Several people mounted their mounts again and headed towards Xu Xin's protected area.
The Silver King slowed down as usual and walked side by side with the white horse.
The few of them were getting farther and farther away from their previous position, and the blood marks on the Silver King's body gradually faded as the distance increased, and finally returned to normal.
Xu Xin calculated the distance and found that he was more than ten kilometers away. It seemed that the range of influence of this unknown increase was only about ten kilometers in radius.
They could now clearly see Xu Xin's tree house in the distance.
"That tree house is yours, right?" Li Wenxi seemed very excited, pointing to the rich green in front of him and said, "I'm finally going to see your tree house. That's great. I haven't seen a four-story tree house yet!"
"No, we are not going to the tree house first. We are going to a special place over there. Maybe it is related to the abilities we have gained." Xu Xin shook his head.
"Hey? Aren't you just passing by? Just go in and take a look..." Li Wenxi leaned towards Xu Xin's arms.
"No, it's already late autumn. Judging from the time of sunrise this morning, the daytime hours are already very short. It will probably be dark in a few hours. We have to finish our business first." Xu Xin refused.
There is also a Lou Feier in his tree house. If they really want to meet her, given Lou Feier's personality, it might take a long time.
"Well... okay." Li Wenxi pursed her lips and compromised.
"What's so special about this special area you mentioned? Just like what happened just now, the mutant creatures will become stronger?" Qi Xuefei asked Xu Xin.
She has now basically adapted to the bumps of horse riding and no longer feels any discomfort.
"It's hard to describe. You can see it once you go there."
Thinking of the salt mine cave that looked like a huge mouth, Xu Xin still felt a little uneasy.
To be honest, if he was alone, he would not dare to go in and explore. At most, he would just take a look from the outside.
After experiencing the defense battle and the busyness of the past two days, this is the first time he has returned there since the red fog incident.
I don’t know whether the “giant mouth” is still a dangerous area and whether we can continue to mine salt.
He had asked on the regional channel and learned that no one except him had discovered the salt mine, so for now, that mine was the only place in the entire District 188 where salt could be mined.
He now has very little salt left. If he can't mine it anymore and their population continues to increase, they will really start to run out of salt.
"After you go to Xu Xin's place, you have to go to my place again. There is also a very strange place there." Ji Chaoyang pointed at Xu Xin's tree house. "My tree house is to the west of Xu Xin's tree house. It's not far away."
Silver King and White Horse continued to shuttle through the bleak and bare jungle, and soon, they had entered Xu Xin's protected area.
"Do you see that hill?" Xu Xin pointed to the circle of hills in the northwest direction, "It's right there."
"These hills are actually connected! Are they forming a circle?" Li Wenxi was a little surprised, because the hills over there were scattered. "Just looking at these hills, I can feel the specialness of that place! How come they are forming a circle, like a formation..."
"The hills are surrounded by a resource area, and the mysterious altar is in the resource area surrounded by the hills." Xu Xin explained.
"What does resource area mean..." Li Wenxi looked up and asked.
"Hmm..." Xu Xin then realized that Li Wenxi and the others didn't have the ability to identify and couldn't tell that the resources there were richer, so he explained, "It's an area with a lot of green-level and above resources. The place where you planted the tree house is a resource area."
"What about mine?" Qi Xuefei turned to look at him and asked, "Is my place a resource area?"
Xu Xin nodded and said, "The tree houses for the four of us are all planted in the resource area."
Li Wenxi looked for a location based on mineral resources, while Qi Xuefei looked for places with rich medicinal herb resources. The places where they planted tree houses were naturally resource areas.
"The location of the altar..." Ji Chaoyang looked at the hill with a slightly changed expression, "My special area is not far from the altar."
Xu Xin was not surprised.
The altar is surrounded by things that are related to the so-called "gods", so it is naturally a bit special.
"Altar? What altar?" Li Wenxi asked in confusion.
"I don't know what altar there is." Qi Xuefei didn't understand what Xu Xin and Ji Chaoyang were talking about.
