Chapter 129 Night Changes

This crystal is deep purple, making it easier for Xu Xin to see and handle for his first attempt.

There are eight different small knives in the carving tool set, and with the [Artist] ability, Xu Xin easily recognized what each knife was used for.

He picked up one of the small knives and began carving into the egg-sized purple crystal.

Just carve one, mmh, let’s carve Little Keke.

Keke actually always follows Xu Xin around, watching everything he does with curiosity. Every time Xu Xin conjures up a piece of furniture out of thin air, it lets out a "whimper" to express its amazement.

But now the only reason it’s staying close to Xu Xin is dinner time; it’s waiting for Xu Xin to start dinner.

Having been busy all day, Xu Xin is quite hungry himself, but he’s more interested in the carving right now, so he lifts Keke onto the workbench: "Sit here and don’t move, I’m going to carve an image of you."

"Whimper?" Keke tilted its small head in confusion.

"Anyway, don’t move, it will be done quickly. Once the carving is finished, we’ll eat." Xu Xin picked up the carving knife and the egg-sized crystal.

"Whimper." In anticipation of dinner, Keke finds a comfortable position, hugs its big tail to its chest, and lies still.

The carving knife in Xu Xin’s hand was extremely agile. The tip flowed across the purple crystal like moving clouds and water. His hand seemed to have muscle memory, making him quickly immersed in the task.

Time ticked away, and the previously motionless Keke began to fidget, feeling hungry and wanting to eat.

"Whimper!" Keke cried out, snapping Xu Xin out of his absorbed state.

The carving in his hand had taken shape; Keke’s appearance could now be recognized. Only some details needed to be handled before completion, so Keke didn’t need to model anymore.

Xu Xin checked the time and let out a sound of surprise.

An hour had already passed since he started carving!

Outside the treehouse, it had completely darkened, accompanied by the continuous sound of pouring rain and occasional thunder.

Yet, the area around the treehouse was bright, with light shining down from above, illuminating a large area nearby. Clearly, the lightning rod on top of his treehouse was still absorbing lightning, emitting light and heat, which made him unaware of the passage of time.

Xu Xin had never installed torches for nighttime lighting inside the treehouse. One reason is that torches in a wooden treehouse always felt unsafe. Without saltpeter, the inside of the treehouse was already hot. Also, the torchlight could attract powerful beasts he couldn’t handle.

The third reason was what he was worried about now; such bright light can be seen from very far away at night. Although not reaching floodlight levels, the jungle was relatively flat, and his treehouse tall. This lighting allowed all beasts and survivors within several dozen kilometers to see it without a problem.

But for now, it has to stay this way. Although the frequency of lightning strikes has decreased, lightning still felled onto the treehouse every few minutes. The lightning rod couldn’t be removed, or the furniture and workbenches inside the treehouse would be randomly damaged.

"Whimper!" Keke cried again but obediently lay still.

Xu Xin stood up: "Let’s eat first."

This carving felt like it would take another near hour to complete. Unexpectedly, such a small carving takes so much time, hoping it would provide a high decorative value.

He handed the half-finished Little Keke statue to Keke and carried Keke out of the study.

Silver King and Mimi eat a lot at one time and once finished, they don’t need food for a day or even several days. So they weren’t as hungry as Keke, just seemed a bit bored. Mimi pawed at the window looking out, while Silver King curled up and slept in the corner.

Xu Xin stir-fried a dish with mutant beast meat, during which Keke was curiously fiddling with this miniature half-finished version of itself.

The small carving was still just a half-finished product, and it hadn’t triggered a prompt for increased decorative value. It seemed it needed to be completely finished. Being his first carving, he had no idea what extent counted as completely carved to increase the treehouse’s decorative value.

As Xu Xin pondered this, preparing to eat while serving the dish, a bat’s shriek suddenly came from below the treehouse.

This shriek was intermixed with brain-affecting ultrasound, causing Xu Xin to frown.

He immediately put down his chopsticks and rushed to the window in two steps.

"Whimper whimper?" Keke, who was ready to eat, abruptly stopped its actions, looking at Xu Xin’s back in a daze.

Xu Xin had previously told bats to make a noise to alert him if anything occurred. Clearly, something was up outside now! Could the light from the lightning rod have really attracted creatures from the surroundings?

He looked out the window, and what was happening outside the treehouse made his eyes widen.

From what was previously an almost endless water surface, treetops sprouted! The small trees, originally only three to four meters high underwater, were rapidly growing!

He raised his hand and glanced at his watch; it was just past seven in the evening.

Clusters of treetops had already emerged from underwater, continued growing taller. Within just a few dozen seconds, these trees had grown to about ten meters in height.

All the treetops linked into a piece, blocking Xu Xin’s view. The surroundings no longer had the sound of rain falling on the water but the crackling sound of raindrops hitting the leaves.

In less than a minute, the view outside the window completely returned to the jungle as it was before the wildfire—a vast, intact forest!

