Mechanism Soul Core

Elder Mo's words set Lin Jing and the Pineleaf Squirrel's blood boiling. Both immediately felt they ought to do something, so they swallowed to cool themselves down.

"Squeak! Squeak!" Lin Jing took the speech fairly well, but for the Pineleaf Squirrel, who had grown up in the sect, the Beast Taming Sect was home. Hearing that its household was faring so miserably in the outside world, and that all the household's hopes rested on its shoulders, sent a surge of responsibility rising within it.

It tugged Lin Jing's hair, declaring that it wanted to compete against the prodigies of the other immortal sects.

"Calm down first. That's decades away," Lin Jing said.

"Decades will pass in the blink of an eye for you." Elder Mo was in a wonderful mood. He laughed and said, "You've spent several exhausting days harvesting spirit bamboo. Get a good night's rest now. I'll go ask Elder Yu for your mission rewards and have the Heavenly Feather Crane deliver them afterward!"

"Focus on preparing for the Rising Dragon Festival. You've been in the sect long enough. It's time you joined some sect activities."

"Yes!" Lin Jing and the Pineleaf Squirrel cupped their fists.

The Rising Dragon Festival, huh.

If we can chop spirit bamboo, we can chop bamboo dragons too!

Seven days of training had made their bamboo-chopping skills unfathomably profound.

If the rewards were plentiful, they naturally had to participate.

Elder Mo left with a smile.

After the old man departed, Lin Jing and the Pineleaf Squirrel discovered an extra package on the stone table in the courtyard.

They opened it to find ten Spirit Stones and a bag of Spirit Rice. A month had already passed, and while they had been toiling away in the bamboo grove, another allotment of resources had arrived.

With this package, the special disciple benefits Elder Mo had promised the Pineleaf Squirrel, and the Spirit Stones they had earned from the harvesting mission, Lin Jing felt they would not have to worry about Spirit Stones for quite some time.

"Since Elder Mo put it that way, let's prepare for the Rising Dragon Festival first," Lin Jing said, hefting a Spirit Stone.

"Without a great mission like harvesting spirit bamboo, earning enough through other missions to buy a Storage Bag will definitely take longer. But since the Rising Dragon Festival offers loads of resources as rewards, if we perform well, we might get a Storage Bag directly!"

Once Lin Jing finished speaking, the Pineleaf Squirrel snatched his Spirit Stones and dragged the Spirit Rice away without looking back, as though it had made some kind of firm decision.

"Squeak!"

Its eyes brimmed with fighting spirit.

On the other hand, these Spirit Stones... it did not want Lin Jing touching them.

Otherwise, they would simply be tossed into the water.

Better to let it use them for cultivation. As for its Beast Tamer, he could just wait for the Spirit Power feedback.

Besides... it would use these next few days to stockpile hundreds of spiritual power bombs and blast the bamboo dragon to death!

In a flash, several more days and nights passed.

Naturally, Lin Jing could not truly sit idle. There were far too many things waiting for him to do.

For instance, Lin Jing had spent these past few days researching the Glazed Immortal Eyes with the Pineleaf Squirrel.

Their investigations revealed that the eye technique was imperfect, though they did not know whether this was because they had failed to meet the synthesis requirements or because the Pineleaf Squirrel's cultivation realm was too low.

For now, the Glazed Immortal Eyes... seemed capable of synthesizing only resources related to plants.

Lin Jing gathered a pile of soil, hoping the Pineleaf Squirrel could synthesize spirit soil. Failure.

He pointed at the pond, hoping it could synthesize a drop of Spirit Spring water. Failure.

He bought over a hundred ordinary cloth bags, hoping it could synthesize a spatial Storage Bag. Naturally, that did not succeed either.

Even synthesizing Low-Grade Spirit Stones in an attempt to summon a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone ended in failure.

One possible explanation was that they did not have enough low-level resources to bring about a qualitative transformation.

The second possibility was that the Glazed Immortal Eyes were too low-level, and the Pineleaf Squirrel needed to break through before it could synthesize more things. It was only in the Qi Refinement Realm, after all, so perhaps it could only synthesize "plant matter" related to its own attributes.

Furthermore, the Pineleaf Squirrel might currently be unable to synthesize anything of too high a grade.

