The Eternal Farmer: I Trade My Harvest for Immortality

Chapter 485: Golden Miner!

Jiang Chen offered a mocking smile. “What prompted this sudden awakening of your conscience?”

Ji Mingxuan paused, his brow furrowing. “Our exchange earlier today forced me to realize I cannot treat my savior with such contempt.”

Jiang Chen regarded him with deep suspicion. “Oh?”

Ji Mingxuan stood and cupped his hands in a formal salute. “That is the truth of the matter. Whether you believe me or not, simply remain vigilant.”

With that, he departed without so much as touching his tea.

Watching the man’s retreating figure, Jiang Chen curled his lip. Does he genuinely take me for a fool?

He felt no remorse for years. One conversation today and he suddenly sees the light? If he possessed that level of self-awareness, he wouldn’t have acted as a lapdog in the first place.

There is only one logical conclusion. He is using this supposed confession to camouflage a secondary objective.

After confirming the perimeter was clear, Jiang Chen retreated to his second-floor bedroom.

Lying upon the soft nanmu bed, he projected his consciousness directly into his spatial realm.

This domain lacked a sun, moon, or stars, rendering the passage of time visually static.

However, the integration of his Five Elements Spirit Root was gradually establishing a rudimentary four-season climate.

The terraforming was in its infancy, making the shifts subtle.

Based on the atmospheric humidity and ambient temperature, the realm was currently mirroring the outside world’s spring.

Yet, the soil held no mundane seeds, resulting in an environment entirely devoid of wild weeds; as far as the eye could see, the land was dominated by stalks of mutated Spirit Rice.

Xu Linglong came trotting through the stalks, carefully balancing a cup of wine. “Daddy, try this!”

Jiang Chen accepted the cup, scrutinizing the liquid with exaggerated vigilance. “It looks acceptable. You didn’t slip anything questionable into the brew, did you?”

Xu Linglong immediately dropped her gaze, suddenly finding her little shoes fascinating. “N-no, I didn’t.”

Seeing her guilty reaction, the corner of Jiang Chen’s mouth twitched. “Children who lie don’t receive presents this year.”

Xu Linglong squirmed nervously. “I saw the dew on the Spirit Rice looking so pretty, I thought it would make the wine better! It was just a few drops, I promise!”

Jiang Chen exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “That is acceptable.”

Guided by painful past experiences, he refrained from draining the cup, taking only a cautious sip.

The initial flavor profile was aggressively sour and astringent, chilling the tongue.

As it dissolved, a numbing spice ignited across his palate.

Yet, the final aftertaste surrendered to an unexpected, creamy sweetness.

The layered complexity was baffling.

Xu Linglong blinked her large, expectant eyes. “Daddy, is it good?”

Jiang Chen lowered the cup, meeting her hopeful gaze, and offered a warm smile along with a thumbs-up. “It is excellent, very good!”

Xu Linglong clapped her little hands in delight. “Really? Then drink the rest, Daddy! All in one gulp!”

The smile on Jiang Chen’s face instantly calcified into a grimace. “Thank you, but I am not thirsty right now.”

Xu Linglong tilted her head in confusion. “If it’s good, why won’t you finish it?”

Jiang Chen forced a wider grin. “Because it is so exquisite, I cannot bear to waste it all at once.”

Xu Linglong waved her hand with immense pride. “Don’t worry about that! I made a whole big barrel over there!”

Jiang Chen stared at her, momentarily stunned, before bursting into genuine laughter. “Hahahaha!”

…

…

After coaxing Linglong to sleep, Jiang Chen sat alone among the rice stalks and exhaled a long breath.

I am currently dealing with internal subversion and external threats.

I must maintain my defensive posture against the sect’s political operatives, while simultaneously surviving my daughter’s alchemical experiments.

Fortunately, her antics relieve the tension rather than compound it.

Shifting his focus to logistics, Jiang Chen retrieved the golden skeleton he had excavated from the Earth Vein.

This chassis possessed immense operational value.

If I refine it into a subterranean drone, it can operate indefinitely within the deep crust, ensuring a passive, uninterrupted supply of high-yield ores.

