Fried Tea

Today is Xavier's third-day picking tea in this eerie tea garden. He's not exaggerating at all; this tea garden is truly strange. Xavier and his little skeleton worked hard to pick all the buds and tender leaves according to Ina's instructions, only to wake up the next morning and see a fresh green tea garden, looking exactly like before the plucking, which almost made him faint in frustration.

There's also a strange black cat in the tea garden. Every afternoon it would drag a mat to the tea trees for a nap. Once, Xavier happened to be picking tea leaves near the tree where the black cat was lying. The cat was disturbed and woke up. It glared at Xavier with its creepy eyes, seemingly reprimanding him for disturbing its peaceful dream.

this cat was giving him a hard time. Just as Xavier was about to teach it a lesson, Ina tapped on the window to remind him, "Watch your step, don't hurt the black cat."

Xavier rolled his eyes, realizing he couldn't make a move on the black cat unless he wanted another headache from spell backlash.

It was already afternoon today, but the usually punctual black cat was nowhere to be seen in the tea garden. Xavier maliciously thought that perhaps someone had caught and stewed it.

He didn't see the black cat again until evening. During dinner, he casually mentioned it and received a calm response from Ina: "Oh, that cat? It's gone."

The black cat had been clingy these past few days, following Ina wherever she went. Since the time Ina unintentionally took the black cat to the Extreme Cold Icefield, she never takes it to the branch stores. Until this morning, when she went to the branch store in Neranka, the black cat followed her there again.

The black cat wandered around near the entrance of the restaurant, its eyes moving from the sea opposite to the nearby port as if confirming something. Finally, it lifted its paw and tapped on the door.

Donne, staring unblinkingly at the cat that the boss had brought, was afraid that it would cause some trouble. He had even closed the door to prevent it from running out. Seeing the black cat knock on the door, Donne immediately shouted, "Miss Ina, it seems like this cat wants to go out and play!"

Ina didn't turn her head, "Open the door for it."

Huh? What if it gets lost? Although Donne was puzzled, he did as he was told. Since this is a cat raised by Miss Ina, it would certainly remember the way home.

When Elvys realized he had arrived in Neranka, he thought to himself that this was true as expected. The effect of the shape-shifting potion was about to expire, and he had to leave as soon as possible. Noticing that Ina seemed to have found a channel for buying cheap food in bulk, and considering her previous behavior, he deduced that she must have built a teleportation circle leading to Neranka.

This conveniently allowed him to drop by Neranka and assess the performance of the local officials.

When Donne opened the door, the cat didn't leave. Instead, it let out a somewhat eerie roar, as if calling for someone.

Sure enough, Miss Ina came out. The black cat jumped onto the table and stretched out a paw toward Ina.

Ina also reached out her hand, letting the paw rest on it, and asked softly, "Are you leaving?"

The black cat tapped its paw twice. Ina roughly ruffled the cat's head and cheerfully said, "Go !"

Elvys was stunned. This person often touched the tip of his tail when he was not prepared and played with him in various ways. After all this time together, she actually didn't care about him at all!

He hesitated for a moment, seeing Ina standing there, waiting to see him off. Elvys gritted his teeth and dashed out of the restaurant.

Watching the black cat disappear around the corner, Ina turned to ask Donne, "How is the barley I asked you to prepare?"

Donne immediately replied, "I've been keeping the barley grains moist these days. They've sprouted now."

"I'll take a look." Ina turned and headed to the second floor.

A refined young man came around the corner of the street. He was tall, his pale cheeks devoid of any color. Beneath his long lashes were a pair of still, blood-red eyes.

He stood in the street, staring at the sign of the restaurant.

A carriage rumbled from a distance, and the governor of Neranka got down from it. Looking at the wooden sign hanging on the door, he confirmed, "It's here the Dragon Flame Restaurant."

His role as the governor was laborious and humble. Neranka, as the backyard of Duke Elvys, and the granary and exile land of the empire, was under the watchful eyes of many. The Neranka Guard, as a direct unit under the knight commander of Asland, was not only responsible for supervising Nelanca's prison and city security but also had a say in political matters.

A restaurant had recently opened at the port, and a captain of the guard had reported a problem with the amount of food being purchased. He had also warned the governor that the restaurant was equipped with a rare magical artifact, suggesting that the restaurant's owner could be a person of significance, and advised him to investigate carefully.

After much hesitation, the governor decided to investigate personally, accompanied by his men. If the restaurant were opened by some powerful mage experimenting with a simpler life, he didn't want his rude subordinates to offend them.

As soon as the governor stepped off the carriage, he saw Elvys standing outside.

Was this a "possible person of significance"? This was definitely someone of significance!

The governor applauded his own caution and softly called out, "Your Grace? You..."

Elvys turned, "What are you doing here?"

The governor's words were cut short as he was caught off guard. Seeing his reaction, it didn't seem to be anything urgent, and Elvys bombarded him with questions, "What is the grain yield in Neranka so far this year? How much land has been newly reclaimed? Have there been any prisoner riots, and what losses have been incurred?"

The governor was in a cold sweat, not daring to meet Elvys's eyes. However, because he was hands-on in his duties, he was not completely clueless even when faced with the duke's sudden check.

Elvys climbed onto the carriage and went to inspect the farmland with the governor.

