Chapter 116

Benting Barley

Brewer’s Reputation: 34,008.

Dream Cutter Stone Shard Quest: 6,897/15,000 shards.

Hawkin

I had to laugh. I couldn’t break through into gold, being at level 1999, and I couldn’t break through into the next quality tier. I was stuck at 99/100 Greater Legendary.

After a quiet morning, I stood in the threshold of my cabin and enjoyed a salad of sprouts, onion, walnut, and apple. During breakfast, I witnessed the Sheltering Bubble pop. It released a rain of water through which the sun sparkled. I felt the cool wind a moment later as I pondered whether Abigail would erect another Sheltering Bubble. Since it was getting warmer, I saw no sense in maintaining another one.

The trees around the area were budding. Always early. Before I knew it, life would return to these woods.

After breakfast, I returned to my tasks of the day. I sat at my table and set out a few different barley grains. There were three I wanted to choose from. The first was maxt barley, which were the size of lemons. The second one was the color of rust, and the size of almonds. The third barley was cashew shaped.

With my Collector’s Journal flipped open, I ate one kernel of the rust colored barley. After a moment, a description inked onto the pages with a colorful rendition of the barley:

Benting barley is a cultivar grown in the Cylind floating isles. These kernels are seldom traded and most often appear as rewards from system quests. Several different characteristics can be brought out during the mashing process when producing beer. Flavors range from toasted sesame, to charcoal and grilled eggplant, to cookie dough.

I ate the cashew shaped barley next and read the description.

Psaodun barley grows in tropical climates. The grass hives in flooded marshlands located in the southern islands southwest of Salindune. This barley was one particular flavor that can vary in intensity depending on the roast. It typically offers a flavor similar to the rind of mango, pineapple, and banana. Ages well.

I decided to go with the benting barley.

I had an assortment of hops to choose from so I laid them out as well and deliberated. I plucked 1 hop cone from each coil. I squeezed them, one by one, between finger and thumb so that I could release their aroma. In the end, I chose to go with the armadillo hops because they were resinous and melony.

With my selected ingredients, I went outdoors and used my Brewer’s Harvest skill to grow fresh benting barley and armadillo hops. Then I employed my Fire and Roast skill to evenly spread out the barley and bring a nice light roast to the kernels after malting. I collected them in a basket and sat at the threshold of my cabin so that sunlight spilled into the basket. Then I went through the barley by hand and removed kernels that I thought had been roasted for too long. Those that didn’t get roasted enough were roasted once more to match the color of the others.

When it came to the hops, I went through the new coil I grew and selected the fattest, juiciest ones.

I then began the brewing process in a dark crisp ale style. For the Foam Cascade, I used the Crumble Cloud subskill. I chose not to force age the beer and instead kept it as fresh as it could be. After taking my time to carefully brew the beer, I bottled it in a 750ml Forged Ethereal wrapped label. Then a notification came up.

[Congratulations! You have achieved the Lesser Honorable quality tier. All previously brewed silver rank beers will upgrade to 03/100 Lesser Honorable.]

[All beers have been upgraded.]

Leveling up to gold rank did not happen. Not that I could complain about reaching a new quality tier. After Lesser Honorable, Greater Honorable was the last tier in silver rank. After that, the quality tiers were gold rank, starting with Lesser Chimeric.

I had a lot of work ahead of me, but if I could brew golden chapter ales…

I took a deep breath and shook the tension from my shoulders.

I took a sip of my new beer. The aroma came to me like the scent of pecan pie in a breeze through wet woods. It was enticing enough that, should I have been a wild fox, I would have found myself trotting along the trail of the scent to discover from which cottage it came.

The foam was thick as a cookie, but soft as fresh snow. Although it melted upon the tongue, it sounded like it was crumbling. After it crumbled away, I tasted the cold beer. The color was like that of yucca flowers dipped in coffee.

The first taste I discovered was that of sesame seeds roasted so dark that it was almost chocolate. But the malt had hints of pie crust and toasted pecans. There was another taste of orange blossom flower along with the vague sweetness of a tulip.

In my mind, I saw the earth that the flowers must have grown from. An earth that floated in pieces above the sea and cast its shadow upon land some times. Where the earth was always watered by the clouds and the dew melted beneath a long sun. The taste of pecans was so sweet and buttery that I could almost see the age of those trees. Trees that I would say must have been cared for by generations of the same family, until the trees were old growth.

I looked upon the ethereal bottle in my hands that threw impossible colors in shreds and needles. It’s amazing what flavors could be earned when caring for nature.

People were the same way; Barnacle-eyes was proof of that. She’d really grown as a goblin from the day I met her. I knew how badly she wanted a family of goblins. She called it a fleet, but I knew it for what it was. She might not be around forever, but if I could help her thrive, seeing her live her best life would be all that I could ask for. Then there was Thrush, Abigail, and even Boggo-

-but before I could daydream anymore, a new notification came up. All of a sudden, my Brewer’s Reputation jumped to 9,200.