Constructs do not experience muscular fatigue. Coupled with the structural integrity of its ‘Golden Body,’ its excavation efficiency will exponentially surpass any standard Earth Spirit Root cultivator.

Theoretically, if raw materials permitted, he could establish an entire automated workforce.

He could weave botanical matter into a combat construct and deploy it to the Loose Cultivator markets to harvest demonic beast materials.

Alternatively, he could mass-produce agricultural drones to optimize the seven mu of his Spirit Farm.

The equation was simple: expanded automation correlated directly with exponential resource acquisition and territorial surveillance.

Let the political factions outside tear each other apart in their petty squabbles. Jiang Chen would remain an unmovable mountain, meticulously scaling the power hierarchy on his own terms.

With his Miracle Hands-tier proficiency in the Dao of Puppetry, the structural refinement was a trivial matter.

The only logistical hurdle was the biological casing; deploying a bare, golden skeleton into the field would attract unwanted anomalies.

Fortunately, the Nine Transformations of the Wandering Dragon provided a solution.

The Mirage Dragon technique could fabricate a hyper-realistic optical and spiritual camouflage, rendering the construct indistinguishable from a human unless scanned by an entity with a superior cultivation base.

Utilizing his movement techniques, Jiang Chen transported the heavy remains to a remote sector of the spatial realm, ensuring the kinetic shockwaves would not disturb Linglong’s rest.

Thud.

The colossal golden skeleton was planted firmly into the earth. It stood at least six and a half feet tall, possessing an impossibly dense, broad-shouldered frame.

Its passive, localized gravity was so immense that it effortlessly sank inches into the compacted soil, exuding a cold, industrial menace.

Jiang Chen ignited his cultivation base.

The Golden Core within his dantian revved like an arcane engine, flooding his meridians with highly pressurized Magic Power.

He stepped forward, his fingers tracing precise, glowing geometric patterns into the air. He began the molecular integration, searing two distinct arrays directly into the skeleton’s sternum.

The first was the Golden Body Defense Rune; the second, the Thick Earth Load-Bearing Rune.

Splicing these two matrices together reinforced the chassis’s structural integrity and drastically augmented its resistance to extreme subterranean pressures.

This modification would allow the drone to operate at depths fatal to human miners, maximizing the statistical probability of locating ultra-dense, rare mineral veins.

He meticulously etched the Golden Body runes across every inch of the skeletal surface.

Because he utilized a subterranean engraving technique, the circuit lines were virtually invisible to the naked eye.

The load-bearing arrays, however, were heavily concentrated around critical stress points: the spinal column, the scapulae, and the patellae.

Once the runic architecture stabilized, Jiang Chen extracted a heavy vial of Spirit Marrow from his Square Inch Ring.

It was a versatile alchemical binder with numerous elemental variants, ranging from jade to bone. The market value wildly fluctuated based on purity.

The specific grade Jiang Chen utilized was currently appraised at thirty Mid-grade Spirit Stones per pound.

Despite the specimen’s formidable golden luster, its micro-structure was plagued with porous cavities and hairline fractures.

Deploying it without a marrow-infusion would inevitably lead to rapid kinetic degradation and catastrophic structural failure.

Jiang Chen initiated the infusion sequence.

He guided the viscous liquid over the cranium, watching the Spirit Marrow seep into the microscopic fissures, perfectly sealing the internal vacuum pockets.

Moments later, the entire chassis emitted a deep, harmonic hum.

The skeleton vibrated, possessing the taut kinetic energy of a coiled spring.

Recognizing the optimal integration window, Jiang Chen decisively severed his fingertip.

He forcibly extracted a bead of his own blood, supercharged it with Magic Power, and etched the central command matrix onto the skull.

As the blood-ink bonded with the bone at a molecular level, the primary array flared to life.

An instantaneous neural link established itself in Jiang Chen’s mind. He could instantly process the construct’s diagnostic readouts, sensing every joint and articulation.

He fired a mental command.

The golden skeleton immediately snapped its arm upward, extending a rigid thumbs-up.

Jiang Chen ran it through a rigorous sequence of kinetic stress tests. It passed flawlessly. At its current operational capacity, it was ready for deployment.

