A Farmer's Journey To Immortality

Eventually, silence returned.

Verdant Elder looked toward Aksai calmly.

Aksai nodded lightly.

“Keep him sealed for now.”

The giant tortoise lowered its head obediently.

Then its massive ethereal body slowly faded away into countless particles of blue light before disappearing completely. The barrier vanished together with it.

Aksai let out a long exhausted breath while rubbing his face tiredly. His body felt sore everywhere.

His Spirit Essence and Aurous Qi had both been pushed close to their limits during this battle. He had even used a large amount of his Aether Essence in the end to capture and tame Arkaal’s intact soul.

For several moments, he simply sat there quietly while staring at the destroyed chamber around him. Then he finally spoke to himself.

“Fuc*k. I have never made use of all my trump cards to such an extent before. Thankfully, I got the old man’s intact soul instead of the residual soul. Otherwise, I would have truly made a loss.”

Aksai slowly exhaled before forcing himself to stand up again.

His body still felt exhausted, but he knew this was not the time to rest completely. There were still too many things left unfinished inside the sealed cave.

“Let’s clean up first,” he muttered softly.

He walked toward the pile of ashes that used to be Arkaal. The old man’s body had been completely destroyed. Only burnt bones, black dust, and melted poison residue remained behind.

A faint green glow appeared around Aksai’s fingers as he searched through the remains remotely. Soon, he found what he was looking for. A dark storage ring.

Despite everything else being destroyed, the storage ring had survived. Spirit artifacts designed for storage were usually much sturdier than ordinary items. Even Aksai’s Innate Spirit spell couldn’t harm it, speaking volumes about its quality.

Aksai picked it up calmly and examined it briefly.

“This undying cockroach better have something worthwhile inside,” he muttered.

After storing the ring safely away, Aksai turned toward another corner of the chamber.

Qishan’s remains still rested there quietly. The former Nascent Soul King had long turned into a pile of gray powder after suffering the terrifying effects of the Druid’s Curse. The sight still looked unsettling even now.

Aksai carefully walked over and crouched down beside the remains. Unlike Arkaal, Qishan had not even left behind a corpse.

But Aksai already knew old monsters like him would never leave valuable treasures lying around carelessly. After searching for a moment, he finally found another storage ring hidden beneath the powder.

The ring was dark purple in color and covered in tiny poison runes. The moment Aksai touched it, he could feel dense poison essence lingering inside it. A faint smile finally appeared on his tired face.

“A Nascent Soul King’s storage ring,” he murmured softly. “Now this should be interesting. This old man previously explored the Heavenly Poison Sect’s ground in his past. I’m basically the owner of that sect now. So it’s only right that I take it.”

The Spirit farmer quickly suppressed his curiosity to look into the storage ring right then and there. This was not the time to inspect the contents yet.

First, he needed to leave this place safely.

Aksai slowly raised his head and looked toward the giant stone gate sealing the cave entrance. The entire fortress-like cave was still locked under the effects of the massive 4th Order sealing formation left behind by Qishan.

Aksai was locked inside the 4th Order formation, which was difficult to undo even for a Lord like Arkaal who had authorised access to it. It was even more of a challenge for someone unauthorized like Aksai who was counted as the enemy of the formation master.

The only plus side of being stuck inside the 4th Order formation with his enemy was that even Arkaal couldn’t undo the formation and ask for help from the outside easily. It prevented him from mobilizing other Lords in the royal faction in order to target Aksai using the homeground advantage.

Thankfully, Aksai had killed Qishan as soon as his presence was exposed, preventing him from directly making use of the formation’s mechanism to suppress Aksai. Arkaal only knew how to get in and out of formation using the authorised pass. As a Lord, he neither had capability nor access to mobilize a 4th Order formation using his own powers.

’I hope it won’t be too much of a headache,’ Aksai thought as he looked at the stone door.

Dense runes glowed faintly across the walls, ceiling, and floor. Even now, the formation remained active despite its master’s death.

Aksai narrowed his eyes slightly.

“Nuri– you are up.”

The next moment, countless spectral notifications started appearing inside his vision.

[Scanning formation structure…]

[Identifying active array eyes…]

[Warning: 4th Order sealing formation detected.]

[Formation Genie presence confirmed.]

[Nuri recommends caution.]

Aksai lightly rubbed his forehead.

