Han Li's eyes narrowed slightly, and with a light tremble of his ten fingers, the ten spiritual threads snapped apart on their own.
Then he patted his storage pouch lightly, and more than a dozen streaks of white light flew out from it, arranging themselves in a circle beneath those liquids—twelve identical small jade boxes.
Each of these jade boxes was carved from some flawless white jade, exquisitely made, and only a few inches in size.
With a light flick of his sleeve, the lids of all the jade boxes slid open.
Then the word "Fall" left Han Li's lips, and at the sound, all of the viscous green liquid floating in the air dropped down.
Neither more nor less—exactly one lump of liquid settled into each jade box.
Only after Han Li had sealed the lids once more did his expression ease, and he was truly able to relax.
Even with the aid of spirit stones and pills, his magic power was nearly exhausted by now.
In this way, Han Li sat in meditation for several more days until he had returned to his peak condition, then began refining the remaining five stalks of Heavenly Thunder Bamboo.
In the blink of an eye, three months passed.
Only after exerting tremendous effort did Han Li finally refine all of the Heavenly Thunder Bamboo into an extremely pure liquid form.
Then, after a brief rest, he began setting up an exceedingly complex magic array in the secret chamber.
Han Li did not know what this array was called.
He only knew that it was indispensable for refining the "Azure Bamboo Cloud Swords," as the refinement method on that golden page had mentioned it again and again—clearly it was a preparation of the utmost importance.
Therefore, even though the method of setting it up was engraved in Han Li's memory and he had already attempted it several times, he was still extremely careful, not daring to make the slightest mistake.
After all, even a single carelessly drawn rune could lead to unpredictable accidents when he refined his magic treasure.
And so, with Han Li treading on eggshells, the array took a full half month to complete. Only after installing a dozen or so middle-grade spirit stones to test it and confirming that the array was indeed operating normally did he finally set his mind at ease.
Next, Han Li did not immediately begin refining the magic treasure, but instead temporarily left the secret chamber.
Having continuously used his pill fire for half a year straight, with his mind in a state of intense concentration the entire time, even a Core Formation cultivator like Han Li found it hard to bear and needed to adjust for a while.
For the next step was the most crucial one in refining the magic treasure.
But no sooner had Han Li stepped out of the secret chamber than an unexpected pleasant surprise was waiting for him.
Under his intermittent feeding with the Nishang Grass, the Gold Devouring Beetles had finally begun devouring one another again.
This filled Han Li with delight!
Ever since the Gold Devouring Beetles had multiplied to several tens of thousands, that meager bit of Nishang Grass had simply not been enough to make them lay eggs and evolve again.
Moreover, over these years, most of the green liquid had been used by Han Li to hasten the growth of the Heavenly Thunder Bamboo, making it even harder for the beetles to show any change.
However, once the Heavenly Thunder Bamboo had been fully matured, Han Li had immediately instructed Qu Hun to intensify their cultivation again.
After all, Han Li still held great expectations for these strange insects.
As soon as Han Li received this news from Qu Hun, he went straight to the insect room.
On the beetles that had devoured one another, the golden spots on their shells already covered nearly half of their body surface. Presumably, the next generation they produced would allow the golden spots to spread a little further.
But after watching for a while, the delight on Han Li's face gradually faded, and he slightly furrowed his brow.
At this rate, the prospect of all these Gold Devouring Beetles evolving to complete gold was not very optimistic.
Their numbers multiplied several-fold after each evolution, yet the Nishang Grass that the green liquid could ripen was severely limited. It was impossible to evolve thousands of beetles all at once. At this pace, who knew how far off the next evolution would be!
Han Li sank into quiet contemplation outside the insect room.
It seemed he would have to focus on cultivating a small portion of them first. Otherwise, Han Li doubted he would ever get the chance to see golden Gold Devouring Beetles.
Having thought this through, Han Li promptly made his decision.
However, all of this could only be carried out after the beetles laid their eggs. It could wait for now; it was better to focus on refining his magic treasure first.
In this way, after resting for a full month, Han Li finally chose an auspicious day.
Then he burned incense and prayed in his bedchamber for two days, letting his state of mind enter one free of ripples, before returning to the secret chamber and standing at the eye of the array at its center.
With a solemn expression, Han Li swept both hands, and several dozen jade boxes filled with Heavenly Thunder Bamboo liquid fell in various spots around the array, arranged according to some hidden principle.