However, generating a biological casing using a high-tier Spirit Pill that restores flesh and blood is an absurd misallocation of capital.

A synthetic polymer mesh utilizing lotus root powder and Spirit Marrow will serve the identical function.

Layering the Mirage Dragon Transformation over the mesh will finalize the optical illusion.

The engineering logic was sound. He would use the remaining marrow as an adhesive binder and sculpt a rudimentary anatomy from the lotus powder.

It was the most resource-efficient protocol, utilizing inventory he already had on hand.

Liquidating a priceless heavenly treasure simply to disguise a mining drone would be the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

Finalizing the schematic, Jiang Chen initiated the aesthetic phase.

Standard alchemical procedure required hydrating the lotus powder with water to achieve a gelatinous consistency.

Opting for maximum durability, Jiang Chen replaced the water with the remaining Spirit Marrow. The material cost spiked, but the resultant synthetic flesh would be exponentially tougher.

Once the polymer reached the correct viscosity, he rapidly plastered it over the golden armature.

The sculpting process was purely mechanical and required minimal artistic finesse.

Before long, a thick layer of synthetic tissue encased the drone.

The dense, matte-gray polymer completely smothered the dark golden radiance, rendering the chassis utterly inconspicuous.

Jiang Chen then executed the Mirage Dragon Transformation.

A torrent of gray mist cascaded from his palms, violently swirling around the construct.

As the mist settled and bonded with the polymer, the features refined.

The crude mannequin morphed into a distinctly human figure. Its facial expression, however, remained blank and deeply vacant.

It was an unavoidable flaw. The construct possessed a cranium but lacked a consciousness; it was merely an empty vessel awaiting hardcoded directives.

Jiang Chen evaluated his creation. “You require an operational designation. Since your endoskeleton is pure gold… I shall designate you the ‘Golden Miner.'”

Deploying it within the Cloud Sea Sect’s primary Earth Vein was a tactical error.

While Manager Yang was merely a Golden Core cultivator, the sector’s supreme authority was the Abyss Lord. If that entity detected an anomaly, Jiang Chen would lose a highly valuable asset.

Running geographical simulations, he isolated the perfect deployment zone.

He required an isolated sector rich in subterranean minerals.

The solution was obvious: his “new home” at Azure Rock Peak.

The deceased Jin Xuanzi had originally seized that territory precisely for its underlying ore deposits and latent spirit vein.

Allowing those resources to lie dormant was inefficient. Dispatching the Golden Miner to that coordinate was the optimal play.

Jiang Chen frowned, calculating the logistics. The physical distance between my current location and Azure Rock Peak is substantial. Unless…

His gaze shifted toward the Spatial Earth Essence Fruit tree anchoring his realm.

The botanical asset’s utility extended beyond fabricating spatial rings.

Its spatial frequencies could be harvested to establish teleportation arrays.

While mass-transit gates were beyond his current bandwidth, a localized, point-to-point transport relay was entirely feasible.

He had previously left the tree to develop autonomously. Approaching the massive trunk, he analyzed its growth cycle.

Despite four years of cultivation, it was locked in its initial flowering stage.

Had it not been cross-pollinated by the ambient energies of the Earthen Brown Awn mutated rice, its progression would be even slower.

The standard biological timeline was brutal: ten years to flower, ten years to fruit. A full twenty-year cycle per harvest.

Jiang Chen decisively initiated the Four Seasons Sutra.

He redlined his Golden Core, venting a torrential stream of Magic Power directly into the tree’s root system.

Previously, injecting pure Wood Spirit Qi had accelerated its cellular division.

Now, wielding a synchronized Five Elements foundation—specifically hyper-dense Wood and Earth attributes—the metabolic acceleration was explosive.

The Spatial Earth Essence Fruit tree surged upward at a visible rate.

Ambient tectonic energies violently coalesced around its base, calcifying into a dense, yellow earthen dais.

Moments later, a three-foot-tall, crystalline yellow stalk erupted from the center of the dais, followed immediately by the rapid, cascading bloom of heavy spatial petals!