These youths already thought Jiang Ye was unusual because of the "Exile Fruit".

Now, suspecting he had killed many people, the way they looked at him naturally became even more peculiar and solemn.

Even that fierce youth who wasn't easy to get along with only gasped in surprise before falling silent and shutting his mouth.

The youth with the Smiling Tiger appearance looked at the information on his watch, remained silent for a moment, then spoke to Jiang Ye:

"Zhou Qiming, right? I'm Song Jie, this is Qi Anlin."

After a simple self-introduction, he continued, "Your 'assets' of 120 minutes obviously won't even last you a single day."

"And from what you're implying, you want us to allocate you the daily '1 day' time?"

Jiang Ye nodded as if it were a matter of course, "Isn't that the rule set here?"

Song Jie smiled, "That is the rule. However—"

"With so many people in this entire school, not everyone qualifies to receive the daily allocated 1-day time."

"And aren't you curious? Where does our time come from?"

Jiang Ye thought for a moment and roughly deduced—

The senior behind the scenes who set the rules for this "school" must have established other regulations as well.

It couldn't possibly be that everyone gets one free day of time every day for nothing.

Even though these people had to hand over their "assets" upon entering the school.

But that lump sum of "assets" shouldn't be enough to last until the end of time.

Jiang Ye also understood the implication in Song Jie's words.

He took the initiative to ask, "I'd like to understand the specific situation of our school."

"For example, what do we study every day? What factions are the students divided into?"

As he said this, he simply took out the "Exile Fruit", intending to complete the information exchange first.

Song Jie exchanged glances with the others beside him for a moment, then nodded at him.

He directly took the "Exile Fruit", but didn't use it.

Then he led Jiang Ye outside, "Let's talk as we walk."

Jiang Ye didn't mind, so he followed the four of them toward the staircase.

Song Jie took the lead, weighing the "Exile Fruit" in his hand, "Since I'm the one who accepted the Exile Fruit first, I'll share some information first."

"First..." He seemed to be thinking about where to start.

His gaze fell on the "Exile Fruit" in his hand, so he simply said, "Let's start with the Exile Fruit."

"Since you refuse to consume the 'Exile Fruit', you must already know its drawbacks?"

Jiang Ye shook his head, "It's just that my talent gave me a vague premonition, so I didn't eat the fruit."

This statement wasn't entirely wrong. Although he had personally experienced the suppressive effect of Lightburn on dark-type creatures.

He had indeed decided not to eat the "Exile Fruit" based on intuition.

However, the four youths looked at him with strangely peculiar expressions.

Song Jie's gaze, in particular, was meaningful, "You awakened your talent innately?"

Jiang Ye was puzzled, "Didn't you all?"

"Wait, don't tell me you didn't awaken your talents initially?"

"…"

The four youths didn't seem very eager to speak.

The air fell silent for a moment. As they reached the staircase, Song Jie took a deep breath, descending the stairs as he spoke in a low voice,

"Indeed, not just us, but normal players don't seem to have talents."

"So players who possess the 'Exile Fruit' are the strong ones."

"Including those who later obtained the 'Exile Fruit' through other channels, for a long time, it was also considered a treasure by all players…"

"After all, it's a means to make players instantly stronger."

"However, as time passed, the drawbacks of this thing became apparent."

It was similar to what Jiang Ye had guessed. He asked directly, "So, what exactly are the drawbacks of this thing?"

He actually had an answer in mind.

Based on the "Driver Uncle's" Grudge Memory before…

It should be that players who have consumed the "Exile Fruit" cannot leave the "Land of Exile"?

However, the answer he got from Song Jie was not this.

"Players who consume the 'Exile Fruit' will randomly awaken a Glyph Pattern Ability."

"And this Glyph Pattern Ability is the source of a player's powerful strength."

"But…"

"It has been confirmed by many players that players with Glyph Pattern Abilities can lose their self-awareness at any time and be controlled by another unknown creature!"

"In other words, the price of becoming stronger is likely the gradual loss of self!"

At this point, Song Jie's expression darkened further as he continued, "And our school has also experienced completely out-of-control Fallen Monsters."

