Chapter 39.2 ?

Hearing this, the blubberman looked at her as if she were a lunatic.

“You think it’s like eating an egg, just swallow it with your eyes closed?!” he looked like he wanted to swallow Xu Ming instead, “It’s not that easy!”

The so-called “absorption” was just a figurative description. The more precise term should be “establishing a connection”—it’s just that the methods of establishing this connection vary, some relying on ingestion, some on physical fusion, and the only commonality is that they all require time.

Between the tree and the dodder, the so-called “root snatching” is actually just like this.

It’s just that after the dodder gets the root, it tries to establish a connection with the opponent. The stronger the connection between the dodder and the root, the weaker the connection between the tree and the root, and the weaker the tree itself becomes. Through this simple allocation method, the process continues until the connection between the tree and the root is completely severed, at which point the dodder takes over.

But saying it is easy, doing it is hard. The most important reason is that the connection between the tree and the root is natural. As long as the root is still in the urban legend area, its connection with the tree always exists, and it can always nourish the tree. Even if the tree’s strength is unfortunately weakened, the weakening degree increases gradually over time, and the initial decrease is very limited.

And the process of establishing a new connection and replacing the old one is relatively long, and avoiding the tree’s search during this long period is already extremely difficult.

As for swallowing it whole, that’s simply not feasible—even if you swallow it, if you’re caught, you’ll be dissected on the spot and made into eight-treasure duck.

“So give up!”

While speaking, the elevator had reached the first floor. The blubberman pressed the close button tightly and turned to Xu Ming to continue concluding, “You think you grabbed a treasure, but it’s actually a hot potato! Get rid of it as soon as possible.”

If worse comes to worst, they’ll throw a burntman out with it, let him run in the opposite direction—at least it would buy them some time to escape.

Hearing this, Xu Ming frowned, not saying anything for a moment.

After two seconds of silence, she squatted down, instructed “press it” again, then took out a pen and paper from her bag and started writing and drawing.

Seeing this, the blubberman thought she was going to write some more words to shield herself, so he didn’t care, just kept pressing the close button and anxiously sensing the outside situation; he glanced at Xu Ming, only to find she was holding a blank work badge and write a name on it.

…Wait.

A work badge?

The blubberman froze.

Why was she writing a work badge at this time? Who was it for? The butterfly?

Impossible, right? She couldn’t see the butterfly’s body.

While doubting, he saw Xu Ming put away the pen and open the insulated bag with the root—the blubberman’s eyebrows twitched, a strong sense of unease suddenly surged.

She… should just be taking it out for a look, right? Though now isn’t a good time…

Anyway, she shouldn’t be stupid enough to put a work badge on an unconscious root, right? Definitely not, right? Shouldn’t be…

Then Xu Ming seriously wrapped the work badge around it.

She did it.

Blubberman: “…”

“So why did you give it a badge!” he couldn’t hold back anymore, shouted as Xu Ming opened the elevator door and rushed out, crawling back into her bag—

“What’s the point of giving a rock a badge!”

Preemptive naming rights?

Xu Ming felt baffled by his questioning, running outside while saying, “Binding.”

Blubberman: “…”

Damn, it does have that function.

“Isn’t it what you said?” Xu Ming had already run into the corridor, pressing the wall, counting doors as she moved forward, “You said once a new connection is established, the domain master itself would be weakened…”

Blubberman: “…”

So, after all the science I explained, you only picked what you liked to hear?

But to be fair, it was an idea—he almost forgot that one of the advantages of work badge derivatives was the ability to quickly establish connections with external objects.

However, he quickly realized something and shook his head.

“No way. The binding relationship established by the work badge is too weak, the weakening effect on the domain master is very limited… It’s useless!”

To be honest, the weakening effect of this binding relationship was not as effective as Xu Ming’s previous random modifications—after all, those random modifications directly wrecked most of the butterfly’s feeding channels and even took away the food it had in its pot.

But no matter the kind of weakening, the effect was too insignificant. At least for Xu Ming, it was very insignificant.

If placed in a battle of similar levels, this kind of weakening might be crucial, but for Xu Ming and the butterfly, this level of weakening was entirely negligible. No matter how weakened the tiger was, it could still easily crush an ant.

“I know.” Xu Ming said, “So we need to find something similar to it.”

Blubberman: “…”

Xu Ming didn’t explain further, just quickened her pace, counting doors as she ran—

“8105, 8106—almost there!”

8107. One of the safest rooms in the hotel, where the previous staff led the old tenants.

As long as she could get in there, she could find the staff—

Xu Ming silently thought, trying to speed up again. Just as she was about to slap the door, the blubberman in her mind let out a scream, and almost simultaneously, a cold chill mixed with the sound of wings flapping hit her face—

Xu Ming’s heart skipped a beat, instinctively dodging. Something grazed her chest and then bit her leg.