Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 206

Although the Devouring Gold Beetles were high in the hierarchy of insect demon beasts, the records of Beast Spirit Masters [cultivators specializing in raising and controlling demon beasts] clearly outlined their limitations. Their power was primarily dependent on their sheer numbers.

A dozen or so, or even a few dozen, wouldn’t be of much use, even after they matured.

Only when their numbers reached tens or hundreds of thousands could they display their full potential. The thought of hundreds of thousands of insect demon beasts darkening the sky and attacking made Han Li’s legs tremble.

Therefore, his immediate task was to rapidly grow the Devouring Gold Beetle larvae and have them reproduce to increase their numbers. However, this was easier said than done.

The Devouring Gold Beetles were peculiar insect demon beasts that had existed since ancient times, and they had long been extinct in the Tiannan region. Even the Beast Spirit Masters had only managed to find records of their characteristics in ancient texts, but they hadn’t left behind any information on how to raise them.

It was a real headache. In fact, not only the Devouring Gold Beetles, ranked 12th, but also many of the insect demon beasts within the top 30 were mostly extinct in the Tiannan cultivation world.

The Beast Spirit Master was obsessed with insect demon beasts, traveling everywhere and referencing ancient records to note their characteristics. Whether the rankings he set were accurate was something only the heavens knew.

It was purely by chance that Han Li obtained the rare Devouring Gold Beetles, which had disappeared without a trace. For some unknown reason, the Devouring Gold Beetles had been hibernating in their larval form within the summoning diagram for a long time. Unless a mountain collapsed or the sea engulfed them, there was almost no chance of them waking up.

However, when Han Li established his residence within the summoning diagram and began raising various insects, the energy stimulated the Devouring Gold Beetles hidden underground.

Originally, the Devouring Gold Beetle swarm that had awakened from hibernation should have attacked Han Li’s cave, but at that time, there were two Blood Jade Spiders, their natural enemies, preventing them from approaching. After Han Li left, they devoured all the rare insect demon beasts and took over the place.

Of course, they were caught by Han Li upon his return and ended up here. Han Li didn’t know the exact method to train them, but he planned to figure it out slowly on his own.

First, Han Li placed various bugs and insects into the secret room.

No matter what kind he put in, the hundreds of Devouring Gold Beetles would cleanly devour them. However, Han Li’s joy faded after a few months.

No matter how many insects he fed them, the Devouring Gold Beetles didn’t grow any further.

It was time to try a different approach.

Since the insects were said to like five types of metals and spiritual energy, he decided to try feeding them ores such as gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin, as well as spirit stones [currency used by cultivators].

After consuming all of these, there was no change at all; it was a failure. Depressed, Han Li threw the dead eggs he had taken from the giant mantis, the Golden-Backed Mantis, into the secret room.

After eating the eggs, the Devouring Gold Beetles finally began to emit spiritual energy from their bodies, and their movements became more active. Seeing this, Han Li’s worries grew.

Could it be that the Devouring Gold Beetles could only grow by devouring other insect demon beasts? If so, wouldn’t that be too difficult?

There were no insect demon beasts left here except for the two Blood Jade Spiders. Helpless, he bought livestock such as pigs and sheep and put them in the secret room.

Other than the Devouring Gold Beetles going into a frenzy, there was no sign of growth at all. After experimenting for a long time and finally cultivating enough spiritual herbs, he began to manufacture Spirit Nourishing Pills, which were food for spirit beasts.

It had been a long time since he had obtained the medicine shop, but he had been busy refining spiritual medicines to boost his own spiritual energy, so this was his first attempt.

In a few days, the first Spirit Nourishing Pill was completed. Han Li immediately distributed the Spirit Nourishing Pills to the Devouring Gold Beetles and the Blood Jade Spiders. The results of the Spirit Nourishing Pills made Han Li both happy and worried.

The good thing was that the pills that increased the grade of demon beasts were also effective on insect demon beasts. The worrying thing was that the reactions of the Devouring Gold Beetles and the Blood Jade Spiders to the same pill were so different.

