Chapter 398: Miaoyin Sect

Just as Han Li was secretly pondering in the bedroom, his expression suddenly changed, and he turned and walked out.

When he arrived at the cave dwelling gate, which had been sealed for many years, he saw at a glance that in the restrictions before the cave dwelling, seven or eight sound-transmission talismans of different colors were bumping around like headless flies.

Seeing this scene, Han Li raised his eyebrows, took out the restriction token, and spat out the word "Collect." Instantly, these sound-transmission talismans flew into his hands as if they had been pardoned.

Han Li didn't leave, but calmly checked them one by one.

A small half of these sound-transmission talismans were messages of congratulations from Core Formation stage cultivators living nearby, while another part were actually recruitment messages from several organizations of various sizes. Some were willing to offer the position of guest elder, some used rare treasures as hiring fees, and one even offered a pair of beautiful maids as a gift for recruitment.

Hearing these contents, Han Li rolled his eyes secretly.

He politely replied to the sound-transmission talismans from the Core Formation stage cultivators, but directly rejected those from the organizations.

He didn't think that entering the Core Formation stage meant he could sit back and relax. It was better to spend some time consolidating his realm and continue to keep a low profile!

In the days that followed, Han Li began to frequently visit the cave dwellings of several nearby Core Formation cultivators, humbly asking for advice on issues to pay attention to after entering the Core Formation stage.

Because what he asked wasn't anything secret, these cultivators were quite happy to give him a few pointers during their casual chats.

This made Han Li gain quite a bit!

However, these cultivators were also very envious of Han Li's ability to maintain such a youthful appearance after forming a Core.

After all, unless one had superior natural aptitude or, like Han Li, had numerous spiritual herbs to assist in cultivation, most cultivators were not young when they formed a Core.

Even though their lifespan increased greatly after forming a Core, their appearance wouldn't return to their youth; at most, the degree of aging would be greatly reduced from then on.

Of course, some people practiced techniques that had the miraculous effect of retaining youth, so they could still be as young as boys or girls after forming a Core.

This time, Han Li didn't keep his treasures to himself and immediately used several Beauty-Fixing Pills in his hand to exchange for some rare items from them, making everyone happy.

After several such exchanges, although Han Li couldn't be called a close friend with these people, he was at least familiar with their faces.

Everyone called each other "Fellow Daoist" or "Brother," and they got along quite well.

During this period, Han Li simultaneously refined the "Green Brilliant Sword" and searched everywhere for materials to refine magic treasures and Level 3 puppets.

There were many materials that could refine magic treasures, and the methods of refining were even more strange and varied.

Under the same time and effort spent in cultivation, magic treasures refined with high-quality materials had different power and greater potential for improvement than those refined with ordinary materials.

Moreover, even if the same materials were used, if the secret methods for refining the same type of magic treasure were different, the power and efficacy would be vastly different.

Therefore, except for the ordinary refining methods known to everyone, secret refining methods that were slightly special would not be easily leaked by various sects and forces.

But this didn't mean that with the best materials and the best refining methods, the magic treasure would definitely be infinitely powerful once it came out of the furnace.

The true power of a magic treasure mainly depended on the cultivator refining it, who had to constantly cultivate and nourish it within their primordial spirit.

If the owner of the magic treasure was lazy and unwilling to spend time on it, it was normal for a rare treasure to be less powerful than an ordinary magic treasure.

And the "Green Bamboo Bee Cloud Sword" that Han Li wanted to refine, as the name suggested, required spiritual bamboo of several thousand years as the main material.

Originally, with Han Li's small bottle's miraculous effect of urging growth, it would have been easy to get his hands on this material if he spent some time. But he didn't put ordinary bamboo in his eyes, wanting to find some legendary exotic divine bamboo to serve as the main material for refining the magic treasure.

As a result, Han Li had been squatting in the Heaven Star City marketplace until now, but he had never obtained a variety that satisfied him.

Although he was a bit anxious, Han Li held the idea of "better to have nothing than something inferior," so he had to temporarily shelve the matter of refining magic treasures!

Fortunately, he still had the "Green Brilliant Sword" and several talisman treasures for self-protection, so he was temporarily worry-free!

Since magic treasures couldn't be refined, Han Li naturally turned his attention to the production of new puppets.

According to the Puppet True Scripture, a Level 3 puppet's full-force strike was equivalent to a Foundation Establishment mid-stage cultivator, and the materials for refining them were becoming more and more expensive, with several different forms of puppets appearing.

