A Farmer's Journey To Immortality

Aksai knew first-hand how uncooperative the Void Gu could be.

As such, he wasn’t surprised by Qishan’s failures. In fact, he had to appreciate the fact about the Gu Poison King that he did manage to summon the Void Gu from the Great Void.

Arkaal paused for a bit before continuing.

"After hundreds of years, Master finally gave up. He stopped trying to tame or understand them. He simply left them alone."

Aksai nodded.

A sensible decision.

Arkaal pointed into the distance.

"That was when he built the Gu Insect Farm. He expanded the area and created custom habitats for other Gu insects. He raised countless Gu species. The Void Water Pond became the center of everything. A center that had no use for the Gu Poison King."

Aksai could understand why.

Even if Qishan couldn’t control the Void Gu, the pond itself was priceless. Plus, it was something he was tasked to protect at all cost.

Arkaal lowered his voice.

"Eventually, Master sealed the entire place. He hid it from almost everyone."

"Only a handful of trusted followers knew it existed."

Aksai looked at him and asked, already having a guess in his mind.

"The royal faction didn’t know?"

Arkaal immediately shook his head.

"No. The higher-ups of the royal faction knew nothing. They only knew the Master had a secret Gu insect base. They never learned what was actually hidden there. They just thought that master was eccentric because of his obsession with the Gu insects."

His voice became firm.

"They certainly never learned about the Void Water Pond. And they absolutely never learned about the Void Gu."

Aksai smiled.

That explained many things.

If even the royal faction had been kept in the dark, then the secret had truly been well protected. This was good news for Aksai.

Unfortunately for Qishan—

The secret had eventually fallen into Aksai’s hands. And now both the Void Water Pond and the Void Gu belonged to him.

Far away, hidden within the Gu Farm, countless glowing Void Gu floated peacefully inside their specially prepared habitat.

Aksai looked toward that direction and smiled faintly.

I’ve corrected the grammar while preserving your tone, style, and meaning:

The more he learned about them, the more convinced he became. Among all the treasures he had taken from the royal faction and the Poison Gu King, the Void Gu were undoubtedly the greatest prize.

For a while, Aksai remained silent.

The information he had received was both useful and troubling.

The royal faction was far more complicated than he had initially expected. What had begun as a group of royal families trying to free themselves from the influence of the major sects had eventually evolved into a hidden force with connections stretching beyond the Dadangar Subcontinent itself.

Worse, some of those connections appeared to lead all the way to the Shinayin Empire.

However, what truly occupied Aksai’s thoughts was not the royal faction.

The current and upcoming power struggles in the subcontinent might have something to do with the Shinayin Empire because of the royal faction’s tremendous and passionate boot-licking. There might also be a few powers that would try to profit from the subcontinent’s upcoming turmoil.

However, Aksai knew that beyond a certain point, the Shinayin Empire would not care. The reason was simple. It had very little to gain from the Dadangar Subcontinent.

For the powers residing in the Shinayin Empire, the royal faction was merely an investment with limited and predictable returns.

As long as those returns were outweighed by the trouble and effort required to maintain their involvement, they would simply cut off their connection with the royal faction and leave it to bleed dry at the mercy of the pro-sect faction, which was considered the true and indigenous ruler of the subcontinent.

The real problem for Aksai was something else.

And it had nothing to do with either the royal faction or the pro-sect faction.

It was the Ignis Clan.

Aksai narrowed his eyes slightly.

If everything Arkaal had said was true, then Qishan had never been the true owner of the Void Water Pond. He had merely been a caretaker.

A caretaker.

The word itself was enough to make Aksai uncomfortable.

After all, nobody assigned Nascent Soul Kings as caretakers unless the thing being guarded was extremely valuable. And it also implied the fact that in the Ignis clan, the Nascent Soul Kings were more or less royal guards that could be dispatched whenever there was a need to do so.

The Void Water Pond was clearly one such treasure.

’The Ignis Clan.’

