Chapter 18: First attempt at Mental Energy.
When the first rays of sunlight managed to slip past the canopy covering the Cloud Wilderness, Yao Jun awoke. When he fell asleep after killing the Mist Eagle, it had only been late in the afternoon. But ever since they had started wandering the Cloud Wilderness, they had only slept a few hours every day, often only around four to five hours. Coupled with the stress from the fight and the pain from absorbing the Mist Eagle, Yao Jun had no problem with sleeping all the way until noon the next day.
Yao Jun rubbed his face a little as he looked around. The Lightning Tiger had at some point positioned itself behind him, acting as a sort of bed for him. It's eyes were clear and sharp, so it had probably been awake for a little while, standing guard for Yao Jun.
Yao Jun turned his eyes towards the outside of the cave. There was light outside, but it was still dim and overcast. The Cloud Wilderness was formed like a massive forest, the only difference from a normal forest being the chaotic Raw Qi and the massive trees. The trees covering the entire Cloud Wilderness easily reached several hundred to several thousand meters in height. The deeper one went, the taller the trees would become.
The trees were tall and their canopies covered large areas, blotting out a large portion of the sunlight. Even though their canopies covered a large area, the tree trunks were surprisingly narrow. There was easily enough space for both the Lightning Tiger and Mist Eagle to walk around on the ground between the trees.
“Ah, thanks Little Thunder, we'll spend the next few days finding some good food for you and Little Gray.”
Yao Jun stood up and stretched his body a little, removing the slight stiffness in his body from sleeping in such a bad place. Little Thunder and Little Gray were the names Yao Jun decided to give to the Lightning Tiger and Mist Eagle. He was connected to them mentally, so they could easily understand what the other's intentions were, but he still felt like they needed a name he could use when he was talking to them. Using Lightning Tiger or Mist Eagle every time would quickly turn dull and could even cause Yao Jun to feel like he was disconnected from them.
The way Yao Jun saw it, to him right now, there were only two things he could trust completely. The first thing he could trust completely was his parents, he was certain that his parents would never do anything to harm him. The other thing he could trust completely were the beasts that he absorbed with his Garden of Eden. The beasts that he absorbed would be completely loyal to him, following every order he gave them, even if it could lead to their deaths. Facing this loyalty and trust, Yao Jun did not want to betray them or treat them like they were only dolls to be used, so he decided that the first step was to give them names.
Little Thunder stood up after Yao Jun, shaking it's body from side to side before stretching itself, copying Yao Jun. It gave a low purr at Yao Jun's words before turning it's gaze inwards, towards the other end of the cave, before tilting it's head at Yao Jun.
“Not just yet, there is something else I wanna do first.”
Yao Jun knew what Little Thunder meant, it wanted to see what was deeper in the cave. But Yao Jun still had something he needed to do first, so exploring deeper into the cave would have to wait for now. Yao Jun left the cave, heading to where the bodies of the others were located.
“Rest peacefully brothers, I will make sure that your families get your wills and letters.”
Yao Jun grabbed some items from each corpse, whether it was a ring, pendant or hairpin, and stored them in his interspatial ring. These items were things that the others wanted to return to their families if anything ever happened to them. With Yao Jun being the only one left alive, this task naturally fell on him.
Yao Jun dug some quick graves with the help of Little Thunder, placing each body into their own grave. The only thing he could use as grave stones were some branches. He had no choice but to bury them here, there was not enough space in his interspatial ring to store their bodies, and dragging them all the way back to Golden Cloud Town was out of the question. It would take him over a week to return to Golden Cloud, dragging these bodies with him for the entire way would only make them rot or attract Demonic beasts.
After Yao Jun finished saying a small prayer for them, he took out a round, white jade bead from his interspatial ring. He spoke a few sentences into it before circulating his Qi into it. The jade lit up with a bright light for a short while before quickly dimming. This jade bead was called a Transmission Jade. Transmission Jade's always came in pars. He could say a few sentences into it and then charge it with Qi, the jade bead would then transfer the words he had said back to the other jade, it's Partner Jade.
This allowed for long distance communication between two parties. Of course, each Jade only had a limited number of uses, rarely more than 10 uses, before it would become useless. This Transmission Jade that Yao Jun used was the Partner Jade of his parents Transmission Jade. Yao Jun had sent them a short message telling them that he was fine, but he would still spend a few more days in the Cloud Wilderness.
Yao Min and the others would surely have Life Jade's located in the Golden Moon Yao branch, so they would quickly find out that they had died. Yao Jun had only sent the message to his parents so that they would not worry about him, thinking that he was badly injured somewhere. If he was only badly injured, it would explain why the others Life Jade's had broken, but not his.
After Yao Jun finished with his business, he brought Little Thunder and returned to the cave. The interior of the cave was pitch black, making it almost impossible for normal people to see inside it. But Yao Jun had already absorbed the eyesight of the Mist Eagle and the Lightning Tiger, allowing him to easily see within the darkness.
The cave was just a simple tunnel into the hill, Yao Jun could see marks on the walls that indicated that the cave was dug out using tools, so it was most likely dug out by humans who needed shelter from the weather in the Cloud Wilderness. It was impossible to determine just how long ago that was just from looking at the marks. The cave only continued inwards for a short 100 meters before it turned into a large circular room.
Yao Jun could not help but be disappointed when he saw that the only thing in this circular room was a large amount of gray feathers and some scattered pools of blood. It was obvious that there was nothing in this cave, and that it had only been used by the Mist Eagle as a respite where it could heal from it's injuries, not a permanent residence where it would store some of it's treasures.
“Tch, guess i'm not lucky enough to just stumble on some free stuff huh?”
Yao Jun clicked his tongue and couldn't help but give a self mocking comment, what was he expecting from a small cave on the outskirts of the Cloud Wilderness? Yao Jun took Little Thunder and left the cave, since there was nothing there, there was no need to waste any time here.
When they left the cave, Yao Jun was slightly startled to see that at the spot where Yao Min and the others had fought the Mist Eagle, something that seemed like a horned raccoon was licking up the remaining blood.
The creature was less than half a meter long, it's body was plump and it's fur was a mixture of gray and black. It's head was shaped like a raccoon's, with black rings around it's eyes, two curved horns stuck out from it's temples. Seeing this little creature, Yao Jun came up with an idea and started to walk towards it.
The horned raccoon quickly noticed Yao Jun walking towards it and started hissing as a warning. The horned raccoon was small and plump, but it's personality was irritable and fierce, it would not allow anyone to disturb it's meal. It raised it's head to glare at Yao Jun, but what met it where two eyes that seemed to burn with a ghostly gray fire.
“Now now, don't worry. There is nothing to fear. Come over here.”
Yao Jun spoke with a calm and soothing voice, beckoning the horned raccoon to come to him. The horned raccoon seemed to have seen something wonderful as it gave a loud and happy squeak, before charging over to Yao Jun, rubbing up against his leg.
“It seems to work even better than I expected.”
Yao Jun rubbed his chin as he thought about what he just did. He had used the Mental Energy he got from the Mist Eagle to delve into the horned raccoon's mind, dredging up it's most cherished memories and overlapping them with Yao Jun's appearance. The horned raccoon thought that it saw the things from it's most cherished memories, when all it really saw was Yao Jun.
“Okay, Little Thunder. You can start with this one.”
Yao Jun turned his head towards Little Thunder, who was still behind him, and waved his hand. Little Thunder hopped forward and bit down on the horned raccoon's head, completely crushing it's head, even the horns on the side were crushed. Little Thunder happily ate the horned raccoon as Yao Jun cast his glance around the clearing, it was time to head further into the Cloud Wilderness.