The day after Elder Mo left, Big Brother Immortal Crane delivered the Pineleaf Squirrel's additional resources: twenty Low-Grade Spirit Stones and a bottle of Spirit-Replenishing Pills.

Lin Jing tried having the Pineleaf Squirrel synthesize the Spirit-Replenishing Pills, which were refined from plant materials, but there was no response at all.

After repeated attempts showed that the Glazed Immortal Eyes could not yet activate for resources beyond basic plants, they stopped trying. They reckoned that secondary synthesis and synthesizing living creatures were probably impossible for now too. Fortunately, white and golden Spirit Rice, Red Flying Leaves, and Spirit Beans Bombs gave them four options, enough for their preparations for the Rising Dragon Festival.

"It's starting to feel more and more dragon-themed..."

The Pineleaf Squirrel cultivated alone in the courtyard while Lin Jing went to the scripture pavilion to borrow and return books as usual. He discovered that in just a few days, many outer sect buildings had been hung with dragon-head lanterns. The Rising Dragon Festival was only days away.

"I wonder how Senior Brother Ouyang has been lately. He's probably preparing for the Rising Dragon Festival too. He's about to reach Foundation Establishment, so he needs even more resources."

The senior brother guarding the scripture pavilion had been replaced. Lin Jing did not know the new one and had no dealings with him. After all, he only borrowed free books from the first floor.

Through several days of reading, he learned more about immortal cultivation. For instance, the True Qi cultivated through each cultivation method had different properties. The True Qi produced by the Beast Taming Sect's Beast Taming Art not only allowed cultivators to form Bloodline Contracts with Spirit Beasts, but its special beast taming true qi also enhanced their ability to nurture their pets' root bones and bloodlines.

In other words, some fire cultivation methods might give a cultivator's True Qi a burning effect, while some Sword Canons might make it as sharp as Sword Qi!

Differences in cultivation methods and True Qi determined which spells suited cultivators in the Qi Refinement Realm, as well as their combat strength at that realm.

Upon reaching the qi refining ninth layer, they could attempt Foundation Establishment... This process was particularly important, especially for cultivators with mortal physiques. A good Foundation Establishment method could allow them to develop an acquired spirit physique. Though an acquired cultivation physique was inferior to an innate one, it could still make future cultivation yield twice the results for half the effort. The Ancient Emperor's son Elder Mo had mentioned had cultivated two acquired physiques that complemented his innate physique.

"The Rising Dragon Festival activity announcement is out!"

"Come on, let's hurry to the Central Plaza!"

As Lin Jing was about to head back, several voices from the roadside reached his ears.

Hearing them, he changed course and headed toward the outer sect's Central Plaza too.

By the time he arrived, over a hundred Outer Gate Disciples had gathered. Although it was hardly a sea of people, they were all crowded around the same noticeboard.

"Senior Brother Ziran was right! This Rising Dragon Festival's main event is still the 'Dragon-Beast Contest,' for both the outer and inner sects!"

"This time, Elder Yu used spirit bamboo as the core material to create a Bamboo Mechanical Dragon for the festivities!"

The disciples discussed it endlessly, all eagerly anticipating the event. Especially... when they saw the rewards, they let out a chorus of gasps.

[Dragon-Beast Contest] (Outer sect)

Event rules: During the festival, all Outer Gate Disciples of the Beast Taming Sect may challenge the "Bamboo Mechanical Dragon (qi refining seventh layer cultivation)" in the Central Plaza. The Bamboo Mechanical Dragon possesses a Dragon Pearl, which has eight colors: white, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple. During battle, the Bamboo Mechanical Dragon will display different colors according to the damage it has sustained and its own expenditure. It begins at white, with purple being the highest.

When the Dragon Pearl displays red, participants qualify for the first tier of rewards.

The higher the color tier, the richer and more precious the rewards!

Lin Jing looked over and found that the highest-tier purple reward was actually...

Huh? Not a Storage Bag?

Oh no, the squirrel's going to be angry!

And it doesn't look like something we can resell!

The highest-tier purple rewards were actually a "Mechanism Soul Core" and "Mechanism Art (Mechanical Beast Construction: Fundamentals)."

The Mechanism Soul Core was the central material used to construct Mechanical Beasts. Elder Yu... had slipped his own agenda into this.