Then all sorts of other caskets and wooden boxes flew out of his storage pouch one after another, landing before Han Li and opening their lids by themselves, revealing the various auxiliary materials he had long since prepared.
Han Li glanced at these materials, took a deep breath, slowly sat down cross-legged, closed his eyes, and gradually entered meditation.
After the time it takes to eat a meal, Han Li's eyes snapped open, and azure radiance emerged from his body.
The moment this radiance appeared, the spirit stones embedded in the array gave off a dazzling light, and the entire array began to run with a low hum.
Han Li's body did not move, but his ten fingers flicked rapidly as thread after thread of spiritual silk drew the green Heavenly Thunder Bamboo liquid out of the boxes.
Below, a series of "pu" "pu" sounds rang out from the array as pillars of light as thick as a bowl's mouth shot out from all around, engulfing the liquid within and leaving it unable to budge the slightest bit inside the pillars.
Seeing this, Han Li closed his eyes once more and unhurriedly sent out his powerful spiritual sense, bringing all of the pillars of light under his control.
At once, the pillars of light seemed to come alive, flickering and shifting through changing colors.
A strange scene unfolded: after countless ceaseless transformations, the colors of the pillars of light gradually began to converge.
Then, after one final change of color, all of the pillars of light settled into a fiery red and fixed themselves in place, making the green liquid wrapped within them appear all the more verdant and glistening.
Expressionless, Han Li opened his mouth and spat out a wisp of azure pill fire, which landed squarely on one of the pillars of light.
With a "chi," the entire pillar of light burst into raging flame, instantly turning into a crimson pillar of fire.
Without the slightest hesitation, Han Li spat out mouthful after mouthful of pill fire, igniting all of the pillars of light.
Seventy-two pillars of fire, each two zhang tall, glowed with dazzling red light in the secret chamber.
He gave a soft sigh!
In terms of the might of its flame, his pill fire was far stronger than these seemingly flashy but impractical pillars of fire. But unfortunately, when refining flying swords, a more powerful flame was not necessarily better.
This left him no choice but to accept a temporary heavy drain of his vitality, wasting so much of his pill flame's power.
After Han Li finished these somewhat gloomy thoughts, the green liquid in the pillars of fire, manipulated by his spiritual sense and the power of the array, began to slowly change shape.
Bit by bit, the round blobs were stretched and flattened, and sword embryos four to five inches long gradually began to take shape, one after another.
But easy as it was to say, in reality it took a day and a night of manipulation before the seventy-two gleaming green liquid flying swords formally appeared within the pillars of fire.
Han Li let out a long pent-up breath, and as his spirit relaxed slightly, he felt a faint ache in his head and could not help but smile bitterly.
Simultaneously shaping the formation of seventy-two flying swords was an extremely strenuous task, even for a spiritual sense as powerful as Han Li's.
But even though the crucial shaping by spiritual sense was complete, Han Li still did not dare to slacken in the slightest.
With both hands forming a technique, all of the pillars of fire flickered a few times, then suddenly vanished into thin air, leaving only the emerald-green little swords suspended in the air.
Han Li's hands jabbed about rapidly, and all of the little swords slowly flew over, surrounding him in a tight circle.
Gazing at the seventy-two little swords nearby, he suddenly bit down slightly with his teeth, breaking the tip of his tongue, and spat out a mouthful of essence blood that condensed into a blood sphere the size of a chicken's egg before him.
Then, under Han Li's control, several drops from the blood sphere dripped onto each sword embryo.
The moment the essence blood touched the liquid flying swords, it swiftly burrowed inside and vanished without a trace.
Once this was done, Han Li pointed at a box of silvery powder among the auxiliary materials on the ground. The silver powder immediately rose and sprinkled itself evenly over each sword embryo, instantly making them glitter with silver light.
Next came a box of black powder...
Carefully following the refinement method, Han Li added each auxiliary material, one by one, into the seventy-two sword embryos. Then he summoned the seventy-two pillars of fire once more, let the flying swords slip inside them, and began refining them again.
This time, Han Li did not refine all of the flying swords together, but carved and polished them one by one, individually.
And following the diagrams exactly, he began using his spiritual sense to inscribe miniature magic arrays onto the flying swords—arrays whose meaning he himself did not fully understand—taking care to make them identical to the patterns that accompanied the golden page.