A Farmer's Journey To Immortality

Aksai and Velia talked for a while after he was bestowed with the Druid's Blessings.

Through her, it was confirmed that the reason multiple mysterious caves and inheritances had appeared all around the Dadangar Subcontinent was that the entrance to the Holy Land Torel had resurfaced after being sealed away from outsiders for thousands of years.

Of course, the reason the Holy Land Torel resurfaced was because Aksai had managed to inherit the Enchanted Everwood Farm, being a descendant of Amel Everwood. It was sort of the first piece in the domino arrangement that started the whole thing.

How did it all come to be?

It was Amel Everwood who had arranged things so that his future descendants would be able to return to their roots and have the opportunity to visit the Holy Land Torel.

Of course, he couldn't control the variables surrounding the entrance to the Holy Land Torel. As a result, the isolated dimension was inadvertently captured by the current demonic faction active in the region.

Simply put, if Aksai hadn't inherited the Enchanted Everwood Farm, the entrance to the Holy Land Torel would have remained hidden until the rightful heir to the artifact revealed themselves. In this way, Aksai was directly responsible for the current conflict between the righteous and demonic factions.

As for the mainland, which had been isolated from the Dadangar Subcontinent after the formation of the Shiju Mountain Range, the mainlanders didn't dare to interfere with the survivors on the subcontinent.

They feared the Mad Immortal's wrath. The mainlanders completely severed their connection to the subcontinent, and no powerhouse from the mainland dared to cross the Shiju Mountain Range and enter the subcontinent.

Over time, it became taboo for the powerhouses of the mainland to even consider visiting the Dadangar Subcontinent. Because of the Mad Immortal's merciless slaughter and carnage, the land had become a dystopia for cultivators.

Eventually, after the Mad Immortal's forceful departure, there was nothing left in the subcontinent to attract the attention of Nascent Soul realm cultivators.

Even the Core Formation Lords from the mainland looked down on the resident cultivators of the subcontinent due to the scarcity of rich cultivation resources.

Furthermore, the cultivators of the subcontinent had their inheritances pillaged and destroyed by the Mad Immortal. As a result, the standards of cultivation in the subcontinent gradually declined over time, to the point where there was now no Nascent Soul cultivator in the entire region.

Velia told Aksai that intent-based cultivation techniques were not new to the Dadangar Subcontinent or the Dadangar World as a whole. Even humans with normal bloodlines had inheritances of their own, enabling them to overcome many of the bottlenecks typically encountered in cultivation journeys.

The reason the Holy Land Torel was recognized as one of the most powerful organizations in the entire Dadangar World was because of the use of the Druid's Blessings. Those with the blessings could easily dominate their peers, allowing them to uphold the prestige of the Holy Land Torel during its peak.

***

After listening to the explanation, Aksai processed everything slowly before asking Velia another question.

"Lady Velia, how did the druids from the Holy Land manage to get Druid's Blessings for themselves? I mean, they couldn't have had a God Spark required to accumulate the so-called Intents radiated from others that were directed to them."

This time, it was Yelia who answered Aksai's question.

"My lord," Yelia began, "like my sister told you, one doesn't really need to possess a God Spark to harness the emotions of others. There are many other methods.

For example, the corrupted druid you encountered in the Martial World Sharang used the Demon Tree as a medium and his unique cultivation technique as the driving force to harness the emotions of those trapped inside the Devil's Den. You discarded that technique and only drew inspiration from it. Otherwise, you would have been able to harness the emotions of grief, fear, and other negative emotions just like the corrupted druid did inside the Devil's Den.

In a similar way, the Holy Land Torel had various special methods that allowed its disciples to gain their blessings and develop them over time. Some of these techniques were focused on regular interactions with others, mortals or non-mortals, while the others required the practitioners to consume various forms of treasures and elixirs.

The techniques developed by the Holy Land Torel were advanced and efficient, enabling the disciples to get over their respective bottlenecks with relative ease. However, the disciples of the sect had to rely heavily on the sect's resources to obtain and evolve their blessings.

