“We're already late, let's start.”

For the first time, Liz had a serious expression on her face. She picked up the pace and started to walk toward the fermenting tanks.

“The grapes are delivered at the beginning of each session day. Here we press the grapes and make the wine. You need to pick the grapes for the wine yourself and see which one is the best for the wine you to make today. You can do this by measuring the sugar level and see if it goes with the wine you're making. At the winery, we make wine all year around. We are the biggest exporter of wine to the other towns.

After the grapes are crushed with the crusher we put the liquid in these big fermenting tanks. These fermenting tanks are different from anything you have seen before. They are made by a master craftsman and are able to speed up the time it takes for the fermentation to finish. Normally it would cost between one to three session days to finish a batch but whit these fermenting tanks it can be done in just one day, so you can finish five batches every session day.

First, you need to ferment the wine. Each kind wine has its own recipe and there are other tasks that need to be done, like letting the wine out to breath or checking the wine for sugar and alcohol levels.

Our job is a lot easier than that of real winemakers. Old man Levy has already decided on the recipe and has written them on the wine manual, your only job is to check which type of wine you need to make and follow the instructions.

Both of us are put in charge of five fermenting tanks. If all wine in the five fermenting tanks is correctly fermented and too old man Levy’s liking, you will make two credits every day. You’re pretty lucky to get a job like this from the start, most of the new players are put in the farms where they collect grapes all day and only make one credit a day.

But you also need to be careful and do your work correctly. Because if even one of the five batches is not to old man Levy’s liking you won’t get paid.”

After explaining everything to George Liz started her daily routine. George followed her around and watched carefully everything she did. After finishing her routine she had to wait for a couple of hours for the next step. So she took George to the back to show him the books.

“This is the study room. In here you can find anything about wine and how it’s made. You need to study everything so you can be prepared for any situation. This job can be your savior but it can also be your undoing. I have seen people work here for weeks without making even a single credit. Most of the new people give up after just one or two weeks. There are a hundred types of recipes, and as you will find out soon that remembering them all will be very challenging.

But until you can make at least ten good batches you only need to make the standard red wine recipe that’s described in chapter two. Read it with care before you give it a try tomorrow.”

After showing George around Liz went back to check on the wine. George was sitting there alone reading the manual. It talked about many different kinds of wines and ingredients that could be used to make it. It didn’t take him long to learn the first recipe and about the history of winemaking. Even though it had many small steps that were hard to remember it wasn’t hard for George at all. George was a little bit nervous but after reading the first chapters he started to calm down. George always had a good memory, and over the years had learned to memorize important things. The reason that it was so much harder for the others was because of their upbringing. Most parents wanted their children to be successful so made them spend most of their time practicing martial arts or weapon training. This meant that a number of intellectuals in NASH were pretty low.

The other thing George learned was that everyone could practice the basic jobs of their village. This was necessary because of the jobs at starting towns. For example, if everyone that entered wine town had to learn winemaking as their first job it would mean that one out of every hundred newcomers would be a winemaker. This would also happen in the other starting towns, and many jobs would become useless because of the overpopulation. To avoid this, it’s possible to practice every job at the beginner level. For example, if a real winemaker and George made the same wine George’s would be inferior even if they did exactly the same thing. Another thing is that the chance of failure is greater when you don’t possess the job. Luckily the wine that George had to make was really simple and if made correctly would be successful one hundred percent of the time.

It also talked about winemakers that are masters and can even make wine that boost your stats temporary, there are even legends about grandmaster winemakers that can make a wine that boosts your stats permanently, but that has not been seen for over seven hundred years.

After reading for two hours George got a little bored. The book was full of recipes and nothing else. It only took him two hours to memorize the first twenty recopies of the hundred that was described and he could always come back and finish the rest later. He decided to look around the room for other interesting books. After looking around for a while he found a miniature fermentation tank made completely out of a substance he could not identify. He didn’t know what it was but even though it was old and didn’t look special it had a majestic feeling.

Just as George was close enough to touch it his head started to hurt like never before. If George didn’t have the resistance, he had built over the years he would have already fainted. Just as the sharp pain started to reduce a screen popped in front of his eyes.

This fermentation tank is built by a grandmaster craftsman with great care. It’s made with high-grade steel that was mined from the underground city of Keenan.

It was used by grandmaster Thaddeus Packard on his journey to become a grandmaster winemaker.

Do you want to activate the memory?>

George looked at the text in front of him with surprise. At first, he thought that he had read wrong because of the immense pain, but after reading it again he started to doubt the screen in front of him. Everyone knew that NASH was created by Alexander Bates one hundred forty-nine years ago. And that even if you counted every session day in NASH it would only come to seven hundred and fifty-four years. So how could this item be so old?

After thinking about it for a little while he decided to give up and think about the problem at hand. What is this memory and what if the pain would return after he activates the memory?

But he decided to activate it anyways, this could be a good chance to learn something and his curiosity was stronger than his fear of pain.

‘yes’

Just as he was preparing himself for pain the world around him started to collapse like it did when he entered NASH.

Before he knew what was happening he was standing in a big room made completely of stone. Even the chairs and tables were made of stone and the room was lighted with strange crystals surrounding the room.

At the center of the room stood a young boy looking up at a middle-aged man, who was holding the apprentice fermentation tank. The middle-aged man had a look in his eyes, that George had never seen before. It was the first time George felt inferior to someone when it came to knowledge. He didn’t know if it was because of the archaeology skill but he could feel the strength coming off from the man. It felt like he could wipe out Wine town with one move from his fingers. He was wearing a white robe with strange markings on it and was holding a staff that looked like a magic wand.

Even though he could see them it didn’t feel like they could see him. So George started to walk closer to hear them talk.

“We are entering unknown times my student. This apprentice fermentation tank was given to me by my master when I was your age, I wanted to give it to you when you were ready but this may be the last time I see you in a very long time. I have been working as a winemaker for more than fifty thousand years and feel I like my dream of becoming a legendary winemaker will be left for you to complete. The big move is about to start and I will do everything I can to make sure you and your family remain safe. But if by chance we are never to meet again my boy, I will give you one last piece of advice. Don’t let tradition and habit cloud your eyes. We old fool are stuck with our traditions and don’t have the vision to change the profession of winemaking. But you are young and are not bound by the old ways. Try new ideas how crazy they may seem and revolutionize the profession of winemaking.

My dream is that one day you can become a legendary winemaker and will be known around the world as my Thaddeus Packard’s student.”

After saying that the middle-aged man put his hand on little Johns hair and had a big smile on his face. John was looking at his master without blinking and had tears in his eyes.

“Don’t cry my child, you need to be strong for your family. Take this memory stone, it contains my life’s work. Use it to learn and add new ideas, and one day pass it on to your student.

Go now my child, the move is starting soon and you will need to be ready.”

Right at that moment, the memory ended and George was standing in the small study in front of the apprentice fermentation tank.

George’s head was still hurting and he didn’t see the screen notification. After leaving the memory his thought became hazy and he couldn’t concentrate on anything. He went back to the table and after sitting down fell asleep.