Chapter 13: Peng Group. Yao Jun spent two months alongside Yao Min and the others. Yao Xiang helped him with sparring and increasing his combat abilities and Yao Qin crammed as much knowledge as he could into Yao Jun's head. Yao Qin was pleasantly surprised to see that Yao Jun had an eidetic memory, saving him the trouble of repeating his teachings. Yao Min mostly only oversaw everything, but he would also comment on things, helping Yao Jun understand why he was taught these things. Most of the teachings took place just within the Cloud Wilderness. The reason behind this was that the Cloud Wilderness was special. The Cloud Wilderness is constantly surrounded by a type of natural array formation, making the Raw Qi more abundant within the Cloud Wilderness. While it made the Raw Qi more abundant within, it was also more chaotic and violent, making it harder to absorb Raw Qi to train or refill one's reserves. It was this chaotic and abundant Raw Qi that made the Cloud Wilderness the perfect place for Demonic beasts and certain plants and treasures. While they were helping Yao Jun get accustomed to the Cloud Wilderness, they also took the time to teach him about the people of the Peng clan and the state of affairs when they entered the Cloud Wilderness. Since their lives were constantly at risk when they were within the Cloud Wilderness, the bonds between the people of each group were especially thick, favoring to call each other brothers instead of clan mates. They could enter the Cloud Wilderness whenever they wanted, but if they entered with just the people from their own clans, they would stay close to the edge of the forest. Every two months, or whenever they planned it together, the people from both clans would get together and venture into the deeper parts together. The reason they entered together was that entering the deeper parts with just a group of four, especially people who were as weak as them, was practically suicide. When they entered together, they would often have specific goals in mind, either scavenging for treasures or hunting Demonic beasts. To prevent there from being rampant killings between the two clans, the people from both groups had come up with certain rules between each other. They would take turns scavenging or hunting, so while one part of the group took all the parts from the killed Demonic beasts, the other group would take all the herbs and treasures that they found. These rules were set in place to prevent rampant killing, and they did, in fact, work most of the time, but it was impossible to know when one would stumble upon a treasure that both sides wanted. If that happened, all rules and agreements were made null, as Yao Min explained it “Birds die for food, men die for wealth.” On the morning of the day they were going to venture into the deeper parts, Yao Jun and the others were eating a hearty breakfast together. Yao Xiang was the one who stood for most of the cooking in the group, his parents owned a restaurant so he was the one who was most proficient in it. Most of the food he made often contained large amounts of meat, but whenever someone complained he simply laughed and stated that one can't accomplish anything on an empty stomach, and nothing fills a stomach like some good meat. They were too close to the Cloud Wilderness to rear any animals, so all the meat they ate was meat that came from the Demonic beasts that they hunted. Demonic beast meat was not only delicious and nutritious, but it also came with the added benefit of being full of Qi, so eating a piece of Demonic beast meat was the same as training. After training and eating Demonic Beast meat for two months, Yao Jun had reached the 6th level, resulting in six of the indents above the gate shining with a brilliant purple light, but he had yet to reach the 1st grade. Yao Min and the others had all already reached the 1st grade and started to increase their levels, but once you reached the 1st grade, it would get harder and harder to increase your power's strength, especially if you only had a weak power, so they had yet to break past the 5th level of the 1st grade. “Alright, the sun is already at its apex, we should go and meet the guys from the Peng clan, lest they start nagging again.” Yao Min put down his chopsticks and stretched his waist as he stood up. Since Yao Min had already given the order, the others would certainly not tarry any longer, putting down their chopsticks and following Yao Min out of the building, heading towards the edge of the Cloud Wilderness. They had already stored everything they would need in their interspatial rings the day before, so they were prepared to leave at any time. The only thing they didn't store in their interspatial rings were their weapons. Yao Xiang was the one who taught them this, explaining that they would be able to react faster if they carried their weapons on them. Carrying the weapons on their body also helped them increase their familiarity with the weapon. Seeing as his logic was sound and reasonable, no one had any problem with carrying their weapons on them at all times. As they got closer to the edge of the Cloud Wilderness, Yao Jun saw that there was already a group of four people waiting for them. Contrary to