The sect, in turn, needed to spend a considerable portion of its accumulated wealth and treasures to bestow disciples with blessings. It had to spend even more to help those blessings evolve alongside their respective owners.

In return, the disciples were bound to the sect and its interests. Even if someone successfully received a blessing as a one-time gift, evolving that blessing wasn't something they could do on their own without the sect supporting them. Hence, the Holy Land Torel promoted the quid-pro-quo relations with its disciples just like any other sect of the past and present.

Yelia paused for a moment, her gaze softening as she looked at Aksai.

"But all of that doesn't concern you. You, my lord," she continued, "are the only one who can make use of the Druid's Blessings without needing to rely on the Holy Land Torel's resources. This is because you already possess a God Spark. It sets you apart from every other druid who came before you. You don't need roundabout methods and techniques to harness the power of Intents and emotions.

If the corrupted druid that you killed in the past knew that you had a God Spark on you, he wouldn't have taken you lightly. He would have probably called his masters and other powerful beings to rob you of your Spark."

Aksai gulped. He thanked his stars that he didn't take the corrupted druid from Sharang lightly. He would have died in a supposedly lesser world if his existence as a God Spark holder was exposed to the old monsters behind the corrupted druid.

'God Spark, huh? So it's like a magnet when it comes to harnessing the emotions and Intents. I need to learn more about it. Maybe there are some other uses to this thing as well that I'm not yet aware of,' he thought to himself.

***

A few minutes later.

Aksai wrapped up his conversation related to the God Spark. He received satisfactory answers from Yelia and her sister regarding the Blessings.

But knowing theoretical knowledge about the Blessings didn't really calm his curiosity. He wanted to put things into practice immediately. So much so that he didn't want to wait for problems to arrive so that he could use his Blessings.

Aksai rolled his shoulders, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as he stretched his arms.

"Alright, Lady Velia," he said, flexing his fingers. "Let's see what these blessings can actually do in a fight. No point having fancy powers if I don't know how they feel in action."

Velia nodded. She liked the fact that Aksai was not only a quick learner but also thought things through before making any plans.

"As you wish, lad," she said. With a snap of her fingers, the air shimmered, and four faceless spectral beings appeared around him. They were humanoid in shape, their translucent forms flickering like ghostly flames, but they radiated the unmistakable aura of Foundation Building cultivators.

"Not bad," Aksai muttered, cracking his neck. "I like a good challenge."

Velia added with a sly smile, "Since you're eager to test your limits, I've given these specters the ability to cast fire-element Spirit spells. This will be the perfect opportunity to see how well your Blessings hold up."

"I know I said that I wanted to test my Blessings but four against one and these dummies can actually use fire-element Spirit spells?" Aksai laughed, shaking his head. "It seems you are quite angry with me for doubting the Blessings you bestowed on me, aren't you?"

One had to know that Aksai had never gone up against four Foundation Building Experts at the same time in a head-on confrontation. He had the element of surprise on his side in his previous real battles against multiple opponents. He had also used various forms of traps and tricks in order to give himself an edge over his opponents.

Plus, the dummies that Velia had produced didn't come across as mediocre Foundation Building Experts. The aura that surrounded them made Aksai vaguely discern that all of them were almost as strong as him if not more.

Yelia spoke up from the sidelines. "My lord, if it's too much, we could always reduce their numbers…"

Aksai waved her off. "No, let's do this. If I can't handle a few specters, I've got no right carrying the Holy Land Torel's legacy."

As the specters began to circle him, their forms flickering with fiery energy, Aksai took a deep breath and activated his Druid's Heart blessing.

***

Meanwhile, a powerful 3rd-order Spirit spell was getting cast not far from where Aksai was.

What the Spirit farmer didn't know was that there were three Core Formation Lords trying to get inside the treasury hall at this time.

These were the same Lords from the demonic faction that Haitin wanted Aksai to meet with.