Although the "Gold-Feeding Insects" rank highly on the Unusual Insects List, as stated in the jade scroll of the Yuling Sect's cultivator, their individual capabilities are quite limited. Even when there are only several dozen or a few hundred, they would remain of little use even after reaching adulthood. Only when their numbers reach hundreds of thousands—tens of thousands—do they truly merit their high standing on the list. Just imagining countless insects soaring through the sky, attacking and relentlessly killing one another, sends a shiver of cold down Han Li's spine. Therefore, the current priority is to quickly mature these Gold-Feeding Insects and prompt them to reproduce as soon as possible, so that their numbers can grow exponentially. Yet, as easy to say as it may sound, putting it into practice proves to be immensely difficult! As a rare and ancient insect species, the Gold-Feeding Insects had vanished from the celestial southern realm of cultivation long ago. The specific methods for their cultivation and breeding have likewise been lost, passed down through generations, and forgotten for countless centuries. The cultivation scroll of the Yunling Sect's disciple, compiled merely from some ancient texts, only outlines certain habits of this insect—there is absolutely no detailed training method. This left Han Li deeply frustrated. In fact, not only this twelfth-ranked "Jin-Eating Insect," but nearly all the rare insects ranked among the top thirty have been extinct in the immortal realm for decades. The Yunling Sect disciple, a true enthusiast of insects, had gathered and analyzed various ancient records before finally including these ancient creatures on the list of rare insects. Whether the rankings at the top of this rare insect list are truly reliable remains a mystery. Han Li's acquisition of these seemingly extinct Jin-Eating Insects was itself a fortunate coincidence. For these young-stage Jin-Eating Insects, for some unknown reason, have remained in a state of suspended animation deep within the earth of Xiao Huan Island since ancient times. According to expectation, even in the face of massive earthquakes or cataclysmic floods, these rare insects would hardly awaken. Yet Han Li, within his dwelling on Xiao Huan Island, had gathered and nurtured numerous rare insects, and gradually their scent seeped down into the underground, miraculously awakening the golden-devouring insects—normally due to their feeding instincts. These insects had long been due to launch their feeding assaults, but they remained hesitant, naturally fearful of Han Li’s insects that specifically countered them—the "Blood Jade Spiders"—and thus dared not approach his dwelling too closely. So, they remained concealed beneath the island’s surface, constantly watching his dwelling. When Han Li went out shopping and carried the Blood Jade Spiders with him, the golden-devouring insects finally gained the opportunity. As Han Li observed, these insects consumed all the rare insects he had raised and settled in his dwelling’s medicinal garden as their new home. Han Li, returning unnoticed, found them all captured. Now, without his previous cultivation techniques for nurturing insects, he could only gradually explore and learn on his own. First, Han Li tried feeding various types of insect food into the insect chamber, only to find that regardless of the kind, the hundreds of gold-devouring insects consumed them all without showing any preference—this filled him with great delight. However, this happiness lasted only a few months before Han Li noticed that, despite feeding the insects an abundance of food, there was no sign of growth or development at all. This left him increasingly frustrated, and he had to seek alternative solutions. Since these insects particularly favored metals and spiritual energy, Han Li then attempted feeding them various original metal ores and lower-grade spiritual stones. Yet, after consuming these, the insects showed no noticeable changes—another failure. Frustrated beyond measure, Han Li simply transferred the dozen or so preserved "gold-backed dagger beetles" eggs that he had kept all along into the insect chamber. After being partially consumed by the gold-devouring insects, the spiritual energy within these beetles finally began to manifest changes, and seemed even more vigorous than before. This brought Han Li both surprise and concern. Could it be that these gold-devouring insects only mature by feeding on other rare insects? That would indeed be a problem! Aside from the two "Blood Jade Spiders" here, where else could he find other rare insects? In desperation, Han Li simply bought some blood-fed pigs and sheep from outside and placed them inside the insect chamber. Yet, besides making the gold-devouring insects more fierce and restless, this change brought no noticeable improvement in their maturation. Eventually, Han Li succeeded in cultivating enough medicinal herbs and began preparing the "Spirit-Nourishing Pills." In the past, he had only focused on creating pills to enhance his own spiritual power and had never taken the time to prepare this one. Now, it was finally an ideal opportunity to try. Within a few days, the first batch of Spirit-Nourishing Pills was successfully produced. Han Li immediately had the gold-devouring insects and the two Blood Jade Spiders share a portion of them. The results were both encouraging and somewhat worrying. Encouraging because