"Huh? There's no altar around your tree house? After the reserve was expanded this time, have you searched the reserve carefully?"
There have been so many things going on in the past two days that Xu Xin almost forgot about the altar. He and Ji Chaoyang discovered the altar more than three kilometers away after they obtained the golden treasure chest and the protected area was expanded to six kilometers.
Apart from them, he had never heard of anyone else seeing the altar.
But now, everyone’s protected area has been expanded to six kilometers. According to the previous rules, other survivors should have discovered the altar one after another.
"Hmm... I haven't searched carefully." Li Wenxi shook his head and looked at Qi Xuefei, "Sister Xuefei, what about you?"
"Don't look at me. This is the first time I'm traveling far away since the expansion of the nature reserve." Qi Xuefei waved her hands, feeling somewhat helpless. It was her first time traveling far away and she encountered such a thing. It was really a bad start.
"They shouldn't have an altar." Ji Chaoyang spoke at this time, "I have noticed this matter before, and I have also observed the conversations of other survivors on the map channel. I also tried anonymously, and no survivor has ever seen an altar."
"That is to say... maybe there is only an altar in the protection area of Area 188 where we are the only two people?" Xu Xin said to himself.
"That should be the case. Maybe it's just that the two of us are located right next to the two altars, or maybe... the altars only appeared in our protected area after we obtained the golden treasure chest and expanded the scope of the protected area." Ji Chaoyang analyzed and gave two possibilities.
"... So what are you talking about?" Li Wenxi and Qi Xuefei were confused, as if they were listening to a conversation between two riddlers.
Xu Xin explained the situation of the altar to them.
"Ah! No wonder you scored so many points in the hunting activity! It turns out you killed mutant beasts at that time! Five hundred points for each one, my God!" Li Wenxi exclaimed, "What a profit!"
"What's the point of making money? With our abilities at that time, it was very difficult to kill a mid-level mutant beast." Xu Xin said to Li Wenxi unhappily. He pointed to his left shoulder. "My shoulder was directly pierced by the rabbit. If it weren't for the iron armor you gave me and the blue-level hemostatic grass from Sister Xuefei, I'm afraid I would have died there."
"Sacrifice... and then the stone statue shattered and revived, turning into a mutant creature?" Qi Xuefei was also shocked by what happened on the altar. "What you experienced is really magical."
"You have blue-level armor, which is pretty good." Ji Chaoyang couldn't help but smile bitterly when he thought of the scene when the wild cat attacked him like crazy as soon as it was summoned.
"I didn't even have a complete set of blue-level leather armor back then, and the white horse was smaller and much slower than it is now. I finally killed the blood-marked cat. Both of us had deep wounds on our bodies. If it weren't for Qi Xuefei's hemostatic grass, neither it nor I would have survived." As he said that, he touched the white horse's head.
The white horse also barked in response to Ji Chaoyang.
"Oh... I was wondering," Qi Xuefei said with a look of sudden realization, "I was wondering why you asked me for so many hemostatic herbs during the hunting activity. So this is why. I was wondering why something happened to you when I wasn't seriously injured. I thought you were just a smart person with poor physical ability."
"There's nothing wrong with what you said," Ji Chaoyang said with a smile, "Compared to Xu Xin, my combat power is indeed weaker, not to mention Wen Guixin. I can't do any of the things she did."
"Sister Gui Xin is special. Her ability must be combat-related. We can't compare with her. But, you were in such danger that time..." Li Wenxi's voice was a little worried, and he touched Xu Xin's left shoulder with his hand, "No sequelae left, right?"
"Of course not. The hemostatic grass is still quite effective."
Compared to the more advanced hemostatic pills that Qi Xuefei can make now, which can quickly heal injuries all over the body after taking them, the hemostatic grass does have great flaws. It needs to be ground and applied, and can only repair wounds in a certain part of the body.
But it was completely sufficient for the penetrating injury at that time.
