Chapter 20: Finally got a backpack!

Holding the boning knife, Xu Xin got busy.

Although he had never dissected an animal carcass before, this boning knife was very thoughtful. As soon as he held the knife, his mind automatically visualized where to make the cuts. Plus, the knife was extremely sharp and required little effort. Very quickly, Xu Xin finished dissecting the bear and wolf.

[Obtained: 1 Complete Bear Hide (Green), 1 Tattered Wolf Hide (White), 200kg Bear Meat (Green), 80kg Wolf Meat (Green), 1 Bear Paw (Green), 1 Bear Paw (Blue), 2 Bear Bones (Green), 2 Wolf Bones (Green)]

The prompt for obtaining materials from the dissection came belatedly.

A blue-grade material made Xu Xin's eyes light up.

A blue-grade bear paw!

Looking at that bear paw, a description appeared in Xu Xin's mind.

[Bear Paw (Blue): High-grade ingredient. With proper cooking, it can become an amazing delicacy. Can permanently increase the consumer's strength by a small amount.]

Here it is! An ingredient that can increase strength attributes has arrived!

Xu Xin was overjoyed. He had long felt insecure about his strength, but in a place like this, he couldn't spend enormous energy and effort on working out. This kind of ingredient was the best choice for him.

Looking at the remaining materials, there were many – hides, bones, meat – mostly common ingredients. Unfortunately, the boning knife didn't preserve the internal organs; those trimmings seemed to have disappeared on their own.

Xu Xin quite liked eating offal like heart, liver, kidney, and intestines, which were delicious in hot pot or stir-fry. But now without chili peppers, these things would taste too strong without spices. Oh well, it is what it is.

By the way, why weren't there any animal tendons? Could it be that these materials were obtained with a certain probability, and his luck wasn't good this time?

This felt really disappointing…

Never mind, the urgent task now was to make a backpack, since he already had bear and wolf hides.

The materials for making a backpack were one animal hide (Green) and three ropes (White).

Ropes could be made in the crafting table, with reeds from the lakeside as the raw material. Now that Xu Xin had a complete bear hide (Green), he could make a backpack.

He first twisted the reeds collected from the lakeside into ropes, and then directly crafted the backpack.

[Backpack (Green): A backpack with 10 slots. The amount of resources each slot can hold depends on the type of resource. Can reduce the weight of resources to 20% of their original weight.]

A small backpack appeared before his eyes, looking very compact and not hindering movement when worn on the back.

Xu Xin tried putting 100 pieces of wood into it, which only occupied one slot, and indeed the weight was reduced to 20% of the original. A piece of wood weighed about half a kilogram, so 100 pieces would be 50 kg. Placed in the backpack, Xu Xin felt it weighed only 10 kg, which was already very light – carrying a girlfriend would weigh a hundred jin.

"This is really comfortable!" Having obtained a backpack, Xu Xin suddenly felt filled with the desire to explore again.

There must be many beasts that died in the chaos outside. If he went down now to retrieve a few carcasses, wouldn't that be a big profit? That black bear weighing 200 kg would only weigh 40 kg in the backpack, still within his bearable range.

Looking at the map, the red dots were now much fewer compared to the initial chaotic stage. Those that could die had died, those that could be injured were injured, and those that could run had run. The small sun in the lake hadn't appeared again either.

He observed the surroundings from the window. Because he had only cleared the trees under the treehouse canopy and hadn't cleared the surrounding trees to avoid making his banyan tree too conspicuous, he could only see the ground below through gaps in the surrounding poplar leaves.

Fortunately, the poplar canopy wasn't as dense as his banyan tree, so he could sporadically see broken beast carcasses on the ground. They had all been gnawed on, with several living beasts enjoying a feast beside each carcass.

That makes sense – how could these starving beasts pass up a feast right before their eyes? If he went down now to retrieve carcasses, he would only get broken beast carcasses, like the wolf carcass he had retrieved earlier. Even if dissected, he would only obtain white-quality tattered hides and a bunch of gnawed meat. The possibility of obtaining items like the bear paw from earlier was very small.

He didn't plan to eat that gnawed meat. The 200 kg of bear meat was already more than he could eat himself, and now without any means of preservation, he could only hang that meat on the trading platform to sell. But the forest didn't lack food; ordinary meat would at most be exchanged by someone craving a taste, with no food shortage crisis. Naturally, no one would use crucial resources to exchange for meat.

As for those who couldn't even eat their fill, Xu Xin didn't think they had anything worth his attention.

So going down to retrieve carcasses now, only the bones would count as a resource. But he could completely wait for this wave to pass and go down to collect the bones himself later. Surely these beasts wouldn't gnaw on the bones too?

Moreover, the locations of those carcasses were all in places beyond the control of the treehouse roots. Although his attack power was indeed higher now, without armor his body was too fragile. He wasn't some gun expert who could wield a gun like a dragon; he might not be able to win and could end up pinned to the ground.

Forget it.

If he had obtained animal tendons earlier and made a bow and arrows, Xu Xin could have tried sniping from a distance. But with the current equipment, this small return wasn't worth risking his life.

Xu Xin looked at the materials he had just obtained.

Was this tattered wolf hide useless? It was still an animal hide, albeit white-quality.

Wait a minute!

Using materials of higher quality than the blueprint could produce higher quality items, so could using lower quality materials produce lower quality items?

The materials for a backpack were one animal hide (Green) and three ropes (White).

Could it be made with a tattered animal hide (White)?

Xu Xin came to the crafting table and tried to use that tattered wolf hide.

The light cluster flickered, and under Xu Xin's delighted gaze, a backpack was crafted.

[Patched Backpack (White): A backpack made with low-quality animal hide. Has 5 slots in total. The amount of resources each slot can hold depends on the type of resource. Can reduce the weight of resources to 50% of their original weight.]

Well, well, waste not want not!

Although he couldn't use it himself, he could sell it! Reducing weight by half was not bad either, equivalent to doubling the carrying capacity. At this stage, people who had a crafting table and could kill fierce beasts among the beast horde should be few, right?

Or he could directly exchange it for some high-grade stone or iron ore from Li Wenxi.

Looking at the regional channel, the number of people had dropped to 8,156, and in the second he was watching, it jumped to 8,155.

Indeed, once the newbie protection period was over, reality became cruel. In just a few hours, nearly 2,000 people had died.

Because he lived in a tall little treehouse, ten meters above the ground, as long as he didn't do anything stupid, there was no danger. So apart from that big snake, he hadn't felt much danger. But seeing the remaining number of people, his mood also became heavy.

As the beast tide outside gradually receded, the regional channel gradually regained its vitality.

"I survived!"

"This… so many people died… So many people died on the first day, can we really survive?"

"To the person above, there are still more than twenty hours left in the first day. This is just the beginning."

"You shut up!"

"Thanks to Boss Ji Chaoyang's method for helping me survive!"

"Thanks to Boss Ji Chaoyang +1"

"Thanks +2"

Ji Chaoyang?

Seeing this name appear again, he became interested.