Chapter 14: Enchanting, essence, and a good old inventory

Awakening; bright and early. good mood, and a better day. Today is the start of my journey to living in comfort; didn’t stay up too late last night so of course, I would be waking up early.

You know, it’s odd; I once was a night owl. But it seems like that whole concept is rather foreign here as I just sleep until… satisfied I guess is an adequate description.

Having gathered the materials yesterday, I set about crafting bookshelves, stocked with empty books it appears. I can of course place books inside if I wish.

I managed to craft about 8 before stopping: mentally strained, sufficient for now. Grabbing some books, taking a good look at the enchanting table, its just incredible enchanting, the slight hum of energy, the floating book; all very curious and interesting.

Choosing to dive in, I take a book and begin; opening the tome at the top of the enchanting table I find 3 lines of writing, glowing in a soft white glow, almost humming with power. every line clear. in English but I feel it's more a mental translation. Upon its pages: 4 – sharpness +, 12 – Magnetism +, 16 – Magic resistance +. I understand these are my options like in the game I can only read the first enchant, and the number is the level it lusts for. I can feel how much XP I have accumulated. It is not so much a number; while looking upon the book I can sense a tank with levels upon it, each level being further from the last. Level 17 or 18 I believe, very little – enough though.

Crafting a further 4 bookshelves, as whole items with lapis I combine them within the enchanter, producing enchanted wood. I produce 4 enchanted pieces of wood.

Taking 2 chests, 6 gold, and 1 enchanted wood, I craft a bag of holding; regretting this action immediately as I passed out right after: exhaustion.

The mental exhaustion from crafting was intense this time, I have been crafting all day; reckless, to say the least. Caught up in the elation of enchanting; neglecting my current personal faculty.

I would say “I won't do that again”, but I will – eventually. But let's remember this and try to not have this happen often.

I woke up relatively quickly from what I can tell, but I have a banging headache. The space behind my eyes is pulsing with fiery pain.

I will take a break; I wish ever so to play with my new toy but “personal health cannot be neglected”, as my father would say. He is right, doesn’t mean I have to appreciate it.

After, what felt like the most undesirably painful nap I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I have recuperated enough to look at what I made. Was it worth the woes I have suffered? Let us see!

Holding it, a very light bag with thin golden threading, a golden string ties the top but it clearly opens bizarrely wide. Upon opening the precious bag, I find a gaping black hole. I drop an iron ingot inside, falling inside with only the slightest weight increase, nowhere close to the normal weight of iron.

Placing my hand inside I cannot feel anything, but I can sense what is inside, I can see the iron inside the void. Not with my eyes; spatial awareness has gone mad. Making my intent clear, I grasp for the ingot. I clutch it between my fingers before pulling it out – perfect.

The sensation of knowing where an object lies, without seeing it is jarring, to say the least. But I now have a functional inventory, its not “An inventory” but it’s the next best thing and I am very grateful for such. Truly irreplaceable, worth all the suffering “ouch” nearly all the suffering.

Having satiated my curiosity, I rest once more; hoping for a more peaceful slumber, as I sleep off whatever damage I did to myself.

Awakening; I see a deep orange hue haze over the door, dusk. I really ruined my sleep schedule today. None the less I get up, no point in sitting around until tomorrow when you can do today, or tonight in this situation.

I need a source of experience; as much as fighting may be fun. It is not a perfect solution and a mob grinder seems cruel to me. I have 2 options from what I am aware: Essence berry bushes, efficient, dangerous to gather. Or Lotus plants, they produce leaves that when consumed give experience, same as essence berry bushes, far safer but harder to acquire “tss, annoying”.

I have fire-resistant potions so, for now, I will aim for essence berry bushes. No rush though, I have all night.

Collecting a single sapling from the chest; gathered from a wide array of destroyed trees. I take ectoplasm, the single ectoplasm gathered from a lucky find of a spirit.

Combining it with the tree, just using my hands; guiding the ghostly material into the tree, it warps and twists before becoming a spectral blue colour. Spirit sapling.

I take outside, growing it alone in a patch of wood, slime visits, with his hopping on top of your body way of saying hello. Pacifying the trouble maker with a potato from the nearby eath I get back to work.

Planting the sapling and watering it, I quickly find it growing, before I know it; a full-grown tree. Perfect. Upon chopping it down it dropped 3 ectoplasm. Repeating the process, growing, chopping, growing… I now have a large amount of ectoplasm.

Took far longer than you likely think, some trees only drop 1 or rarely none at all. It took a while to get it to a reasonable quantity. I was patient; impressing myself with the willpower I displayed.

That was fun, it will be useful, I have plans of making spectral tools, but for now, I save the energy. I have another project in mind – Time in a bottle.

A great object that’s better made earlier than later. A simple diamond, gold lapis combination; quickly crafted. Holding it in my hand, I see a steady drip of a cloudy liquid drip inside, liquid time. The time that is likely siphoned off me. Slightly entrancing, watching it drip. Placing it inside my golden bag, waiting a while then taking it out; verified that doesn’t work. Backup plan. Tied it to my waist with a string. Any smaller and it would be around my neck but it works. If I meet people I will pretend it's alcohol.

