The needle was pointing in the direction of the stream, which meant that the silver treasure chest was most likely on the path he had taken.
"Could it be the black bear's cave?" Xu Xin looked at the compass and fell into deep thought. He had carefully observed the surroundings when he came over from the spawn point. Other than the black bear's cave along the way, there did not seem to be anything special.
Of course, the location of the treasure chest could not be deduced by common sense. After all, who would think that the copper treasure chest would be located in the root of a vine?
That location had been simply inhumane. If it wasn't for his ability, he might have already been hit. Even if he didn't die, he would have been injured.
The location of the silver treasure chest was probably not ordinary this time either, so he could only be careful.
"Let's go to the black bear's cave first. I wonder if there are still bears in the cave," The bear skin from the bear that Xu Xin had killed was now his backpack. He opened the Map and looked at the black bear's cave on the map. There were no red dots in the cave.
"That black bear might really be the one from the black bear's cave," Xu Xin was quite delighted. It would be great if that was the case.
Last time, he had only managed to kill the wounded and defenseless black bear with the help of the treehouse. If he were to really face a black bear with a cold weapon, he would only become bear dung. If the black bear was still alive, he could only use his wits to defeat it.
At this moment, Cocoa was sprawled on the table, using its little paws to move the needle of the compass.
The compass had already entered its cooldown period and could not be used for the next two hours. Hence, the needle simply turned weakly under Cocoa's prodding, like a slipped clock.
Xu Xin opened the Regional Channel. The number of people in the channel had fallen below 8000, leaving only 7987 people. He remembered taking a look when he left in the morning. At that time, the number of people in the Regional Channel had been 8140.
"150 people have died so soon?" Xu Xin was a little shocked. These people might have been killed by the monsters that carried the treasure boxes. Some of them might have encountered gold and silver treasure boxes instead of copper ones. The monsters that guarded those treasure boxes might even be stronger.
It seemed that the so-called "elimination of those in last place" was just a means for the survivors to leave their treehouse. The real danger was the monsters guarding the treasure chest.
Xu Xin took note of this. He didn't want to die under a monster's sneak attack.
As a cautious person, if he didn't have the Map that gave him the ability to predict danger in advance, he might have stayed in the treehouse since he had already obtained the copper treasure chest.
At this time, some were saying the same thing in the Regional Channel.
"Is anyone here? Is anyone back?"
"I'm back, I'm back! I got the copper treasure chest! I didn't even walk far before a snake as thick as a bowl came out of the ground and wrapped itself around me. I was almost strangled to death!"
"Huh? So you encountered a snake? Then how did you survive?"
"Hehe, I was lucky. The stick in my hand just happened to keep its mouth from biting down. The snake was strange too. It broke into pieces after a few seconds. If it had held on for a few more seconds, I would have been strangled to death. Fortunately, there was a copper treasure chest in the hole it came out of, so I wasn't strangled for nothing. Anyway, I won't be going out again. It's too damn dangerous. One copper treasure chest is enough. "
"Yours was seriously too dangerous!"
"How about you? Did you get the copper treasure chest?"
"Me? I haven't left yet. "
"Aren't you afraid of death?"
"One of my legs was bitten off by a wild beast, so I'm just waiting for death. I'll still die if I go out, anyway. Perhaps not many will find the treasure chest and the bottom 50 will be randomly selected from all the people who return empty-handed."
"You've got a pretty good mentality."
"My condolences, friend."
"Let's wait for death together. "
A few other people popped up on the Regional Channel.
"Can I avoid death if I have a bad mentality? Even if I die, I'll die happy. By the way, bro, what's in your copper treasure chest? Can you tell me?"
"It's nothing. Just a bag of fertilizer and two bags of seeds."
Xu Xin watched their conversation quietly.
It seemed like although some did not die from the monster horde, they had been severely injured and were basically unable to move. Otherwise, they wouldn't have stayed in their original spots and left their lives and deaths to fate. This also served as a wake-up call for Xu Xin. If he was severely injured, he would be eliminated in the next event.
From the words of the person who got the treasure chest, it seemed that the danger that everyone encountered was different. However, the items in the copper treasure chest seemed to be similar. He wondered if the other party's seeds were the same as his.
Originally, Xu Xin had wanted to obtain some information from the channel, but since the locations of the treasure chests and the dangers encountered by each survivor were different, there was no point in reference.
To prevent delaying his work in the afternoon due to sleepiness, Xu Xin ate an orange and put a few of the oranges he picked in the morning in his backpack. He placed the rest in the treehouse and threw one to Cocoa.
The little fellow ate happily.
"Don't you drip the orange juice on my shoulder. "
"Yin!"
Following the stream, Xu Xin walked upstream. This was a path that he had walked many times. The first time was before he planted the treehouse, and the second time was to pick up the cobblestones (green) in the stream. He had even found stones (green) in the black bear's cave then. He had walked back and forth the stream.
For all those trips, Xu Xin had never noticed anything unusual about the path beside the stream.
It was very likely that the silver treasure chest would appear out of nowhere like the copper treasure chest.
Furthermore, there might be a special situation like the weeds and bushes from before that would hint at the location of the treasure chest. Hence, Xu Xin paid attention to his surroundings as he walked.
Seeing the black bear's cave that was within a stone's throw, Xu Xin realized that he had been very focused on walking for a long time, and he had already reached the black bear's cave. There were no red dots on the Map, so at least for now, there were no black bears in the cave.
Black bears were creatures that could travel around both day and night, so Xu Xin had no idea if the black bear that inhabited the cave had yet to return or if it had already been turned into a backpack. However, it was always good to be careful.
He subconsciously stared at the Map while his eyes focused on the interior of the cave. Slowly, he entered the cave with light steps.
The strange sound of the wind rang in Xu Xin's ears again.
There should be a large space similar to a karst cave below the cave, thus the wind sounds when the air flowed inside. Perhaps, he could explore the tip of the iceberg of the underground world here.
It was a beautiful idea, but after searching the entire cave, Xu Xin couldn't find a single small hole that could lead to another space.
The strange sound of the wind could be heard all around the cave, but because of the echoes, he couldn't find the source of the sound.
Perhaps there really wasn't a hole that could be seen with the naked eye. Did he need to use his stone pick to knock a hole?
However, was this the place where the silver treasure chest was buried? The wind sounds had been around since the first day he arrived but based on the location of the copper chest, Xu Xin felt that the silver chest was most likely a new change to the surrounding environment, and not something that had always been around.
The precious red panda on his shoulder had no reaction at all. In fact, it was already sniffling on his shoulder.
"This little fellow is really fond of sleeping!" Xu Xin helplessly shook his head.
He decided to treat the sound of the wind as a potential candidate and search along the river for now. If he couldn't find it, he would wait for the compass to cool down and determine the direction again.
Xu Xin walked out of the black bear's cave and went back to the river. Soon, he triggered a notification.
[Reminder, do not leave for more than three kilometers from your treehouse, or something unthinkable will happen.]
He had reached the border of the exploration area again.