Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse
Chapter 151 - 150: Mutated Vines under the Treehouse

Chapter 151: Chapter 150: Mutated Vines under the Treehouse

He immediately sent a message back to Ji Chaoyang: "I just claimed the reward, random enhancement, did you get it too?"

In the entire jungle area 188, only he and Ji Chaoyang had this reward.

Ji Chaoyang quickly replied: "That’s right, and it reminded me that because the decoration level exceeded one hundred, I got a random ability that lasts for a day."

"What ability did you get?"

"Enhanced hearing, now I can hear every little movement clearly. I just avoided the vine attack by listening to the underground activity."

"Over here, it’s enhanced vision. It seems this random enhancement strengthens a certain ability of the body," Xu Xin deduced.

"For now, it seems so," Ji Chaoyang replied, "maybe when the decoration level increases further, we could gain even stronger abilities."

"...like x-ray vision or teleportation?"

"Haha, who knows."

Gaining such an ability made Xu Xin a bit excited.

Imagine waking up every morning to a new unknown ability, it’s as thrilling as opening a blind box.

As for today’s ability, he could even see the tiny flying insects spinning among the leaves clearly; everything within his vision became vividly clear.

He didn’t waste any more time, suited up in armor, equipped the crossbow, and took both the regular arrows and the newly made explosive arrows, stepping out from the treehouse.

Xu Xin controlled the treehouse roots to wrap around his waist, slowly lowering himself down.

Afu was hanging below the treehouse and flapped its wings twice as if to greet him when Xu Xin came down. It preferred hanging under the treehouse over staying inside.

"Go up, the window is open. It’ll be dangerous here soon, don’t hang around."

The bottom of the treehouse canopy was ten meters high; if it was as Ji Chaoyang said, with vines below the treehouse having only a five-meter attack range, there should be no problem, but he feared special circumstances on his side.

Afu flew into the third floor of the treehouse with fluttering wings after hearing that.

Xu Xin took a deep breath, controlling the treehouse roots to slowly lower him.

He noticed that the treehouse, currently upgrading, had weaker overall functions compared to before, even the roots weren’t as flexible as they used to be.

The roots, which used to be as easy to control as limbs, now took almost half a second to respond and take action when he tried to control them.

Simply put, there was a slight delay in control. He felt this delay since returning last night but hadn’t paid much attention; now it was bothersome.

He just had to be extra careful.

Slowly descending, Xu Xin estimated that he was now only six or seven meters above the ground.

The vines in the ground hadn’t emerged yet, but directly below him, the slight ground vibration had become more pronounced, as if something was eager to break through the soil.

With his extraordinary vision, Xu Xin could perceive that the ground vibration beneath him was slightly more intense than elsewhere, and the source of the vibration wasn’t the entire land, but densely distributed points, causing the ground below to vibrate.

This should be caused by the vines about to emerge from underground.

Glancing at the map, he noticed no red dots, which puzzled him.

If the vines were close to the ground, the map should show it, right? The ability to cause such localized ground vibrations indicated their proximity to the surface.

But if that’s the case, why wasn’t the map displaying anything?

With doubts in mind, Xu Xin continued to descend slowly, and finally, his feet were about five meters above the ground.

The moment he continued downward, the slight tremor suddenly turned into a violent shake.

Next, the ground cracked open, and several blood-red-patterned vines suddenly burst out, launching an attack on Xu Xin’s feet, now within their range!

Xu Xin immediately lifted his leg and drew back his foot, and by then, the vines had already struck near his feet and then abruptly stopped. Their behavior was consistent with vines outside the protection zone when attacking targets within it.

At this point, the roots wrapped around Xu Xin stopped descending and pulled him up a bit.

...This delayed reaction is really annoying.

However, these vines...

Xu Xin’s expression was a bit odd.

His exceptionally strong vision had captured the entire process of the vines breaking out of the ground, and the sight surprised him.

The moment the ground cracked, the vines bursting out were completely like seedlings!

Although only maintaining their seedling form for an instant, those thin, fragile shoots with fine red stripes, Xu Xin was sure he hadn’t seen wrong.

These seedlings completed their growth in a very brief moment after emerging and launched an attack at him, finally transforming into the now swaying blood-patterned vines in the air.

These vines didn’t dig out from underground but grew directly from the soil!

This...

Circling under Xu Xin’s feet, the vines, finding themselves unable to attack him, turned to start attacking the tree trunk.

Xu Xin had chosen a descent spot five meters away from the trunk, intending to see if the vines were only five meters long or simply couldn’t attack beyond that distance.

Under Xu Xin’s gaze, the vines suddenly extended from about five meters to over ten meters, launching a stabbing attack towards the trunk!