You may be wondering what it does, and the answer is to accelerate any single thing, in exchange for the time that slowly accumulates. Furnaces burn faster, cooking food quicker, crops grow faster than you can eat them. Anything and everything can be sped up.

Costs a lot of time so it's best I start accumulating it before I need it. I had that stuck on my mind since day 3 glad I finally crafted it.

How long has it been now? I've lost track of time, perhaps nearly a month? Should have done that thing where you scratch a tree every day “chuckles”.

Sometime soon I need to find the “bean” from random things, a great food source, and an even greater means of teleporting! How you may ask? Not saying until I do it. I do also need ender pearls; actually, now that I think upon it I haven’t seen a single enderman - Odd.

I don’t believe one would be easy to take down so likely for the best; I would totally try and kill it and get wrecked if I spotted it before my fight with the blazes.

Accomplishing a lot today it seems, naturally, some days are more productive than others.

Equipping my old gear, saddens me to have not upgraded – soon. What I tell myself to push forward, anyway!

Heading deeper into my mine, by extension the cave system as well, one goal: Essence berries, I will also grab the copper while I am at it. Little concern about the hauling of the items as I have an inventory; sorta.

Passing through the now-familiar cavernous structures, I realize, too late perhaps I am getting lax in my care for my life. Why do you ask? Cause I currently have an arrow sticking out my wrist, “ouch” doesn’t really hurt too much, but I am no fool. I am not confusing me being strong with adrenaline; that’s gonna hurt like a bitch soon.

I have now verified skeletons are smart enough to aim for weak points, admirably more intelligent than zombies if not still blockheads.

As calm as I can be with blood cascading out my arm, I run! Realizing I may very well bleed out if I don’t stem the bleeding, would not be good. “shit, no medical supplies” How stupid of me. Biting the bullet I blast my arm with the fire from my flint and steel. The bleeding has slowed; at the cost of longer healing – bloody hell.

My right arm is completely out of action, for now, holding my axe in my left I prepare for a hard fight. I hear the telltale sign of skeletons “clacking”. I emphasise “skeletons” as I hear more than 1. Likely 1 bow between them as I was hit with 1 arrow.

Waiting for the noise to close in; darting around the cave walls straight at the skeletons. [2, one with a bow one with a sword] Running for the bow wielder, it looses an arrow, striking my shoulder; ignoring the shockwave I press on. The second skeleton goes to intercept me, barging its relatively weak frame with my buckler; I tumble forward, catching my fall as I jump onto the bow skeleton. Missing my first strike, I drop my axe to grapple the bow away before stepping back and kicking the skull away from the body – Hurting my foot in the process.

Headless, the skeleton can no longer aim to hurt me. Picking up my axe and tumbling to my left; narrowly dodging the sword coming for my neck, I prepare to counter the now alone skeleton swordsman.

Catching its sword under the axe head; I kick its spine toppling it over before caving its skull in. Then killing the bow skeleton with a swift blow to the skull, I finally relax.

I postpone my cave dive until I can heal, I cannot protect my self well with this injury – unfortunately.

Heading home, I quickly remove my gear. Stored safely in my bag; sitting down with an exaggerated sigh. The pain is quickly accumulating, I search for a bandage in my NEI, finding one to just needs string and wool. I quickly craft one, making a small cut to allow blood to flow; helping the healing process. Bandaging my wound, I eat a small meal then go to bed, hoping the wound will heal well.

Waking up with a throbbing pain in my wrist, removing the bandage – “few, had me scared for a moment”. It is healing well, wound closed, blood clotting. Should be good as new by the evening. This fast healing stuff is freaky.

Equipping my gear, I head back down; with an additional eye on the passing shadows. Every so often I place Glowstone to light up the area further.

I will not be visiting here for much longer, but for now, it makes me feel better. Which is all that matters as my life is important.

I quickly reach the ravine unencumbered by monsters; inconsistent as ever. I see my prize, both. Copper and essence berry bushes. Within moments I gather the copper, a small vain of 4 – enough. I then move on to the reason for this trip; Experience! With my goal in mind, I close in as much as possible before chugging a fire-resistant potion, “spicy”.

Taking a testing dip of the lava it feels like a warm bath, less thick then originally anticipated. Quickly making my way to the bushes, I cover the bush of 5 with cobblestone, below and on the sides to protect them. With the protection in place, I gather my prize, before quickly escaping the lava, fear for the expiration of the potion.

With my goal(s) achieved, I make my way home, the only monster encountered being the friendly cave spider. I throw him some potatoes, maybe he likes potatoes. With a last glance, I see the spider, eat the potato with its mouth, expected it to eat like, you know spiders? Weird. It seems to have liked it.

With a hop and a skip, I breeze through the door to my mine. With a quick blast of the devil can it quickly grows back to its previous maturity, providing essence berries – perfect, only cost me a arm “chuckles”.