“Fuc*k. Fuc*k. Fuc*k. A Formation Genie is going to be a pain in the a*ss. Haah! I need to calm down,” he muttered and restrained his frustrations, “let’s see how far the Heretic Dao can take us.”

The next moment, space distorted beside him. Another figure slowly stepped out from the distortion.

Aksai’s True Aether Soul Clone.

The clone looked exactly like him. Same face. Same aura. Same calm eyes.

The moment the clone appeared, it immediately turned toward the sealing formation without needing any explanation. It simply started walking toward the nearest array node.

Aksai smiled faintly. Having a clone connected directly to his mind was truly convenient.

The clone already understood the situation completely because its thoughts were connected to the original Aksai through their shared consciousness.

For Aksai, using the clone for such work felt almost unfair. It was like studying at twice the speed while using only half the effort.

Whenever the clone understood a concept, that understanding flowed directly back into Aksai’s mind. And whenever Aksai made progress, the clone received that understanding instantly as well.

The two quickly separated and started working on different parts of the formation. The walls around them glowed brighter as countless runes became visible.

Some were stable. Some shifted constantly. Some even changed shape every few moments.

This was the terrifying part of 4th Order formations.

They were alive.

Or at least partially alive.

Every proper 4th Order formation possessed a Formation Genie, which was a consciousness created to maintain and protect the formation.

Sometimes those genies were artificial minds created through formation logic and preset responses. Other times, they were made using dead souls of Spirit cultivators or Demon beasts.

And in Qishan’s case—

The Formation Genie was made using a hive of dead gu insect spirits merged together into a single entity.

That alone made the formation far more dangerous and innately complicated than normal.

The moment Aksai and his clone started interfering with the runes, the formation reacted immediately. The glowing symbols across the walls suddenly shifted.

Buzzzz.

The entire cave trembled lightly. Then the first attack arrived.

Sharp poison spikes suddenly shot out from the walls toward Aksai’s chest.

Too fast.

Too sudden.

But before the attack could fully form—

Several spectral notifications flashed rapidly.

[Danger prediction successful.]

[Counter-rune suggestion uploaded.]

[Recommended array key replacement: Sequence 3-7-11.]

Aksai instantly changed the nearby rune pattern with his Spirit Essence.

The poison spikes immediately lost stability and shattered apart before reaching him.

Boom!

Green smoke exploded harmlessly against the wall. Meanwhile, the clone faced another attack on the opposite side of the cave.

Soul chains.

Transparent chains erupted from the floor and rushed toward the clone’s Mind Palace directly. The clone reacted instantly. It changed the alignment of three nearby runes while simultaneously damaging one of the smaller array eyes.

The soul chains suddenly turned unstable and disappeared. The process continued again and again. Every mistake triggered another attack.

Fire storms.

Poison waves.

Exploding runes.

Soul pressure.

Illusions.

The formation continuously adapted itself in real-time. The gu insect spirits inside the Formation Genie constantly changed the rune combinations to resist outside influence.

This was what made breaking 4th Order formations so dangerous. They defended themselves actively. Even a low-grade formation was no exception.

Even a single wrong move could result in death.

But Aksai and his clone continued working calmly. Their hands moved rapidly across different rune sequences. They used the principles of the Heretic Dao to attack multiple weak points of the formation at the same time.

Instead of trying to undo the formation honestly, they continuously tricked, bypassed, corrupted, and redirected parts of it.

Sometimes they deliberately overloaded certain sections. Sometimes they forced conflicting rune commands into the formation. Sometimes they even redirected the formation’s attacks back into itself.

All the while, Nuri continuously analyzed everything happening in real-time. Spectral notifications filled their vision constantly.

[Array eye destabilized.]

[Formation response predicted.]

[Alternative route suggested.]

[Heretic Dao corruption method recommended.]

[Probability of success increased by 11.3%.]

Nuri even pulled information from her massive database regarding ancient formations and Heretic Dao concepts. Whenever a section became difficult, she immediately suggested multiple possible solutions.

And because both Aksai and his clone shared understanding instantly, their learning speed became terrifying.

’Damn. I never realized that clones could be used to speed up the understanding of complicated concepts,’ Aksai thought to himself briefly before losing himself in the study of the Heretic Dao.

===

AN: True Aether Soul Clone was first introduced in Chapter 554.