This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder-Chapter 706: Divine Wine

Tianyi didn’t usually like to drink, but he downed many cups. He had always thought he would be unmoved by praise—mostly—at least, not enough to drink endlessly. He was wrong and not wrong. The people toasting him had simply found the wrong target. Each time someone praised Yinian, he would finish a cup of wine in one gulp. It could be said that for the first time in his life, he drank more than Daoyi.

Two factors contributed to this: Tianyi’s own actions and Daoyi’s drinking capacity. Daoyi had always been a lover of fine wine; that was already the case before the apocalypse occurred on Earth. With her divine body, drunkenness should have been an impossible state for her, but who told Tianyi to present divine wine for today’s banquet?

It wasn’t just limited to wine from the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System, but many types of alcohol from various systems in the universe. After revealing his divine power, Tianyi visited the divinities of other systems. With his influence over the cross-universe portals, everyone had to treat him courteously. Every time he visited someone, he would return with bountiful gifts. Of course, he also brought his own presents.

Even if he was honored, it didn’t mean Tianyi could coast on those honors. If he took too much advantage, while the divinities might not say anything, they would definitely be dissatisfied—but that was neither here nor there.

The point was, included among the gifts were many wines, including divine wine.

Daoyi loved those especially, but the quantities were low. So, Tianyi planned to brew his own. Any skilled alchemist was also a skilled brewer, not to mention Tianyi, who was a master of alchemy, artificing, and formations. While he possessed the skills, he couldn’t become a master brewer instantly. Tianyi needed recipes.

Although Tianyi easily gained recipes for brewing alcohol unique to the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System, he needed to trade with the other systems for their brewing methods and recipes.

It wasn’t difficult. Elixir recipes might be closely guarded secrets, but alcohol? Even certain types of alcohol with miraculous effects were primarily made for enjoyment. How powerful could their effects be?

Divine wine was rare because it took a certain amount of skill and time to brew correctly. More importantly were the ingredients. More often than not, the materials used to brew alcohol would be better spent concocting an elixir or pill.

That was no trouble for Tianyi. The only thing he needed was time. True, he could speed up time within his Nine Heavens Universe, but only to a certain point. If he sped it up too much, the alcohol would be tainted by fluctuations in spacetime. While it might give insights into the Law of Space or the Law of Time, the taste would be ruined.

Tianyi brewed them in large batches, and even after they were finished, he still let them age. He only occasionally brought them out for celebrations and treats—mostly for Daoyi. Because of all the brewing, he became slightly interested in cocktails.

After all, if I failed, she probably wouldn’t be able to get new ones easily. It’s easy to go from frugal to extravagant, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. That was Tianyi’s thought at the time.

But at this banquet, he had completely disregarded all that. A banquet that should have ended after several days ended in less than half a day because nearly everyone became drunk.

Not even Yinian was an exception.

Tianyi sighed. After everyone was plastered, he finally regained his rationality. Daoyi was leaning against him with her eyes closed, hugging a wine jug, with air entering and exiting her nose. On his other side, Yinian was both crying and laughing, talking about the hardships of his life. Sometimes, he glared at Tianyi and slapped him, but other times, he talked to the air as if someone were sitting there.

He looked at the wine cup in his hand. Did I make the alcohol too potent?

Helpless, Tianyi could only summon the servant-disciples and have them attend to the guests. While he could teleport all the guests back as easily as flipping his hand, that would lose some of the ritual and might even displease some of them. Being able to do something and actually doing it were two different things.

It took over three days for Yinian to get over his hangover. Daoyi recovered the next morning. In fact, she skipped the hangover entirely and felt refreshed upon waking up.

As expected of a chronic alcoholic!

As for everyone else, it took from a week to over a month. This included Tianyi’s disciples, who were all at the peak of the Origin Immortal Realm. Taking a week to get over a hangover was actually considered excellent. During the hangover, they were incapacitated and unable to work.

None of the guests blamed Tianyi for this. In fact, those who could have attended but chose not to were extremely envious of those who did.

Everyone who had attended the banquet and drunk the divine wine discovered that their comprehension of worldly laws had increased. Although the increase in comprehension wasn’t always in the law they majored in, any progress was welcome.

The ones who received the most envy were the attendees who felt their affinity with a law increase. The comprehension progress was a one-time thing, but improved affinity would serve them farther down the road, and it was permanent.

Soon, rumors of this divine banquet appeared on forums in the Xiyinet. As time passed, the actual events became more and more exaggerated. Rumor had it that over a thousand mortals attended the banquet and, after becoming drunk, all became immortals. In another rumor, the Nine Heavens Divinity sired a child, causing all who witnessed the divine prince’s birth to immediately become immortal sovereigns, and so on.

Tianyi only scrolled through the rumors and read them with interest. At the moment, he was introducing his disciples to Yinian.

“This is my eldest disciple, Jinshu,” Tianyi said, pointing at a man who appeared to be in his fifties, with wrinkles and gray temples. “He was an aborigine from one of the many lower realms controlled by the Immortal Court, and I accepted him as my disciple because of fate.”

