Chapter 31:Wolves


    As they were talking, Old Lee and his team exited the instance dungeon. Cheng Yang saw that Old Lee was now wearing leather armor and carrying a jagged sword.


    Cheng Yang immediately exined his n to Old Lee, who was naturally grateful. He understood that he was different from Yu Kai and the others since Cheng Yang hadnt known him long. Cheng Yangs act of trust moved Old Lee greatly.


    Cheng Yang nced at his Experience Fragments and found that he had over one thousand six hundred. After finishing his trainingst night, he only had 1,100 points but clearing the Hard Difficulty Blood Soaked Church alone actually had such great results!


    After that Cheng Yang traded one thousand Experience Fragments to Lau Hui since he was the only one of the five team Captains that hadnt finished training for the day.


    After the trade, Cheng Yang went over to the five ss change statues to start some new research. When they had performed several ss change ceremonies this morning, they had nearly bottomed out the territorys Experience Fragment reserves. After hunting outside and clearing the instance dungeon three times 1300 Experience Fragments were collected, of which, 60 were funneled into the sries of his officials.


    Cheng Yang selected the research option for each statue that increased Mana. When the research finished, all of the primary sses would gain a Mana boost of 24%. Mana would always be the limiting factor for people of how big of a monster horde a group could fight. This was especially true for Phoenix Vige which didnt have an Alchemy Tower yet.


    Standard Grade research would take ten hours toplete, which meant it would be dark before the new research would be finished. Now Phoenix Vige was close to broke again, now that 900 Experience Fragments had been used for research.


    When he finished, Cheng Yang looked at the sky and estimated that it was around 10:00. With Lau Huis team training in the Meditation Halls, that only left four teams of soldiers under hismand.


    Cheng Yang felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Old Lee. He hesitated for a moment before asking, Lord, do you think we have enough power to reach Cloud City yet?


    Cheng Yang could understand how Old Lee felt and thought about the issue for a while. I think its possible, yes, if we were willing to make sacrifices. Of course, there would be no guarantee that we would find your family before having to turn back. I think that today we should continue our operations in Huimin. They are people we can save, and once we collect enough wood, we can build the Alchemy Tower and unlock the ability to buy potions. Once we have potions supplementing our Priests, we should be able to reach Cloud City safely. Of course, that only my guess. Ill go alone to scout of the path to Cloud City to see if we can go any earlier.


    Old Lee nodded. He couldnt find any way he could argue with Cheng Yangs n. He was well aware that he couldnt risk his teams lives for his selfish desires.


    Later, Cheng Yang pulled Liu Hau to the side and handed him the boots he had found. Liu Hau was very satisfied with the gift since it would further increase his speed advantage.


    The Normal Difficulty for the Blood Soaked Cathedral could still be used one more time today, but Cheng Yang had no intention to let anyone in. If he sent in an inexperienced team, they would just die, and he needed Yu Kai to go to Huimin. The only other team Captain that could enter the instance dungeon was Lau Hui, but he was in the middle of training. They had already cleared the instance dungeon three times today, so there wasnt a huge loss anyway.


    ording to Cheng Yangs arrangement, both his and Yu Kais team would go to Huimin with the primary goal of rescuing people and gathering wood as a secondary goal. Since Cheng Yang was going to be doing something else today, Zhao Chuan would be leading his team, which is why he needed Yu Kai to be present.


    The remaining two teams would be sent to the peripheries of the territory to find and exterminaterge monster hordes. This was an unquestionably vital job since the monster hordes wouldbine over time growingrger andrge like a snowball rolling down a hill until they were big enough to decimate Phoenix Vige.


    Cheng Yang clearly remembered that in his past life, there was a territory destroyed right before he died. They hadnt been able to prevent the formation ofrge hordes when the vige was created and after half a year a horde, which numbered in the millions,pletely devoured the territory. Although millions of monsters are scary, the truly dangerous aspect ofrge hordes was their ability to nurture elite monsters. The leader of the horde that destroyed the territory was an Elite Pinnacle-Grade Mature monster. If not for that monster, they may have been able to survive.


    In Cheng Yangs past life, even after half a year, humanity hadnt been able to fully understand the mechanics of monster evolution, however, they were able to figure out a few key points. Monsters, like humans, would be very weak when they first spawned. As time passed, monsters would grow stronger at a pace somewhere in between a human at two times and four times training speed. Also, once twenty or so monster gathered together, one of them would be designated as the leader of the group. The leader of a group would have a boost in their growth speed and gain the Elite title. When beast hordesbined, both leaders would keep their current growth rates, but one would be designated as the true leader and have an even higher growth rate. As hordes grew bigger, more and more Elites would appear in their ranks and the leader would be of an even higher level. Humanity didnt know whether strong monsters encouraged hordes merging or if they only appeared after a merge but regardless when arge horde was encountered, it would always be dangerous.


    Cheng Yang didnt care why this phenomenon happened but was determined not to let arge horde form near the station. The incident in his previous served as a strong reminder of what would happen if one did.


    After all of the others left, Cheng Yang exited the vige from the north gate.


    Even after travelling a kilometer, Cheng Yang didnt encounter any monsters. This was normal since this area was designated as inside the vige. Although the second ring of walls hadnt been built yet, it would epass this area when it did.


    More eerily, the forest that had upied the area before was gone. All of the trees hadpletely disappeared as if they had never existed in the first ce. The only thing left was a field of meter high grass.


    Once he left the territory area of influence, things got more difficult.


    It was the fourth day of the apocalypse and the trees that had sprouted on the first day were now four to five meters tall and growing directly out of the old road. People wouldnt be able to easily traverse it, nor would they be able to see into the distance.


    Fortunately, Cheng Yangs hearing had reached a level where nothing normal within forty of fifty meters would be able to go unnoticed.


    On the way, Cheng Yang rarely encountered monsters on their own. Cheng Yang wasnt surprised because he knew that the rate at which monsters spawned randomly would decrease to zero by the end of the week. No one knew why god had arranged for this to happen. Some theorized that it was to give ordinary people a better chance to survive. Others thought that it was so that Professionals wouldnt be able to get stronger on their own. After all, it was easy to kill a single monster on your own, but to kill a horde alone was quite difficult.


    This didnt mean that the actual spawn rate had decreased. It was just that monster would now spawn directly inside of hordes. This meant that hordes would grow much faster than in the first few days.


    For example, Cheng Yang had just discovered a horde of monsters with no less than fifty individuals.


    Cheng Yang had onlye out to explore, so stopping to kill such arge horde would be troublesome. He would rather face five hundred monsters in twenty hordes than a single horde of fifty.


    However, after catching a glimpse of the itemying on the ground in the center of the horde Cheng Yang was unwilling to leave.