Q Takes You On A Tour Of Genshin Impact's Serenitea Pot, How It Works, And What's Great About It

It's been just about two weeks since miHoYo released Genshin Impact's v1.5 update Beneath the Light of Jadeite, adding quite a bit of new content, including the game's new player housing system, the Serenitea Pot. The pot, created as a 'thank you' gift by the Adepti of Liyue, is very similar in nature to the Adepti realms player have visited in the past. In fact, when choosing the look of your realm, one of the three choices is the platforms and glowing bridges we generally see in those areas -- the Floating Abode. I chose the Emerald Peak realm to start out with. This is similar to the tall mountain areas in Liyue. The third option is Cool Isle, an island-themed realm. Over time, you can unlock all three realms, so none of us are stuck with our original choice.

One surprising thing about the realm is its immense size. I don't mean the fact that it's bigger on the inside. That should be expected from a realm that exists inside a teapot. (Either that or we've been shrunken down to fit into it.) But, the actual size of the realm, both inside and outside the mansion is bigger than most MMO and RPG players might expect based on previous housing experiences.

When first entering the teapot after completing the quest "A Teapot to Call Home: Part I", you'll discover a main area with only the mansion and the teapot spirit Tubby. But, that's not the limit to the space available. As you work on your realm, you'll be increasing your Trust Rank with Tubby, which not only offers rewards in the form of items but transforms Tubby (making her look even cuter) and eventually expands the non-mansion space of your teapot to include three other (smaller) areas. In the case of my realm, there are even smaller mountain peaks that you can climb around on, but these can't be built on, so are more or less aesthetic.

So, the obvious question is, 'What do you do with all this space?' The answer is simple. You fill it up -- preferably in a way that looks nice. After all, it is your home and your Genshin Impact friends can come to visit or you can visit them. The whole visiting thing is heavily encouraged and in some cases needed to complete things.

One of the things in question is an entry in the game's Battle Pass system. The other applies to something called the Adeptal Mirror. This is similar to the Adventurer Handbook and requires players to complete a series of tasks in exchange for rewards. As with the Handbook, you'll have to complete everything in a section to receive anything and moving onto the next section. And you DO want to complete the sections because they offer important items -- like your very own Alchemy station, pets, one of a kind recipes, or other necessary items.

Of course, the Adeptal Mirror isn't the only way you'll be obtaining stuff. The primary system relies on the previously mentioned Trust Rank. This is the "trust" Tubby has for you, and the only way to increase it is by crafting items. Every time you craft something for the first time, you'll earn points toward your Trust Rank. Normally it's about 60, but it can also be lower depending on the quality and cost of the item. You'll need to accumulate a certain amount of trust to level up your rank in order to receive rewards (mostly blueprints), increase the size of your realm, increase how much realm currency you can have on hand at a given time, and upgrade Tubby so she becomes a fully-fledged Teapot Spirit.

To achieve your dream realm, you'll have to work on leveling your Trust Rank, Adeptal Energy, and Adeptal Mirror all at the same time. It's one of those "you need one to do the other but you need the other to do the one" kind of things. You need to craft items to increase your trust rank, but you're going to have to purchase some of those items. To do that, you need currency, which is obtained at an hourly rate that can only be increased by filling your realm with things. The more stuff you have the better. But you can only retain a certain amount of currency or place a certain amount of items based on your Trust Rank. And on it goes. Add into that the fact that you need to collect materials from the actual game world in order to craft the items in question, and you've got a little bit of work ahead of you.

The good news is that it's fairly easy to complete the first few levels of Trust Rank. Things can slow down a bit after level 4, but it's still not bad. It also makes sense in the fact that the Serenitea Pot was designed to be a side thing. They'd still like you to play the rest of the game after all. So, you can craft a few things each day and set them out, increasing the max amount of currency obtained per hour and by the next day (or even hours later) you have enough to do another round of items.

It's also important to note that you don't just have to spend your currency on blueprints. It is possible to buy things like landforms and landscaping items that you don't have to craft. And, when the traveling salesman -- another teapot spirit named Chubby -- shows up on the weekends, you can even purchase some pets from him. So far he's offered two pets a week, some more domestic than others, as well as additional landforms. You can also buy stuff from Chubby in your friends' realms, if he's around when you visit.

As for the material collecting portion of this, it's arguably the most work of all. The good news is that it either involves collecting items you already grab while running around anyway, or smacking trees with your sword. Just like collecting ores, you'll want to use someone with a claymore to attack the trees or you'll be spending three times the time doing it. There are different kinds of trees you'll need to harvest from, and they're in different regions of Teyvat. As it turns out, they made that fairly easy to deal with as well. You'll have to travel around but if you're just in a gathering mood, you can run endless loops and obtain a rather impressive amount of each. In fact, @sirasleeps on Twitter created a handy guide for gathering each of the items. It's what I've been going by and has made things fairly simple.

Overall, the new housing has been a pretty nice addition. In fact, it's been where I've been spending most of my time once I got the primary story quests out of the way. Then again, I'm a sucker for housing and pets. Speaking of pets, it turns out that if you run around in the yard around the dogs, they will chase you and jump and play, which is a neat addition.

In all honesty, the Serenitea Pot is one of the nicest housing features I've played with recently. It leaves you with plenty of room to play, but it's not as frustratingly complex as some of the other housing systems that allow players a lot of customization. (I loved you, Rift Dimensions, but you were so hard to manage.)

If you haven't played Genshin yet and want to try out the housing, just be aware that you have to have completed a series of Liyue quests before you'll be offered the teapot quest. This also means completing a good bit of content in the game's first region.