"Miss Lingyu, in a few days! I will exchange a Youth Preserving Pill for your schematic for the Armored Puppet," Ye Qin said with a smile, nodding. If he could trade one Youth Preserving Pill for Yin Lingyu's Bronze Armor Puppet refining schematic, it would be a profitable deal for him.

"Miss Linglian, what are your terms? Is it also a Youth Preserving Pill?"

He turned and smiled at Yin Linglian beside him.

"My conditions are simpler than Elder Sister's. If anyone marries me, even as a concubine, I might consider gifting him my schematic for refining the Ironclad Guard Puppet," Yin Linglian stated. As she spoke, the young woman seemed flustered, her pure face showing a hint of coyness and shyness, her delicate earlobes flushed red as she dared not meet Ye Qin's gaze. She knew the vast gap between her status and that of a Golden Core cultivator, not daring to aspire to be the main wife; being considered even a concubine was enough for her.

"Thank you for your kind offer, Miss Lian, but I already have a wife and have no intention of taking concubines. I cannot agree to that," Ye Qin, who had been quite confident moments before, instantly became extremely awkward upon hearing this.

How could he not understand the unspoken meaning behind Yin Linglian's words? Other matters were easy to settle; whether it was a Youth Preserving Pill or a Foundation Establishment Pill, he would agree to any request from Yin Linglian. But this matter, he dared not decide on his own. He knew Bing'er's background well; her father, Huangfu Rui, had caused a massive disaster by successively marrying both Martial Uncle Chen and Bing'er's mother. Although Bing'er had never explicitly forbidden him from taking concubines, he understood how serious such matters could be.

Yin Linglian's expression immediately dimmed, and she said no more, not offering Ye Qin any other conditions.

"Susu, what about you? What are your terms?"

The middle-aged cultivator, seeing the atmosphere grow tense, quickly turned to the third of the Yin sisters, Yin Lingsu.

"Not for sale!"

Yin Lingsu replied coldly, her refusal swift and decisive. She then glared angrily at the middle-aged cultivator and her two elder sisters for trying to sell off treasures passed down by their family. This look made the middle-aged cultivator, Yin Lingyu, and Yin Linglian extremely uncomfortable.

The middle-aged cultivator clearly had no way to deal with his stubborn niece and could only manage an awkward laugh before turning to Ye Qin. "Senior, why don't you accompany me to the backyard to see my sister? She has another schematic for the Gold Armored Guard Puppet."

Ye Qin nodded.

Yin Lingyu, Yin Linglian, and Yin Lingsu followed him to the backyard of the small workshop—a very ordinary house with bluestone foundations and wooden beams. A middle-aged woman was busy in the rear courtyard.

The middle-aged cultivator hurried over to the woman to discuss selling the schematic. After hearing the cultivator explain Ye Qin's purpose, Madam Yin's face changed drastically. "Big Brother, this is an heirloom of the Yin family! How could you tell an outsider and bring him here?"

"Sister, you must consider Big Brother's situation! This is the only chance Big Brother has in his life. If I become a Golden Core cultivator someday, I will certainly repay you handsomely. Keeping these hot potatoes in hand is ultimately not good; they will surely become trouble sooner or later. If this Senior hadn't come, others would have eventually. Since this Senior is willing to pay a high price, we should sell it for a good one. This is a good thing! Even if you are unwilling, you must consider Susu and the others, right?" The middle-aged cultivator tried his best to persuade her, explaining the benefits and risks.

Ye Qin did not interrupt, merely standing quietly in the small courtyard, waiting patiently. No matter the cost in spirit stones, he was determined to acquire this complete set of high-level Puppet Refining Schematics.

Madam Yin's expression shifted. She gazed hesitantly at the Golden Core cultivator standing in the courtyard. After a long moment, her expression finally softened. She glanced at the middle-aged cultivator, and then at Yin Lingyu, Yin Linglian, and Yin Lingsu standing nearby, sighing deeply. Since the Holy Emperor's legacy reached this generation, the Yin family patriarch had passed away, and there were no more male descendants in the Yin clan; only these three sisters remained, signifying the complete severance of their inherited lineage. Once the three sisters married out, these secret Puppet Refining Schematics passed down through the Yin family would eventually fall into the hands of outsiders. Her continued insistence held no meaning. It was better to secure dowries for her daughters so they could marry honorably, rather than clinging to this small puppet shop.

"Fine. Two hundred thousand!" Madam Yin bit down hard and finally spoke. However, the price she named was astronomical: two hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones for the schematic of the Gold Armored Guard Puppet in her possession. For low-level cultivators like them, struggling at the bottom, two hundred thousand was an unbelievable fortune.

"Mother, these few puppet schematics are the last treasures of the Yin family! We can't sell them!" Yin Lingsu was extremely anxious. But Madam Yin had made up her mind, and there was no room for retraction.

