Chapter 6: Farming is where it's at

Waking up bright and early I have the terrible surprise to have fallen asleep inside my armour. Aside from it being terrifying, after all, imagine waking up with a smothering feeling all over.

A quick fix… but I think it’s time I bath; I don’t really think I’ve picked up an odour, but I will feel better. With my now half full cauldron, I start pouring water onto my body doing my best to use what little I have to clean my body. It was more refreshing than effective I suppose.

Now with my fits of fancy out of the way onto the meat and gravy of the day, food water and crafting. What am I crafting you may ask? A watering can, the God-given item from extra utilities, vital for all farming.

After I make it, I do a little dance. This item I’ve crafted whenever it has been possible without fail, since it is useful beyond belief. And as I run outside to use it, I am not disappointed. It is not as broken as it used to be, but I can still see crops growing to the naked eye, slowly but steadily I choose to accelerate my berry bushes until maturity.

*sigh* ‘’ This is so boring” I may have been too excited... yeah, it’s fast but it’s not godly fast so I still have to sit here hunched over pouring water onto crops. It was cool for 5 minutes but now I’m bored. And machines can’t do this for me. I have fully grown berry bushes now so food is not a concern but what I am concerned about is my plan to accelerate all my new seeds.

Sigh I’ll take a break for now. I enjoy the sunlight that streams through the leaves like gorgeous rays of silk. I could almost touch them. I suppose I should get to work. But before I punish myself by accelerating plant growth, which I might add is only slightly more interesting than to watch paint dry right after watching grass grow “chuckles”.

I start by shovelling waterways, not like a rice patty, just allowing for adequate hydration without me hydrating with the demon sprinkler I created. Wow, I am full of wordplays today.

Nonetheless my expanding farming operation is leaving a large mark. I also remove more trees to clear space for my farms. I am sorry nature I’ll nurture you with druidcraft after I stop myself from living in the equivalent of a cardboard box.

With a now expanded water channel creating several circles for growing crops I start ploughing the land, getting it ready to be seeded. Backbreaking work, but rewarding in its own way. I, someone from modern society, is now digging holes in the ground for a living. A funny bit of humour on my new reality. This is not forever I remind myself, eventually I’ll be a technological king generating unfathomable power, a magic wizard who can cast scary strong spells.

Felix hasn’t given me any tasks yet, which is both a blessing but also a curse as I realise, he doesn’t believe I can do anything until I reach a modicum of technological superiority. He’s not wrong but it’s still insulting.

Nothing to be done about it, this mental distraction was nice while it lasted but it’s now time to plant the seeds. I have a space specifically organised in how I ploughed it to divide the seeds so I can check what they are before wider cultivation. Planting the rainbow of seeds, I wonder what you are, you little surprises. Please be a cotton seed I pray internally. I need string badly and I don’t want to go spider hunting… I’d need to kill like a dozen for my immediate future.

And so, I consign myself to my self-imposed fate. I water crops, all day. Until my back is in agony. All those crops alone wouldn’t have taken all day but it turns out one of them was cotton and 1 potato and wheat so I immediately make 3 large crops of all 3. I love potatoes and bread would be nice too. Honestly farming sucks, the time out, the day. Many of the other crops I couldn’t identify sadly, but that’s what happens I suppose. One I’m pretty sure is minicio but from what I know that’s a whole bag of worms that need automation to be effective. Or crop sticks. Another day nonetheless.

I had an early night that day, you get used to the moaning monsters and bumps in the night after a while so I slept like a baby, dreaming of a flying ship. A near-future reality, I hope.

Waking up, I am very sore apparently. My whole body aches. I thought the healing thing would fix this but apparently, hard work hurts no matter the world, although I hope it will fade quickly. Emphasise on hope. At least fat is not a concern at the moment, more like malnutrition. Which is hopefully fixed as I harvest a few spuds and stick them in the oven. Without butter, it’s a bit sad but nonetheless a breakfast for a king after what I’ve put up with.

Now food and water are no longer a concern I start planning the home I am going to actually live in, I have a full plan of going to a new location to build it. But thinking ahead will benefit me massively. For transportation, I’m going to build an Archimedes ship. Scarily easy and well known as the server killer, at least before now it was just a scary cheap way of flying. It came to me in a dream. I am under no illusions, a way of moving multiple people, with all my stuff must come with a caveat. I am betting it’s slow as hell.

Nonetheless I have transportation planned. Now, what am I building? Well, I am thinking of building a flying island. Like listen it sounds insane but I’ve made them before all I need is flight really. Then I’ll build a nice homely home on top and have all my tech inside the hollow cavity.

It sounds insane but I can build easily, time-consuming; yes, but I have years not a day like before. Why would I build small? I have the full opportunity to potentially be a god in this world with all the mods here. Not an actual god but a home screams power. So a strong home I shall have. It helps that I know the ins and outs of creating a natural-looking yet a highly functional island. It is one of my favourite types of builds and with flight not as long as you would think.

