A Farmer's Journey To Immortality

Chapter 530: Aftermath of the Battle with the Iron Mountain Sect Elders

Aksai stood still in the middle of the clearing, the bodies of the four dead sect elders lying around him like broken dolls.

The leaves on the surrounding trees didn’t rustle. Even the wind seemed to stay away.

The Spirit farmer let out a slow breath.

A wave of relief washed over him.

He didn’t show it when facing his enemies. But deep down, he had been cautious—very cautious.

Killing lone cultivators and heretic demonic cultivators with almost no backing was nothing. It was easy. Quick. Clean.

But these weren’t the drifters.

They were experienced cultivators from a well established sect. A strong one. Iron Mountain Sect wasn’t just some minor backwater group. They had structure. Resources. Backing.

And tonight, Aksai had gone up against not one or two, but four Foundation Building elders from that sect. Two of them were late-stage cultivators.

That level of strength—if he had faced it head-on, without his tricks, without his puppets?

He would’ve been torn apart. The trump cards he had on him would have only ensured his survival but not his victory over them.

Even with all his preparations, the fight had come close to being dangerous. If one of them had used a binding talisman or a poison artifact at the right time, things could’ve gone wrong.

He tilted his head up, breathing in the forest air. It was damp with morning dew, yet tainted with the metallic scent of fresh blood. His robes were sticky and stained. There were smears of gore on his hands and a faint red mist clinging to his arms.

“Disgusting,” he muttered, frowning at the blood drying on his fingers. As a Spirit farmer, he didn’t mind dirtying his clothes and hands. But it was one thing to be active in soil and another to be the sole surviving orchestrator of what could be labeled as a heinous crime scene in his previous world.

With a flick of his hand, he cast a simple water-element Spirit spell. A soft wave of water flowed out from his palm, circling his body.

The water shimmered as it spun around him, cleaning away the blood and dirt. The stains on his clothes vanished. His skin, though still scratched and bruised in places, looked clean again.

“Spirit cultivators really are like gods in the eyes of mortals. All the serial killers back on earth would have loved such a simple cleaning Spirit spell over a bunch of flashy ones,” Aksai thought to himself and chuckled.

Once the spell faded, he took another deep breath, more relaxed this time.

Then he turned his attention to the real prize.

With a wave of his hand, the vines that had earlier snaked through the battlefield moved again. They crept forward like silent servants, each carrying a pulsing, still-warm heart.

The four hearts floated toward Aksai, held gently by the vines, as if being offered like sacred treasures. The hearts hovered in front of him now—each one red, wet, and still faintly beating.

Aksai’s eyes lit up with curiosity.

“Hmm,” he muttered, folding his arms. “These are definitely good harvest materials.”

He looked at them one by one, noting the size and strength of each beat.

“Second Order hearts. Nice. I can think of how to use them later.”

But then his gaze sharpened.

“First things first… I need to keep them fresh. Can’t let them lose their life force.”

He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small, dark pouch.

From it, he summoned several thin, black paper talismans etched with red ink.

They were a type of Heretic Dao talismans.

Four talismans floated toward each heart, dancing lightly through the air as if carried by a breeze that only they could feel. As they reached the hearts, the talismans began to glow faintly. They wrapped around the hearts like thin silk threads, sticking to the bloody surface and binding tightly.

Then, a light blue aura shimmered around each heart.

A sphere of water-element energy formed, covering each heart like a floating bubble.

Inside the water, the hearts slowed.

Their frantic beating calmed. The pulses became slow, rhythmic… and then nearly still.

Not dead. Just resting. Preserved. Aksai nodded to himself, pleased.

The water spheres gently floated around him now, like little lanterns.

“Perfect,” he said quietly. “You’ll last a while like this.”

However, Aksai was a chronic planner. He didn’t like to employ stopgap measures.

He reached into his pouch again and pulled out another set of Heretic Dao talismans. These ones were different—marked with tiny snowflake-like patterns drawn in silver ink.

He flicked his fingers.

The talismans flew toward the water spheres and stuck to the outside of each one. A cold shimmer spread out from the contact points, making the water glow with a pale blue light. Slowly, the spheres began to freeze.

A thin layer of ice formed, growing thicker with every second. Within moments, all four hearts were fully sealed inside solid ice. Not a crack, not a bubble. Just perfect, clear spheres of frozen water with hearts locked inside them like precious jewels.