Jiang Ye thought for a moment, then asked, "Can you elaborate? The pattern of Glyph Pattern players losing control? And the complete formation of Fallen Monsters?"

Song Jie organized his words before speaking in a low voice again:

"Like I just said—"

"The prison world we're in seems to contain an unknown existence invisible to the naked eye. And such an existence seems capable of controlling players who have awakened Glyph Pattern Abilities at any time."

"Yes, at any time." Emphasizing these two words, Song Jie glanced left and right as if wary of something.

After a pause, he continued, "In other words, there's no discernible pattern to Glyph Pattern players losing control."

"And the formation of Fallen Monsters should be related to the duration of a Glyph Pattern player's loss of control and being controlled."

After another moment of silence, he lowered his voice, "Actually, that was the initial belief…"

"Recently, there's been another speculation that those unknown creatures might be evolving by controlling players."

"Our boss believes it's possible that those unknown creatures have already evolved to the point where they can perfectly impersonate Glyph Pattern players while controlling them…"

"In other words, the seemingly normal people around us who appear not to have lost control might have already had their cores swapped out, no longer being the same person as before."

"…"

Well, this…

Originally a rather heavy topic, Jiang Ye suddenly thought of his own clone ability.

Wasn't his clone ability also capable of silently replacing a person?

If paired with god-level acting skills, it truly could prevent others from noticing the swapped core…

But right now, he had basically lost his clone ability.

And that unknown existence controlling Glyph Pattern players should be some kind of ancient, bizarre creature?

Perhaps even the prototype of a Guiwen Master?

Thinking this, Jiang Ye became puzzled, "Since the 'Exile Fruit' has such major drawbacks, why would you still agree to let me exchange it for benefits?"

Song Jie smiled, "No choice."

"This thing is like taking drugs."

"Players who haven't touched it naturally avoid it like the plague."

"But strong players who have already consumed the 'Exile Fruit' find it hard to resist using it to become stronger again."

That made sense.

Jiang Ye nodded, thought for a moment, then straightforwardly asked:

"Earlier, I used my talent ability to learn about a place called the 'Land of Exile'. Could you please tell me about that too?"

Song Jie and the others looked even more peculiar.

After a moment of silence, it was still Song Jie who spoke, "Is that how you guessed the 'Exile Fruit' shouldn't be eaten?"

Jiang Ye nodded, "More or less."

Perhaps possessing a talent and having only 120 minutes of initial assets made Song Jie view Jiang Ye in a new light.

He was basically responsive to Jiang Ye's questions.

"Since you've heard of it, I'll tell you about it too."

"Actually, the 'loss of control' I mentioned earlier is only the most fundamental drawback of the 'Exile Fruit'."

"And accompanying this fundamental drawback, some other drawbacks emerge…"

"Which you probably have already guessed—"

"Players who have consumed the 'Exile Fruit', even if they trigger the 'Pardon' effect through good performance, still cannot leave the Land of Exile."

"As for where the 'Land of Exile' is? Heh, this place we're in is the Land of Exile."

"Other places that are essentially prisons are also Lands of Exile."

"We sinners can only live in the Land of Exile before receiving 'Pardon'."

"And once you consume the 'Exile Fruit', then even if you are 'Pardoned', you can only stay in the Land of Exile."

"Because carrying the scent of the Exile Fruit means being a permanent sinner; no other place would be willing to take you in…"

"Although I've never left, it's not hard to imagine—in the world outside the Land of Exile, players carrying the Exile Fruit scent are probably treated like rats scurrying across the street, unwelcome existences."

Hearing this, Jiang Ye roughly understood the situation with the "Driver Uncle's" Grudge Memory.

That "Driver Uncle" probably also achieved the 'Pardon' accomplishment.

However, after being 'Pardoned' and leaving the Land of Exile, he discovered.

The scent of the Exile Fruit made them permanent "sinners".

And only players who have never consumed the Exile Fruit have the possibility of receiving true 'Pardon'!

But without Glyph Pattern Abilities, surviving in a prison environment is probably extremely difficult.

