Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 645 - 437: Golden Grade Prison

There are a total of ten cells here, but only Zhao Xiaochuan’s cell is occupied, while the other cells are completely empty.

Yet each little room is fully equipped.

There’s a bed, a table, a chair, and even a small toilet and a washbasin.

It’s practically a professional prison!

"I’ll first put you into the wristband and take you out." Xu Xin asked Zhao Xiaochuan to reach out his hand.

"Long live Brother Xin!" Zhao Xiaochuan immediately extended his hand.

Though the gaps in the cage were small, it wasn’t much of a problem to reach his hand out.

As it turned out, things weren’t as simple as he imagined.

The wristband didn’t work.

Zhao Xiaochuan was still inside the cage, and the two faced each other in bewilderment.

Thinking it over, Xu Xin guessed the principle behind it.

The nature of this cell felt like a backpack or another wristband, used for storing items or imprisoning life.

If they wanted to put Zhao Xiaochuan into the wristband, they would first have to get him out of the cell.

After all, even Xu Xin’s wristband couldn’t directly snatch things from another person’s backpack.

He could only take things out of the backpack first or directly put the backpack into the wristband.

But this cage couldn’t be put into the wristband, so the only option was to get Zhao Xiaochuan out.

Having no choice, Xu Xin searched the cell for a possible switch to open the cell door while listening to Zhao Xiaochuan recount his experience.

As for Keke, it had already squeezed through the gap in the metal railing and ran into the cell.

Given its small size, the cage here couldn’t possibly stop it; it ran freely.

Just as he imagined, Zhao Xiaochuan, upon landing, heard the triggering sound and received a prompt.

Likewise, he immediately noticed the central vine bundle.

After all, there wasn’t anything else eye-catching around, and this central vine bundle was at the very center of the landing spot for all six of them.

He realized this was the key to returning and began heading towards it.

His approach was quite simple.

Just as Xu Xin imagined, he directly activated his ability, making himself lose presence in the eyes of all surrounding creatures, and simply strolled over.

His walking speed wasn’t fast since speeding up would cause his ability to fail and allow him to be discovered.

However, unlike Xu Xin, he didn’t need to intentionally avoid the giant beasts and even curiously observed several of them as he passed by.

Moreover, he didn’t encounter the river Xu Xin had to cross.

Although he saw two small lakes.

Much easier than Xu Xin, he effortlessly reached the vicinity of the vine bundle.

"So, how did you end up locked in this cell?"

Although he asked the question, Xu Xin had already formed an idea.

Zhao Xiaochuan’s encounter might be similar to the predicament of those mutated beasts he speculated about.

Sure enough, Zhao Xiaochuan explained Xu Xin’s thoughts, "There are traps near the vine bundle, Brother Xin. You probably didn’t step on them, right? I wanted to get closer to check out the vine bundle, and just as I reached about fifty meters away, a large section of the ground suddenly collapsed! A huge slab of land fell straight down, leaving no room to dodge, and I was taken down with it!"

As he spoke, his expression was still somewhat fearful: "At the time, I thought I was going to fall into a bottomless abyss and die!"

A large section of ground collapsed, huh.

No wonder even giant beasts could step into the trap and be locked in this cage.

"And then you fell directly into this cell?" Xu Xin asked.

"Well..." Zhao Xiaochuan shook his head, "I don’t think so. I seemed to have fainted for some reason during the fall, and when I woke up, I was lying in the bed in this room. I can’t just fall onto the bed, lying so properly, right? Maybe someone brought me here?"

... Could such a thing really happen?

Xu Xin’s heart skipped a beat.

Here, in the underground prison, there’s someone else present.

It could very well be the prison’s manager.

However, from the current perspective, these presences seem unwilling to show themselves to the survivors.

So Zhao Xiaochuan would faint upon falling, and when he came down, he wouldn’t see any other life forms except the beasts in the cage.

Xu Xin continued to explore the suite’s floor and walls, searching for possible mechanisms, while pondering.

"But, Brother Xin, those giant beasts outside are really awesome!" Zhao Xiaochuan sat on the metal stool in the cell, eyes shining, "I truly didn’t expect this world’s underground to have such a world; it’s so cool! Did you and Brother Chaoyang know about this long ago?"

"That’s right." Xu Xin nodded.

Since Zhao Xiaochuan had already arrived in this world, he was considered privy to the secret, so they could exchange intelligence.

"When Ji Chaoyang and I won the golden treasure box back then, we had already seen this world." Xu Xin explained, pointing upwards, "Back then, the location of the golden treasure box was just above this world, and we saw it from above looking down."

He smiled as he spoke: "The impact of looking down at this world from above was tremendous."

