Reverend Insanity, Cloud Cover Continent.
Inside the First Cloud City, the Langya Earth Spirit sat Fang Yuan down.
"Come, Fang Yuan, have some tea. This is the famous Fire Rainbow Tea!" The Langya Earth Spirit said with enthusiastic warmth.
Fang Yuan accepted the cup and saw that the tea water was a deep, luminous red. Looking closer, there was a streak of rainbow light inside, darting left and right, up and down like a playful fish.
Fang Yuan had five hundred years of past-life experience and an incredibly broad perspective.
Ordinary fine tea had to be savored slowly, sipped in small amounts. But this tea was an exception — it had to be drunk in one gulp. The key was the streak of rainbow light within the tea; only by swallowing it into one's stomach could one truly taste the Fire Rainbow Tea.
Fang Yuan held the cup, gazing at the tea water, but did not drink.
His physical body was excellent, and for a moment, thoughts surged through his mind, scattering in all directions.
The current Langya Earth Spirit loved drinking Fire Rainbow Tea. The previous one, however, had favored Cloud Smoke Tea.
The two teas were different, reflecting the vastly different temperaments of the two Langya Earth Spirits.
And one of the main ingredients of Cloud Smoke Tea was Floating Ball Tea Grass.
This was the primary plant that Tai Bai Yun Sheng cultivated in his blessed land. Floating Ball Tea Grass floated in the sky, quite extraordinary.
Floating Ball Tea Grass was relatively high-end, growing in the sky where mortals could hardly harvest it.
But in the Northern Plains, there was another tea flower far more approachable and down-to-earth, called the Milk Tea Flower.
This flower grew in great abundance across the Northern Plains' grasslands. In areas with lush water and vegetation, it could be found practically everywhere, in enormous numbers. The Milk Tea Flower's shape resembled a cup. Every few days, the cup would fill with sweet flower juice on the verge of overflowing.
The flower juice was sweet and fragrant, attracting countless wild bees and butterflies to feed on it, while also relying on these insects to spread the flower's seeds.
Of course, ordinary people could drink it too.
Gu Masters living in the Northern Plains, and even mortals, had almost all tasted this natural drink.
In truth, tea and wine were popular beverages not only in the Northern Plains but across all five regions.
In the Southern Border, Blue Sea Cloud Tea Bricks were sold. But the origin of these tea bricks was not the Southern Border — it was the Eastern Sea. One of the Southern Border's supreme powers, the Yi Family, had inextricable ties to the Eastern Sea. Every year, they sold untold numbers of Blue Sea Cloud Tea Bricks across the Southern Border, earning vast wealth.
In the Central Continent, the varieties of tea were even more numerous. Spirit Fate Abode's Qingpu Tea, and Ten Thousand Dragon Dock's Jiao Shadow Tea, were both famous and widely known.
There were also teas uniquely crafted by Immortal Gu Masters — teas that only a particular Immortal could make.
For example, Fairy Li Shan's Snow Oil Tea, Feng Jiuge's Azure Sea Tide Tea, and so on.
The Langya Earth Spirit saw that Fang Yuan still hadn't drunk and coughed, unable to help urging him: "Elder Fang Yuan, drink quickly, drink quickly! You may not fully understand. The key to drinking Fire Rainbow Tea is—"
Fang Yuan waved his hand. "I've long heard of Fire Rainbow Tea. It's just that picking up this cup suddenly brought all sorts of other thoughts to mind, and I was distracted for a moment."
The Langya Earth Spirit asked, "Then what did you think of, Elder Fang Yuan? Was it the recent situation of our Langya Sect opening Tai Qiu?"
"That's not it." Fang Yuan smiled and calmly shared the random associations that had drifted through his mind.
The Langya Earth Spirit's face fell with disappointment, and forced himself to respond: "You are the master of the Spring Autumn Cicada, a person reborn, with broad horizons and vast experience. You know quite a lot about tea. But did you know? Both tea and wine rose to prominence and spread widely through the Food Path."
"Oh? Is that so?" Fang Yuan's interest was immediately piqued.
To be precise, he was very interested in the Food Path.
He was currently managing his immortal aperture, and the primary objective was to develop various resources to meet the feeding demands of the immortal Gu in his possession.
But if he could master the Food Path, feeding his immortal Gu would become far easier.
Unfortunately, the Food Path was extremely mysterious. It had flourished for a time in history, but that period was also very brief. The further back in time one looked, the less was transmitted — even rarer than the Wisdom Path inheritance. It was likely on the verge of complete extinction.
Regarding the Food Path, Fang Yuan had learned some little-known secrets through the memories of the Demon Venerable You Hun during the Battle of Yi Tian Mountain.
It turned out the creator of the Food Path was not a human Gu Immortal, but a Beastman Gu Immortal. This was probably the primary reason for the Food Path's current predicament.
But for Fang Yuan, it didn't matter who had created this path — as long as it was useful to him. The vast majority of human Gu Immortal held a sense of racial pride, but Fang Yuan did not.
If the Fur Folk could better help him achieve his goal of eternal life, he would unhesitatingly abandon his human identity and become one of them.
Seeing that the Langya Earth Spirit also had considerable knowledge of the Food Path, Fang Yuan eagerly continued to inquire.
The Langya Earth Spirit then revealed: "In truth, the creation of any kind of tea, or the brewing of any wine, is an unfinished Gu recipe."
"If completed, it can refine a special Tea Gu or Wine Gu. In this world, there are already many Wine Gu and Tea Gu — such as the famous Wine Worm and the Big Smoke Tea Gu."
The Wine Worm needed no introduction. After his rebirth, Fang Yuan had benefited greatly from it, enabling rapid development in the early stages.
The Big Smoke Tea Gu was a Gu that could addict a Gu Master, making them increasingly decadent. Suppressed by those in power, it was essentially this world's drug.
"Unfortunately, the Food Path did not spread far and already shows signs of extinction."
"Nowadays, when many Gu Immortal wish to test each other's attainment in the refinement path, they no longer use the literary or martial contests of the Central Continent's Gu Refining Assembly. Instead, they simply face each other, brew a cup of tea, and drink together — and who is superior can often be determined just like that."
The Langya Earth Spirit's answer left Fang Yuan somewhat disappointed.