Elder Mo's speech stirred the passion in both Lin Jing and the Pine Leaf Mouse. They immediately felt they needed to do something, so they swallowed and calmed themselves down.
"Squeak! Squeak!" However, this speech moved Lin Jing, but for the Pine Leaf Mouse, who grew up in the Sect since childhood, the Beast Taming Sect was its home. Now hearing that its home was struggling outside, with the entire family's hopes resting on its shoulders, a sense of responsibility surged within.
It tugged at Lin Jing's hair, indicating that it wanted to compete with the other sect's prodigies.
"Calm down first, that's something for decades later," Lin Jing said.
"Decades are just a blink of an eye for you." Elder Mo said joyfully, "You've been exhausted cutting spirit bamboo for a few days, so take a good rest tonight. I'll go with Elder Yu to claim your task rewards and have Brother Tianyu deliver them to you later!"
"Focus on preparing for the Ascension Festival. You've been in the sect long enough; it's time to participate in some sect activities."
"Yes!" Lin Jing and the Pine Leaf Mouse clasped their fists.
Ascension Festival, huh.
If they can cut the spirit bamboo, they can certainly cut the bamboo dragon!
Seven days of training have made their bamboo-cutting skills unfathomable.
If the rewards are rich, they must participate.
...
Elder Mo walked away with a smile.
After he left, Lin Jing and the Pine Leaf Mouse discovered a package on the stone table in the courtyard.
Upon opening it, they found ten spirit stones and a bag of spirit rice. It seemed that a month had passed, and new resources had arrived as they labored in the bamboo forest these days.
With this bag of resources, plus the Pine Leaf Mouse's special disciple treatment promised by Elder Mo, and the spirit stones earned from completing the harvesting task, Lin Jing felt that he wouldn't have to worry about spirit stones for a long time.
"Since Elder Mo said so, let's start preparing for the Ascension Festival." Lin Jing said, weighing the spirit stones in his hand.
"Without such good tasks as harvesting spirit bamboo, the efficiency of earning money through other tasks to buy storage bags will inevitably slow down. But since the Ascension Festival offers a large number of resource rewards, if we excel, there's a chance we'll get a storage bag directly!"
After Lin Jing finished speaking, the Pine Leaf Mouse snatched Lin Jing's spirit stones, dragged the spirit rice away without looking back, as if it had made a certain resolution.
"Squeak!"
Its eyes were full of ambition.
However, it really didn't want Lin Jing to touch these spirit stones.
Otherwise, it'd be wasted.
Better to use it for cultivation, and as for the Beast Master, just wait for the spiritual power feedback.
Besides… it plans to stockpile a few hundred spiritual power bombs these days to blow up the bamboo dragons!
...
In the blink of an eye, a few more days and nights passed.
Lin Jing naturally couldn't really be idle; there were too many tasks awaiting him.
For instance, in recent days, Lin Jing was continuously researching the Glazed Immortal Pupil with the Pine Leaf Mouse.
Through their exploration and discovery, they weren't sure if the synthesis conditions were not met, or if the Pine Leaf Mouse's level was too low and its pupil technique was imperfect.
The Glazed Immortal Pupil… for now, it seems it can only synthesize resources related to vegetation.
Lin Jing gathered a pile of dirt, hoping to let the Pine Leaf Mouse synthesize spirit soil, but he failed.
He pointed at the pond, wanting it to synthesize a drop of spirit spring, but he failed.
He bought over a hundred ordinary cloth bags, attempting to let it synthesize a spatial storage bag, naturally, it also didn't succeed.
Including synthesizing lower-grade spirit stones, trying to summon medium-grade spirit stones also ended in failure.
One possibility for this situation is that the quantity of low-grade resources is insufficient to cause a qualitative change.
The second possibility is that the Glazed Immortal Pupil's level is too low, and the Pine Leaf Mouse needs to break through to synthesize more things. The Pine Leaf Mouse is currently only at the Qi Cultivation Stage and can only synthesize "vegetative materials" related to its own attribute, which is also possible.
Additionally, high-grade items may currently also be out of reach for the Pine Leaf Mouse to synthesize.
On the second day after Elder Mo left, Brother Xianhe delivered the additional resources for the Pine Leaf Mouse, which were twenty lower-grade spirit stones and a bottle of Spirit Supplement Pills.