Looking down at the water beneath the treehouse, illuminated by the lightning rod, Xu Xin could clearly see that even shrubs and grass had started growing beneath the water.

Gazing into the distance, the area that was once a vast ocean was now covered by a jungle. If not for the five or six-meter-high water level under the treehouse, just by looking at the distance, Xu Xin might have thought the jungle had fully restored to normal.

He could even see several spots within his field of vision emitting a blue glow.

A new blue resource was born!

"This..."

In the middle of the night, with the rainy season still not over, these trees started growing again and fully matured.

Could this be part of the rainy season activities?

Thoughts racing, Xu Xin suddenly understood the changes that the tree growth at this time would bring.

It’s time to help those who haven’t ventured out to explore.

Xu Xin sent a message in the [Explorer] group chat.

"Have you noticed the changes outside the treehouse? Those clusters of small trees have already fully grown; the jungle has basically recovered. Of course, the water level hasn’t dropped.

Those who were hesitant to explore far away from the treehouse because of poor swimming skills, now that there are so many trees to hold onto, you can climb up if there’s danger in the water. You can go out and explore now.

Outside, there are many new resources: some ornamental fish in the water, crystals at the bottom, and possibly redwood floating on the surface. These are all related to the new attribute of the treehouse [Decorative level]."

Although the jungle had returned, the area around Xu Xin’s treehouse already looked quite normal, but those tornadoes in the distance hadn’t stopped. However, Xu Xin felt they seemed to have shrunk significantly, gradually disappearing.

Xu Xin hesitated for a moment, deciding to share some of his information: "There’s a water vortex under the tornadoes that can be entered, but you must be careful. On my side, there’s a mutated marlin that’s much stronger than ordinary mutated beasts guarding it. If you don’t have the strength to kill it, don’t approach the tornadoes."

His message had a response within seconds.

Wang Lei: "Whoa! Boss Xu, if you hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have realized, the outside really turned back into a jungle! That’s great, I’ll head out now, swimming farther poses no problem now!"

Qi Xuefei: "Thanks, I’ll go take a look too."

Li Wenxi: "Oh my, the jungle is back, I can finally go out! New resources, here I come!"

The three of them only sent one message each and said no more, it seemed they were eager to go out after being cooped up in the treehouse, eager to find some new resources.

Suddenly, Qin Yunlong, who hadn’t spoken since the activities began, showed up.

Qin Yunlong: "There’s a mutated swordfish on my side, it’s too fast and very dangerous in the water, but it only moves near the water vortex. Once I’m far enough, it doesn’t chase anymore. I can’t face it directly, Xu Xin, how did you kill your marlin?"

Xu Xin shared his method with him, and Qin Yunlong thanked him and went to try using Xu Xin’s method to hunt the swordfish on his side.

Xu Xin’s method had a restriction; one’s swimming skills must be very good—fast enough to dodge attacks while harming the marlin, and luring the marlin to the treehouse. Most people now couldn’t even see clearly underwater, let alone accomplish this. But Qin Yunlong might be able to do it.

Wen Guixin and Zhao Xiaochuan, who hadn’t appeared all day, also popped up.

Zhao Xiaochuan: "What? Boss Xu actually killed that fish over there! My goodness, that’s too strong, I had to dodge it everywhere just to pick up some materials. If it weren’t for that thing being confined to the area near the tornado, I might’ve been doomed. The gap is too wide..."

Wen Guixin: "So what, I also killed that fish, I just didn’t know the water vortex underneath was enterable. Xu Xin, you wouldn’t be tricking us, right? Thanks a lot."

Xu Xin: "The vortex doesn’t have water, just a bit cold. There’s a small box with resources on my side, and there’s a floating mini vortex. If you attack it, you can make the tornado disappear."

"Okay, thanks." "Thanks, Boss Xu!" The two of them didn’t ask much more, thanked him, and stopped talking.

Not sure how Ji Chaoyang is doing over there, he’s not much worse than me. Although Xu Xin is the first person to destroy a tornado, he felt Ji Chaoyang should be able to do it too.

His communication with Ji Chaoyang still stopped at the sentence he asked about the situation in the morning, and the other party hadn’t responded until now.

Xu Xin returned to the dinner table, where Keke, who had been sitting there waiting for him, immediately cried out "weep weep weep," seemingly complaining to Xu Xin that it was starving.

Xu Xin handed Keke a pair of chopsticks into its little paws, and Keke immediately started eating. It was getting more skillful at using chopsticks.

After filling its tummy, Keke lay contentedly on the sofa, occasionally letting out a burp. Xu Xin was about to continue working on his little Keke carving when Ji Chaoyang suddenly replied to him.

"Just saw your message. You were the first person to dispose of a tornado, weren’t you, Xu Xin."

Oh? It seems Ji Chaoyang really managed to do it, and his side had a ranking as well. Judging by his tone, could it be that he’s second?