None of them wanted to be stuck in the mountains all winter, so the Disciples started making plans to do as much training and socializing as they could during the limited amount of time that they were here. The first task after showering was to go visit the Disciples training in the main grounds, giving them a chance to practice their skills against nominally friendly cultivators while Cain went to the forges to talk to the Elder there about smithing techniques.
"Sect Master Cain, I wasn't expecting to see you so soon. What brings you here?" The man that Cain was almost certain was actually a Dwarf pretending to be a human cultivator asked as soon as Cain entered the area reserved for the Sect's smiths.
"We are taking the direct route through the mountains to get to the area with portals off-world. I am hoping to get there before winter falls so that I can start looking for the portal that I need." Cain explained.
"Yes, winter is a long time to the young Disciples, even if it isn't to us. It seems that your damaged core is recovering remarkably well, though. Soon you will be back to full power, and it won't matter, but soon to us and soon to a child are far different things aren't they?" The old man laughed.
"I am more concerned about the time flow. It's different between planes, but I've got a pregnant wife on the other end, and I would really rather not show up to half-grown children." Cain chuckled ruefully.
"That would do it for sure. Women tend to remember things like that. Missing the early years of childhood probably lists higher on the danger list than shaving your beard or serving nonalcoholic ale." The smith agreed.
"Speaking of which, how about we have a little sip, and I will show you the tricks I learned for smithing various metals back in my homeworld?" Cain asked.
"A sip, you say?" The dwarf asked with a smile, and Cain took out a cask of Dwarven Whiskey from his inventory.
"Just a sip." Cain agreed, filling two tankards with the potent liquor.
"How long did it take you to realize?" The Dwarf asked.
"About three seconds. You know, we have Dwarves in the Mortal Plane, and I had hundreds of them working with my Guild before I left." Cain laughed, sipping at the whiskey.
The old blacksmith downed the entire tankard in a gulp, so Cain poured him another and handed back the mug.
"Forget the forge. We can talk about that later. I never was a brewmaster, and that is simply divine, even if it tastes of the Mortal Realms."
"We can handle that. Do you have brewers here in the Sect? It might be easiest to teach them." Cain suggested.
"Good thinking. Follow me. OY THORIN, WATCH THE FORGE. Now we can go."
The young man known as Thorin was startled out of a nap beside the forge bellows, hitting his head on a table stacked with ingots and looking around to see where the forge master had gone while the smiths laughed at him.
They passed the training grounds on their way to the brewers and found Carnage holding a training seminar for the assembled Disciples while the Elder on duty watched in horror.
"Carnage, don't go all out. They don't have an arena." Cain shouted to the Demon.
"It's fine. They have lifesaving wards. They just need to heal themselves." Carnage replied with a smirk but shouldered his axe and picked up a large metal bar.
The brewery was an even more impressive facility than the smithy, and Cain could tell that they had been working here for centuries, trying to perfect their craft. The liquors looked quite good, but there was apparently still something missing if the Dwarf had reacted so strongly to his first mug of Mortal Realm ordinary Dwarven Whiskey.
Cain had never tried making it himself, so it might actually need a Dwarf to make it, but he had that covered. He knew a lot of brewmasters, and he could call one in the Immortal Realm now, so they shouldn't have any problems making a decent whiskey.
"Gentlemen, meet Sect Master Cain of the Forbidden Treasures Sect. He came here from a rather unique Mortal World, where stout men and impressive beards are highly respected."
That seemed to be a code from the smith that Cain knew about Dwarves, and a number of older Dwarves came out of the back rooms of the brewery. Cain inspected them and found that their brewing skills had barely reached journeyman status, not enough to make proper Dwarven Whiskey, though they could likely make a mighty fine ale.
"First things first. Let me prove myself." Cain informed them and took the half-empty keg of whiskey out, pouring another round of drinks in flagons, emptying the keg in the process. Every eye in the brewery lit up, and the old men lifted the mugs to their faces, savoring the smell like the finest of wines.