the black robes that Yao Min and the others wore, or the green robes that Yao Jun wore, these four people all wore golden robes that seemed to shine beneath the sun. These were the robes of the Peng clan, their clan mark broidered onto the chest of the robe. The clan mark of the Peng clan were two large intertwined golden wings. The Peng clan took it's clan mark and name from their guardian beast, a massive golden Peng tamed by their first ancestor. “Really now Peng Yi, are you trying to get us killed? How many times are we going to get attacked by Demonic beasts because they are attracted by your garish robes?” Seeing the four people and their robes, Yao Min couldn't help but curl his lips into a taunting smile as he spoke. “Our golden robes are the sign of our glorious ancestor, why don't you take off your dull black robes instead?” The one who responded with an equally taunting voice was Peng Yi, the leader of the Peng group. Peng Yi was almost two meters tall and had such a strong build that he seemed more like a bear than a man. He had dark golden hair and black eyes, his skin was smooth and fair, showing that he went through great lengths to take care of it. Peng Yi carried a large gray claymore on his back and his strength was about the same as Yao Min. Yao Jun had already been told about everyone from the Peng clan, so he quickly identified the rest. The group of the Peng clan had a setup that was very similar to the one from the Yao clan. Peng Yi was the leader, Peng Dong was the fighter, he was very similar to Peng Yi, only he was a bit shorter and his skin was rougher, more scarred. Peng Dong was the younger brother of Peng Yi, so even though he stood for fighting, he spent most of his time at the back of the group, protected by his elder brother. Peng Shi had the same role as Yao Qin and stood for identifying herbs and treasures. He had pale skin and sunken in eyes, making him seem like a creepy person. His back was slightly bent, making him seem shorter than the other people present. He had short brown hair and blue eyes. Yao Jun knew that even though he looked like a creepy and sinister person, he was a surprisingly honest and nice person. The last person of their group was called Peng Yan and he filled the role of an extra fighter. He had healthy tanned skin, was only a slight bit shorter than Peng Yi, and had well-defined muscles, looking like a chiseled rock. His head was completely shaven and polished, with two rows of dots tattooed onto his forehead, making him seem like a monk. “Tch, aren't you funny. Our black robes symbolize the Yao clans unity and strength.” Yao Min only clicked his tongue in response to Peng Yi's words. “So this is the new member you brought along, Yao Jun was it? I'm Peng Yi, that's Peng Dong, Peng Shi, and that's Peng Yan. We'll do our best to keep you alive as long as you do your best to keep us alive.” Peng Yi turned his head to Yao Jun and spoke with a polite smile as he pointed at the rest of the people of his group and introduced them one by one. The two clans were enemies, but the groups that entered the Cloud Wilderness would rather try to be friendly with each other unless there was a need to be enemies. Another friend would always be better than another enemy, especially when you had to spend prolonged periods of time together in a dangerous place. “I'm Yao Jun, you can consider me a jack of all trades, I'll be looking forward to working with you.” Yao Jun gave a polite smile and returned the introduction. “Heh, where did you find this one Yao Min? Finally, a Yao clan member who actually has some manners.” Yao Shi spoke with a light chuckle as he spoke to Yao Min. “All Yao clan members are good people, there simply isn't a need to have good manners in front of brutes like you.” Yao Xiang was the one who responded, curling his lips into a slight smile as he teased the people from the Peng clan. “Sure sure, we'll be brutes, brutes get to live longer! Let's go, we're wasting daylight, I want to get a bit of distance in before we have to pitch the tents.” Peng Yi gave a loud laugh in response to Yao Xiang's words and waved the groups towards the Cloud Wilderness as he started walking. “What's the matter Peng Yi, you seem rather nervous?” Yao Min picked up on something unusual in Peng Yi's voice and spoke with a frown. “I'm hoping it's nothing, but we have gotten some reports about other groups hearing strange noises in the Cloud Wilderness lately.” Peng Yi knit his eyebrows as he replied. “Strange noises? What type of strange noises?” “Whispering. We have gotten reports of people hearing whispering and seeing things that shouldn't be there, so I'm a bit worried that there might be a psychic beast roaming the outer perimeter.” Peng Yi spoke with a solemn expression, psychic beasts were capable of using illusions to trick others, some of the stronger ones can even read minds and drag out a person's greatest fears. “You heard him guys, we need to be extra careful this time. I want all of us to be on full alert.” Yao Min wasn't stupid enough to think that Peng Yi would joke about something that could be this serious, so he made sure to remind Yao Jun and the others to be extra careful as they headed deeper into the Cloud Wilderness.