Chapter 146 The First Spirit Armor

"All right, your treasure is gone."

Yu Yan said coolly, "Show me how you perform tomorrow, and I'll give it back to you if you do well."

Chen Biqin pouted. "I am your biological mother, you know? Is this how you treat me? What kind of treasure could it possibly be that I'd care so much—ahem, of course I care. My own daughter, my precious daughter!"

"I left two large bowls of steamed eggs for you and Duoduo in the pot, along with three large platters of steamed wontons made from rank-five spirit beast meat."

"You must be starved after working all day, right? Mom will dish them up for you right now!"

Yu Yan withdrew her gaze, completely helpless against Chen Biqin.

This was her birth mother, regardless of how biased or unreliable she might be. She was the one who had carried her for ten months and risked her life to bring her into this world. Moreover, Chen Biqin had paid for her education all the way through college, and the grace of raising her was greater than heaven.

Even with a few minor flaws, the bond between mother and daughter was unbreakable and impossible to sever.

Shaking her head, Yu Yan couldn't help but let out a smile.

In truth, she had never planned on giving Chen Biqin any treasure; she was just brushing her off. Since Chen Biqin wasn't a very reliable mother, Yu Yan had gradually turned into a rather unreliable daughter. She blurted out lies without a second thought, completely bamboozling her own mother!

The mother and daughter were two of a kind.

Thinking along these lines, Yu Yan's slight melancholy dissipated.

Chen Biqin's homemade large meat wontons were chewy and delicious. Yu Yan polished off an entire large platter by herself and still wasn't quite satisfied.

It was just that there wasn't much left—only two platters in total.

Yun Duo'er and Lou Yuhui were feasting heartily, so Yu Yan was too embarrassed to snatch food from them.

Picking up a spoon, she scooped up the golden plover egg custard, one bite at a time.

Once she was full, seeing that Yu Yan was in a good mood, Chen Biqin seized the opportunity to hug a stack of items and came over to present her handiwork. "Look, Daughter, I've already used up more than fifty pieces of the spirit beast hide you gave me. Here are the leather armors I made..."

At this point, Chen Biqin lowered her head in embarrassment. "The scrap rate was a bit high, yes, but it couldn't be helped."

"I didn't quite grasp the method at first, but I gradually got the hang of it later."

"I promise that for the rest of the spirit beast hides, the scrap rate won't be nearly this high."

"Take a look and see if these armors are usable. If there's anywhere I didn't do a good job, I can go back and modify them."

Despite saying that, Chen Biqin wore a confident expression on her face.

Clearly, she was very proud of the leather armor she had produced.

Yu Yan picked up the topmost piece of armor. The spiritual energy within the beast hide had been completely combed through and rendered docile and tame. The tailoring also followed the flow of spiritual energy inside the hide without destroying a single bit of it.

The stitches were fine and regular, and a lining had been thoughtfully sewn inside.

The lining material was pure cotton, feeling delicate and smooth to the touch.

A rankless piece of spirit beast hide had actually been crafted by her into a piece of spirit armor!

Although this spirit armor could only withstand three attacks from a rankless dungeon monster, it was already enough to make Yu Yan look at her in a new light.

After all, prior to today, Chen Biqin had zero experience in making spirit armor.

"Not bad, not bad. This piece of leather armor is quite passable."

Yu Yan did not stint on her praise.

Chen Biqin looked immensely pleased with herself.

Yu Yan tossed aside the armor in her hand and reached for the next one.

Chen Biqin's expression immediately shifted. "Well, Daughter, there's something I forgot to tell you..."

Fine, she didn't need to say it.

Yu Yan looked speechlessly at the second piece of leather armor. Externally, there didn't seem to be any major issues. But the moment her hand touched the armor, she knew the spiritual energy of the beast hide had been completely and utterly destroyed. It was just an ordinary, completely useless piece of leather armor.

If it had any use at all, it was probably that wearing it could keep you warm?

In the dead of summer, even this sole function had become utterly useless.

Clinging to a shred of hope, Yu Yan flipped through the remaining dozen or so pieces of armor one by one.