The sharp vines struck the armor of the treehouse but had no effect, causing him to raise an eyebrow and chuckle involuntarily.

The treehouse armor looked no different from ordinary bark, yet it was surprisingly smooth!

The sharp vine tips slid off the armor due to the curvature of the armor and bark, with several Blood Patterned Vines directly skidding out to the sides, one vine overexerting itself, shooting far, pulling the soil at its base outwards.

Their attack only left shallow white scratches on the armor, and under Xu Xin’s extraordinary vision, he noticed those scratches were slowly self-repairing!

This armor has self-repairing abilities?

No, the description didn’t mention the armor could self-repair; it should be the treehouse’s ability that allows the armor to repair itself when covered.

Nevertheless, this greatly increases the armor’s endurance capacity.

Unyielding after a fruitless attack, several vines employed the Blood Patterned Vine’s traditional attack method, entwining to form a gigantic drill, launching another attack towards the trunk.

Xu Xin held back from attacking, continuing to hang in mid-air and observe their actions.

Even the drill couldn’t conquer the smooth armor, sliding to one side the moment it struck the trunk, leaving shallow marks on the armor.

The vines seemed to realize that such attacks were futile, so they separated, and began whipping against the trunk.

Whipping was indeed more effective than stabbing, but these surface-exposed vines were Blood Patterned Vines without blood thorns, so their whipping power wasn’t strong, leaving only shallow marks on the armor and shaving off some wood chips each time.

Xu Xin aimed his crossbow at the root of a Blood Patterned Vine and pulled the trigger.

"Whoosh—crack!"

The vine was very easily killed by Xu Xin, and the vine originally constantly whipping the bark launched one final attack towards the treehouse out of inertia before collapsing beneath it.

[Killed Blood Patterned Vine, Points Earned: 10 points.]

Hmm?

This Blood Patterned Vine awarded only 10 points, while those previously in the Red Mist each gave 20 points.

Could it be that these vines are underdeveloped and weaker? Or perhaps the ones in the Red Mist are enhanced by the mist, thus offering more points?

Perhaps it’s both.

Xu Xin swiftly reloaded the crossbow arrow and continued to kill the remaining vines.

Soon, all five vines were dealt with, lying beneath the treehouse.

He didn’t use explosive arrows because they might ignite the vines.

Although powerful enough to kill the vines in one hit, avoiding causing a raging fire, the mutant vine sap inside might burn completely and become unobtainable.

These were merely Blood Patterned Vines, not sturdy Blood Thorn Vines, ordinary crossbow arrows are sufficient to deal with them.

Suspended in mid-air, Xu Xin frowned as he scrutinized these vine corpses.

These vines grew directly out; meaning many vine seeds are buried in the soil around the treehouse.

These seeds may have existed or perhaps were brought by the rainy season.

Regardless of the possibility, both pointed towards a hypothesis he had with Ji Chaoyang.

These mutants emerging from the soil, similar to underground massive monsters, could possibly be artificially planted for this selection process.

In just an instant, a powerful Blood Patterned Vine grew from a single seed, making Xu Xin feel a profound sense of crisis.

Doesn’t this mean they could be endless in the future?

Never mind, worrying about this now is futile; better to start collecting the vines on the ground.

These five vines all grew from the ground beneath him, all fallen towards the treehouse trunk, making retrieval quite easy.

Xu Xin maneuvered using root tendrils to descend quickly, gathering up the vines and placing them in his backpack.

In his vision, the ground started vibrating violently, with red dots rapidly lighting up on the map around him.

He immediately manipulated the vines to pull upwards swiftly, positioning himself over five meters up as they broke through the soil.

These vines are again Blood Patterned Vines, allowing Xu Xin a slight respite. Were they Blood Thorn Vines, their whipping force would be far greater, likely stressing the treehouse armor considerably, as whipping is their primary attack method.

Xu Xin allowed the few Blood Patterned Vines below to attack the treehouse trunk freely, retreating to the treehouse first, intending to store these vines inside.

Though these vines didn’t appear thick, they were incredibly heavy, unimaginable that they sprouted from a single seed so instantaneously.

Inside the treehouse, Cocoa Silver King Mimi had been awakened long ago by the sound of vines whipping the treehouse, causing it to shake continually accompanied by loud "bangs."

On the windowsill, Afu rhythmically trembled in sync with the whipping sounds.

What a guy, it’s truly a DJ-blooded bat.

"Whimper!" Upon seeing Xu Xin come up and lay a few dead vines on the floor, Keke immediately ran over, clawing at the vines to express its dissatisfaction.

Xu Xin suddenly had a whimsical thought: "You guys capable of extracting vine sap?"