The spiders, after taking four or five Spirit Nourishing Pills, already had extraordinary spiritual energy by the next day.

The Devouring Gold Beetles, who had taken the same Spirit Nourishing Pills, also showed some effect, but it was insignificant compared to the Blood Jade Spiders.

Perhaps it was because there were too many Devouring Gold Beetles, and hundreds of them had to share the pills.

If it was this difficult with just a few hundred, it would be a big problem since he needed to raise tens of millions of them to be useful. Han Li’s confidence in raising the Devouring Gold Beetles had greatly diminished.

Even if he used all the green liquid produced by the mysterious bottle only for manufacturing Spirit Nourishing Pills, he wasn’t sure if he could raise a large army of Devouring Gold Beetles within 100 years.

Once he came to this conclusion, Han Li lost interest in raising the Devouring Gold Beetles. He fed all the remaining Spirit Nourishing Pills to the two Blood Jade Spiders and only entered the Devouring Gold Beetles’ secret room to give them food, without trying any other methods.

By this time, Han Li had spent half a year in this Heavenly Star City.

In the remaining days, Han Li went into secluded training, focusing madly on making second-grade puppets and various talismans [magical charms].

The only advantage of producing many talismans was that his skill in making low-grade talismans had improved tremendously.

Now, he could make high-grade low-level talismans with a 50% success rate, and he could say goodbye to the days of wasting large amounts of materials.

Also, he could now grow the ironwood, which was the main material for second-grade puppets, himself, saving more than half of the cost.

As for the souls needed to make the puppets, there were plenty of souls who had lost their egos and had been trapped in the Soul Gathering Bowl for a long time, so he could use them without hesitation.

Since they had already lost their egos and had no chance to reincarnate, they had simply become materials for refining. More than 200 puppets were completed, and he was very satisfied with the appearance of the unified demon beast-shaped puppets.

However, as he produced them, Han Li’s spirit stone pouch became lighter again.

Even if the material cost for one puppet was acceptable, producing more than 200 puppets required a huge amount of money, including the cost of failures.

It was the second year since he had entered seclusion.

During that time, Han Li had continued to refine Spirit Nourishing Pills and steadily fed them to the Blood Jade Spiders. Thanks to the powerful medicinal effects, the two white spiders had now entered the ranks of top-tier first-grade demon beasts.

Gok Hon also succeeded in taming the Chaos Origin Bowl after spending two years on it.

Although he wasn’t the original owner and couldn’t unite his mind and will with it to control it freely, he could carry it within his body and unleash about seven-tenths of its original power.

It wasn’t that Gok Hon didn’t want to refine his own magic treasure [powerful magical artifact].

However, the materials needed for magic treasures were all traded at astronomical prices, and with his remaining spirit stones, he couldn’t even gather the basic materials.

Also, magic treasures weren’t made in an instant; it would take at least 20 to 30 years of effort to unleash their basic power. But Han Li didn’t have that much time.

He needed to quickly gather a large number of demon cores, make spiritual medicines, and use their power to attempt the second cycle of the Three Revolutions of the Primal Origin Technique [a powerful cultivation technique]. Growing the Blood Jade Spiders and producing a large number of puppets were all preparations for going out to the outer sea to hunt demon beasts.

With the puppet army, the Blood Jade Spiders, and the formation magic tools prepared, and with Gok Hon as the main force and himself as support, he was confident that he could handle fifth-grade demon beasts.

Having completed the planned preparations, he immediately left the cave and headed to the Heavenly Star City market with Gok Hon.

If he was planning to go to the sea to kill high-grade demon beasts, he naturally needed to find more information about demon beasts, teleportation arrays, and the outer sea.

The market in Heavenly Star City, where he could buy what he needed, was located on the first level of the city mountain. Its scale was considerable, seeming to occupy more than half of the first level.

Judging by the number of cultivators who visited it daily and the volume of transactions, it was larger than any market he had visited before.

…

Over the past two years, he had visited the market several times to purchase the materials needed to produce puppets, and each time he had spent a large number of spirit stones, so the shop owners welcomed Han Li.

