The Eternal Farmer: I Trade My Harvest for Immortality

Jiang Chen forcibly suppressed the twitching corners of his mouth. “Since you’re trapped, how exactly am I supposed to take you away?”

“Dream Island is but a manifestation of my physical body,” the Mirage Dragon replied, its tone utterly detached. “Now that the abyssal dead waters have anchored it to the seabed, my only means of escape is to abandon this vessel.”

Jiang Chen froze. Wait. Abandon its body? A dragon? A Mirage Dragon? The physical corpse of a mythical Mirage Dragon?!

“Correct. It is the only path left,” the Mirage Dragon confirmed with a slight nod, sensing his disbelief. “However, severing myself from my physical form will plunge me into a profound state of weakness. It will take at least a century for me to fully recover.”

A century? Jiang Chen scoffed inwardly. I’ll be at the Nascent Soul stage by then!

“Well?” the Mirage Dragon prompted, misinterpreting his silence.

Jiang Chen snapped back to reality, a mercenary grin spreading across his face. “Since this is a transaction, what’s in it for me?”

“I will use my innate abilities to completely suppress your strength, aura, and spiritual fluctuations,” the Mirage Dragon rumbled in a deep voice. “No one in this world will be able to pry into your true realm.”

Ah, so that’s the bait, Jiang Chen realized.

Jiang Chen gave a shallow nod. “It’s not like I have a choice. If I refuse, you won’t let me leave here alive. After all, only dead men keep secrets.”

A glint of dark approval flashed in the dragon’s massive eyes. “Clever.”

Jiang Chen blinked innocently. “But before we go, could you let me see the legendary body of a Mirage Dragon with my own eyes?”

The Mirage Dragon did not refuse. “You may.”

In the next second, the world dissolved.

From the outside, Dream Island had always been a shifting tapestry of mirages, blurring the line between reality and illusion. Now, the pavilions, towers, and lush landscapes melted away like wax. In their place, a colossal serpentine silhouette materialized, stretching for thousands of feet across the churning sea.

Golden-green scales armored its endless bulk. Branching, deer-like antlers crowned its majestic head, while a thick crest of crimson mane blazed down its neck and spine. The scales beneath the mane were a dark, earthen brown. From its waist down, every single scale grew backward—a massive expanse of ‘reverse scales.’

“What is that thing?!”

“Heavens above, it’s a dragon!”

“It’s thousands of times larger than that flood dragon!”

The sheer atmospheric pressure of the behemoth shattered the courage of every water demon, sea monster, and lurking cultivator in the vicinity. The surrounding waters emptied in seconds as anything capable of fleeing swam for its life.

Meanwhile, Jiang Chen and the ancestor stood calmly atop the dragon’s broad, continent-like back.

Down below, the horrific truth of Dream Island revealed itself. As the bubbles popped and the beautiful illusions shattered, every living soul trapped within—mortal and cultivator alike—died instantly. Their bodies withered into desiccated husks in the blink of an eye. The longer they had stayed, the more their essence, energy, and spirit had been hollowed out. The illusion was the only thing keeping them alive; once it broke, their empty shells collapsed.

Jiang Chen watched the mass death with cold, flickering eyes. This beast is no saint. It’s lurked in the Canglan Sea for god knows how many years, bleeding countless humans dry. This so-called ‘cooperation’ is definitely a trap.

The Mirage Dragon raised its mountain-sized head. “Have you seen enough?”

“More than enough,” Jiang Chen grinned.

“I am about to condense into a Mirage Dragon Pearl,” the dragon warned. “You had best find a vessel capable of containing me.”

Jiang Chen’s guard went up. “What kind of vessel?”

“You carry an item that shares a bloodline resonance with me,” the dragon stated.

Jiang Chen rummaged through his spatial storage and pulled out the Dragon Abyss Water Spirit Seal. “You mean this?”

The Mirage Dragon’s eyes ignited. “Yes. Precisely that.”

“What exactly… is this thing?” Jiang Chen probed.

“Is this the time for questions?” the dragon snapped impatiently. “Do I look like I have the leisure to explain?”

Jiang Chen immediately stowed the seal away, his expression hardening into a mask of pure business. “We are engaging in a transaction and a cooperation. If we don’t lay our cards on the table, how can I possibly trust you?”