“Done,” Aksai said with a small nod.

He flicked his sleeve again, and a portal opened in the air. It shimmered softly, lined with greenish-white light, like the inside of a sacred tree trunk.

This was the gateway to the Enchanted Everwood Farm Aksai could access and summon at this point in a very efficient manner. He had unlocked this ability after recently progressing further in his Spirit, Aether, as well as Qi cultivation paths.

“Yelia,” he called out softly, as the frozen hearts floated into the portal one by one. “Take good care of these. Keep them cold. I’ll decide how to use them later.”

As the last heart entered, the portal closed quietly behind it.

Now only the dead remained.

Aksai turned and walked over to the four corpses of the sect elders. Their bodies were still warm. The blood had soaked into the dirt beneath them. Their faces were frozen in shock and pain.

He looked at them for a while, then let out a slow sigh.

“Such a shame,” he muttered. “They could’ve made fine puppets.”

His eyes scanned the condition of their bodies—intact, unburned, and still fairly fresh. But then he shook his head.

“I can’t use these bodies. Not as puppets. Not without making the Big Five Sects come sniffing around my land.”

He sighed again, softer this time, and tilted his head, looking at them with something close to longing.

“Haah… what am I even thinking? If someone was watching me right now, they’d probably call me a creep.”

Aksai chuckled to himself, scratching his head before squatting beside one of the corpses.

His eyes sharpened as he leaned in, studying the body like a craftsman looking at raw material.

“I do need these corpses to make a statement,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t still make use of what’s inside.”

He tilted his head, thoughtful.

“Their brains. They don’t need those where they’re going.”

He held up his fingers and gently waved them in the air.

Around him, the vines stirred.

They slithered through the blood-soaked ground like snakes, moving with purpose and grace. They reached the corpses and carefully wrapped around their heads.

“Be gentle,” Aksai whispered, almost lovingly.

The vines obeyed.

They worked like surgeon’s hands—precise, steady, and careful. Thin blades of spirit-imbued vine tips cut open the skulls without cracking the bones too much.

Blood oozed, but Aksai didn’t lose control over the vines. The process was clean, at least by his standards.

Within minutes, all four brains had been removed.

The vines held them up to Aksai, like a child showing a drawing to a teacher. This was due to the intent-based Spirit spell he was slowly making use of. This concept had breathed sentient lives in his vines.

“Good work,” Aksai said, giving the brains a nod of approval. “These will serve me well.”

He stood again, brushing dirt off his knee, then looked at the dead elders once more.

“Heartless and brainless,” he said with a quiet smile. “But at least you’ll still be useful in death.”

After handling the hearts and brains of the dead elders, Aksai finally turned his attention to the other side of the battlefield—where the woodland demon bears lay in a broken heap of fur, blood, and labored breaths.

The clearing was quiet now. Only the rustling of leaves and the distant hum of fading Spirit energy could be heard.

The woodland demon bears were lying in the dirt, their large bodies covered in cuts, burns, and bruises. One had a deep gash across its shoulder. Another had several arrows still stuck in its back.

Their breaths were rough, and some of them were softly whimpering, trying to move but failing.

But the moment they saw their master approach, the noise stopped.

They lowered their heads and bent their front legs, bowing as best as they could with their injuries. Even in pain, they knew they had not performed up to their master’s expectations.

Aksai frowned as he came to a stop in front of them. He looked at them for a long time in silence.

“I’m disappointed in you,” he finally said, his voice calm but firm.

The bears didn’t move. One of them twitched its ears. Another blinked slowly, its eyes still full of pain.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Aksai continued, crossing his arms. “I never expected you to defeat those sect elders. That would have been too much. But what I did expect—was for you to survive without getting so close to death.”

He looked at their wounds, shaking his head.

“If it weren’t for the puppets who backed you up, you would have died here today.”

The demon bears growled lowly, their sounds more like soft rumbles than real protests. It wasn’t defiance. It was a complaint.

As if they were saying, We were just cubs not long ago… How can you expect us to fight Foundation Building veterans and not suffer life-threatening injuries? Is it our fault that we were about to die? What kind of logic is that? What kind of heartless master are you?

The young adult woodland bears growled and then growled some more.

Aksai raised an eyebrow.

“Enough with the excuses.”

His tone was sharper. He narrowed his eyes at them, like a parent scolding children who didn’t clean their room.

Source: .com, updated by novlove.com