Wonderful, they were even worse than the second one!

Either there was a hole torn here, or a whole section was ruined there.

The bottom two pieces were the most outrageous, barely retaining any recognizable shape at all.

Yu Yan picked up the shredded strips of spirit beast hide. "Mom, are you sure this can still be called leather armor?"

Chen Biqin's face flushed red for once. "Well, you see, I didn't quite manage my strength properly at first! Whatever that thing you refined for me was, it awakened some strange skill in me."

"As soon as I got my hands on these spirit beast hides, the skill just wouldn't listen to reason."

"If I hadn't tried my absolute best to control it and possessed such extraordinary talent, there probably wouldn't even be these scraps left."

Yu Yan raised an eyebrow. "Release it and let me see?"

A fire bird's skills included Fire Feather Technique, Fire Ring Technique, Fire Net Technique, Fire Wall Technique, and Heavenly Fire Meteor, among others. An Earth-tier fire bird could unleash the devastating area-of-effect attack Heavenly Fire Meteor, but the fire bird blood crystal Chen Biqin had refined was only rank-five.

In all likelihood, she should have awakened either the Fire Feather Technique, Fire Ring Technique, or Fire Net Technique.

The Fire Feather Technique was an innate skill of fire birds, naturally as obedient as one's own arm.

If Chen Biqin had awakened the Fire Feather Technique, it would have been impossible for it to spiral out of control.

Could it be the Fire Ring Technique or the Fire Net Technique?

"...I can't release it anymore."

Well, that was a novelty.

For the first time in her life, Yu Yan saw an expression of embarrassment on Chen Biqin's thick-skinned face.

"All that strange energy in my body today has been completely used up. To generate that weird energy, I even took the spirit beast meat your younger siblings left at home, cooked it, and ate several pounds of it."

Clearly, even with Chen Biqin's thick skin, this was a bit too much for her to handle.

She knew the spirit beast meat allotted to the twins was meant for them to eat so they could enhance their strength.

She felt no psychological burden when she took advantage of Yu Yan.

For one thing, she had broken through that psychological defense long ago.

Ever since the first time, driven by the pressures of life, she had asked Yu Yan for money not long after her graduation from college, she had ceased to be a qualified mother in Yu Yan's eyes. Since she was no longer a qualified mother, she simply decided to abandon all shame and coast along.

However, in front of the twins, she still had to maintain some dignity as a mother.

Snatching food from the twins—especially spirit beast meat that was of vital importance for the children to improve their strength—was something Chen Biqin found hard to reconcile in her heart.

As for the second reason, her eldest daughter was a crafty one.

Except for the first two years when she successfully took advantage of her, making life a bit difficult, Yu Yan had quickly caught on and started protecting herself. Nowadays, it wasn't easy for her to fleece Yu Yan anymore; she had to keep her in a good mood first.

Even when Yu Yan was in a good mood, she wouldn't foolishly grant her every wish; she always gave according to what she deemed appropriate.

Her eldest daughter was definitely not foolish enough to let herself suffer a loss. Whatever she was willing to hand over was stuff she had already planned on giving anyway. Though thinking this way made her look somewhat biased and terribly unfair to her eldest daughter, there was no help for it. Who told her, as a mother, to be so incapable yet give birth to so many children?

Since she had given birth to them all, she couldn't exactly stuff them back into her belly, could she?

From this, it was clear that Chen Biqin was indeed far from being a flawless mother to Yu Yan.

Yet, as a mother of three, she wasn't completely terrible either. This was precisely why Yu Yan was willing to indulge her, even if it pinched her own wallet a little and occasionally let her pluck a strand of wool.

By now, giving Chen Biqin a few trifles wouldn't even cause Yu Yan a twinge of pain.

After all, she had plenty of other things in her Illusory Lotus Space—treasures were everywhere!

Having capital meant being this magnanimous.

Yu Yan looked at Chen Biqin with a half-smile. "You wouldn't be thinking of getting me to give you a few pounds of spirit beast meat to replace the meat you ate from the twins, would you?"