Donne gazed out the window absent-mindedly. The silhouette of the man standing outside looked somewhat like Duke Elvys.

"I'll have a pork cutlet rice with scrambled eggs!"

"Coming right up!" Donne withdrew his gaze, dismissing his absurd thoughts. How could it be possible?

in the Dragon Flame Restaurant, the captain of the guard, Gavin, was enjoying the dry pot shrimp in front of him. He marveled at the delicious texture of the shrimp meat, "I've eaten all the sea shrimps caught in this area, and none of them can match this one."

His teammate, Gota, was unhappy, "You like the food in the Dragon Flame Restaurant so much that you come here every day, yet you still made a fuss to the governor."

"What do you know?" Gavin retorted. "Eating is a part of life, reporting is a duty. The restaurant bought food far more than it needed for daily operations, which should be reported to the governor by rule."

The others looked at each other and shrugged.

Gavin defended himself. "Why do I come here every day? Wasn't it me who sent you guys to investigate? What did you report back to me? On x month, xx days, Dragon Flame Restaurant purchased ten tons of wheat flour and two tons of rice, and we had stir-fried noodles with vegetables and meat and steamed meat with sticky rice; on x month, xy day, Dragon Flame Restaurant purchased two tons of barley, and we had potato omelet and sweet and sour fish..."

"How can I not come to eat after reading these reports?!" Gavin declared righteously.

Ina checked the status of the barley malt, estimating that it would be ready for beer production in one more day. She reminded Donne that she had added several new dishes to the menu, such as sugar snowballs and candied haw series, which she categorized as desserts.

Through the holographic menu, Donne immediately understood the characteristics of the newly introduced desserts. Just looking at their attractive appearance, he knew that the group of noble young ladies who often came to the restaurant would definitely like them.

"Next time when Miss Jacqueline and her friends come, I'll definitely recommend the new items to them."

"Do nobles often dine at the restaurant?" Ina asked, somewhat concerned about any impact arrogant nobles could have on the restaurant's operations and other customers, "Do they cause trouble?"

Donne gave a subtle smile, "This is Neranka, the nobles here are well-behaved."

Ina understood the responsibilities and rotation system of the guard after Donne explained them to her. It turned out that an envoy who could file a complaint was standing by.

It seemed that Neranka was a good city indeed. Although Ina meet escaping prisoners on her first day here, overall, it was a livable city. No wonder, despite its reputation as a city of sin, many people had settled here.

The next day, Ina took away all the barley malt and asked Donne to inquire if there were any local farmers looking to sell small vineyards.

She didn't want to brew beer forever. She had heard that the wine made in holy oak barrels had the best taste. Ina received another bounty from Mr. Wenter, a total of 100 gold coins. The identity of Jim Cliff was still being verified, so the Mercenary Guild temporarily offered a bounty of 20 gold coins.

Now Ina had almost 200 gold coins in hand. Although she couldn't buy a large vineyard, it should be enough to purchase a smaller one.

Donne agreed to keep an eye out for any vineyards for sale. He hesitated before saying, "There are no private vineyards in Neranka, but there are a few in the nearby smaller towns."

"Let's look around in those areas. The scale can be smaller, but the quality of the grapes must not be too poor."

Donne nodded, indicating that he remembered.

---

Brewing is not an easy task. The roasted malt needed to go through several steps such as crushing, gelatinization, boiling, cooling, and fermenting. Ina followed the procedures step by step according to the chef job skill book she drew, "Top 100 Best-Selling Drinks", and finally sent the finished malt juice into the holy oak brewing barrel for fermentation.

On top of the brewing barrel, it showed the words: 71:59:43 until fermentation is completed.

This meant that in three days, Dragon Flame Restaurant would have its first batch of beer.

Ina also made malt sugar, earning high praise from Anty, who loved anything sweet.

The beer was waiting to ferment. The next problem before Ina was how to roast tea leaves. After drying the freshly picked tea leaves, Ina heated up a pan to roast the tea.

The first batch of tea leaves she practiced with were the ones Xavier picked on the first day. Knowing whether he was unhappy or simply clumsy, these tender leaves were all damaged. Ina thought while kneading the tea leaves, even if this whole batch was wasted, she wouldn't feel heartbroken.

While roasting the tea leaves, Ina discovered one of her advantages: she can be bothered by the heat of the iron pan at all. Her fingers could more accurately feel the temperature, making it easier to adjust.

After roasting a batch of tea leaves, whose quality was poor due to the raw materials, Ina put new tea leaves into the pan. These were freshly picked by Xavier recently. The Lich had become less gloomy, and he would now respond to greetings from town residents he knew. He also learned to use magic to pick tea leaves to increase efficiency, leaving the tender leaves unscathed.

Five pounds of fresh leaves could turn into one pound of dry tea. One tea tree could yield about ten pounds of fresh leaves, producing between 2 to 3 pounds of dry tea. After six days of picking, Xavier produced 130 pounds of dry tea leaves, all of which were unfermented green tea. The tea trees could still produce for another twenty or so days, and Ina planned to make more varieties of tea.

The roasted dry tea leaves could not be brewed immediately, as they could irritate the stomach lining and cause stomach pain. They needed to be stored for at least ten days before use.