Although the "Gold-Eating Insects" ranked among the top of the Strange Insect Rankings, according to the Spirit-Controlled Insect Manual, their individual abilities were extremely limited, relying entirely on overwhelming numbers to prevail.
If there were only a dozen or a few dozen of them, even after reaching maturity, they would not be of much use.
Only when their numbers reached tens or hundreds of thousands would they truly live up to their ranking on the Strange Insect Rankings.
At the thought of countless insects flying through the air, attacking relentlessly, an endless tide of killing that could not be stopped, Han Li himself felt a chill run down his spine.
Therefore, what he needed to do now was to quickly mature these Gold-Eating Insects and then have them reproduce as soon as possible, so that their numbers could multiply rapidly.
But easier said than done!
As a strange insect that had existed since ancient times, the Gold-Eating Insect had long since become extinct in the Tian Nan cultivation world. The specific methods for raising and cultivating them had been lost for countless generations.
The Spirit-Controlled Sect cultivator's jade slip on insect-raising only contained some of the insect's habits, compiled from ancient texts, with no detailed training methods.
This had frustrated Han Li for a long time.
Actually, it wasn't just this twelfth-ranked "Gold-Eating Insect"—almost all of the top thirty strange insects were insect-type spirit beasts that had vanished from the cultivation world many years ago.
The Spirit-Controlled Sect cultivator was an insect enthusiast who had analyzed various ancient materials gathered from all over to compile these ancient insects into the Strange Insect Rankings.
Whether the rankings at the top of this Strange Insect Rankings were reliable, only heaven knew!
How Han Li had obtained these supposedly extinct Gold-Eating Insects was also a matter of coincidence.
Because these Gold-Eating Insects, still in their larval stage, had been in a state of suspended animation deep beneath Xiao Huan Island since ancient times for unknown reasons.
Normally, even if mountains collapsed and the earth cracked, or rivers reversed their flow and the sea overturned, these strange insects would not awaken easily.
But Han Li had gathered many other strange insects together in his cave dwelling on Xiao Huan Island to feed them. The scent of these insects gradually seeped underground, miraculously causing the Gold-Eating Insects to awaken en masse due to their instinct to feed.
They should have launched their feeding attack long ago. However, among Han Li's strange insects were the "Blood Jade Spiders," which were their natural predators. Out of instinctive fear, they dared not approach Han Li's cave dwelling too closely.
Thus, while lurking beneath Xiao Huan Island, they kept a fixed watch on Han Li's cave dwelling.
And when Han Li went out shopping that time, he took the Blood Jade Spiders with him. This gave the Gold-Eating Insects their opportunity.
As Han Li had witnessed, these Gold-Eating Insects devoured all the strange insects he had been raising and settled in his cave dwelling's medicinal garden as their base.
As a result, when Han Li secretly returned, he captured them all in one net.
Now, since Han Li no longer had the previous insect-raising techniques, he had to figure things out slowly on his own.
First, Han Li tried throwing various types of insect feed into the insect chamber. Regardless of the type, all of it was devoured by the several hundred Gold-Eating Insects in an instant—they were not picky eaters at all, which greatly delighted Han Li.
But Han Li's joy lasted only a few months before he discovered that no matter how much insect feed the Gold-Eating Insects consumed, there was no sign of growth or change.
This depressed Han Li, so he had to find another way.
These insects loved to eat metal and spiritual energy, so Han Li tried feeding them some raw ores of various metals and some low-grade spirit stones.
After consumption, these insects still showed no unusual changes. This attempt also ended in failure.
Extremely frustrated, Han Li simply threw the dozen or so "Golden-Backed Mantis" eggs he had been keeping into the insect chamber.
After being devoured by the Gold-Eating Insects, the spiritual energy within these insects finally showed changes, and they seemed even fiercer than before feeding.
This made Han Li both delighted and worried.
Could these Gold-Eating Insects only mature by devouring other strange insects? This would be difficult!
Besides the two "Blood Jade Spiders," what other strange insects did he have here?
Helpless, Han Li simply bought some pig and sheep blood food from outside and threw it into the insect chamber.
But aside from making these Gold-Eating Insects even more fierce and irritable, it had no effect on promoting their advancement to maturity.
Helpless, Han Li finally matured enough spiritual herbs and began refining the "Spirit-Feeding Pills."
In the past, he had focused on refining pills to increase his own cultivation power and had never had the chance to refine this type of pill. Now was the perfect time to try.
Within a few days, the first batch of Spirit-Feeding Pills was successfully refined.
Han Li immediately had the "Gold-Eating Insects" and the two "Blood Jade Spiders" share a portion of the pills.