Aksai repeated the name in his mind.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he became of several things.

First, the Ignis Clan had probably not forgotten about the Void Water Pond. They must have had some mechanism in place that would alert them of the changes in the Void Water Pond’s condition. Aksai was merely a Core Formation Lord. With his limited capabilities and Yelia’s powers still being sealed for the most part, he didn’t have any way to avoid tripping those mechanisms already in place.

As such, it was completely possible for the Ignis clan to have noticed the disappearance of their treasure as soon as Aksai took it.

Second, they would eventually notice Qishan’s disappearance.

And third...

They would investigate.

Aksai slowly looked toward Arkaal.

"You said the Ignis Clan assigned Qishan to guard the pond. How much authority did he actually have?"

Arkaal answered immediately.

"Very little. Master Qishan was entrusted with protecting the pond and preventing outsiders from learning about it. Beyond that, he was largely left alone. The clan rarely interfered with his activities."

Aksai nodded thoughtfully.

That answer matched his expectations.

The Ignis Clan had likely viewed the Dadangar Subcontinent as a remote backwater region. As long as the Void Water Pond remained hidden and protected, they had no reason to pay close attention to it.

However, things had changed.

Qishan was dead.

The Void Water Pond was gone.

And the Void Gu had disappeared alongside it.

The situation was no longer something that could be ignored.

Aksai exhaled slowly.

If he were standing in the shoes of the Ignis Clan, he would absolutely launch an investigation. The only question was when.

His thoughts quickly shifted toward the clan itself.

From everything he had learned so far, the clan head was almost certainly not an Earth Immortal.

If the clan possessed a genuine sixth-realm expert, there would have been no reason to leave the Void Water Pond in the Dadangar Subcontinent for thousands of years. An Earth Immortal could have easily taken the treasure away and relocated it somewhere far safer.

The fact that they had not done so suggested limitations.

Aksai’s gaze became sharper.

’Most likely a Deity Transformation God.’

That was his current guess.

A fifth-realm cultivator.

Someone powerful enough to rule a city-state in the Eternal Sea.

Someone capable of treating Nascent Soul Kings as subordinates.

The thought alone made Aksai feel a headache coming.

He could not even fight a healthy Nascent Soul King, let alone a Deity Transformation God.

The battle against Qishan had already pushed him beyond his limits.

Many would have assumed that he had defeated the Gu Poison King through superior planning and preparation. While that was partly true, only Aksai himself knew how dangerous that battle had truly been.

Qishan had already been standing at death’s door. His lifespan was nearly exhausted. His body was old. His strength had declined.

Even then, Aksai had been forced to use one of his most dangerous trump cards.

Druid’s Curse: Lifespan Devour.

Just thinking about it made him frown.

The technique had succeeded only because Qishan was already half-dead. If he had been facing a healthy Nascent Soul King in their prime, the outcome would have been completely different.

The curse might not have worked at all.

Even if it did work, Aksai might have exhausted his own lifespan before draining enough from his opponent. After all, the penalty he would receive from using the curse on someone in the higher Spirit realm than him was not small.

More importantly, cultivators from the Eternal Sea were unlikely to be as poorly equipped as Qishan.

Qishan had spent centuries isolated in the Dadangar Subcontinent. Compared to the true elites of the Eternal Sea, he was practically a poor man.

The Kings who might arrive from the Ignis Clan would likely possess powerful treasures, defensive artifacts, escape methods, and life-saving techniques.

Thus, the same trick would not work twice.

Aksai understood that better than anyone.

The element of surprise had played a major role in Qishan’s death. Future enemies would not be so careless.

Especially after they investigated what had happened.

Aksai looked toward the distant horizon of the farm.

Even though he had destroyed Qishan’s hidden base and buried countless clues beneath the fourth-order formation, he never expected those actions to make him completely invisible. Especially after learning about a few things from Arkaal.

At best, they would slow down the investigation.

Nothing more.