"From what you said, isn't this altar a special existence? The first and second elders in your district are both by the altar."
Xu Xin is actually more inclined to the possibility that the two altars nearby existed originally.
After all, when Changyin and his family came out from underground, they were looking for this altar. They had learned from a mysterious voice that there was an altar on the ground decades ago.
So the altar should not have appeared recently.
Or in other words… sometimes there and sometimes not
The few of them were now less than a kilometer away from the circle of hills. And because the surrounding trees were all bare and the sight was much better than before, they could already see the whole picture of the hills more clearly.
"Huh?" Ji Chaoyang let out a surprised sound, looking at the hill of the salt mine not far away.
Xu Xin glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and found that his expression was a little solemn.
It seems that he has discovered something unusual.
This guy's observation ability is really strong. It took him a long time to discover it at first. Of course, there was a dense jungle at that time and the vision was poor. If you don't find a good angle, you can't see the whole picture from a distance.
Soon, they were within 500 meters.
"There are a lot of metal mines here, almost the same as over here!" Li Wenxi said, looking at the hills ahead.
"Metal mines? Where are they?" Xu Xin thought of something and asked her immediately.
"Hmm... It's a bit strange. The metal mines are not in the mountains, but underground inside the mountains. There are no metal mines in the mountains of this hilly area. Why is that?" Li Wenxi was a little confused.
There are no minerals in the mountain, but there are...
Xu Xin felt a little uneasy again.
He thought that during the rainy season, all these hills disappeared without a trace, but came back after the rainy season ended without any change, not even the crooked trees on the hills had changed.
But now, as the weather turns colder, those crooked trees have all withered and become bare.
These hills may actually be alive.
"Okay, here it is."
The Silver King stopped a hundred meters away from the salt mine cave, and the white horse stopped with him.
"What's going on here?" Li Wenxi looked around. Ahead was the entrance to the resource area surrounded by hills. She thought she was going to go in directly.
"The mine in front is where I mined salt before. I told you it was very dangerous here."
"Ah, it's that cave! You did say that. Is it still dangerous now?" Li Wenxi asked as he touched Coco who was lost in the lake again in his arms.
Ji Chaoyang had already narrowed his eyes and began to look at the hill.
"Ah!" Qi Xuefei also noticed the clue, covered her mouth and opened her eyes wide.
"What's wrong with you?" Li Wenxi was a little puzzled. He followed the gazes of several people and looked carefully twice: "Hmm... ? Is there something wrong... Oh my God!"
Li Wenxi also noticed the situation, his eyes widened instantly, and he pointed at the hills in front of him and screamed: "This... Is this a head?"
The other three people except Xu Xin all looked at this strange hill with nervous expressions.
"Let's go, let's get closer and take a look. There might be danger nearby." Xu Xin rolled off the Silver King and slowly approached the salt mine cave.
At this time, he missed Mimi a little. If Mimi was here, he could let it go in quickly and take a look around.
His tree house is nearby now, so he can call Mimi over.
…Forget it, let Mimi look after Lou Feier first. That woman cannot be fully trusted at this stage.
Several people walked slowly towards the cave.
“…嘤?” Coco, who was held in Li Wenxi’s arms, suddenly woke up. Looking at the familiar salt mine cave in front of it, it tilted its little head and made a somewhat puzzled cry.
"How is it, Coco? Is there still danger in the mine?" Xu Xin asked Coco.
"Hmm..." Keke tilted her head again, as if thinking for a while, then shook her head, "Hmm."
"What does it mean?" Ji Chaoyang, who had been looking at the hill, glanced at Coco and asked.
"There shouldn't be any danger in the cave now," Xu Xin said, patting Keke's little head. "But we still have to be careful. Keke's attitude usually means that although he can't sense any danger now, he is still not sure that it is safe inside. There may be potential dangers."
"This giant head is sleeping, is that what you mean?" Qi Xuefei made a joke.
Several people stopped at the entrance of the salt mine cave. Looking at the cave that looked like a huge mouth, they felt a little scared.