After consideration, Han Li chose the ape-type puppet, which was mainly made of wood.

Although this type of puppet required iron wood of a much older age and needed to be mixed with rare Heaven Crystal Wood during refining.

But since they were all wooden materials, Han Li could naturally use green liquid to urge them to grow, which could greatly reduce costs.

But even so, the cost of other auxiliary raw materials that also needed to be upgraded was still a huge amount, and since the number of puppets he could control had increased, the total cost naturally became even more astonishing.

These spirit stones didn't make Han Li bankrupt, but after he gathered all the materials, he became penniless again.

Helpless, Han Li had to release another batch of rare materials from Level 5 demon beasts to temporarily alleviate the embarrassing situation.

But Han Li didn't expect that even though he was extremely careful, this release of materials still attracted the attention of interested people.

On this day, he had just finished a transaction with a small merchant from another place and was about to return to his cave dwelling when he was stopped on the street by a girl as beautiful as a flower.

"Is this Senior Han? My mistress invites Senior to the nearby Clear River Tea House for a chat! Could Senior please grace us with your presence? If not, the little girl will be severely punished by the mistress." The girl said pitifully.

"Not interested!" Han Li glanced at the girl and refused without hesitation.

He saw at a glance that although the girl only had Foundation Establishment stage cultivation, she seemed to be practicing some kind of charm technique and was secretly using it on him without knowing the weight of it, so he naturally wouldn't give the other party a good look.

Hearing Han Li's words, the sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl became panicked and hurriedly pleaded repeatedly:

"Senior Han! If you don't go, this junior really won't be able to report back. Even if this junior begs you..."

Before the girl could finish, Han Li turned and walked away with a cold expression.

Although he didn't know who the other party was, he had no interest in meeting a strange woman.

"Senior Han, wait! This junior, Fan Fan Jingmei of the Miaoyin Sect, pays her respects to Senior Han. I didn't discipline my subordinates well, and Lian'er offended you just now. I hope Senior will forgive me!"

Just as Han Li walked away two steps after shaking off the girl, a sweet female voice came from behind him.

He couldn't help but stop and glance back.

He saw that at some point, a woman wearing light gauze had appeared beside the girl. Although her face couldn't be seen clearly, her skin was like snow, her hair was black and shiny, coiled high, and her bright eyes were as clear as water, staring at Han Li without blinking.

"I don't know you, Madam. If you have anything to say, say it quickly! Han still needs to return to the mansion to cultivate!" Han Li said calmly, his words carrying a sense of keeping people at a distance.

Hearing this, the woman who called herself "Fan Fan Jingmei" was slightly startled, but immediately smiled and said:

"Since Senior Han is so straightforward, this little girl will speak directly. Did Senior recently sell a large batch of rare demon beast materials? Our sect is very interested in these materials and wants to discuss them with Senior properly. However, it's crowded here, so why don't you follow me to the tea house for a quiet chat?"

Hearing the other party's self-introduction and invitation, Han Li narrowed his eyes and stared intently at the woman for a good while, until the other party's eyes revealed shyness, before he said stiffly:

"Fine, you lead the way!"

"Thank you, Senior, for gracing us with your presence. Senior Han, please this way!" The woman's eyes revealed a bit of joy, and she hurriedly took a step forward with light steps, while the girl followed behind, dejected.

However, although the girl walked in front, she couldn't help but look back and steal a glance, just meeting Han Li's gaze, which scared the girl named Lian'er into hurriedly turning her jade neck back, and quite a bit of redness rose at the roots of her ears.

This made Han Li reveal a look that was neither a smile nor a frown, and he felt a bit dumbfounded in his heart.

The tea house mentioned by the Miaoyin Sect woman wasn't far, and after a while, Han Li followed them into a pavilion with a giant "Tea" banner hanging on it.

At this time, there weren't many people drinking tea. A middle-aged man who was drinking tea saw the woman and the girl walk in and hurriedly ran up to them and said:

"Aunt-Master, the room has been booked! You can go in with the guest!"

"Good, you guard the door," Fan Fan Jingmei ordered lightly.

"Yes."

Then, led by the middle-aged man, the two women and Han Li went upstairs to the second floor and entered an elegant single room.

There was actually an old man in gray clothes in the room, leisurely brewing a pot of hot tea, steaming hot. Seeing Han Li and the others enter, he didn't even move his eyelids.

... ===== CHAPTER 399 =====