After asking one of them for relevant information, Han Li immediately headed to a bookstore called the White Gate Pavilion.

Inside the bookstore, there was information about all the demon beasts discovered in the Chaotic Star Sea so far, and for a payment of over a hundred spirit stones, he could copy them all. He also found information about the various demon beast islands in the outer sea at a smaller shop.

As he was about to return to his residence, Han Li stopped at a shop that specialized in selling storage pouches and spirit beast pouches. He now had too many things to carry, and his current storage pouch was inconvenient.

Moreover, if he went to the outer sea and killed high-grade demon beasts, not only would their cores be valuable, but the demon beasts themselves would also be valuable materials, so he couldn’t just leave them behind.

He needed to acquire several more storage pouches that could hold a large number of items. Han Li entered the shop and paid nearly 1,000 spirit stones to buy two large-capacity storage pouches that were more than ten times larger than his existing ones.

Han Li passed by a place called the Fenglu Auction House in Heavenly Star City and looked at the items on display. There were not only rare demon beast cores of the fifth and sixth grades, but also high-grade materials used to refine magic treasures, and even quite a few rare items he had never heard of.

Even if the best items came out at the best auction house in Heavenly Star City, there was almost no chance that Han Li, who only had a few thousand spirit stones, could obtain them.

Once they were put up for auction, the prices of already expensive items would skyrocket. Perhaps only items like thousand-year-old spiritual herbs could be traded here.

However, Han Li had no intention of inviting trouble.

Although he had spent a lot of spirit stones, he wasn’t in the worst financial situation yet, so there was no reason to create problems.

After just smacking his lips at the items with astronomical prices, Han Li returned to his residence.

For the next month, he spent his time solely researching the characteristics and weaknesses of the demon beasts that appeared in the outer sea. At the same time, he also thought about how to deal with them when he encountered them.

Then, one day, Han Li suddenly burst into laughter and couldn’t hide his excitement as he lifted the book he was holding.

He immediately flew back to the market.

* * *

Another half year passed in an instant.

Han Li and Gok Hon were currently in the 50th district of Heavenly Star City. In front of them was a magnificent stone hall made of white marble, and a plaque with the name “Starry Sky Hall” written in gold was hung on the top.

There were no guards at the entrance of the hall. Han Li and Gok Hon quietly moved forward. After passing through a small corridor, a large hall about twenty feet wide appeared before them.

Inside, four men and one woman were talking to a Heavenly Star Palace cultivator dressed in white. Behind them, numerous teleportation arrays were arranged, and in front of each teleportation array, there was a stone with the destination written on it.

After taking his eyes off the teleportation arrays, Han Li looked at the various cultivators and was a little surprised. Surprisingly, three of them were Core Formation cultivators [a higher level of cultivation], and the other three were late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators [a lower level of cultivation]. So, when Han Li and Gok Hon entered, they looked at them with some surprise.

The Core Formation cultivator in white quickly hid his surprise, but the other five expressed their surprise at the arrival of just two people.

One of the women smiled and spoke to them.

“Are you two also going to the demon beast islands? How about joining us to reduce the cost?”

Han Li didn’t answer immediately and turned his gaze to the white-robed cultivator in charge.

“Senior, is that possible?”

“Yes, the teleportation array costs the same each time it’s activated, regardless of the number of people. Whether one person goes or several people go, it costs 700 spirit stones. However, the maximum number of people that can travel at once is seven.”

After thanking the manager for the explanation, Han Li smiled and looked at the woman’s group.

“Where are you going, fellow cultivators? My junior brother and I are planning to go to Yingchui Island.”

The late-stage Foundation Establishment woman hesitated for a moment, then exchanged glances with the others before smiling and answering.

“What a coincidence! We were also planning to go to Yingchui Island, so we can go together.”

Han Li’s expression remained the same, but he was sneering inwardly.

‘What a coincidence. They probably didn’t care where they went.’

Since he couldn’t refuse an opportunity to save spirit stones for no reason, Han Li accepted her offer.

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