Chapter 338: Chapter 338

The leaf felt cool to the touch.

Overall it didn’t seem particularly hard; it looked like it could be easily damaged.

But Jiang Ye had a vague feeling…

this thing might not be that easy to break.

As he darted along thinking about giving it a try…

he happened to receive a message from Zhou Yuling in the ten-thousand-member group, where she had @-mentioned everyone.

Zhou Yuling (Group Owner): [@Everyone! Attention! What I’m about to say concerns your life and death! Make sure to check the group messages carefully!]

[According to the intelligence I obtained, a VIP Player has already arrived at the Formless Tree over there.]

[The reason is simple—]

[The act of plucking a Formless Leaf from the Formless Tree is also considered “damaging a Formless Leaf”!]

[Therefore, any VIP Player who forcefully plucks a Formless Leaf will be erased on the spot!]

[Right now, heavy-hitters are gathering around the Formless Tree.]

[And the Formless Leaves cannot currently be removed from the tree…]

[So my suggestion is that everyone in our group avoid appearing within a hundred-li radius of the Formless Tree for now, so you won’t get caught up in conflicts among the strong!]

[Although the recent announcement states that “murderers will be erased,” it also says that “those who bleed will be erased”! That means once a strong wants you dead, they don’t need to fully kill you—just make you bleed…]

[So, to avoid any casualties among our followers, please keep to yourselves, act low-key, and protect yourselves!]

[Next, I will try to negotiate with those powerful players to jointly explore a method to successfully bind the Formless Leaves.]

[And in the end, no matter what, I will secure ten thousand Formless Leaves for us.]

[Please trust me and keep yourselves safe!]

That message was essentially a reassurance and an arrangement for all followers.

Of course, it also revealed a crucial piece of information—

simply removing a Formless Leaf from the Formless Tree is judged as damaging the Formless Leaf!

And that action will result in immediate erasure!

Jiang Ye shivered as he read the message.

He immediately asked in the group:

[That big shot who got erased—did he actually succeed in plucking a Formless Leaf? Or did he only make a plucking motion and get erased before actually removing one?]

Zhou Yuling replied at once: [Only the plucking motion, without successful removal, will be judged as “damaging a Formless Leaf” and thus be erased!]

Jiang Ye analyzed quickly: [So even attempting to damage without truly damaging it will get you erased? These Formless Leaves are pretty precious…]

Everyone in the group saw this message.

That exclamation, however, was Jiang Ye’s private reaction.

After all, he had just been about to try damaging a Formless Leaf himself…

Good thing Zhou Yuling @-mentioned everyone in the group.

Otherwise, in the mere attempt phase, he might’ve had to use a clone to take the hit again.

With that thought, Jiang Ye naturally didn’t dare try damaging a Formless Leaf any further.

Following Zhou Yuling’s message, many capable people in the group began sharing views.

Zi Sang Haoyun from the Duoe Organization immediately put forward his idea:

[So it seems the pre-Court rules don’t want us to pluck Formless Leaves from the Formless Tree.]

[Then perhaps we could try to bind without plucking the Formless Leaves—by dripping blood directly?]

[Of course, because of Rule Six, we obviously need to devise a “blood-drip acknowledgment” method that doesn’t involve actual bleeding…]

Must admit, Zi Sang Haoyun’s line of thinking was worth pondering.

It matched the thought that sprang into Jiang Ye’s mind when he learned plucking was forbidden.

Most people in the group thought Zi Sang Haoyun made sense.

So ideas were pooled and many offered their opinions.

For example, Wang Cheng of the Defenders, who had been dragged over by Chubby Guy along with Zhang Minghan’s clone, offered a quite constructive viewpoint:

[I feel “no-bleeding” rule is very similar to the situation in the Abyss Restricted Zone!]

[Zhang Minghan, you went into the Abyssal Depths—why don’t you explain it to everyone? @Zhang Minghan]

Jiang Ye’s Zhang Minghan clone had originally been heading toward the Formless Tree.

After receiving Zhou Yuling’s message, he naturally stopped moving in that direction.

Instead, he considered finding a place away from the crowd to collect his thoughts.

Being @-mentioned suddenly, he thought for a moment and then replied honestly in the group:

[Yes. When we were invited to explore the Abyss Restricted Zone, we were told the environment there is special—if you suffer a bleeding wound, it will never heal.]

[Moreover, wounds that never heal, if exposed long-term to the Abyss air, may cause players to mutate or lose sanity…]

[So at that time, the higher-ups in our Defenders’ Alliance gave us explorers an item called Blood Poison Corpse Water.]

Back then the Blood Poison Corpse Water had actually been supplied by the White-Robed Woman disguised as Zhou Yuling.

But if Zhang Minghan said “Zhou Yuling” outright, it could stir unnecessary suspicion among the followers.

Before entering the Court of Disorder, when Zhou Yuling had tricked Jiang Ye, Jiang Ye was naturally amused to see followers doubting Zhou Yuling.

But now things were different…

They were already inside the Court of Disorder.

Jiang Ye didn’t want followers to cause trouble.

if he later truly turned Zhou Yuling into one of his clones,

deliberately leading followers to suspect Zhou Yuling would only create trouble for himself.

So he deliberately concealed the fact that the White-Robed Woman had been impersonating Zhou Yuling.

Other players didn’t think much of the statement either.

They focused their attention on the special item Blood Poison Corpse Water.

