As for this side, there was nothing he could do, so he would try not to provoke it.

When he goes to the altar tonight, he would take the opportunity to check the situation; maybe something different would happen here at night.

The Silver King’s speed was quick, and within minutes, they arrived at the creek outside Black Bear Cave.

Xu Xin was astonished to find a twenty-meter-long crocodile-shaped pit at the bottom of the lake. Other parts of the creek were only tens of centimeters to less than a meter deep, except this crocodile-shaped pit, which was several meters deep.

It was like a reservoir dug in the middle of the stream.

This was obviously where the giant croc once lay.

...Not here anymore?

Being able to find this giant croc anytime, which was always friendly and helpful to him, gave him a great sense of security, as it matched evenly with the giant anaconda in the heart of the lake.

Now that it wasn’t here, Xu Xin felt a void in his heart.

He shook his head.

Enhancing his own abilities was the most important thing, reliance on external forces should not be permanent.

Xu Xin turned towards Black Bear Cave.

He kept a close watch on the red dots on the map; since Keke didn’t indicate any danger in the cave, he stepped right inside.

At the end of the cave, the fissure that appeared during the underground exploration was completely sealed and gone. Other than that, nothing seemed unusual in the cave; even the whistling wind from before was no longer heard.

Xu Xin took out a long spear and stabbed the cave wall hard, breaking it into pieces with flying debris.

After waiting a while and seeing no auto-repair of the cave wall, Xu Xin finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He had an absurd thought just now that this Black Bear Cave was also a mouth that swallowed the giant croc outside. But now it seemed he was overthinking.

Since the giant croc wasn’t here, and Black Bear Cave was just an ordinary cave, today’s jungle exploration should end.

It was time to go back and improve the decorations in the treehouse.