Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Tong Xinglong's explanation was actually a bit superfluous.

The moment Xia Hong saw the bright red bloodstains, he roughly understood what had happened.

The blood of cold beasts was all emerald green. This was the first time Xia Hong had seen bloodstains that were the same red as humans.

"The blood of mid-level cold beasts is red?"

After this guess popped up in Xia Hong's mind, he stared at the blood on the arrowhead for a long time, then, as if possessed, he reached out and touched it.

"Big Brother!"

"Leader, be careful."

Having just suffered a loss, the Tong Xinglong brothers immediately tried to dissuade him, as did Xia Chuan.

But Xia Hong just shook his head and didn't stop, touching it anyway.

At least thirty hours had passed since he shot the Rat King last night, yet the bloodstains on the arrowhead were still obviously liquid.

Chi…

A wisp of green smoke rose from his fingertip, and the pain caused by the intense burning sensation shot straight into his brain, but Xia Hong's hand still didn't pull away. Not only was there no fear on his face, but he also revealed an expression of incomparable excitement.

"This burning sensation is very similar to the feeling that rises when eating cold beast meat!"

No, it wasn't just similar, it was simply a strengthened version of eating cold beast meat.

This burning sensation, this burning sensation, is like…

After pondering for a moment, Xia Hong suddenly looked up and asked the three people in front of him:

"Is it dark now?"

Xia Chuan quickly replied, "It'll be a while."

Hearing the answer, Xia Hong didn't say a word, directly took the iron arrow in his hand, and led the three people out of the room, around the hall, and to the corridor door.

The third floor had three-meter-wide corridors on all sides, and the corridors were separated from the interior by doors. Opening the door in front of him would lead to the corridor.

Xia Hong carefully pulled open the door, leaving a crack.

Whoosh…

Even though he only opened a finger-width crack, the moment the light outside the door shone in, it brought a strong wind, making a whooshing sound.

The cold air in the sunlight was clearly visible. It clashed with the warm air in the wooden house, and puddles of water immediately appeared where it shone. The temperature around the three people also noticeably dropped.

"This is still within the radiation range of the iron smelting furnace. If ordinary people were exposed to this in other places, they wouldn't be able to withstand it at all. I estimate they'd be frozen into ice sculptures in a few minutes…"

This cold sunlight, even though it wasn't the first time he'd seen it.

But Xia Hong still found this scene, which defied common sense, to be extremely bizarre.

Slightly calming his mind, Xia Hong reached out and put his finger, which had just been burned from touching the iron arrow, under the sunlight.

"This…"

"The wound is healed?"

"Is this recovery?"

Xia Chuan and the Tong Xinglong brothers both had expressions of surprise and astonishment on their faces at this moment.

The wound on Xia Hong's finger actually slowly recovered after being exposed to the sunlight.

Not only did it recover, but the flesh color was even healthier than before!

"Hiss…"

Xia Hong hissed a breath of cold air, suddenly withdrew his finger, and seeing the already recovered finger, which had formed a thin layer of ice, he turned back to look at Xia Chuan and the Tong Xinglong brothers, his face instantly full of smiles.

"By mistake, you guys actually gave me the breakthrough idea for the Cold Resistance level!"

The three were not stupid. Combining Xia Hong's actions, they immediately realized it.

"Big Brother, are you saying that breaking through to the Cold Resistance level requires the blood of mid-level cold beasts?"

"That's right!"

The burning sensation he felt after touching the blood just now immediately reminded Xia Hong of the feeling he had when he came into contact with the sunlight during the attack by the Golden-Eyed Magic Goat on the earthen slope earlier.

Moreover, this burning sensation had a very obvious similarity to the heat generated in the body after eating cold beast meat, except that the feeling was stronger and on the surface of the body.

"Skin membrane. To break through to the Cold Resistance level, one should use the blood of this mid-level cold beast to reshape the skin membrane. During this entire process, the basic strength should continue to increase, but the most important thing is to help people obtain the qualification to move around in the sun. I just don't know how much is needed…"

Feeling the subtle improvement in his finger, Xia Hong was already 90% certain. The only thing he wasn't sure about was how much blood of mid-level cold beasts was needed.

"Hiss…"

Xia Hong turned his head and saw that Tong Xinglong was also imitating him, putting his burned hand in the sunlight, but he couldn't withstand the cold and immediately retracted it.