As a result, the effect of the Spirit-Feeding Pills left Han Li with mixed feelings!
He was happy because:
The pills that promoted spirit beasts to higher levels were indeed effective on these strange insects as well.
He was worried because:
The effect of the pills on the "Gold-Eating Insects" and the "Blood Jade Spiders" was vastly different.
After consuming four or five Spirit-Feeding Pills, the Blood Jade Spiders' spiritual energy clearly increased a small amount the next day—the effect was very obvious.
While the Gold-Eating Insects, which also consumed a few pills, showed some effect, it was insignificant compared to the Blood Jade Spiders, with only a tiny increase.
He estimated that this was because the number of Gold-Eating Insects was simply too large—several hundred of them dividing the pills naturally could not produce significant advancement.
This was only several hundred of them. At the thought of needing tens of thousands in the future to be effective, Han Li immediately lost confidence in continuing to raise insects.
Even if he used all the green liquid produced by the small bottle to refine Spirit-Feeding Pills, it would be impossible to cultivate such a large army of "Gold-Eating Insects" within a hundred years.
After reaching this conclusion, Han Li lost interest in training the Gold-Eating Insects. He gave all the remaining Spirit-Feeding Pills to the Blood Jade Spiders and only threw some insect feed into the chamber for the Gold-Eating Insects each day.
At this time, Han Li had already been in Tian Xing City for half a year.
In the remaining days, he went into seclusion and crazily manufactured second-grade puppets and various talismans.
As for talismans, there was not much to say—without reaching the Core Formation stage, he still could not master intermediate-level spells and naturally could not create intermediate-level talismans.
The only benefit from producing so many talismans was that his skill in creating basic-level talismans had greatly improved.
Even for high-level basic talismans, he had nearly a fifty percent success rate, which saved him a lot of talisman materials.
The main material for second-grade puppets was iron wood that was several hundred years old. Han Li could mature it himself, so the cost of producing a single puppet was reduced by more than half.
And the souls needed for refining puppets happened to be plentiful in the "Soul-Gathering Bowl" he had obtained before—they were all lonely wandering spirits whose spiritual consciousness had long been lost. Han Li did not hesitate to use them directly.
After all, without spiritual consciousness, these souls had lost the qualifications for reincarnation and could only be used as ordinary refining materials.
Over two hundred puppets were finally completed, all uniformly beast-shaped, which satisfied Han Li immensely.
But the appearance of these puppets also meant that another portion of the spirit stones in Han Li's pocket had disappeared.
Because while the cost of a single puppet might not be very high, over two hundred of them, plus the materials wasted due to manufacturing failures, the price was staggering.
At this point, Han Li had been in seclusion for two full years.
Additionally, during these two years, all the "Spirit-Feeding Pills" Han Li refined were used to feed the Blood Jade Spiders.
Under the powerful medicinal effect, the two spirit beasts advanced again, entering the ranks of first-grade peak spirit beasts.
At the same time, during these two years, Qu Hun finally managed to refine the "Primordial Bowl" to about seventy or eighty percent completion.
Although limited by not being the original owner of this treasure and never achieving perfect mind-treasure unity, he could at least store it within his body and unleash seventy percent of its power.
Han Li had not been without the thought of having Qu Hun refine his own treasure.
But firstly, the materials for a treasure were truly sky-high in price, and with his remaining spirit stones, he probably couldn't even gather the most basic materials.
Secondly, refining a treasure was not something that could be accomplished in a short time within the Nascent Soul—it required at least twenty or thirty years of painstaking effort to begin showing its power.
Han Li didn't have that much time to waste!
He urgently needed a large number of spirit beast inner pills to refine medicinal preparations, ready to begin the second cycle of the "Three Revolutions Heavy Origin Art."
Previously, whether training the strange insects or mass-producing puppets, it was all preparation for going out to sea to hunt spirit beasts.
He believed that with puppets, Blood Jade Spiders, formation arrays, plus Qu Hun as the main fighter and himself assisting from the side, hunting fifth-grade spirit beasts should not be difficult.
Thinking this, Han Li finally left his cave dwelling that day and headed with Qu Hun towards the market district of Tian Xing City.
Since he was going to the outer sea to hunt high-grade spirit beasts, he naturally needed some information about spirit beasts and the islands beyond the teleportation formation in the Outer Star Sea.
All of this should be available in the market district.
The market district of Tian Xing City was located in the first layer of the Sacred Mountain.
Its scale was so large that it occupied more than half of the first layer's area.
Every day, numerous cultivators came here to buy and sell various magical artifacts and materials. In terms of scale and prosperity, it far surpassed any market district Han Li had previously encountered.