Chapter 4: tall tree house

As a man of action, Xu Xin didn't just sit and watch the tree house grow. He remembered the blue plants from earlier and realized he had only looked at the soil without paying attention to what those blue plants were for. Now was a good time to go check them out.

There were three blue plants in total. To be honest, if it weren't for his item appraisal ability, he wouldn't have been able to tell what made these plants so special.

[Red Berry · Large (Blue): An edible fruit that can be consumed directly. It has a sweet and sour taste with eyesight-improving effects. Eating one provides 2 hours of night vision ability.]

[Premium Mushroom (Blue): An edible fungus with an extremely delicious taste. Consuming it permanently increases intelligence by a very small amount.]

[Advanced Poplar Tree (Blue): A higher-grade poplar tree. Cutting it down yields high-quality wood.]

These three plants with three different types of functions gave Xu Xin some understanding of the item function classification in this world.

The Red Berry · Large was a renewable blue food resource. Even after picking the berries, the blue-quality shrub would remain, and the berries would grow back after some time. Therefore, its effect was temporary – eating one berry would provide 2 hours of night vision ability.

The Premium Mushroom was also a blue food resource, but unlike the red berries, it wasn't renewable. Unless one could find fertile soil to plant it in, even if replanted, the mushrooms that grew afterward would generally not be of blue quality. Thus, its effect was permanent, capable of slightly increasing intelligence.

The Advanced Poplar Tree was a material-type resource, which was easy to understand. It was also non-renewable, probably one of the scarce resources in this world. The surrounding ordinary soil also had poplar trees growing, which were Intermediate Poplar Trees (Green), still a grade higher than the White Poplar Trees (White) Xu Xin had seen initially.

Xu Xin didn't rush to pick the berries, as he already had 32 Red Berry · Large in his possession. He didn't know how long these berries could stay fresh, and it wouldn't be good if they spoiled quickly after being picked.

As for the Premium Mushrooms, he picked them all. There were over twenty blue-quality mushrooms in total. Although each one only provided a "very small increase," twenty or so should have a noticeable effect, right? A patch of soil could only grow one tree house, but it could grow more than twenty mushrooms, all mutating to blue quality. It seemed that the number of plants that could be grown on a piece of land depended on the type of plant or fungus.

He left the poplar tree alone, as he currently didn't have the ability to cut it down.

After dealing with the blue-quality resources, Xu Xin went to check out the green-quality resources. He had eaten green-quality red berries and apples before, which didn't have any special functions. It seemed that only blue quality and above had special abilities.

Since half of the soil was ordinary soil (green), green-quality resources were everywhere. Xu Xin looked around but didn't bother with them anymore, as there were too many. He just picked an apple and munched on it as he returned to the planted tree house.

By now, a considerable amount of time had passed, and the original small seed had grown into a towering tree.

"Is this… a banyan tree?" Xu Xin exclaimed in amazement as he looked at the incredibly lush banyan tree before him, so large it was almost unbelievable.

Banyan trees were known for their ability to "form a forest with a single tree" because their canopies could cover an extremely large area. In Xu Xin's original world, a single century-old banyan tree's canopy could cover an area of over a thousand square meters, truly forming a forest with a single tree.

At this moment, although the tree house hadn't fully grown, the banyan tree's canopy was already very large. While it didn't cover as vast an area as those legendary old banyan trees, it still spanned over a hundred square meters.

Gradually, the canopy became very dense, and sunlight could no longer penetrate through it. The entire canopy now looked like a giant, opaque ball of seaweed. Xu Xin knew his tree house was about to be completed.

In Xu Xin's vision, this tree house emitted a faint purple glow.

[Tall Small Tree House (Purple): A tree house formed from the growth of a banyan tree. It's a high-end product among tree houses, naturally possessing a bloodline that other tree houses can't match. Those who can obtain this type of tree house are either extremely lucky or pay-to-win players. Which are you?]

I'm a pay-to-win player.

Xu Xin calmly retracted his item appraisal ability, as the vision full of colorful hues was simply light pollution.

Planting a tree house seed of indiscernible quality in the blue [Fertile Soil] resulted in a purple-quality tree house. This should be the unique characteristic of the tree house seed – it can perfectly utilize the soil to grow into the highest-grade tree house that the soil can support.

By extension, planting a tree house seed in poor soil (white) should yield a green-quality [Low Small Tree House], while planting it in ordinary soil (green) should result in a blue-quality [Small Tree House].

From the description, it seemed that only the [Tall Small Tree House] he obtained was grown from a banyan tree.

[Tree house growth completed, ready for occupancy.]

The dense canopy completely blocked out the sunlight, not letting even a sliver of light through. From the outside, it looked like a breathtaking large banyan tree, with no indication that it was a tree house.

The entire banyan tree was about twenty meters tall, equivalent to a seven-story building. Even the lowest part of the canopy was about ten meters above the ground, roughly the height of a fourth-floor window.

At this height, how was one supposed to get up there…

Xu Xin glanced at the aerial roots hanging down like willow branches around the banyan tree. Could it be that he was supposed to grab onto these and climb up?

But his body didn't have that kind of ability…

Xu Xin tentatively reached out and grabbed one of the aerial roots. A familiar feeling surged through his entire body, as if this large banyan tree was a part of his own body.

This strange sensation excited Xu Xin.

Instinctively, he controlled these aerial roots to wrap around his waist, effortlessly lifting him up.

"Woohoo!" The pulling speed wasn't slow, and Xu Xin quickly left the ground, being yanked up ten meters into the air.

Just as his head was about to collide with the dense bottom of the canopy, the canopy suddenly opened up, and Xu Xin entered the interior of the tree house.

"This… this is too thrilling!" Standing inside the tree house, Xu Xin was still a bit shaken, after all, he had just thought he was going to crash headfirst into that dense canopy.

After calming down a bit, Xu Xin began to survey his surroundings.

The interior of the tree house was completely different from what he had imagined. He had thought it would be a space enclosed by dense banyan leaves, but it wasn't.

The floor and walls were made of wooden planks with annual ring patterns. The house was about the same size as the area covered by the canopy, over a hundred square meters, and the entire interior of the tree house was empty. He was standing in the very center of the space, his feet on a circular pattern that seemed to be the entrance to this tree house.

Because there were several windows, the entire space was very bright. Xu Xin curiously walked to a window and found that although the outside was wrapped in dense banyan leaves, he seemed to have gained x-ray vision, able to see the scenery outside.

Recalling the scene before coming up, this was probably a case of being able to see outside from the inside, but not being able to see inside from the outside.

This floor was about three meters high, and Xu Xin also saw stairs on one side. It seemed this tree house had more than one floor.