Lin Jing tried to let the Pine Leaf Mouse synthesize the Spirit Supplement Pills using vegetative materials, but there was still no reaction.
After many attempts, seeing that they couldn't activate the Glazed Immortal Pupil for resources other than basic vegetative ones, they stopped trying, estimating that secondary synthesis or biological synthesis should also be temporarily impossible. But fortunately, with white and golden spirit rice, red flying leaves, and spirit bean bombs, these four are temporarily enough to prepare for the Ascension Festival.
"It's getting more and more dragon-like..."
The Pine Leaf Mouse was cultivating alone in the courtyard, while Lin Jing routinely borrowed and returned books at the Scripture Pavilion, discovering that just within a few days, many buildings in the outer sect were decorated with dragon head lanterns, with only a few days left until the Ascension Festival.
"I wonder how Senior Brother Ouyang has been doing lately; I guess he's also preparing for the Ascension Festival. He will soon reach the Foundation Establishment stage and will require more resources."
The caretaker of the Scripture Pavilion had changed, and Lin Jing didn't know him nor had any interactions. After all, he only borrowed some free books from the first floor.
Through a few days of reading, he learned more about cultivation knowledge, such as, the true qi cultivated from each cultivation technique is different in nature. The Beast Taming Technique cultivated from the Beast Taming Sect not only allows cultivators to sign bloodline contracts with spirit beasts, but special Beast Taming True Qi also has a beneficial effect on cultivators nurturing the root and bloodline of their pet beasts.
In other words, some fire-based cultivation techniques might make the cultivator's true qi have a burning effect, while some sword scriptures might make the cultivator's true qi as sharp as sword qi!
The difference in cultivation techniques and true qi determines which type of magic is suitable for a cultivator to practice at the Qi Cultivation Stage, and also determines the combat power of a cultivator at the Qi Cultivation Stage.
And when reaching the ninth level of the Qi Cultivation Stage, one can perform Foundation Establishment... This process is especially important, particularly for mortal body cultivators. If there's a good Foundation Establishment method, it can result in the formation of an acquired spirit body. Although acquired constitutions are not as good as innate constitutions, they can greatly enhance future cultivation efficiency. The Prince Gu, mentioned by Elder Mo, cultivated two acquired constitutions complementing his innate one.
"The Ascension Festival's activity announcement is out!"
"Let's go to the central square and take a look!"
As Lin Jing was about to head back, a few conversations from the roadside reached his ears.
Upon hearing this, he changed his steps and also headed toward the outer sect's central square.
When he arrived, the square was already crowded with over a hundred outer sect disciples. While it couldn't be called a sea of people, everyone was focused on the same bulletin board, making it quite crowded.
"Senior Brother Ziran was right. This Ascension Festival, whether outer sect or inner sect, the core activity remains 'Dragon War, Beast Battle'!"
"This time, Elder Yu crafted the Mechanical Bamboo Dragon using the spirit bamboo as the core material for the festival celebration!"
The disciples discussed non-stop, with great anticipation, especially... upon seeing the rewards, there were many exclamations.
[Dragon War, Beast Battle] (Outer Sect)
Activity Rules: All outer sect disciples of the Beast Taming Sect can challenge the "Mechanical Bamboo Dragon (Qi Cultivation Stage level 7 cultivation)" in the central square during the festival. The Mechanical Bamboo Dragon possesses a Dragon Pearl with eight colors: white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. During battle, the Mechanical Bamboo Dragon displays different colors based on the damage and exhaustion it receives, starting as white, with violet being the highest.
Achieving a Dragon Pearl color of red grants the first level of reward.
The higher the color grade, the more abundant and precious the rewards are!
Lin Jing looked over, and the highest-level violet reward was actually...
Hmm? It wasn't a storage bag?
Oh no, the mouse is going to be angry!
Moreover, it doesn't seem like something that can be resold!
The highest-level violet reward was surprisingly a "Mechanical Soul Core" and "Mechanical Technique (Beast Mechanisms Manufacturing · Basic Volume)."
The Mechanical Soul Core is the core material for making beast mechanisms, Elder Yu... seems to have kept some hidden treasures.