He gestured toward another man. Like the first, the hair at his temples had completely grayed, but his face remained youthful, like that of a man in his prime. “This is my second disciple, Leng Junfeng. He was someone my clone accepted as a disciple from a lower realm and eventually ascended by cultivating to the Pathfinding Immortal Realm.”

Next, Tianyi gestured toward a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties. “This is Ming Xingyun, my third disciple. Don’t let her petite looks fool you; she has the most brute strength among all my disciples.”

The disciple gave a displeased look. “Isn’t that because you kept leading me to master brute-force techniques, Master?”

Tianyi ignored her and let out a sound as if recalling something. “My disciples aren’t ranked according to the time when I accepted them, but by their power.”

He cast a side-eye at his last disciple. “Is what I’d like to say, but this rascal purposely loses every time and stays at the last rank.”

Yinian also observed Tianyi’s last disciple. In complete contrast to the three introduced beforehand, the fourth disciple was a primate with a physique similar to that of humans and clad in full armor.

“This is Sun Wutian—” Tianyi began, but Yinian cut him off.

“The Seven Heavens Great Sage!”

It didn’t surprise Tianyi that Yinian knew about Sun Wutian’s great fame. Probably because he was a fan of Sun Wukong, Tianyi added Sun Wutian’s story and popular fables into the creation myth of the Nine Heavens Universe. Not to mention that he narrated Sun Wutian’s journey to Yinian as a bedtime story.

Yinian stared at Sun Wutian with stars in his eyes. Before anyone knew it, Yinian was animatedly conversing with the monkey, forgetting everyone else.

“Master, you’re so biased, only telling your son stories about Fourth Junior Brother,” Ming Xingyun joked.

Tianyi glared back, but with no real anger. “Who told your stories not to be interesting enough?”

Forget them—even Tianyi was beginning to get jealous of his fourth disciple. Yinian’s reverent gaze was almost blinding.

Perhaps the most crucial aspect was that Sun Wutian had reached the Half-Divine Realm. Even against Yinian’s powerful bloodline, he could suppress the latter because he reached his current level through his own efforts. It was also undeniable that Sun Wutian was the most talented of Tianyi’s four disciples.

Over a hundred thousand years had passed, but Jinshu, Leng Junfeng, and Ming Xingyun all appeared older. A cultivator’s age often reflected their mindset. Except for female cultivators who purposely made themselves look younger, cultivators who appeared to be in their later years often no longer made any progress.

Although his first three disciples had not reached that point, they no longer came to Tianyi as often as before to seek guidance. Not because they didn’t want to, or because Tianyi prevented them from doing so, but because their progress would not advance even with Tianyi’s aid.

Tianyi had also poured many resources into them. The amount of resources they used could bankrupt immortal sovereigns, and had Tianyi not had access to the entire Nine Heavens Universe, he would have felt the strain of using so many resources.

Right now, they were stuck at the bottleneck every immortal sovereign before them had faced. No amount of resources from Tianyi could help them now. The next step was to reach the Divine Realm.

As for why not the Half-Divine Realm—only a few had that potential. Sun Wutian qualified because he cultivated the Dream Divinity Script and formed an inner world, an embryo of a divine world. So although he did not have divine blood, this gave him the potential to reach the Half-Divine Realm.

It was not that Tianyi did not try to teach the improved Nine-Five Scripture method to his three disciples, but they simply did not have the talent to form an inner world. Even if time regressed and they returned to being transcending mortality saints, they would likely die of old age before being able to form an inner world like Sun Wutian. So while forming an inner world after becoming immortal was more difficult than before entering the Immortal Realm, it actually had a higher chance of success.

While Jinshu, Leng Junfeng, and Ming Xingyun all coveted the power of an inner world, they saw little hope. In their eyes, their chances of mastering a divine-level law were higher than forming an inner world ahead of time. In fact, they also suggested that those who could use the Nine-Five Scripture to form an inner world be designated as divine seeds. Just as immortal seeds were disciples with a high chance of becoming immortals, these divine seeds were those with high potential to enter the Divine Realm.

“How’s your progress? Do you need any resources?” Tianyi asked, eliciting strange looks from his three disciples.

Although Tianyi was never stingy with resources, he only gave them according to what he thought his disciples needed. And if they thought Tianyi was wrong and asked him to change it, Tianyi would do so if he believed their reasons were correct. More often than not, Tianyi tailored experiences for them to increase their comprehension.

Most of the resources Tianyi gave were meant to increase the power of the immortal body or soul. Only on rare occasions did he gift resources that could directly increase their comprehension of worldly laws.

The three disciples shared a look before shaking their heads.

“No need. We already have all that we need,” Ming Xingyun said.

“Are you sure? It’s not just about current resources, but also future ones. I might be busy in the future and not be by your side,” Tianyi said.

Again, the three of them objected.

Tianyi didn’t insist, but he made up his mind to distribute some treasures to his disciples. He stopped Yinian’s and Sun Wutian’s conversation and ignored the former’s discontent. Daoyi was also present.

“It’s been a while since we all took a trip together. Let’s all have fun—especially since this is Yinian’s first time. He should see the wider world and the other systems.”