Because he found that such simple conversion was not of much use to him.

A low-grade spirit stone could be converted into several spirit herbs, which in turn could be converted back into a low-grade spirit stone; the spiritual energy neither increased nor decreased. If the spirit herbs were refined into spirit pills for the cultivation of the Nascent Soul, that spiritual energy would vanish.

This meant that he still had to acquire a large quantity of spirit stones and spirit herbs from the outside world to refine the spirit pills needed for his cultivation.

“The Earth Mansion can disintegrate spirit wood; I wonder if it works on other spiritual items?”

Ye Qin began to muse. After considering for a while, he took out several spiritual items from his storage pouch: a damaged golden-attribute flying sword magical artifact he didn't remember when he last used, a high-grade Guiyuan Pill that had been ruined during refining, and a small piece of Scarlet Crystal Stone. He placed them into the Earth Mansion to see if any changes would occur.

The decomposition process was somewhat slow, taking several days to break down just a small portion.

What filled Ye Qin with pleasant surprise was that the damaged flying sword artifact and the ruined Guiyuan Pill were both slowly sinking and disintegrating. The spiritual energy contained within them was released and solidified with sand and gravel into fragments of spirit stone.

Witnessing this, Ye Qin finally displayed true ecstasy.

Although his alchemy skill had reached the level of an Alchemy Master, the success rate when refining spirit pills of the seventh rank and above was pitifully low, less than thirty percent. A staggering seventy percent or more of the medicinal herbs ended up being wasted.

Golden Core stage cultivators must use spirit pills of the seventh rank or higher to achieve a sufficiently strong effect. Spirit pills below the sixth rank had little use for them; consuming low-grade spirit pills was simply a waste.

If these wasted pills could be newly settled and disintegrated back into spiritual energy within the Earth Mansion, and subsequently converted back into spirit stones, then a large quantity of wasted medicinal materials could be salvaged as much as possible.

The moment Ye Qin realized this, he could hardly suppress his joy. He immediately fired up his furnace within the cave dwelling and began refining his specialty, the Turtle Marrow Pill, to see how much loss the Earth Mansion could help him recover.

He had refined many of these Turtle Marrow Pills for the two Island Masters of the Greater and Lesser Glazed Islands before; his technique was highly proficient, yielding the highest success rate, reaching about thirty-five percent—three and a half successful pills out of ten batches.

Naturally, during the alchemy process, he would still incur spiritual energy loss. A small portion of spiritual energy would dissipate into the air, and some medicinal herbs would be scorched by the furnace fire, completely losing their spiritual essence. The scorched herbs had already turned into ash devoid of spiritual energy.

This spiritual energy consumption during the operation process, even with the Earth Mansion present, was unavoidable.

After an entire month of experimentation,

Ye Qin finally determined that by refining seventh-rank Turtle Marrow Pills and using the Earth Mansion to recover the residual spiritual energy from the failed pills, the utilization rate of the medicinal herbs could be raised to about seventy percent. This was equivalent to doubling the success rate and significantly reducing the consumption of spirit stones.

Such a high rate of medicinal material utilization was enough to leave the vast majority of alchemists far behind. Even an Alchemy Grandmaster would be utterly incapable of achieving such a high standard of alchemy.

Ye Qin's spirits soared. A significant increase in the utilization rate of spiritual materials was itself an enormous advantage.

In addition to the partial recovery from the failed spirit pills,

the damaged low-grade magical artifact was also slowly sinking and decomposing, releasing a small amount of spiritual energy. However, completely dissolving this low-grade artifact proved somewhat difficult and required an exceedingly long time.

As for the piece of Scarlet Crystal Stone, it showed little activity, only shrinking slightly and its crimson color deepening just a fraction.

“It seems that mineral ores with a stone attribute cannot be settled and disintegrated. Instead, they become more solidified. Over time, low-grade ores can condense into high-grade ores.”

Ye Qin chuckled. The surprises the Earth Mansion brought him were truly...

The three most apparent functions this Earth Mansion offered him were: first, a massive increase in medicinal material utilization; second, the ability to obtain spirit stones even when in dire straits. He didn't strictly need spirit stones for cultivation; as long as he placed any item containing spiritual energy inside the Earth Mansion, he could slowly acquire spirit stones. Even if he were stranded on a desolate island, as long as he could find spiritual objects, he would no longer worry about lacking spirit stones. Third was its ability to enhance the grade of earth-attribute ores.

However, it must be said that among the Wood Mansion, Fire Mansion, and Earth Mansion floating islands, the one that aided his cultivation progress the most was the Wood Mansion. This site's address has been changed: Fang Gu, please log in to read!

Without the Wood Mansion, which could grow spirit herbs and mature them in an extremely short time, he couldn't refine enough spirit pills, and his Nascent Soul cultivation would advance agonizingly slowly. The functions of the other two floating islands were extremely limited.

The Fire Mansion came next. Without the concentrated Azure Flame Earth Fire refined inside the Fire Mansion, he would be unable to forge high-power Nascent Soul magical artifacts, leaving his combat strength no different from other Foundation Establishment cultivators of the same rank. In combat, he naturally wouldn't gain much advantage.

The Earth Mansion turned out to have the least utility, currently appearing only to assist the Wood Mansion.

Ye Qin couldn't help but smile.

Having grasped the basic functions of the Earth Mansion, his divine sense withdrew from the Purple Mansion. As for whether the Mansion had other uses, he could explore them slowly in the future.

