Chapter 159

"If the guidance is correct, we are now in the Emerald Forest."

Ye Bai answered the paper man with a strange expression.

After activating the branches of the Tree of Life, a foggy map similar to the one for land reclamation appeared in her mind. The red dot on the map was her own position, and the green dot was the target's position. At this time, in Ye Bai's field of vision, the green dot and the red dot overlapped.

In other words, the place where Ye Bai is at this time is the Emerald Forest.

But... looking at the barren land around, let alone the Emerald Forest where a large number of high elves live, there is really no trace that can be related to "forest".

Furthermore, it was the Kraken who teleported Ye Bai to this location. Did she know this was the Emerald Forest? Did the Kraken choose this place because of the Branch of Life? Or was there some other reason?

As the former pet of the God King, although Kraken is immature, from the fact that she is always thinking about "eating fireballs", we know that the God King has left many tricks up his sleeve.

But if this is the Emerald Forest, why does it look like this?

"Is it because of the war of the Purgatory Clan?" Ye Bai looked at the paper man.

She recalled the information about the Emerald Forest that she had obtained from him. The book recorded that "the magma burned the emerald, and the Emerald Forest lost its former peace."

"According to the book I read, the war lasted for a long time. In the end, Purgatory returned and the Emerald Forest closed. However, the portal left behind by the war remained there forever and could not be erased." The paper man paused. "But what's strange is that I don't see any trace of the Purgatory portal here."

"That's right." Ye Bai also felt strange about this.

It was strange that there was no obvious abnormality in this desolate place. There was no forest, and there was no scorched earth from war or the smell of purgatory. This place was just like most of the areas she had encountered in the divine realm: empty, desolate and lonely.

The paper figure asked, "Is it possible that the Emerald Forest moved after it closed? Moved here?"

"It's not impossible..." Ye Bai pondered.

What the paper man said was right. The Emerald Forest does move. To be more precise, the entrance to the Emerald Forest does move.

In the setting, the Emerald Forest is a magical forest originating from the Tree of Life, inhabited by the High Elves, one of the top races in the divine realm. It has special spatial properties in its nature, and its entrance can be found from the depths of various forests. Even its own internal map is constantly changing randomly.

If the elves controlled the Tree of Life, they could change the location of the Emerald Forest's entrance. However, Ye Bai hesitated at this thought: "But I have the impression... the Emerald Forest must be inside the forest."

According to the settings in Ye Bai's memory, the Emerald Forest can only be generated in the "forest" terrain. This is determined by the underlying code logic of the settings.

But she was not entirely sure that her experience was correct, because this was a holographic version of the universe that could affect reality. She only understood the background setting, and the changes in this divine world were automatically completed, so there might be deviations.

After hearing Ye Bai's words, the paper man did not refute anything. Instead, he suddenly realized: "I see, there must be a secret that we don't know about."

Ye Bai was speechless: "It's possible that my impression is wrong..."

At this moment, she wondered if it was because she arranged for the paper man to teach the professionals in White Night City that he was influenced and started to say, "The Lord is right."

However, Ye Bai recalled the details of his interactions with the paper man, and it seemed that this guy was the first person to say "Master Bai Ye is right"...

The paper man still did not deny Ye Bai, and returned to the main topic: "Whatever the reason is, perhaps we can find a way to verify it first."

"That's right." This suggestion brought Ye Bai back to his senses.

She decided to use the simplest and most brutal method to verify whether this was the Emerald Forest indicated on the map.

Ye Bai looked up for Ottophis, ready to ride it to explore the vicinity, while checking if there was any change in the location of the Emerald Forest on the 'map'.

When she looked up, she found that Ottophis was standing several hundred meters away, with his head lowered, motionless, as if he was concentrating on observing something.

Could it be that it has made some new discovery?

Ye Bai's eyes lit up when he saw this. Ottophis always looked ordinary but was actually very extraordinary. Maybe it had already discovered something unusual first.

He walked quickly towards Ottophis, but as Ye Bai got closer, Ottophis remained motionless even though they were less than ten meters apart.

If at any other time, Ottophis would have had some reaction to Ye Bai if he had noticed her coming.

At the same time, Ye Bai also noticed that in front of Ottophis, there seemed to be a yellow-brown plant that looked to have dried up long ago. At this moment, it seemed to be looking down at the withered plant very attentively.

Seeing this, Ye Bai frowned and became secretly wary of the plant.

The next moment, as he got closer, Ye Bai saw Ottophis's front face completely, which made her startled.

The gray donkey stood in front of the plant, its eyes dull and a slight... snoring sound coming from its nose.

If Ye Bai's past understanding of Ottophis was correct, the reason why this guy stood motionless in front of the plant was not because he was observing, but because... he was asleep.

So Ye Bai used his insight to check the plant.

