Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 126 The Feast of Immortal Destiny (Part 1)
Coincidentally, Murong Zhen wasn't the only one whose life changed because of a cup of tea.

Among the guests, three people actually broke through their martial arts skills on the spot because of drinking tea!

After the initial shock, many people began to feel that it was only natural.

This is a Celestial Feast! How could a banquet hosted by the only ancient immortal in the world, Immortal White Stone, be anything but ordinary!

Breaking through in martial arts is not easy, especially among the guests present. There are three Grandmasters and even more Venerables. Even the weakest, Murong Zhen, has a fifth-rank cultivation level, which is considered top-notch in the martial arts world.

The higher the martial arts rank, the harder it is to break through. Some people are stuck at a certain rank their whole lives, unable to make any progress. But a mere bowl of tea allowed three people to break through...

Horror!
It truly lives up to its reputation as "celestial tea" bestowed by the gods!
After those people broke through to the next level and finished their meditation, they didn't bother to offer congratulations to those around them, and instead expressed their gratitude to Zhang Chengdao: "Thank you so much for the tea, Immortal Baishi!"

"I never imagined that after being imprisoned at the third rank for so many years, I would be able to break through to the Grandmaster realm just before I die. Immortal Bai Shi truly has the grace to give me a second life..."

"Having received this divine favor, I have no regrets in this life..."

Zhang Chengdao smiled and waved his hand, saying, "The so-called breakthrough in rank is something you have all accumulated over a long time, and you just need an opportunity."

"The teas served at the Immortal Fate Banquet are merely spiritual flower and fruit teas, the most common 'Rose and Peach Tea,' which are not worth much. If you like them, you may purchase them from the White Stone Immortal Sect in the future."

He really intended to rely on the products he currently produced to exchange goods with the outside world in the long term, so as to make some money to expand the sect.

After all, it's not right to keep spending the money of the three disciples, and exchanging for [gold ingots] from the mall is not cost-effective. It's better to sell the "agricultural and sideline products" and processed "special products" of the White Stone Immortal Sect.

The roses in "Rose Fairy Peach Tea" are spiritual plants that Zhang Chengdao synthesized and used to decorate flower beds. He specially picked them and cultivated them in the herb garden to produce roses.

The rose petals produced by this golden finger, after being dried and processed into tea, are not at all astringent like modern rose teas. Combined with dried peach pieces, the resulting tea has a wonderfully complex aroma of flowers and fruit, incredibly fragrant and rich. Zhang Chengdao even specially mixed some milk with this tea, creating a veritable "Rose Peach Milk Tea"—even Emperor Ruyan was captivated by it!

Unfortunately, milk is not easy to obtain consistently, and the cattle raised by the Mohe people are not the modern, multi-improved dairy cows. The milk of this era not only has a fishy smell but is also salty, making it unsuitable for making milk tea or desserts. Therefore, we still have to wait until the disciples "join the company" and arrange for someone to raise the calves bought from the mall in the [cattle pen] to obtain milk with better taste in the long term.

Furthermore, many things that are not very valuable to Zhang Chengdao can be sold, and at high prices, such as low-level medicines, appearance items, equipment, and magic weapons. Even an ordinary iron sword that he casually conjured up is a rare treasure outside. Why not sell it!
We'll build a market here in the plaza, and set up an "external trade department" to handle trade "outside the sect gates." After managing the sect and nurturing this new industry, selling our sect's trendy little gadgets, making a fortune won't be a problem!
Zhang Chengdao was secretly plotting something, and the guests were also very excited to hear it.

The gods are actually willing to sell things that only gods can enjoy!?

There is such a good thing! ?
Emperor Murong Zhen of Xiao Kingdom immediately said loudly, "I wonder how much of the 'Rose Peach Tea' that Immortal Baishi produces? I can have the Xuanhui Academy purchase it all!"

Zhang Chengdao replied, "Initially, it wasn't much, because my White Stone Immortal Sect was newly established, and I didn't have time to plant too many flowers and herbs. But in the future, it will probably be tens of thousands of kilograms every year. Even if we harvest them all, we probably won't be able to finish them all. We should still purchase according to the situation!"

Even so, he was still being conservative! The peach saplings bought from the mall produce peaches in a completely unreasonable way, yielding twice a month, and each peach tree can produce at least several hundred kilograms each time. Considering the entire peach orchard, the output is by no means low!

Even if the roses are growing at a normal rate, it's hard to say what will happen after a few years of cultivation!

Upon hearing this, Murong Zhen simply smiled slightly and said, "Very well."

If it's too expensive, he really can't afford to buy tens of thousands of kilograms—don't think that being an emperor makes you rich, Xiao Kingdom is poor!
As everyone chatted, Zhang Chengdao laid out the dishes for the Immortal Fate Banquet.

The first dish Zhang Chengdao presented was steamed crab.

Actually, this stuff is quite precious. He's drawn so many red envelopes over the past few months, and he's only drawn three sets of ingredients, which add up to 90 servings of crab. The steamed crab he made is only enough for one serving per table.

But it is precisely because they are precious that Zhang Chengdao specially displayed them.

He has dozens of different dishes in his backpack. If he were to serve them all, there wouldn't be enough space on the small wooden table, so he can only choose a few to serve.

Besides steamed crab, there were also Dongpo pork, Bijian soup, steamed green dragon, phoenix soup, braised ground sesame, glutinous rice chicken, radish and pork rolls, pickled fish, pumpkin stew, and celery meat, among other dishes. The table was filled with a dazzling array of dishes, and even the well-traveled and well-fed Mr. Ye Lingying, who was more extravagant than the emperor in the palace, was amazed by the variety of food.

"Especially these lake crabs, I've never seen them this big before!"

Ye Lingying stroked his beard and picked up the crab that occupied the entire steamer basket with great interest.

The dishes served by Golden Hand are all served in a uniformly sized steamer, large enough to hold five palm-sized meat buns, but only one crab can be steamed in each one – which shows how big the crab is!
Compared to that, questions like "How can Baishishan, located far inland, transport such large lake crabs from Jiangnan and keep them so fresh?" are no longer problems.

This was Murong Zhen's first time eating crab!

Not only the crabs, but most of the dishes on the table were ones he was trying for the first time.

Mu Feng watched with trepidation, fearing that his emperor might get carried away with his gluttony and cause trouble—at which point the civil and military officials would start asking him to be executed again!

Fortunately, Murong Zhen knew that the dishes at the "Immortal Fate Banquet" were a gift from the gods, and he couldn't find them even if he wanted to. So he didn't dwell on it too much. Instead, he lamented that if he didn't want to be the emperor, he would want to cultivate immortality just for this one bite of food!
Halfway through the banquet, Zhang Chengdao finally spoke, saying, "The martial arts world has been in decline for a long time, while spiritual energy is reviving; this is the will of Heaven."

"I am acting on the will of Heaven to enlighten all living beings because I cannot bear to see chaos about to descend."

(End of this chapter)