Chapter 399 - Dragon Wine
"Hmm… So I just need to speed this up even more for a while?" Jyuuk asked as he approached Eisen after waking back up, and the old man nodded his head in reply. "Yes, we're just turning this into alcohol, nothing more." Eisen explained to Jyuuk, all the whilst thinking that he really wanted to put Jyuuk's enchantment on a bunch of crystals to simply create a lot of fast-fermentation chambers. He might do that later, but for now, the rice-wine needed to finish properly.
Eisen went around and took a proper look at each of the chambers that were being influenced by Jyuuk's element, just to make sure that everything was working as it should, and that the only mold that was spreading on the top of the rice was white instead of black. Of course, Eisen also poured some more water into the containers as well, and then, just three or four hours later, which Jyuuk could only last with the help of a lot of different potions from Eisen as well as support from Bree with her insane amount of mana, the rice-wine was all finished, and all that Eisen now needed to do was to pour it into the bottle.
For that, he simply climbed up to the top of the bottle and had one of the dragons hand each container to him, and Eisen then quickly poured it inside through a sift to make sure none of the rice or mold could get into the bottle with the actual rice-wine.
So, just like that, the bottle was filling up just as much as Eisen wanted it to, before he closed the top off by re-using one of the containers from the rice to turn it into something like a 'Crystal Cork'.
Of course, Eisen first got rid of the rice for that, although it was rather Jyuuk that went straight past everything that had to do with fine-control and made it so that the rice would rot immediately, so that it could be used as something like a rice-mulch to help the growth of plants from here on as well.
And so, Eisen was done with the preparations for a nice bottle of giant Snake Wine. "Alright, the color is nice, the fragrance as well… Guess I should just taste-test it, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself, pulling out the small, one liter-sized bottle that he filled up with the same wine before while he climbed down the large bottle.
"Do any of you want to try?" Eisen asked them with a smile on his face as he looked at the dragons and the other Orginals, and the first one to raise their hand was… Caria.
"I want to!" She exclaimed, trying to reach for the bottle in Eisen's hand, but the old man just chuckled at her and shook his head. "In a few years, honey." The old man told her as he rubbed over the top of her head, before slowly making some small, shot-sized cups for the others out of mana-crystal, handing them out to the ten people in front of him, filling the cups up one after another.
"I haven't had Rice-Wine before… Is it good?" Evalia asked as she looked at the mostly clear liquid, trying to hold it up high enough so that Caria couldn't reach it, while Eisen nodded his head in reply to her. "It is really good, yes. I prefer it colder, but it's fine like this for now." The old man pointed out as he poured a small cup for himself, immediately placing it against his lips to drink it.
And after the first small burn of alcohol disappeared from his throat, Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction while the others started to drink it as well, and especially Jyuuk was quite surprised.
"Huh? It's far better than I thought… Usually Alcohol that had its fermentation sped up like this tastes so… Fake to me, but this is really good." The Beastperson pointed out, before Xenia slowly pulled the cup away from her lips as well. She didn't seem to be a fan of it necessarily, but tastes differ between people, after all.
"How are those processes usually sped up?" She asked him, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck. "Well, I'd guess highly controlled conditions, types of mold or yeast that are especially aggressive in their work, or through the addition of certain chemicals, I would say." He suggested, but wasn't entirely sure if that was really right or not, but Xenia ended up shrugging in response to what the beastperson said. "I mean… Your element speeds up normal biological processes… It's more like a time element or something like that, where the whole rice was enveloped in it for everything to happen… So while for us it was just a few hours, to the rice it was more like a week or two? So it's kind of different, right?" The High-Elf pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded his head.
"Of course. This is pretty high-quality, probably also because of the high amount of mana that it absorbed due to the constant influence of mana." The old man pointed out, before he turned over toward the Dragons next to him.
"And, did you like it?" With a smile on his face, Eisen placed the bottle away, because it was empty now, and the Dragons immediately nodded their heads. "It's a lot better than the alcohol we usually have here…" The Black-Dragoness pointed out, and Eisen just slightly laughed in response. "Well, then maybe you should try and change that and figure out a few neat recipes for yourselves." The old man suggested.
"I can give you a few tips to work off of if you want to as well." Eisen explained, before especially the Bronze Dragon nodded his head quite quickly.
"That'd be great! I wouldn't mind drinking this some more." As the Dragon in human form was laughing loudly, Eisen slightly slapped his hands together with a bright smile. "Perfect, then let me give you all the first tip. Or rather, the first lesson, on how to make snake wine. Of course, this will be a practical lesson." And while Eisen was saying this, he stepped back toward the bottle behind him, already letting the Dragons guess what the 'lesson' was about.