The Mirage Dragon’s colossal eyes locked onto the tiny human. A mere Golden Core cultivator was nothing but an insect to it. Yet, weighing its current vulnerability, it swallowed its pride. Enjoy your smugness while it lasts, little ant, it sneered inwardly. Once I initiate the Body Seizing and claim your flesh, I will spend centuries torturing your soul and consciousness.

Outwardly, it rumbled, “I do not know its true origins. I only know it carries the aura of the Taixu Crack Abyss.”

Jiang Chen’s mind raced. He remembered the cryptic inscription carved into the bottom of the Dragon Abyss Water Spirit Seal:

Taixu Crack Abyss, where Earth Essence guards the borders.

Dragon Marrow condenses to crystal, as the Water Spirit returns to order.

A Nine-Dimensional Star Chart opens the Heavenly Path,

Three heads and six arms pacify the Eight Wastelands’ wrath.

Borrow the Taixu power sealed within my core,

And let spatial coordinates reveal the Profound and Yellow once more.

He had always been intensely curious about the seal’s true nature, but lacking the strength and the time, he had left it alone. Now, his interest was thoroughly piqued.

“I advise you not to test it,” the Mirage Dragon said coldly.

“Why?” Jiang Chen frowned.

“The Taixu Crack Abyss is a primordial battlefield,” the dragon sneered. “Without the Dharmakaya of a Nascent Soul cultivator to anchor you, a Golden Core insect stepping inside is just begging for death. Even I do not dare enter. I can only preserve a fraction of my strength by parasitizing the Dragon Marrow Condensed Crystal within it.”

Of course, the dragon omitted its primary reason: it was utterly obsessed with Jiang Chen’s body. It was too perfect. Too rare. In over a thousand years, this was only the second human vessel that had ever tempted it.

“Never mind then,” Jiang Chen said, instantly dropping the subject. “Let’s begin.”

Wasting no more time, the Mirage Dragon shuddered. Billowing clouds of grayish miasma erupted from its millions of scales. The fog began to violently rotate, whipping into a terrifying, heaven-piercing tornado. Deep within the eye of the storm, a phantom silhouette thrashed and swam. As the atmospheric pressure reached its absolute zenith, the shadow shot into the sky, rapidly condensing into a fist-sized, translucent glazed pearl.

The moment the soul left the body, Jiang Chen’s eyes lit up with predatory greed. He instantly summoned the Thunder Dragon Water-Repelling Boat. “Fire up every array you have! Swallow as much of this corpse as you can! Don’t be polite!”

Thrilled by the prospect of a free feast, the Thunder Dragon Water-Repelling Boat eagerly mounted the colossal corpse. Arcs of violent lightning exploded outward, attempting to envelop the Mirage Dragon’s body. Unfortunately, the boat had severely overestimated its own appetite. It was a mere two hundred feet long; the dragon stretched for thousands. It was like an ant trying to shake a towering ancient tree.

Jiang Chen was far more pragmatic. He slammed both hands directly onto the massive golden-green scales. “Stripping Technique!”

Instantly, the primordial dragon bloodline began siphoning into his body. Because the bloodline was so vast, so dense, and so impossibly pure, the extraction rate was agonizingly slow. But the slower it was, the wider Jiang Chen’s manic grin grew.

A flood dragon was still just a beast with a trace of dragon ancestry. But this? This was a true, mythical Mirage Dragon. Absorbing its pure bloodline would undoubtedly forge an apocalyptic special ability.

Since the original owner had so graciously discarded it, Jiang Chen wasn’t about to let good materials go to waste. Waste not, want not. It was the exact same principle he applied to the ancestor.

The Ancestor: “…”

High above, the newly formed Mirage Dragon Pearl suddenly trembled with unease. It subconsciously reached out to its discarded physical form. Aside from a ridiculously ambitious lightning boat clinging to its scales, the two humans hadn’t moved.

But having lived for millennia, the dragon knew better than to doubt its instincts. It focused its divine sense—and nearly suffered a qi deviation.

The foundational dragon bloodline within its physical shell was draining away at a terrifying speed!

For any true dragon, its bloodline was the absolute core of its existence. What Jiang Chen was doing was akin to ripping the foundation out from under a house, permanently diluting the dragon’s innate potential.

The Mirage Dragon was utterly stupefied. It hadn’t even initiated its grand betrayal yet, and this mortal insect was already robbing it blind!

A furious, heaven-shaking roar erupted from the tiny pearl: “YOU DESPICABLE HUMAN!”