"Yes, this is the stuff." They sighed in unison and barely managed to restrain themselves from emptying the mugs in one shot, wanting to savor it a little since the keg was empty.
Cain called on a Dwarven female-shaped puppet and inserted the memories and skills from Griselda, a Dwarven Brewmaster, well into her senior years in reality, into the body.
"Where did you call me to now? Bloody reeks of humans in here, and the rock is too young. Are we even on a mountain? Disgraceful, the lot of you." She greeted them.
"Welcome back, Mistress Griselda. We need your skills to introduce proper brewing to these human lands. Just try not to mention anything about Dwarves. You know how humans can get." Cain informed her.
The brewmaster looked the group over one by one and reluctantly nodded. "They're not much, and one is a blacksmith, but I will work with what you've got. What are we making?"
"Whiskey. Good enough to make the humans regret not being born Dwarves." Cain told her.
"They ought to regret it already, but that's beyond the point. Alright, fill this list for me, apprentices." She laughed, taking a pencil and parchment from one of the brewers and making a list for him.
"Are all Dwarves in your world like that?" The Elder Blacksmith asked.
"Not at all. She's particularly charming, isn't she?" Cain laughed.
"You could say that. Reminds me of my own mother." The smith agreed.
"If you two louts are just standing around, make me some casks for when we're finished. Good Whiskey needs to age." She informed them.
"Did you think I would leave you hanging like that? How about these ones?" Cain asked, grabbing some Oak casks from the other side of the brewery.
"How many are we feeding? Those are Ale casks." She informed him with a smirk.
"A few thousand? Most of them are human though, so maybe fifty, adjusted to adult Dwarves." Cain replied, making the Brewmaster laugh.
"Well, even if you can't tell casks apart, at least you can count."
The other dwarves returned a minute later with carts full of ingredients, and the woman sighed. "We really are going to have to make a full batch, aren't we? That's fine. This copper barrel will do in a pinch, even if it's not right."
"Want me to summon an Elemental so you can make new tools?" Cain suggested.
"Captial idea. I will direct it."
With the two of them linked, she could issue directions directly to the Elemental, so Cain called a half dozen Earth Elementals and had them move the other brewing equipment out of the way to make room for one more set of stills inside the building.
The ones that went up were Black Gold, Adamantium, and Mythril, a far cry from the simple copper barrels that the other liquors were made inside. They were also lined on the inside with hundreds of runes written in Dwarven and not the Ancient language, marking them as Racial Magic, which explained why the brewers here had never figured it out.
They had all been raised among humans, so they didn't know the language or the spells necessary to make real Dwarven Whiskey.
"Now that we have proper facilities, we can start by pouring in the ingredients and adding ten thousand liters of water." She explained, ordering the Elementals to pick up the carts and dump them in the still.
Cain called a Water Elemental and let it fill the container with pure water so that the brew wouldn't pick up any strange flavor from the local water. That was part of the charm of a local brew, but for the demonstration batch, it was best to limit the number of variables.
"Now the runes inside just need to be activated. This is way better than having to cast the spells one at a time. First, we bring up the temperature to let the yeast ferment, and we pour an ale. You do have ale, don't you?"
The brewers took notes, and poured her a mug of ale that she downed in a long gulp, then inspected the mug and refilled it.
"I will teach you how to make ale later." She muttered while Cain and the smith smirked at the unfortunate souls of the brewery.
Step by step, she made her way through the process until the whiskey was ready to be moved into barrels a full twelve hours later to begin the aging process.
"Now, we either wait a decade, or we use time alteration to age it faster. Does anyone among your staff know any time abilities?" She asked.
"Just me." The old smith informed her.
"Good enough, it only takes one. Go age one of those Ale casks full of raw whiskey for a century and tap it so we can test it."
An hour later, the raucous singing coming from the brewery woke half the sect from a dead sleep.
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