"So the ones who won the golden treasure box knew about this world long ago! Then..." Zhao Xiaochuan hesitated for a moment, asking, "Why didn’t you tell us? Although there was no necessity, it wasn’t something that needed to be kept secret, right?"

Hmm?

Xu Xin was slightly taken aback, turned his head to him, and said, "Because initially, that mysterious voice told me not to tell anyone unaware about this place, otherwise I would be punished, that’s why Ji Chaoyang and I never spoke of it. Didn’t you receive such a prompt?"

"Huh? There’s such a thing?" Zhao Xiaochuan looked confused, "No, I didn’t receive such a prompt? It just told me to find the secret of this area within 24 hours, find a way back, and then the mysterious voice never sounded again."

Xu Xin’s eyebrows slightly raised.

It was exactly the same as his experience.

Could it be that, having gone through this event, they can now relay the matters of the underground world to others?

Very likely!

The initial golden chest, that was the first task, so that mysterious voice didn’t want many people to know about this underground world.

But now, their second phase of the winter season is already about to end, and most people have the qualification to know these things.

However, it doesn’t really matter.

Beyond the explorers, he doesn’t plan to spread the affairs of the underground world outside.

If it gets out, they might not even believe it.

"Brother Xin, isn’t there any mechanism outside to open the cage?" Zhao Xiaochuan asked worriedly.

Xu Xin groped around the ground twice more, shook his head, stood up, and said, "I can’t find it, the outside of this cage is just a smooth metal wall, I touched around the surroundings, but didn’t trigger any mechanism, nor received any clues."

"Huh?" Zhao Xiaochuan had a distressed look on his face, "No way, does that mean I can’t get out?"

"Ying..." Keke poked its head out from under the bed, then crawled out, its little face dusty, and after crawling out of the cell, it ran to Xu Xin and wanted to climb up.

Xu Xin picked it up, patted it twice, making the little guy whimper, before hugging and asking it, "How is it, did you find anything inside?"

"Ying..." Keke shook its little head, indicating there was nothing inside.

"There is certainly nothing inside." Zhao Xiaochuan sat on the bed somewhat frustrated and scratched his head, "I’ve checked every single dead end in here, there really are no mechanisms, and I’ve tried this door too."

As he spoke, he touched the purple-grade steel dagger on his waist and said helplessly, "Even a purple-grade steel weapon can’t damage this metal railing, it’s really hard."

Xu Xin shook his head.

Of course it can’t be destroyed.

This is, after all, the deepest cell in this dungeon, even though it’s much smaller than the initial prison cells but...

The material emits a golden glow!

A gold-quality cell, how could it possibly be cut open with a purple-grade dagger.

But there must be a way to open it.

Otherwise, you can’t even bring anything out, it can’t be, only enter but not exit, right?

"Also, Brother Xin, you don’t know," Zhao Xiaochuan pointed to his backpack and said, "While my backpack and armor are still here, in this cell, I can’t even take out my backpack contents! Now all I have is this steel armor and this dagger."

In the cell, even the backpack can’t be used?

What can I say, as expected of a gold-level cell.

Rescuing someone from a gold-level cell is really not easy.

Xu Xin looked around once more.

This is already the deepest end of the cell.

At a dead end.

Does that mean that people locked in the cell can’t get out for the time being?

"You just wait inside for now." Xu Xin took out some food and water from his backpack and handed them to him, "I’ll go around and see what else is around here."

He thought of when he first came down, this passage had paths both forward and backward.

Maybe he should try walking in another direction, maybe he’ll discover something.

"Brother Xin, my little life depends on you to save..." Zhao Xiaochuan grabbed the metal railing with a face full of bitterness, feeling a sense of "tears behind bars".

Bidding farewell to Zhao Xiaochuan, Xu Xin took Keke and turned back.

"Ying!" Keke jumped out of Xu Xin’s arms and in two steps dashed ahead.

Xu Xin didn’t bother with the little guy, let it do its thing, plus it always manages to find things he can’t.

Passing by these two giant beasts once more, he no longer felt scared.

Because he knows, these big guys, are unlikely to harm creatures outside the cage.

There are very few giant beasts in the dungeon, just the two he saw.

One is a giant beast with long horns like a demon, half-bull half-goat, and the other a two-headed lion with reddish mane.

When the giant lion saw him pass by the cage for the second time, it lost interest, only lifted its four eyes briefly, and then became motionless.

The bull-goat beast still watched Xu Xin with its terrifying horizontal pupils as he passed by, but didn’t move or make any sound.

There are a total of eight giant beast-sized cells here.

Apart from these two, the other six are empty.

And further up, the more beasts there are, the fewer empty cells.

Seeing the surrounding gradually filled Lafang, Xu Xin’s heart suddenly had an absurd idea.

... Could the goal of this activity be for them to fill up this underground prison...

Fill it to the brim?