A Farmer's Journey To Immortality

The Purple River Lord gently pushed the floating jade slips closer to Aksai.

"Take them. Through you... perhaps the inheritance of the Purple River Sect will continue to exist.

"Although I don’t want to put too much pressure on you, I hope that one day you’ll be able to revive the Purple River Sect in some way or form, once you become capable enough to do so."

He smiled gently.

"Anyway, I know you’re a drifter at heart and don’t care much about the survival of sects. So you don’t have to think too much about it. Just think of these jade slips as the seeds of my sect. As long as they survive, the Purple River Sect’s legacy will never truly disappear."

Aksai quietly looked at the dozens of floating jade slips.

Then, without another word, he stored every one of them inside his storage ring. There was no need for excessive courtesy between them anymore.

Besides, these inheritances were genuinely valuable to him. Not necessarily because he intended to cultivate every technique himself, but because they represented something he had lacked since arriving in this world.

This was the complete core inheritance of one of the Big Five Sects.

The moment the jade slips entered his storage ring, Aksai was already planning how to make use of them. He would have Nuri analyze everything, including the principles hidden within the cultivation techniques and Spirit Spells.

Even if the Purple River Sect’s inheritance was considered ordinary by the standards of the Shinayin Empire due to its lack of Intent-related insights, it was still a complete Core Formation inheritance.

More importantly, Aksai had never believed that the value of a cultivation art was determined solely by its grade. A mediocre technique, used at the right time and in the right way, could produce results that even a superior inheritance failed to achieve.

Knowledge, when combined with Nuri’s analytical capabilities, had always been one of his greatest weapons.

***

A few minutes later.

The morning sun slowly climbed above the eastern horizon as Aksai flew through the open sky.

The cool wind brushed past his robes, carrying away the lingering smell of smoke and blood that still clung to him despite the thorough cleanup of the battlefield.

He did not head toward Emerald Cove Island immediately.

Instead, he changed direction and flew straight toward Wuyum County of the Rokur Kingdom.

The Emerald Cove Guild’s main administrative branch on the mainland was located there. If there was one place where he could issue orders that would spread throughout the entire guild quickly, it was Wuyum County.

In the past, Aksai had faced an assassination attempt by high-level assassins secretly trained by the royal faction. At that time, he did not know who was behind the attack. Due to various concerns regarding his security, Aksai had moved the guild’s mainland headquarters from Emerald Cove Island to Wuyum County.

Years ago, the royal family of the Rokur Kingdom had granted him ownership of almost the entire Wuyum County, claiming that it was a gift to celebrate his breakthrough into the Core Formation Realm. Aksai had seen no reason to refuse. After all, Wuyum County was his birthplace, and he had many memories connected to that region.

However, who would have thought that all of it had been carefully planned by the royal faction?

They had anticipated how Aksai would react after the assassination attempt and had already prepared Wuyum County as bait.

In the end, Aksai had unknowingly fallen into their trap and had indeed relocated his guild’s mainland headquarters there.

By the time he realized what had happened, it had already been too late.

The trap had been laid years in advance for the coming chaos that would erupt once the cultivators of the imperial factions began descending upon the subcontinent.

Although loose cultivators were not particularly powerful individually, their overwhelming numbers had allowed the Emerald Cove Guild to grow into an organization comparable to the Big Five Sects.

In fact, when it came to the number of Foundation Establishment Experts that could be mobilized at any given time, the Emerald Cove Guild had already surpassed both the Eastern and Western Limiya Gates, securing the third position among the major native powers of the subcontinent.

The royal faction understood the potential consequences of allowing Aksai to command such a massive force of loose cultivators.

They did not want to face a powerful rebel army the moment the Empire openly revealed its presence to both cultivators and mortals alike.

Thus, they had schemed far in advance and subtly guided Aksai into establishing his mainland headquarters in Wuyum County.

The royal faction believed that as long as the Emerald Cove Guild remained on the mainland—where the imperial factions’ influence would soon become overwhelming—it could eventually be brought under their control.

And to some extent...

They were not wrong.