Zhou Yuling immediately explained in the group:

[Blood Poison Corpse Water is an item researched by the Defenders’ Alliance—its essence is a kind of poison.]

[After a player uses it, the skin turns green and the body stiffens. If the skin is cut, no blood will flow. Even upon death, there will be no blood loss.]

Clearly, the group chat was now full of people pondering how to perform a “blood-drip acknowledgment” on a Formless Leaf without actually bleeding.

Zhang Minghan’s clone, away from the crowd, flipped the bottle of Blood Poison Corpse Water given to him by the White-Robed Woman and fell into thought.

Back then the White-Robed Woman disguised as Zhou Yuling had claimed the Abyss Restricted Zone forbids bleeding, so all Defenders exploring it were pre-injected with Blood Poison Corpse Water.

Later she forced Defenders to explore irradiated soil and said that the Blood Poison Corpse Water already carried radiation contamination.

Those injected with Blood Poison Corpse Water were said to have been radiation-contaminated.

So rather than waiting for mutation, she argued it was better to obediently follow her orders—explore the irradiated soil and hope for survival.

Jiang Ye had been rather fortunate then—

he’d left a cautionary loophole by using a visit to Mask Master’s shop as an excuse to avoid getting injected with Blood Poison Corpse Water.

Later when he alone chased the main force into the Abyss Restricted Zone, he naturally hadn’t been injected.

So that vial remained with Zhang Minghan’s clone.

At first he hadn’t paid much attention to such a sketchy item.

because the waiting area had turned into a Formless Domain, clones inside the Formless Domain were no longer in a disconnected state.

Thus Zhang Minghan’s clone synchronized with all known information of Clone No.1.

In other words, he synced a crucial piece of information—

the bodies of clones drained of blood by the Little Red Snake become Formless Leaves in this Formless Domain…

If the generation condition for a Formless Leaf is the clone’s blood being drained…

then what if Blood Poison Corpse Water is used on a Jiang Ye clone…

would it directly become a living Formless Leaf?

Um, that idea was a bit wild and overly bold.

But the current Jiang Ye was indeed tempted to try injecting Blood Poison Corpse Water in this special Formless Domain just to see what happened…

Of course, Zhang Minghan’s clone was important.

He wouldn’t use that clone as a test subject.

Fortunately, Zhang Minghan’s clone still had survival points.

And Jiang Ye wanted to experiment further with generating clones.

So he used Zhang Minghan’s clone to generate a new clone.

the experiment proved it.

A new clone generated within the Formless Domain was no longer a light-affiliated clone.

It was simply a C-rank talent with Physical Strengthening.

In other words, he basically verified—

the condition for a guaranteed light clone is that milky-white gas.

And the current Formless Domain lacked any milky-white gas.

Of course, the White Snake raised by Zhou Yuling could still transform into milky-white gas.

So if Jiang Ye wanted to generate a light clone now, he could simply use Zhou Yuling’s White Snake. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn N()velFire.net

As for experimenting on a clone with Blood Poison Corpse Water…

After all, there was only one vial of Blood Poison Corpse Water.

just as he was about to ask in the group whether Zhou Yuling had any spare Blood Poison Corpse Water,

Clone No.1 received Zhou Yuling’s voice through the voice transmission bead:

“You over there, you shouldn’t be having any problems, right?”

Jiang Ye thought: I’ve got plenty of problems over here.

But he wasn’t going to tell Zhou Yuling any of them.

So he said simply: “No problem. I was about to head to the Formless Tree when I suddenly saw your group message. I’ll follow your lead and avoid the fray, so powerful players don’t accidentally hit us…”

“By the way, I wanted to ask—Zhang Minghan mentioned Blood Poison Corpse Water… do you have any more of that?”

“Some, but not much.” Zhou Yuling answered cleanly and bluntly, then added, “Don’t get any ideas about Blood Poison Corpse Water. It can indeed prevent players from bleeding, but once used, you’re completely disqualified from blood-drip acknowledgment.”

“The Defenders’ Alliance tested it internally—players who used Blood Poison Corpse Water cannot bleed under any circumstances.”

Jiang Ye was thinking of some reason to try and get an extra vial when Zhou Yuling then asked, “I haven’t asked—what’s up with the light clone you generated in the elevator?”

Jiang Ye was open and ready with his script:

“I don’t know either. Maybe I had a crazy streak of luck and generated a clone with a light talent…”

“You must have sensed it too—I was shocked at the time.”

One light clone versus ninety thousand light clones—Jiang Ye decided to keep the latter explosive fact to himself for now.

He didn’t know whether Zhou Yuling believed him.

After a pause, Zhou Yuling’s voice came through the voice bead, half-praising, half-admiring: “Not bad…”

Jiang Ye took it as praise and continued frankly:

“The solution to the impasse isn’t a problem for you.”

“So what you’re facing now is—”

“the powerful players gathered around the Formless Tree.”

“You need to use milky-white gas to envelop the Formless Tree and make the entire tree enter a non-Formless Domain state, then perform blood-drip acknowledgment on the Formless Leaves…”

“But these operations must avoid those powerful players so they don’t snatch your results.”

“So you need a way to drive off those heavy-hitters gathered around the Formless Tree.”

“You want me to use that accidentally generated light clone to lure those powerful players away?”

Silence filled the air for a moment.

Then Zhou Yuling’s voice came through the voice bead, cautious and guarded:

“You’re not telling me you have mind-reading abilities, are you?”