Han Li narrowed his eyes slightly and gave a gentle twitch of his ten fingers, severing the ten spirit threads of his own accord.
Then he lightly patted his storage pouch, and over a dozen streaks of white light flew out, arranging themselves in a circle beneath the viscous liquid. They turned out to be twelve identical small jade boxes.
Each box was crafted from some flawless white jade, exquisitely refined, and only a few inches in size.
Han Li swept his sleeve lightly, and all the jade box lids slid open.
Next, the word "fall" left Han Li's lips, and the viscous green liquid hovering in the air dropped obediently at his command.
Not one more, not one less — each box received exactly one portion.
Only after Han Li had sealed the lids back on did his expression relax, and he truly let himself rest easy.
Despite the support of spirit stones and pills, his magical power was nearly completely drained.
In this way, Han Li sat quietly for several more days, recovering his condition back to its peak, before beginning to refine the remaining five stalks of Heavenly Thunder Bamboo.
In the blink of an eye, three months had passed.
Having expended tremendous effort, Han Li finally transformed all the Heavenly Thunder Bamboo into an extremely pure liquid state.
After a brief rest, he began setting up an extraordinarily complex magical formation inside the secret chamber.
Han Li didn't know the name of this formation.
All he knew was that it was an indispensable part of forging the "Green Bamboo Bee Cloud Sword" — something repeatedly emphasized in the refinement instructions from that gold page. This showed it was absolutely the most critical preparatory work.
Therefore, even though the method of setting it up was thoroughly drilled into his mind — he had even practiced it several times beforehand — he was still extremely careful at this moment, not daring to allow the slightest error.
After all, even a single rune carelessly drawn wrong could cause unpredictable accidents during the forging of the treasure.
Thus, under a state of anxious tension, the formation took a full half month to complete. Han Li first installed over a dozen mid-grade spirit stones to test it, and only when he confirmed the formation was operating normally did he finally relax.
Next, Han Li didn't immediately begin forging the treasure. Instead, he temporarily stepped out of the secret chamber.
Half a year of continuous use of his pill fire, combined with his mind being in a state of constant high concentration, had taken its toll — even a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator like Han Li found it unbearable. He needed to make some adjustments.
Because what came next was the most critical step in forging the treasure.
But once Han Li stepped out of the secret chamber, he hadn't expected yet another pleasant surprise awaiting him.
Those Gold Devouring Beetles, fed intermittently with Rainbow Skirt Grass, had finally begun devouring each other once more.
Han Li was overjoyed!
Ever since the Gold Devouring Beetles had numbered in the tens of thousands, that tiny amount of Rainbow Skirt Grass had been far from enough to trigger another round of egg-laying and evolution.
And over these years, most of the green liquid had been used by Han Li to accelerate the growth of the Heavenly Thunder Bamboo. The beetles had become even less likely to undergo any changes.
However, once the Heavenly Thunder Bamboo cultivation was complete, Han Li immediately had Qu Hun resume intensive nurturing of the beetles.
After all, Han Li still harbored great expectations for these extraordinary insects.
The moment he received this news from Qu Hun, Han Li went straight to the insect chamber.
The Gold Devouring Beetles that had undergone devouring now had gold patches covering nearly half of their carapaces. He estimated that their next generation of offspring should be able to expand the gold markings further.
But after staring for a while, the joy gradually faded from Han Li's face, and he furrowed his brow slightly.
At this rate, having all the Gold Devouring Beetles evolve into their golden form was rather optimistic.
Their numbers multiplied several times over with each evolution. And the green liquid could only accelerate so much Rainbow Skirt Grass — it was impossible to evolve tens of thousands of beetles all at once. If this continued, who knew when the next evolution would come!
Han Li stood outside the insect chamber, lost in thought.
It seemed the only option was to focus on cultivating just a small portion of them first. Otherwise, Han Li doubted whether he would ever get to see golden Gold Devouring Beetles.
Having made this decision, Han Li immediately came to a resolution.
However, all of this would have to wait until after the beetles laid their eggs. For now, it could be set aside — he should focus on forging his treasure first.