It wasn't just the Soul Soil and the Soul Flowers though.
For example, the recipe required Soulsteel flakes, which was a Rank 6 Metal Path material that was also rare and expensive. Because the ingredients came from various differing paths, it could also make the cost vary considerably.
However, with Dang Hun Mountain currently sealed away and the system seemingly having exhausted its own reserves of Guts Gu, this was the best that Fang Yuan could do.
The tea preparation itself was also complex. Lu Wei Yin had done it in an hour, but he had clearly prepared some of the ingredients beforehand. Even with the right materials, one could end up botching the recipe and creating an ugly boiled mess instead. And if it was not brewed properly the effect would be lessened.
Given just how much of a headache the Soul Soothing Tea was to make, Fang Yuan had a feeling that even most Soul Path Cultivators would choose not to use it.
Even Fang Yuan could've just used his own Pill Path methods - the only difference was time. It would've taken him a few months in order to get his soul to the strength he was able to get in the span of a few hours by sipping this tea.
Was the price worth the time?
It would vary from person to person.
Of course, a mountain of Immortal Essence Stones could not easily buy one another second of time - not unless they had something like the Spring Autumn Cicada. Or Lifespan Gu. But even with Lifespan Gu, one could not turn the clock back.
For Rank 6 Immortals - at least most of them, the cost wasn't worth it. Even if they valued their time, they would end up bankrupting themselves simply trying to find a way to brew the tea.
To Fang Yuan in his current state though, it was.
He needed his soul to be fresh and ready in order to tackle the effects of exploring further dream realms. Without that, what was the use of his knowledge from the future when it came to the Dream Path? He had to capitalize in on it.
"I trust the formation path methods I've given you are sufficient," Lu Wei Yin said.
"Thy are, however, looking through them, they seem a bit... rudimentary. Are there more advanced methods available for sale?"
He needed to fix the formation for the Emotion Lilies within his aperture. He couldn't allow others into his aperture to do it for him - a major drawback of his unique situation. It was unlikely that he would even be able to comprehend something more complex were it handed to him, but Fang Yuan preferred to have that tool in case he needed it in the future. It was also possible, even if it was unlikely, that the answer might lie with more advanced methods.
"There are," Lu Wei Yin said, "but they are not things that can be bought simply." The message was clear - the methods existed, but he didn't think that Fang Yuan was ready for them yet. And that meant that no amount of negotiating from Fang Yuan would move his heart.
"I understand. Thank you for your patience," Fang Yuan said. "I will be leaving my Will within this Paradise as I depart in order to engage with business here in my absence."
"Good luck then. You are always welcome back; there is much here for you to explore," Lu Wei Yin replied. "There are quite a few marvelous areas here that one can only find with the Paradise - things that would not exist out there in the outside world. You can feel free to take a look at them whenever you'd like."
"Thank you for that offer," Fang Yuan said. "However, I must be going."
"If you don't mind me asking, what are your future plans now, Fang Yuan?" Lu Wei Yin asked.
"I intend to go back to meet up with my mortal clansmen," Fang Yuan said. "And after that, deal with business elsewhere."
"I wish you good fortune then," Lu Wei Yin said. "Remember, Fang Yuan, as one of Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable's inheritors, you must uphold his values wherever you go.
Fang Yuan cupped his hands and left the Mushroomman Paradise. He used Paradise Earth's formation to return to the Mushroomman Blessed Land.
Before he embarked to head towards Bei Gu Mountain, he evaluated his aperture.
If he wanted more of that tea ready so that he could use it in the future, the most important ingredient was Soul Soil. And for that, he needed a large amount of people to die.
It was one thing to wait for them to die peacefully - that was what Paradise Earth did. Fang Yuan had no qualms about killing them. The issue was that if that were the case, he never really would've had to rely on this kind of a roundabout method in the first place.
Fang Yuan had a large population of humans, and while he could not kill them directly for fear of interfering too much with the Integration Formation, many died naturally.
Their soul energy leaked into the soil.
It would have been better if they were Soul Beasts - which would enrich the soil far faster than ordinary human souls which had not been strengthened. Such beasts mainly grew in the apertures of Soul Path Immortals. But this was just one method of creating Soul Soil.
As Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable had described, one could create soul soil by compressing regular soil enriched with soul energy using Earth Path methods. It was inefficient to say the least - a thousand tons of regular soil generated only about a hundred or so kilograms of Soul Soil - but it was non-destructive and that was mainly what Paradise Earth concerned himself about.
Fang Yuan naturally went to Paradise Earth's continent first in order to fiddle with the soil there. Thankfully the method only involved mortal methods and so Fang Yuan could do so. Not many died within Paradise Earth Continent, but there were enough and given its large size Fang Yuan felt that he could start his production of Soul Soil there, though he would have to grow Soul Flowers somewhere like White Heaven in order to not interfere too much in things.
Fang Yuan was not going to take the Soul Soothing Tea again anytime soon. He felt energized now that his soul was back to where it was. The issue was that this only strengthened his soul further. It did not repair it. If Fang Yuan wanted to concentrate his soul, he would need something like Luo Po Valley, and if he wanted to pacify it he would need either Bewitching Lake or far more simply to just sleep and even out his soul.
That was why he was not going to explore the dream realm in question immediately, instead leaving it for a future day.
As he observed his aperture while doing this, he noticed something curious in the Fang Yuan Continent.
A group of humans had forsaken the surface world to live in tunnels.
Fang Yuan had already known about these people some time before, but he had assumed that they would not likely be able to accomplish anything. Either they would be hunted down by other groups of humans - or they would return to living on the surface.
Neither of those things happened.
He had joked to himself that they might become some kind of weird mole people, but this ended up not being far from the truth.
This tribe called themselves the Deep Dwellers, as they chose to live their lives permanently underground. That was why they had initially escaped Fang Yuan's notice.