Now, as a Golden Core cultivator, he possessed a measure of self-preservation capability among the Eastern Sea islands. As long as he didn't provoke Nascent Soul cultivators, the likelihood of encountering danger was low. If he met other Golden Core cultivators, even if he couldn't win the fight, he could still escape.

Foundation Establishment cultivators could no longer pose any threat to him. The gap between Foundation Establishment and Golden Core was a vast chasm; their strengths were completely different and incomparable.

What he needed to consider now were the potential disputes and duels that might arise between him and Golden Core peers.

Of the five supreme-grade Nascent Soul magical artifacts recorded in the Upper Scroll of the Ancient Jade Slip of the Purple, he already possessed three. If he could find the raw materials for the remaining two Nascent Soul artifacts and refine them, forming the Grand Five Elements Sword Array, he would then have the capital to contend with other Golden Core cultivators.

It was just that he currently had no leads on the materials for these two Nascent Soul artifacts, so there was no need to rush.

Ye Qin was currently more concerned about Ice'er's combat power after achieving the Golden Core stage.

Although Ice'er possessed an excellent Ice Soul Cold Light Sword, making her a top-tier high-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator among her peers, at the level of Golden Core cultivators, this capability seemed somewhat thin compared to others.

Since he had nothing pressing to do on the island now, he had ample time to help Ice'er refine a few decent magical artifacts for self-defense.

He needed to remain on this small island to guard Ice'er as she broke through the Golden Core bottleneck, preventing him from leaving to search for refining materials. He recalled the seventh-rank material left behind after the Rock Fire Butterfly actively sought fire: the Rock Fire Butterfly Wings. Perhaps he should refine this set of wing materials on hand first; they would suffice for a Golden Core cultivator's artifact.

The butterfly wing material belonged to the bone category and required Yin Fire for refinement.

Ye Qin spent his days hunting low-grade sea beasts near the island, collecting their skeletons, and igniting Yin Fire to refine this wing artifact.

However, refining seventh-rank bone material—ordinary Yin Fire was completely inadequate.

According to the bone refinement techniques recorded in the Profound Yin Art, only Ghost Spirit Yin Fire could be used to refine such high-grade materials.

And this Ghost Spirit Yin Fire was something that Golden Core stage Ghost Cultivators could potentially unleash. This Ghost Spirit Yin Fire was extremely venomous and tyrannical; once unleashed, it would relentlessly pursue the enemy until death...

In the cultivation world, Ghost Cultivators were exceedingly rare, and Golden Core Ghost Cultivators were even rarer than rare, difficult to track down. Even if they existed, they were deeply hidden in places unknown to other cultivators.

Ordinary cultivators could only generate Yin Fire from bones to refine low-grade or mid-grade bone materials. High-grade bone materials often could not be refined at all.

For Ye Qin, this was not a major problem.

Within the Fire Mansion, the Yin Fire of Ghost Cultivators could still be compressed and refined into the higher-grade Ghost Spirit Yin Fire. Using this Ghost Spirit Yin Fire to refine a seventh-rank bone artifact was perfectly suitable.

Since he had managed to conjure the Ghost Spirit Yin Fire necessary for refining the seventh-rank bone material, this could be considered an unexpected gain for Ye Qin.

While refining the artifact, Ye Qin remained extremely wary of the faintly visible, drifting Ghost Spirit Yin Fire, constantly maintaining his Fire Attribute Protective Shield to prevent it from touching him.

With a Golden Core cultivator like Ye Qin residing on this small island, no other Foundation Establishment cultivators dared to approach. Other Golden Core cultivators, sensing the magical aura of a Golden Core cultivator here, would also not easily venture near this location.

Several months passed in a flash.

Just as Ye Qin finished refining the Rock Fire Butterfly Wings,

Huangfu Bing'er, deep in seclusion, had fully circulated and refined the Fire Attribute Golden Core and entered the critical stage of breaking through the Golden Core bottleneck. The Ice and Fire spiritual energies within her body were becoming increasingly difficult to balance. Huangfu Bing'er gritted her teeth, repeatedly impacting the bottleneck, enduring pain that was nearly unbearable.

On this day, during the first half of the day in her secluded chamber, the atmosphere suddenly turned frigid as if descending into true ice, and during the second half, it abruptly became scorching hot like an Earth Fire Cave.

Even Ye Qin outside the chamber could sense the piercing chill and the searing heat. When the second wave of icy cold energy arrived, he waited no longer. He immediately rushed into the chamber, forced the Qiling Liquid into her mouth, and attempted to use his magical power to help regulate the violent ice and fire spiritual energies raging within her body.

Huangfu Bing'er clutched him like a lifeline, embracing him tightly, their bodies entwined. Her ice-blue lips locked onto his, and rampant Ice Spiritual Energy surged into Ye Qin’s body. Ye Qin nearly froze solid on the spot. Less than half a day later, the violent, scorching energy flared up, almost boiling his meridians and blood. Even with Ye Qin’s Golden Core cultivation, the immense disparity in energy caused him to suffer agonizing pain, nearly leading to unconsciousness.

A single drop of core liquid began to form within Huangfu Bing'er's body.

A full seven days passed.

Huangfu Bing'er’s Golden Core finally condensed. A shimmering golden core appeared in her Dantian, and the violent, chaotic Ice and Fire spiritual energies finally receded.

Boom!

In the heavens, dark clouds rolled in as a minor heavenly tribulation descended.