"Don't try it randomly. You're only at the Wood Chopping Realm. You definitely can't withstand this cold light. Apply Golden Sore Ointment to the wounds on your hands first and let them heal naturally. Be more careful when handling prey later, especially mid-level cold beasts."

"Yes, Leader."

Xia Hong didn't say anything more. After helping to clean up the bloodstains on the eight iron arrows, he let the three leave.

Returning to the room, Xia Hong took out his ceremonial saber again.

Drawing the saber from its scabbard, sure enough, the green blood of the ordinary gnawing rats on the blade was almost dried into dregs, while a small amount of bright red blood had gathered and flowed to the tip of the blade.

Last night, his ceremonial saber was the first to wound the Rat King.

Xia Hong carefully cleaned all the blood on the ceremonial saber, then sheathed the saber and sat down to continue cultivating.

Relying on a little bit of bloodstains to cultivate was definitely impossible.

Judging from the strength of that gnawing rat, his hunting ability was definitely not up to par at the current stage to kill mid-level cold beasts. Not to mention others, he, at the very least, had to increase his basic strength to the limit of 30,000 jin before considering it.

"In this way, unless my breakthrough idea is wrong, then there's no need to venture into the Arrow Bamboo Forest, and I can postpone going to Pingxi Plains."

Previously, Xia Hong's only motivation for venturing into the Arrow Bamboo Forest and going to Pingxi Plains was to go to the Beehive Camp to inquire about methods to break through to the Cold Resistance level. Now that this problem had been solved, there was naturally no need to go anymore.

"Cold Resistance level… Cold Resistance level…"

Xia Hong softly murmured twice, his heart full of longing for the Cold Resistance level, and with a firm look in his eyes, he once again devoted himself to cultivation.

"Without 30,000 jin, everything is just empty talk!"

…

Two days later, as soon as the restriction on Xia Hong's outdoor activities was lifted, the camp immediately became lively.

Not to mention the craftsman's workshop, the people from the gathering team and the logging team, who had been cooped up for three days, could finally go out, and they swarmed out as soon as night fell.

Even the hunting team, led by Xia Chuan, went out.

The camp's cold beast meat reserves were already quite sufficient, and with the addition of the eighty-three gnawing rats this time, as well as the Teng Jiao that Xia Hong had led the team to hunt down earlier, the reserves were even higher to an astonishing level.

But hunting was, after all, a habit, and there was no risk of the cold beast meat spoiling. Especially since Xia Hong hadn't explicitly said to stop hunting, Xia Chuan naturally had to continue.

Luo Yuan, who was seriously injured, woke up the next day, and Xia Hong went to see him.

Luo Yuan had blocked the Rat King's attack for him, and judging from the situation at the time, it was pure luck that he hadn't died. If that red beam had been raised a few inches higher, his head would have been pierced through.

Honestly speaking, Xia Hong wouldn't have reacted so strongly if Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng, or anyone else from the Great Xia Camp had blocked this attack for him.

But it was Luo Yuan!

In the beginning, Luo Yuan was a bit resistant to bringing people into Great Xia, and Xia Hong was well aware of this. But judging from this experience, he had obviously completely integrated into Great Xia, and like everyone else, Luo Yuan also had a fanatical devotion to him, the leader.

Naturally, Xia Hong wouldn't be stingy with such a loyal and strong subordinate, and in front of everyone, he announced three rewards:

One thousand Great Xia contribution points, a ten-thousand-jin iron-core bow, and a thousand jin of iron ore.

Hearing these three rewards, almost everyone in the camp revealed envious gazes, and even Luo Yuan himself was a bit stunned, obviously not expecting it.

The hundred or so bows and arrows that Xia Hong had rushed to make this time to deal with the gnawing rat swarm were all collected by Xia Chuan into the camp supply office on the second night after returning.

These iron-core bows wouldn't be given to them for free.

Even the three used by Zhao Long and the others were also taken back.

"I already explained before that all camp supplies are exchanged for contribution points, and weapons are naturally no exception. From now on, only members of the hunting team will be provided with weapons by the camp for free during nighttime outings. Others who want weapons must go to the camp supply office and rent them with contribution points."