However, Aksai had already decided to abandon the guild’s potential as a force capable of resisting the imperial factions. He had no intention of waiting for the royal faction to scheme against the Emerald Cove Guild.

Instead, he would be the one to scheme for the sake of his guild.

As Aksai cut through the clouds, the Purple River Lord’s words echoed repeatedly inside his mind.

Aksai sighed.

"...Old Purple really managed to make me look like the bad guy."

A faint, self-deprecating smile appeared on his face.

"I suppose... I can at least do the same much for my people, just in case things become worse. Hmm? Can the guild members be called my people?

"I wonder.

"Well... never mind. Let’s treat them as my people for now."

Before last night, Aksai had never once considered disbanding the Emerald Cove Guild because of the Empire’s invasion. Not even for a moment.

There were simply too many differences between his organization and the Purple River Sect.

The Purple River Sect was a traditional cultivation sect. Its members joined through oaths. They inherited the sect’s techniques. Their identities became inseparable from the organization itself.

The sect protected them, and in return they protected the sect.

The Emerald Cove Guild was nothing like that.

It was never built upon loyalty. It was built upon transactions. Loose cultivators from every corner of the subcontinent accepted missions from the guild. They then completed those missions.

In return, they received contribution points that could be exchanged for Spirit herbs, pills, talismans, cultivation resources, and various other products originating from Emerald Cove Island and the Enchanted Everwood Farm.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Neither side owed absolute loyalty to the other. The guild could not force its members to risk their lives. Likewise, the cultivators were free to leave whenever they wished.

That freedom had always been one of the guild’s greatest strengths.

Which also meant, Aksai had never felt obligated to protect every cultivator registered under its banner.

After all, they were employees. Not disciples or one giant family with lots of branches like a typical sect.

His second reason was even simpler.

He understood loose cultivators better than anyone. Because he had been one himself for most of his life.

Loose cultivators rarely trusted anyone completely. The moment they sensed danger approaching, they would quietly prepare their own escape routes instead of placing their lives in another person’s hands.

That mentality had allowed many of them to survive for decades. Some even centuries.

Aksai respected that way of living.

His third reason was perhaps the coldest.

He simply did not care whether the Emerald Cove Guild survived or collapsed.

If one day he failed to protect Emerald Cove Island, if even his own home fell, then preserving the guild would become meaningless.

The Emerald Cove Guild had never been his life’s main ambition. It was merely a tool. A very useful one.

Through the guild, countless loose cultivators completed tasks that would otherwise have consumed enormous amounts of his own time.

Mining Spirit stones.

Gathering herbs.

Transporting goods.

Exploring dangerous regions.

Acquiring information.

Hunting demon beasts.

Managing countless mundane affairs.

In return, Aksai casually crafted Spirit resources inside the Enchanted Everwood Farm and exchanged them through the guild.

It was an efficient arrangement.

If the guild disappeared tomorrow, the loose cultivators would scatter. And he would simply have to perform many of those tasks himself or through his limited number of Sentient Fiends until he found another solution.

That was how he had always viewed the matter.

Until today.

Until he had spoken with the Purple River Lord.

The old man had never once tried to convince Aksai that his way of living was wrong.

Nor had he criticized him.

He had merely explained why he himself could not abandon the Purple River Sect.

Somehow that simple explanation had stirred something inside Aksai. He fell silent. A familiar face suddenly surfaced within his memories.

Nuya.

After she had left the Dadangar Subcontinent, Aksai had gradually buried many unnecessary emotions beneath layers of rationality.

Efficiency.

Logic.

Benefits.

Losses.

He had become accustomed to judging everything through those lenses. Perhaps he was always like that. But after Nuya’s departure, he became even more of what he already was.

Yet now...

For the first time in a very long while, those tender emotions quietly resurfaced. The feelings of caring for something other than himself. The feelings of understanding the struggles of others. He almost found them unfamiliar.

He remembered how difficult it was as loose cultivators for him and Nuya to establish a base on the Emerald Cove Island.

"...Have I really forgotten how difficult it is to survive as a loose cultivator?"

He asked himself softly.