the pills, which were known to enhance the rank of mythical beasts, proved equally effective on these rare insects. What worried him was that the effect of the feeding pills on the "gold-devouring insects" and the "blood-jade spiders" differed so greatly. Once the blood-jade spiders consumed four or five pills each, they showed a clear and noticeable increase in spiritual energy by the next day—the improvement was quite remarkable. In contrast, although the gold-devouring insects also received several pills each, their improvement was far less significant compared to the spiders, barely showing a slight enhancement. This was likely because there were so many gold-devouring insects—hundreds of them—divided among them, making it difficult to achieve substantial growth. Even considering only these hundreds, the thought of eventually needing to scale up to tens of thousands of insects to achieve any real impact made Han Li lose all confidence in cultivating the gold-devouring insects further. He had already used all the green liquid produced by the small bottles to prepare the feeding pills, and even then, it would not be possible to build up such a large force of gold-devouring insects within a hundred years. After reaching this conclusion, Han Li lost interest in training the gold-devouring insects. After feeding all the remaining Siling Pills to the Blood Jade Spiders, he simply tossed in a bit of food for the Gold-Eating Beetles each day. At this point, Han Li had already stayed in Tianxing City for six months. For the remaining days, he closed himself off, intensely working to create second-tier puppets and various scrolls. As for the scrolls—since he hadn't yet achieved Dan Stage, he couldn't master mid-level spells, let alone produce mid-level scrolls. Nevertheless, the sheer volume of scrolls he produced greatly improved his proficiency in crafting basic scrolls. Even high-level basic scrolls now achieved a success rate approaching half, which saved him considerable amounts of scroll materials. The primary raw material for the second-tier puppets was ironwood trees over several hundred years old. Han Li himself could accelerate their maturation, thus reducing the cost of producing each puppet by nearly half. As for the spiritual essences required to craft the puppets, he had an ample supply in his previously acquired "Concentrated Soul Basin"—a collection of solitary, wandering spirits whose consciousness had long since faded. He freely drew upon them without hesitation. After all, without a spiritual consciousness, these spirits lost their eligibility for reincarnation and could only be used as ordinary materials for cultivation. Finally, after two hundred and more mechanical figures were completed—entirely composed of beast-shaped constructs—Han Li was extremely satisfied. However, the emergence of these figures also meant that a significant portion of the spiritual stones in Han Li's possession had been consumed. While the cost of each figure might not be high, the cumulative expense for two hundred figures, combined with the materials lost due to manufacturing failures, proved staggering. At this point, Han Li had been in seclusion for exactly two years. During the additional two years, all the "Spirit-Nourishing Pills" he had produced had been used to feed the Blood Jade Spiders. Under the powerful effects of these pills, the two beasts had once again advanced in rank, reaching the pinnacle of the first-tier elite beasts. Meanwhile, Qu Hun had finally nearly fully integrated and refined the "Heavenly Unity Cauldron" over this period of more than two years. Though unable to achieve complete harmony with the法宝 as it is not its original owner, he has finally managed to incorporate it within his body and now can harness seven-tenths of its full power. Han Li hadn't failed to consider having Qu Hun craft his own法宝. However, first, the materials required for such a法宝 were prohibitively expensive—his remaining spiritual stones would hardly be enough to gather even the most basic ones. Second, crafting a法宝 was no mere short-term endeavor; it required at least two decades of dedicated effort before it could begin to show significant strength. Han Li simply didn't have that much time to spare! He urgently needed a large quantity of monster's inner essences to prepare the elixirs necessary for the second stage of his "Three-Transformations of Rebirth." Previously, both training the unusual insects and producing numerous puppets had been preparations for his sea-based expeditions to hunt monsters. With his puppets, blood-jade spiders, arraying instruments, and Qu Hun as the primary force, assisted by himself, capturing five-tier monsters should no longer be a difficult task. With this thought settled, Han Li finally left his dwelling that day, setting off toward the marketplace of Tianxing City with Qu Hun. Since he intended to hunt high-tier spirit beasts beyond the sea, he naturally needed information about spirit beasts and the extraterrestrial sea islands connected to the transmission arrays—information that should all be available within the marketplace. The marketplace of Tianxing City was located on the first level of the Sacred Mountain. It was vast, occupying more than half of the first level. Every day, numerous cultivators came to trade various artifacts and materials, and in terms of scale and prosperity, it far surpassed any marketplace Han Li had encountered before.