【Withered unknown plant】

Grade: Poor

Status: Withered

Description: Withered plants can be found everywhere

After confirming that this plant was not some abnormal creature or poisonous substance, Ye Bai was speechless. It seemed like a big mistake.

Perhaps because they were too close, just when Ye Bai was about to speak, Ottophis stopped snoring and his dull eyes suddenly regained their spirits.

"Slurp...Ahhh!"

After waking up, Ottophis licked his lips and called out to Ye Bai, as if he was still savoring some delicious food he had eaten in his previous dream.

Seeing this, Ye Bai helplessly fed it a piece of bread and rode on its back.

"Let's go over there and take a look."

When he came to Ottophis, Ye Bai took a look at the location shown on the map. The green dot and the red dot were still overlapping. The Emerald Forest was an area. In this case, the map or the target might be too large, and the difference could not be seen under the scale.

So Ye Bai planned to move a little further in a straight line to check.

"Ah!" After eating the bread, Ottophis cooperated very well. He carried Ye Bai on his back and ran across the desolate wilderness.

The extraordinary nature of this 'magic donkey' was once again demonstrated at this time. Ye Bai was sitting on it very steadily and it didn't seem to be moving fast, but compared with the plant before, Ye Bai found that it moved a very long distance in a short period of time. After a few breaths, she could no longer see the shadow of the plant.

Finally, after Ottophis had run for a full twenty minutes, Ye Bai made it stop.

This distance can be seen to be different even at a larger map scale.

However, when Ye Bai activated the branch of life again, his brows furrowed.

"Surprisingly...there is no change."

On the guide map, the red dot representing Ye Bai and the green dot representing the destination are still overlapping, with no change from before.

Upon hearing this, the paper figure's expression turned into a stunned '0.0' type: "After moving such a long distance, are we still within the range of the Emerald Forest?"

Ye Bai nodded, asked if Ottophis was in good condition, and tried again in a different direction. The second time he moved a farther distance, and when he stopped, Ottophis was a little out of breath.

But the result is the same, the red dot and the green dot overlap, indicating that Ye Bai is at the destination.

Ye Bai jumped off Ottophis. It seemed meaningless to verify the method by increasing the distance, so there was no need to try it again.

She picked up the Life Branch and examined it carefully: "There's no way this Life Branch can be wrong..."

"No problem, this is indeed a real branch of life." The paper man perched on the leaf answered, and two suspicious slashes appeared on his left and right cheeks.

"..." Ye Bai had no choice but to put down the branch of life, although she couldn't understand why this physical two-dimensional being would also suffer from social anxiety.

However, from the properties of this item [God King Treasure Key 1], it can be seen that it is indeed a genuine item. After all, if it is not genuine, it cannot hurt the Purgatory Demon. If there is no problem with triggering the item, then the problem still lies in the destination.

"It hasn't changed after moving such a long distance. It seems that the Emerald Forest is too large. Even after moving such a long distance, it's still within its boundaries, just like the deep sea..." Ye Bai pondered, "But the Emerald Forest shouldn't be this big, and there's no sign of anything unusual around here."

The paper man interjected, "There's another possibility. The Emerald Forest is movable. Could it be..."

At this point, Ye Bai and the paper man said in unison: "The Emerald Forest is moving with us?"

But if the Emerald Forest moves together, where would the entrance be?

The two fell into deep thought again.

After a moment, the paper man had an idea: "Maybe we should look for a forest, or a 'concept' related to it."

Ye Bai paused, as if he had caught an inspiration in a trance, but when he thought about it carefully, he couldn't grasp it, and -

“Forests are not necessarily a prerequisite…”

As he said this, Ye Bai subconsciously glanced around.

Withered plants were scattered across the empty wilderness, not to mention the forest. Perhaps Ottophis was tired, and this time he was even more exhausted. He simply crawled to the ground, closed his eyes, and snored continuously.

How come this guy fell asleep again... Ye Bai's smile was halfway through when he suddenly caught a glimpse of inspiration.

"Ottophis, I wasn't originally so fond of sleeping... I think I understand!"

The paper man's gaze followed Ye Bai's and turned to Ottophis who was in a deep sleep: "You mean..."

"Dream." Ye Bai took out a soft mat from his backpack, unfolded it, and lay down directly, pretending to fall asleep. "The entrance to the Emerald Forest can only be entered after falling asleep."

Making a character fall asleep in Wanjie is a very simple thing. It only requires a certain degree of conscious control, because the system recognizes the character as [sleeping state], and whether the player is conscious or not does not affect the judgment.

So, after lying down for a while, Ye Bai's character 'fell asleep'.

…

“Crackling…”

The scene in front of him changed, and at the same time Ye Bai heard the sound of chewing plants.

Looking up, amidst the fresh green, I saw a gray donkey nibbling on a juicy yellow fruit on a nearby branch.