After collecting all the bows and arrows, Xia Chuan immediately gathered everyone and announced the rental price of weapons. Currently, only bows and arrows are available, and the price is 10 contribution points per month.

"Of course, if you save enough contribution points, you can directly exchange them. The current price of a bow and arrow is 800 contribution points. More weapons will be launched in the future. In short, if you want them, make more contributions!"

This is the reason why the camp has been lively recently.

The ninety-plus people who went out that night had all used bows and arrows once, and they all knew how much help it could be to have a bow and arrow on them when going out.

With Xia Chuan's announcement, the entire camp immediately set off a wave of saving contribution points, because who wouldn't want to have a weapon that belonged to them and could be passed down continuously?

Therefore, when they heard that Luo Yuan was directly rewarded with a thousand contribution points, everyone was so envious; and when they heard that Luo Yuan would also get the ten-thousand-jin iron-core bow that he had used before, Zhao Long and his brothers were even more anxious.

After using the ten-thousand-jin iron-core bow, the three had completely lost interest in the five-thousand-jin bow and were racking their brains all day trying to figure out how to exchange for the other two.

Unfortunately, Xia Chuan's pricing was a bit harsh, 2000 points for a ten-thousand-jin iron-core bow.

Interestingly, the contribution from the battle on the north slope of the mountain wall that night had all been calculated by Xia Chuan and the others after joint discussion.

Xia Hong had said before going out that night that one gnawing rat was worth 200 contribution points.

Based on eighty-three rats, the total contribution gained that night was 16,600.

There were so many gnawing rats, and it was at night, and they were all using arrows. The most deadly thing was that because the iron arrows were all made in a hurry, they weren't marked, and there was no way to tell who shot which.

In the end, Xia Chuan had no choice but to have everyone vouch for each other, that is, find someone to prove how many they had shot, or several people jointly prove their kill count.

This would definitely have errors and omissions, but it was the only way.

Fortunately, there were basically no cunning people in Da Xia. Everyone was very disciplined, calculating according to the number of arrows they shot, and most could find someone to vouch for them.

But when the results came out, they were still shocking.

The final results were:

The Zhao Long brothers had the highest kill count, with 8, 6, and 6 respectively;

Luo Yuan, Xia Chuan, and Yuan Cheng were slightly behind, with 6, 6, and 4 respectively;

And the remaining ninety-six Lumbering Realm cultivators confirmed a combined kill count of only 13, and these were the people with the best archery skills.

In fact, considering everyone's strength, the result was reasonable.

The reason why this result was shocking was that these hundreds of people, with hundreds of bows combined, only managed to kill 51 rats.

The remaining 32, without thinking or asking, everyone knew that they must have been killed by the leader, Xia Hong, alone.

Xia Hong alone was almost comparable to everyone else combined.

Only then did everyone understand why the new contribution rules didn't apply to Xia Hong.

If his contributions were also measured by contribution points, then it was estimated that the entire camp combined might not be as good as him.

With a low kill count, the contribution points allocated were naturally low.

This time, the six Earth Burrowing Realm cultivators really received a lot of contribution points, basically close to a thousand per person. The remaining Lumbering Realm cultivators received less, with the ten or so who cooperated in hunting receiving the most, basically two to three hundred, with the highest receiving 320.

Zhao Long killed eight gnawing rats this time, the most besides Xia Hong, earning 1600 contribution points. Even with the portion he had saved before, it was still not enough for the 2000 needed to exchange for the ten-thousand-jin iron fetal bow.

If he was like this, Zhao Hu and Zhao Bao were even further behind.

The three brothers were now working hard, just waiting to save up 2000 points so they could quickly exchange for the remaining two ten-thousand-jin bows, afraid that they would be one step slower and the other two would snatch them first.

Xia Hong, who had been staying in seclusion on the third floor to recuperate and cultivate, originally didn't know about these things, but after Xia Chuan reported to him every day, he couldn't help but laugh, finding it interesting.

"That's good. I won't be forging ten-thousand-jin iron fetal bows for the time being. Let the three of them compete first, so they can do more work!"

Xia Hong continued to stay on the third floor. Half a month passed, and on January 16th of the Da Xia Era, even Luo Yuan, whose injuries were more serious than his, had recovered and could walk out of the wooden house, but he still hadn't come down.