Chapter 86: Chapter 86: Beginning the Treasure Hunt

Xu Xin’s heart was pounding violently, and he was constantly gasping for air.

Gradually, his headache lightened significantly, and upon realizing that he had escaped, he couldn’t help but laugh. He pulled over Keke, who had jumped down and was looking at him with some concern, and gave her a vigorous rub.

“Ying ying ying!” Keke protested but in vain, her fur getting all ruffled under Xu Xin’s assault.

“This trap is too insidious!” Xu Xin was still shaken. The sight of the entire passage being filled with a swarm of dark bats rushing at him was enough to fuel several nightmares at night.

What was most terrifying about these bats was the virus they carried; even a few scratches on his body could be fatal. This was what he feared the most.

However, fortunately, these blood-patterned bats could not get through this door.

Xu Xin began to survey everything inside the door.

The scene before him now fit the definition of an “underground dungeon.”

He was in a stone chamber the size of a living room, with uneven stone walls lined with torches that were still burning. They seemed to have just ignited along with the wall sconces.

The air was filled with a musty and putrid smell. On the wall directly in front of him was a passageway corridor extending straight ahead, where he could see a dilapidated wooden door every few meters on both sides of the corridor.

The corridor was long, and it was unclear how many such doors there were.

It seemed that the treasure should be behind these doors.

The heavy door behind him no longer emitted the frequent sounds of banging, as it seemed the bats knew they couldn’t crash through the door and gradually dispersed.

“I wonder if there’s another way out; I don’t want to walk this path again.” Xu Xin shook his head and stood up.

Before exploring further, he needed to dismantle the bats’ corpses to see if there was anything useful.

Holding a boning knife, Xu Xin performed a dissection on the three blood-patterned bats.

[Obtained Mutant Bat Skin (Green) *3, Mutant Bat Meat (Green) *2.5kg]

Not even a single blue-grade material, worse than mice!

The mutant mouse was worth 20 points, but the mutant bats were only worth 10 points.

The blood patterns on these bats were faint, with only the insides of their wings having a more vibrant color. It appeared these bats were a level lower in the hierarchy of mutant creatures compared to the mice and toads he’d encountered before.

[Mutant Bat Meat (Green): A special delicacy that is edible, but be cautious of viral infection; it must be cooked thoroughly!]

Wow, bat meat!

Xu Xin dared not eat it; though once cooked, it might not differ much from other wild animal meat, the risk of a heat-resistant virus was too great.

Following the “might be useful” principle, Xu Xin decided to collect these materials.

Xu Xin decided to share and discuss the current situation here with the members of the [Explorer].

But as he swiped his watch, his mechanical watch did not display the familiar small projection, showing no reaction at all, only the hands slowly moving to show the current time.

“… Did this watch lose its function in the dungeon?” Xu Xin wanted to curse. What did this mean, not in the signal area?

In the end, he would have to explore on his own.

No choice, time to take action.

Xu Xin began to survey the stone chamber he was in. Apart from the burning torches on the walls, everything here appeared old and decrepit.

At the entrance to the corridor ahead was a stone table, and as Xu Xin walked over, he found some crooked text carved into it.

This… is Chinese characters!

Xu Xin wiped the dirt off the table with his leather armor sleeve, fully revealing the carved characters before his eyes.

The handwriting was very ugly, like it was drawn by a child who just learned to write with a paintbrush. Xu Xin scrutinized closely and relied on his imagination to find two relatively coherent sentences among the many writings.

“Devil… they are all devils?” Xu Xin mumbled to himself. “Kill… me… I want to… die? And this one, you guys… will… not die… a good death?”

These strange, crooked carvings exuded a profound hatred between the lines.

“Were these words carved by someone in a state worse than death?” Xu Xin swallowed hard, feeling a bit uneasy. “What could that person have experienced here?”

He turned to look at the pitch-black corridor beside him with no end in sight. Although the torchlight illuminated this stone chamber, the passage was completely dark without any torches. If not for Xu Xin’s current night vision ability, he wouldn’t be able to see what was inside at all.

The treehouse could produce torches, but they would only illuminate a few meters ahead, combined with the engravings on the table, making this passage exceptionally eerie and terrifying.

“Keke, see those doors?” Xu Xin pointed to the decayed wooden doors in the corridor.

Keke, who was scratching at the engraved marks on the stone table with her paws, looked up to peer into the corridor upon hearing Xu Xin’s words: “Ying?”

“Can you sense any danger behind the doors?”

Keke jumped down from the table, moved to the corridor’s entrance, stretched her neck to glance inside, then shook her head: “Ying.”

Xu Xin breathed a slight sigh of relief. He trusted the little creature’s instincts, which had been very helpful on the journey here. But even so, he couldn’t let his guard down.

Xu Xin placed Keke onto his shoulder, grasped his stone sword, and stepped into the corridor.

The nearest decayed wooden door was only a few meters away. Xu Xin approached the door and gently pushed against it.

…but there was no movement; it seemed to be locked.

“Ying!” Keke suddenly cried out, and Xu Xin could discern that it wasn’t a call of danger, but rather…

“Is there treasure?” Xu Xin’s eyes lit up.

Not rushing to open the door, he walked further along, inspecting a few doors and finding them all locked.

No other option, he would have to break them down and hope the noise wouldn’t attract something strange.

Returning to the first door, there wasn’t any lock he could break. Xu Xin could only raise his foot and kick the decayed wooden door.

With a bang, the door swung open with a single kick, releasing a moldy, unpleasant odor as two broken wooden pieces fell to the ground.

The door was bolted from the inside with a wooden latch.

Xu Xin looked inside the room and his eyelid twitched.

Inside this first room was only a table, a chair, and seated on the chair was a stone statue shaped like a human.

“What does this mean, why is there a statue sitting on the chair?” Xu Xin warily observed the statue.

In his identification ability, the statue emitted a green glow, indicating it was a green-grade item. The statue featured an Asian male face, intricately sculpted to appear as if the person was writing, yet there was no pen in his hand.

It felt as if… as if a real person had been abruptly turned to stone while writing.

Surely it wouldn’t come to life like the altar statues did before!

Xu Xin noticed that although the statue’s right hand was in a writing posture with no pen, the left hand held down upon three paper-like items, and those two sheets of paper also glowed a green light.

He stepped forward, gently pulling the three sheets of paper from the statue’s hand.

[Mutant Beast Contract (Green): Allows you to contract one low-level mutant beast, making it obedient.]

So it’s a contract to tame mutant beasts!

Is this the treasure of this dungeon?

Mutant beasts are not necessarily stronger than ordinary beasts, like the mice, toads, and bats he encountered here; likely, in terms of strength, they were inferior to the Wolf King as a mount, yet they possessed special abilities that regular beasts did not.

Xu Xin hadn’t identified the special ability of the mutant mouse, but he clearly had with the mutant toads and bats.

The toad’s tongue could intercept flying objects, easily halting even a near-purple-grade crossbow arrow. The cries of mutant bats contained ultrasonic waves, with the calls of a swarm enough to make Xu Xin, even in a Spiritual Power buffed state, feel like his head was about to explode.

The two in the altar were even more mutated, visibly altered in their bodies.

Although these mutant creatures may not be overwhelmingly strong, they could play unexpected roles in certain situations.

But still…

Xu Xin looked at the human-shaped statue.

The situation before him suggested that the statue might have written the contracts?