—
"Alright, so… The 'Island Boss' is inside of a large field over there. It's surrounded in brick walls, and it doesn't seem to be able to leave that area either." The Blue Dragon swiftly explained to Eisen and the others, before scratching the back of his neck. "What tactic should we use?" He asked next, and Eisen slowly turned toward the others while looking at that round area in the distance with the giant serpent rolled up in the center.
"We'll just force it into the bottle, of course." Eisen pointed out, before he looked over toward Jyuuk with a smile on his face. "And we're doing it like you would do to any snake, right?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk immediately nodded his head.
"Mhm… Although this is my first time seeing an aggressive Rank 7 monster… Usually, snakes aren't agressive, but Monsters, especially boss monsters, may be a bit different. And we probably shouldn't cut it up and let it bleed into the wine either… The first thing we need to do is hold it down, get it into a steady grip. Hmm…" Jyuuk muttered to himself before looking around at the whole 'Arena' once more. It seemed like they would be able to all enter together, which was a good thing for an opponent like this.
But then, Jyuuk seemed to notice a whole other thing that would turn this complete fight around, probably to their advantage.
"A lot of people died in that area… They're all carrying weapons or wearing armor, so it's probably a battlefield… With their help and through my new skill, we should be able to turn it around pretty well, huh..?" Jyuuk, who also recently finished his second level-up quest, muttered to himself, before Eisen slightly raised his eyebrows surprised, before lowering them in a frown.
"This seems… Weird." Eisen muttered to himself quietly, but the others just looked over toward him confused. "What do you mean, 'Weird'?" Xenia asked, and Eisen just kept staring at the serpent with a nervous expression.
"We're on an island where every animal is some sort of dragon in any shape or form, so why is the Island Boss a snake? I was asking myself that for a while now, but considering what you just said, I'm pretty sure that's not a snake, but a Nidhogg. Serpent-Dragons that feast on corpses of those who have falled in battle." Eisen explained, and Jyuuk clicked his tongue annoyed.
"Really? Then I'll have to expect most of the undead to be eaten, huh..?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head in response, continuing to stare at the creature in the center of the area in front of them. "Yeah, exactly."
With a slightly wry smile, Evalia then started to scratch her cheek somewhat nervously.
"Well, does that mean we shouldn't try and trap it in the bottle? I mean, that's not going to be snake wine anymore, right?" She asked, and Eisen simple turned over toward her and laughed.
"Evalia, what do you think is more impressive? Giant Snake Wine, or Dragon Wine?" He asked her, and while the six Dragons next to him were rather horrified at the thought of having one of them be turned into an ingredient for alcohol, while being glad that it was just a lesser, unintelligent dragon, the young woman nodded her head.
"Fair enough… Then should we get going?" She suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Let's do that, yeah. So, as Jyuuk said, the plan is to hold it down as much as possible. So you six should try to spread as much around its body as possible, and we'll focus on the head." The old man said as he looked at the six Dragons, who all slowly nodded their heads while the group approached the large open hole in the wall of the 'Graveyard' area.
And when they got close enough, Eisen was able to really confirm his theory. That this Monster was a Nidhogg.
After informing the others of this, it was already nearly too late, because the Serpent-Dragon already took notice of them and rushed over toward them as quickly as it could. Of course, the Six Dragons, who would be able to actually easily just kill it on their own, set the giant bottle of Snake-Wine down in the place that Eisen told them to, and then hurried over toward the Nidhogg to hold it down.
And then, the others quickly rushed to its head to make sure it couldn't use any sorts of breath-like attacks. Using mainly Eisen's Golems and Jyuuk's new Undead from this area to accomplish this, the group quickly managed to start pushing the Nidhogg's mouth completely shut.
"Alright, now, just slowly pull it backward!" Eisen exclaimed while he rushed over toward the Nidhogg's Tail, to preparing a little bit of a ram that it could be pulled up on. And with the help of the physically strongest, the Steel Dragon, the tail was quickly pushed into the top of the bottle after the crystal cork was removed.
And of course, Eisen was constantly supplying the enchantments that he placed on everything with a large amount of mana to make sure that the bottle couldn't be destroyed by the Nidhogg from the inside.
The toughest bit came when about half of the Nidhogg was already inside of the bottle, though, because it seemed to want to try and push two wings that were hidden directly against its body up until now to the outside to free itself, so they needed to be pressed shut at least for now. But soon enough, only the head needed to be pushed into the bottle, even if the wine was starting to push over the brim of the bottle, especially because the Nidhogg was wildly moving its wings around to continue trying to escape. But it couldn't do anything against the strength of the Dragons, and soon enough found itself just completely inside of the bottle, which Eisen quickly covered up by the crystal cork.
For a little longer, the Nidhogg tried to fight what was happening, but soon enough, it stopped moving completely.