The middle-aged cultivator, along with Yin Lingyu, were overjoyed. As long as Madam Yin agreed, the matter would be settled. Ye Qin also showed obvious delight.

He promptly rented a small courtyard near the little puppet refining workshop and settled in to enter seclusion and begin alchemy. He exhausted almost all the two hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones in his storage bag to cultivate all the spiritual herbs required for the Youth Preserving Pills.

After about half a month:

Ye Qin emerged happily from the alchemy room, a small vial of Youth Preserving Pills in his hand—ten pills in total. He gave one pill to Yin Lingyu in exchange for the Bronze Armor Puppet refining schematic she held. Taking five pills, he went to the Great Spirit Pill Shop in Xianque City and sold them for one hundred thousand each, netting five hundred thousand spirit stones. He then gave two hundred thousand of those spirit stones to Madam Yin in exchange for the schematic for the Gold Armored Guard Puppet.

Under the soft persuasion of the middle-aged cultivator, the second Yin sister, Yin Linglian, did not hold out for long. Considering the importance of maintaining her youthful and beautiful appearance for her future marriage, she accepted one Youth Preserving Pill and handed over the schematic for the Ironclad Guard Puppet.

As for Yin Lingsu, she consistently refused to surrender her schematic for the Silver Armored Guard Puppet. Ye Qin's main purpose in coming to Xianque City was for the Silver Armored Guard schematic, and he certainly wouldn't leave without obtaining it! Under the strenuous persuasion of Madam Yin, her two sisters, and the middle-aged cultivator, Yin Lingsu finally yielded meekly, agreeing to sell the Silver Armored Puppet refining schematic in her possession for one Youth Preserving Pill plus an additional fifty thousand spirit stones.

After all these transactions, the two hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones in Ye Qin's storage bag had not diminished; in fact, they had slightly increased by fifty thousand. Furthermore, he had two Youth Preserving Pills remaining and four sets of Armored Guard Puppet refining schematics. As for his water-attributed Golden Core, he gifted it to the meritorious middle-aged cultivator, who was nearly driven mad with joy. To avoid attracting unwanted attention, the cultivator left Xianque City that very day, vanishing without a trace.

Having acquired the four refining schematics, Ye Qin naturally ceased to concern himself with the movements of the middle-aged cultivator and the Yin sisters. He rented a courtyard in Xianque City, set up a protective formation, sealed off the internal and external auras, and immediately went into seclusion.

These four "refining schematics," while called schematics, were actually very thin metal sheets? Four sheets of the same size, each about the span of a palm: one plate of jet-black refined iron, one plate of dazzling yellow refined copper, one plate of silvery lustrous refined mithril, and one plate of golden lustrous refined orichalcum. The dense refining techniques and puppet diagrams were all inscribed on these metal plates.

Ye Qin suppressed the joy surging in his heart and took up one of the refined mithril plates, covering it with his spiritual power. All four schematics were for refining Golden Core level puppets. Ye Qin had refined many magic tools before and naturally knew that fabricating a large Golden Core level puppet artifact would take far longer than forging a single magic tool. After all, the sheer size of a puppet meant it was many times larger than a typical magic tool. At his current level of refining skill, it would take him at least several decades to craft a single Golden Core puppet—and that didn't even account for the time spent sourcing raw materials, and he lacked the necessary high-level materials to forge puppets. He currently did not have the time to mass-produce puppet artifacts either, as he was due to participate in the action against the Earth Clan tribe in less than a year; there was simply no time to forge Golden Core puppets.

Ye Qin's current goal was simply to repair the damaged Silver Armored Guard he had acquired from the Holy Emperor's Mausoleum. Cultivating a Golden Core puppet was much simpler than forging one! Moreover, the Silver Armored Guard was nearly twenty feet tall, with only a fist-sized hole punched through its chest, shattering a critical internal component and rendering it immobile. The part he needed to repair was just that small section on the Silver Armored Guard's chest.

The refined mithril plate erupted in a dazzling silver light, almost engulfing the entire seclusion chamber. Ye Qin's divine sense quickly submerged into the inscription.

"Mithril. Resists magic. Burning with a Golden Core cultivator's Samadhi True Fire yields no reaction after three months."

"Mithril has one weakness: it cannot withstand continuous, violent heavy impacts. Constant gravitational strikes can cause it to become brittle."

"Sand Blast Art! Manipulate golden sand with spiritual power to strike the mithril, creating a storm-like barrage that forges the mithril and other raw materials together, enhancing the artifact's resistance to magic."

"Orichalcum. Resists magic and force. There is no clever trick; only a Nascent Soul cultivator can effectively refine it."

Ye Qin rapidly scanned the mithril refining techniques, inwardly astonished. The technique for forging refined mithril was the Sand Blast Art, but one had to manipulate the golden sand with spiritual power to form a continuous stream... (To know what happens next, please log on to Tiancan, for more chapters, support the author, and support genuine reading!)