Gods have no need to eat, so Morax actually doesn't need to eat. But living among the common people, sometimes he still wants to experience the mundane fires of human life.
Thus, in Morax's traveling palace, there is still a bit of grain stored.
However, after Phenex's arrival, Morax could forget about experiencing the mundane fires of human life for the next year.
"Is there more?" Phenex said while sucking on his finger.
"None left." Morax, coming out from the kitchen, shook his head. Truly, not a single grain of rice remained.
Phenex's expression was full of regret.
Morax almost condensed a celestial star to obliterate this kid I've let you eat all my snacks for a whole year, and you're still not satisfied?
"Well then, thank you for the hospitality. I'll be going."
Phenex wiped his mouth with his feathered garment. He hadn't changed this feathered garment, yet it remained spotless to this day.
So using it to clean the bit of grease from the corners of his mouth was just right.
Watching the oil-stained feathered garment become clean and tidy again, Phenex nodded in satisfaction and prepared to leave.
"Wait, Phenex." Morax called out to stop the young god. "Are you returning to your domain? Could you tell me where your domain is? I plan to visit you in the future."
"Domain?" Phenex pondered. "I don't have anything like that."
"..." Morax wasn't surprised.
A newborn god, even with immense power, has to start from zero. So if Phenex had a domain, that would be the unexpected thing.
"If I must say I have a domain, then this sky is my domain!" Phenex pointed at the blue sky and said.
"Isn't that just wandering the four seas as home?" Morax chuckled lightly. "Without a domain, where will you go?"
"Don't know. Wherever I walk to, that's where it counts."
"Then, before you find a place you want to go, how about staying here?" Morax asked.
This was the real reason Morax invited Phenex to the Guili Assembly. Morax had already foreseen that in the not-too-distant future, a great war would erupt between the gods.
Morax had no intention of contending for supremacy, but he understood that in that great war, no god could remain uninvolved.
Therefore, in preparation for the impending great war, Morax needed to make arrangements in advance.
A newborn god with limitless potential like Phenex was someone Morax hoped to win over as an ally; even if they couldn't become allies, at least establish good relations.
"Eh? Is that okay? If it's okay, then no problem."
And so, Phenex moved into Morax's traveling palace.
In the blink of an eye, thirty days and nights passed. Phenex spent a leisurely month in the Guili Assembly.
That day, Phenex took a bag of Mora and went out to the streets to find food. This was given to him by Morax, so that whenever he wanted to eat something, he could go buy it on the streets.
After all, Morax no longer had any surplus grain to give to Phenex.
However, as Phenex walked along, he didn't see any of the restaurants that usually opened at this time welcoming customers. Even those that hadn't closed were now preparing to close.
Phenex found one restaurant he often went to, and at that moment, it was also preparing to close.
He found the restaurant owner and asked, "Boss, are you not open today?"
The restaurant owner recognized Phenex, bowed respectfully, then gave a wry smile: "This little Adeptus, it's not that I don't want to do business. It's just that the recent drought is too severe, and grain prices keep rising.
"This business is getting harder and harder to do. We merchants see that we're about to lose money, and we don't want to go against our conscience by raising prices to profit from disaster, so we can only close."
Back when Phenex first followed Morax back to the traveling palace, the people of the Guili Assembly had all seen it.
At that time, Phenex's fiery wings weren't hidden, and since he looked very young, the people of the Guili Assembly didn't think of Phenex as a god at all. They simply regarded him as a shapeshifted Adeptus.
Thus, over this past month, rumors had spread throughout the Guili Assembly about a handsome, white-haired, red-eyed Adeptus with fiery wings who had arrived in the Guili Assembly.
Phenex didn't mind, and Morax had no intention of clarifying.
So in the eyes of the people of the Guili Assembly, Phenex was just a newly emerged little Adeptus.
"Drought... does it have anything to do with rising grain prices?" Phenex asked, puzzled.
The boss knew this "little Adeptus" lacked common sense, so he patiently explained: "Because the drought has caused poor grain harvests this year, there's less grain, so grain prices have risen."
"I see..." Phenex nodded. "Then, if there were enough grain, Boss, could you reopen?"
The food at this restaurant was, in Phenex's opinion, the best-tasting on the nearby street. So Phenex wanted this restaurant to keep operating.
"Of course." The boss showed Phenex a kind smile.
Although he knew the other was an Adeptus, the boss always subconsciously treated Phenex like his own nephew or niece to look after.
After all, Phenex was very small and very cute.
"Then I understand."
That evening, Phenex found Morax.
"Morax, do you know if there's any nearby land suitable for planting grain?"
"You want to plant grain?" Morax asked.
"Mm." Phenex nodded.
"It's been years of severe drought lately; grain is very hard to keep alive." Morax reminded him.
"I know. It's just a try. If it doesn't work, I'll give up." Phenex indicated he would act within his means.
Seeing this, Morax didn't plan to dissuade him. He immediately took Phenex to a nearby plot of farmland that was still relatively fertile.
Fertile was relative under the drought, land lacking rain's nourishment couldn't possibly continue growing grain.
Morax handed the farmland over to Phenex, then returned to think of ways to deal with the drought.
In his view, Phenex was just acting on a whim and didn't have the ability to solve the food shortage during the drought.
The notion of a god who controlled the fire element growing grain in a drought environment the still-young Morax firmly believed this was impossible.
However, what Morax didn't expect was that once Phenex started planting this grain, it lasted four months.
It had already been four months since Phenex left the Guili Assembly. During this period, neither the people of the Guili Assembly nor Morax had seen Phenex in the Guili Assembly.
"Has he already left? Or did he actually manage to grow something?" Morax muttered to himself.
A small hand appeared in front of him, waving.
"So absorbed~ Who are you thinking about?" A young girl with teal long hair looked at Morax with a half-smile.
"I'm thinking about Phenex. It's been four months since I received any news about him."
"The one you've been praising as the newborn god?"
Morax nodded, then changed the subject: "Haagentus, about that matter, how have you considered it?"
"I've said before, only when it's just us can you call me Guizhong." Guizhong said, then shook her head. "I was born from dust, and the first thing I saw was this sea of Glaze Lilies."
"But with the ongoing drought, Luhua Pool is on the verge of drying up, and the Glaze Lilies are about to wither."
Morax understood the meaning between Guizhong's words, sighed, and said: "If in the coming month, the drought and grain problems still can't be alleviated, then take the people of the Guili Assembly and head south."
Guizhong was reluctant to part with this land, but for the sake of the people of the Guili Assembly, she could abandon it.
Actually, for a drought of this degree, Morax and Guizhong could completely seek help from a god who controlled the water element.
With a god's power to change heaven and earth, granting Liyue a heavy rain was the simplest thing.
Just like that vortex god of the sea, Osial even though his authority could only fully display its power in the sea, he could still bring down torrential rains affecting all of Liyue.
However, at this time, relations between the gods were growing increasingly tense. It only needed one trigger for a monumental war among the gods to unfold.
Under such premises, whether a god bringing sweet rain or disaster to the people, to the Guili Assembly, to Liyue, was hard to say.
Even if there was a 99% chance such a thing wouldn't happen, Morax and Guizhong didn't dare gamble on that 1%.
So just a drought lasting one year had already somewhat stumped these two gods who had built the Guili Assembly together.
"Morax, I'm back!"
At that moment, a childish young voice came from the sky.
Morax and Guizhong both looked up to the sky together. A small figure with white hair, red eyes, and fiery wings on his back appeared before the two gods' eyes.