After all, according to Song Jie, the players here don't even have innate talents!

Thinking this, Jiang Ye probed further, "Is it difficult to trigger the 'Pardon' effect here?"

"And based on what you said, there should be quite a few players who have consumed the Exile Fruit and, even after obtaining 'Pardon', haven't left, right?"

He wanted to get in touch with players who had been 'Pardoned' to learn more information.

However, Song Jie shook his head.

"The 'Pardon' effect isn't that easy to trigger."

"Especially in your situation, you basically don't need to consider the 'Pardon' effect."

"The 'Pardon' players we've heard of generally had very light crimes, like failing to save a life, disrespecting elders, etc., which can only be considered 'crimes' at the moral stage."

"But for someone like you with Intentional Homicide and only 120 minutes of initial execution time, wanting to 'reduce your sentence' all the way to the level of 'Pardon'… one can only say it's as difficult as climbing to the heavens!"

"As for those players who were once 'Pardoned', they're basically impossible to contact."

"Because when a player is 'Pardoned', they are also expelled from the Land of Exile by the Enforcers."

"Of course, since the world outside the Land of Exile doesn't welcome sinners who have consumed the Exile Fruit…"

"Those people will most likely quickly commit other crimes and return to prison."

"However, when returning to prison again, they will most likely be assigned to other places due to different crimes and different Authority Levels."

Jiang Ye nodded, "So, our 'school' doesn't have players in the 'Pardoned' state, but there might be players who were once 'Pardoned' but are now still bearing crimes?"

Song Jie nodded, "Our boss is one. He was once 'Pardoned'. His current crime is 'Endangering Public Safety'. This crime seems even more severe than Intentional Homicide."

Just then, they exited the teaching building.

Looking at the school-like surroundings, Jiang Ye asked, "Are we going to see the boss now?"

Song Jie explained again, "We only have a chance to see the boss at zero o'clock every school day."

"So even if you want to freeload on the time our boss allocates, you'll have to wait another 12-plus hours…"

When he said this, Jiang Ye immediately realized, "So the current time is a little past 11 AM?"

Song Jie nodded, "Yes, it's morning. The Land of Exile has no sun. Day and night are both dim like this."

"Perfect, now let me tell you some information about the school."

"The place we're going to now is the school cafeteria. Because 11:30-13:30 is lunchtime. We need to solve our lunch within this time."

"Oh right, the school's currency is our time."

"When payment is needed, the watch beeps once, and it's automatically deducted."

"There's also 'cash payment', which is using survival stones."

As he spoke, Song Jie casually pulled out a stone, "Survival stones are mainly measured in minutes, days, and years."

"The more common ones are like this one in my hand, measured in days."

"…"

Jiang Ye stared at the unremarkable stone in his hand, inexplicably falling into deep thought. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

After a long while, he asked, "Where do these survival stones come from? I'm so poor right now, should I find a way to earn some survival stones?"

"You really are quite poor; you probably can't even afford lunch today." Song Jie gave him a meaningful glance, then put the survival stone away, "But the survival stone issue isn't urgent for now."

"Let me first introduce our school to you."

"The circulating currency in our school is time, but the time within the school each day is also strictly regulated."

"First, there's free time: only one hour for breakfast from 5:30-6:30, two hours for lunch from 11:30-13:30, and two hours for dinner from 17:30-19:30, totaling five hours."

"Although these five hours are ostensibly meal times, all our private matters can only be dealt with during these five hours."

"For example, going to the toilet, bathing, settling personal grudges, even chatting."

"In other words, during non-free time, we are strictly controlled and don't even have the right to speak."

Song Jie said this, but Jiang Ye was somewhat surprised.

He remembered when he first appeared in the office, the wall clock showed 11:25.

When he left the office, it shouldn't have been 11:30 yet.

But these few had already been waiting for him outside?

Thinking this, before he could ask, Song Jie proactively said:

"You want to ask about the four of us blocking you before 11:30?"

"Indeed it wasn't, but some students enjoy privileges."

"For example, the four of us are members of the student council."

Oh, a student council!

Jiang Ye followed up, "So your boss is the student council president?"