Nonetheless I need to mine lots of materials, harvest lots of food. Find a way to mark this location to find my way back, then build a flying ship. Move my stuff onto the ship then fly away to find a cool location for my new flying home. A nice quiet location. I am under no illusions that this world is not populated, it would be stupid to assume I’m alone since villagers were a thing and if I was a God, I would want people to live in the world so it doesn’t get boring. I am just going to assume his plan is to make me the fire under the cauldron to start the water boiling, keep it agitated and interesting.

I will do it with pleasure, since well it also involves me living in luxury and happily in a world I can make into a personal heaven. Better than wandering the void I do say, sir.

If I do well maybe I can implore him to accept more souls from the earth, many must be lost, scared now no one deserves that fate; except maybe Hitler he can stay in the void.

It would be nice if I could find an ender pearl. A very useful item for creating teleportation-based devices.

Well, for now, I gather a bunch of string, I have a virtually unlimited supply now so that is covered forever. I make wool and then dun dun dun I make a bed, a sweet holy bed. Ow, how I’ve missed you. It is weird placing down an item that’s 2 blocks long but I don’t care, I take a nap right then and there.

Waking up from my nap far more refreshed, it’s time to get the day started. I continue the process of smelting cobblestone as it will come in handy later. Going back down I get my good old pickaxe and continue mining iron till I have roughly a stack. Getting that smelted. Crafting several torches. Using them to make sure I don’t get lost. I craft 2 buckets. I will start the process of collecting lava for a nether portal. A little scary but needed. I make a water fountain for this process.

Suiting up I continue my “dungeon dive” hardly a dungeon but I’ve always wanted to go on a dungeon dive, as unrealistic as it was in my previous world.

Anyway, I need gold, but because I want money, it is just very useful. One day I’ll have an automatic farm, that day is not today so it’s good old fashion cave diving for now.

With a strong drive, I enter the cave in my armour, my lava run will be done after I’ve finished ore hunting. I will then head home deposit my stuff, remove my armour so I don’t bake then collect lava.

I collect myself mentally, take a deep breath and brave the unknown. Well, it would be unknown if I couldn’t hear the bloody spiders. “Sigh” I guess I do need more spider eyes.

As I walk I place a torch, due to limited carrying capacity I have only around 10 tied to my back with some string. I will have to restock if I need more. As I walk further into the cave which is at a decline, I ponder what I did with my life to deserve this fate.

And the first little nasty jumped at me, a tiny cave spider. I back away very quickly as they are dangerous with their deadly venomous bite, so I don’t want to tango with them even if it wasn’t lethal in the game. It did give you poison in the game but it’s clearly a venom if it is administered through a bite, common sense people.

Anyway, I spend the next 10 mins trying to be as agile as I can be when I’m as heavy and stiff as a lumber golem. Dodging, backing away and keeping an eye out for more and with one clean sweep, I chop it in half with my axe. A terrifyingly gory but quick death. It oozes clear liquid and thick green slime “grim”. I don’t think that was due to combat experience, it’s simply patience and a dumb monster I assume few predators to hunt them down here to be fair.

And I continue on my merry way... I ended up killing 2 more spiders, collecting 2 eyes from all 3 and some now sadly unneeded string, which I kept because maybe spider silk is different somehow. You never know. Am I a hoarder or a smart collector? Time will tell I imagine.

Anyhow back to my ore adventure, I managed to come across another patch of Redstone, which I quickly collected and deposited close to the entrance for safekeeping. Continuing on as I place down one of my last torches, I see it, a glint in the light “Sweet Fort Knox it is gold!”.

With a swift collection, I find 5 bits of gold. Obscenely useful as I can now make a gold divining rod. Happy with my haul I head home depositing my loot and setting my gold to smelt. Now the fun part, avoiding heat death. I remove my armour and only carry 2 buckets. I soak strips of wool in water, nothing to be crafted here, just good old fashion creativity. I place the strips of cotton all over my body hoping to mitigate some of the heat, before braving the lava. It was unbearably hot just going near it, now grabbing lava with the bucket; nightmare fuel I tell you. The bucket has a slight sucking motion to take in 1x1 meters worth of lava so I have to sit there for a short while instead of scooping and running. Dashing away as soon as possible I learn that these buckets are strangely heat resistant, useful but weird.

Nonetheless I get started on my portal, the first part of the 10 pieces portal. I am definitely not looking forward to a dive into the equivalent of hell. But Glowstone is so damn cool I need some to be happy in life. And all the other useful materials. And I need to go into the nether to get to the Aether if I choose to do so.

Heading to my little furnace I cook some toast lightly before scoffing it down. I nurse the slight burns the best I can before heading off to dreamland. I can't believe I have to grab lava 4 more times, 6 if I want it to look cooler. Well, that is life I suppose. At least I am rich, I literally have a get rich quick tool now.