Chapter 20: The Arrival

Excerpt from an unnamed geographer's book of wonders of the world.

No matter how far I travel, how much I see I always think of home, of the family who looks out for me the neighbors who speak with me the guards who protect those after night descends. Yet these thoughts like a fire behind me drive me to explore, to learn so others may know what the world has to offer.

The newest biome I have come across I call simply; the crater. A dead zone for biological existence with extreme heat, intermittent geothermal activity, and noxious smoke. This biome stretched a many days walk across that I only braved with many layers of cloth over my mouth and protective clothing. With all this, I was rewarded with a beautiful array of colorful fire dancing like wisps through the air, at the core of this dangerous location is a true beauty.

Danger level: High risk

As the sun begins the disappear I spot it, land; deep green flat land – large. “finally, I have missed land so much, I missed you!”

Positively jumping for the joy it takes me a hot minute to realize it's positively miles away and will take hours to reach my current pace. Sighing in resignation I continue my route to bed, knowing it's unlikely il sleep long enough to pass the land at all, it's just that massive that I can see it from this far away.

I am not sad though, I am excited, so much so slumber takes a long time to come to me. But it does as always and with that I drift above the waves for my final night, for now.

When I finally awaken from my slumber, realizing what morning means after a moment of fog. I dart out of my bed looking over to the land. Noticeably closer now, still haven’t reached it but I can make out more than a blurry green line. Lots of grass, with spars trees dotted throughout, a light forest seems to stretch to the side of plains, lots of flatlands – perfect.

Taking this new information on board and filling it away I start planning. I already intend to live in the sky. A source of water would be nice but I can fix that with a reservoir so it is not needed. A source of wood is good, flat land is good for building on the ground ready for my sky base. I suspect living near the ocean is also ideal for the view and potentially a whole other range of resources. As much as it disgusts me at the moment I know that is a biased perspective that will fade as I settle in.

Okay, so what I will do is fly inland somewhat, get a lay of the land. I hope mountains or some kind of rocky terrain are nearby but I am not naive enough to believe I am that lucky. Thankfully I can grow more emeralds; in time. So that’s not needed, just preferred.

“ crap, I have so much to do, setting up farms, prepping the materials; setting up foundations, the whole nine yards.” A smile creeping on my face “I can't wait”. Okay for now I need a quick form of flight, so I will focus on getting the flight armour until other measures can be produced. Not ideal but it's fine. I will complete the flight gene; in the future. It will be useful having it tied to my body even if it's imperfect flight. No rush though, the process sucks.

I have a builders wand but I will need to gather dirt, thankfully I have a ton of stone; I made sure to keep a lot of it smelting. A recently intensified project given a functionally unlimited supply of coal.

So I have enough stone, the dirt will be annoying but relatively easy, I will definitely have to find a means to move grass on top, but it will come in time.

With building plans being mentally prepared I start wondering about how I should set up my farm. Currently, my method of auto farming is simply too poor. I think aiming for the Ender Io farming station is ideal. Other than that I am sure I can make simple harvesting robots but the farming station is familiar. The only annoying ingredients being a zombie's head and the industrial coating. The industrial coating is a combination of quartz dust, lapis dust, coal dust, black organic dye, and green organic dye. The last 2 are the most annoying, green more so than black. The black being coal and slime in an alloy smelter. Which is an important tool I will craft anyway. This smelter allows you to smelt anywhere from 1 to 3 items together to produce alloys, which range in uses it’s a rather simple device.

The green dye, a son of a bitch. It's annoying to get. Ideally, you want cactus but I haven’t seen the head or tail of a sandy and hot environment so that’s out. So I will have to shear a metric ton of trees, place them in a sag mill [over the glorified name of a grinder] and wish upon a shooting star.

None the less it's nothing too tough just tedious and I am lazy. All this planning is well and good but until I get to land it's useless. Perhaps I can prepare the machines I need in advance?

Cracks knuckles dramatically, lets get to work as land is coming quick and I don’t want to waste time. Preparing the lowest form of alloy smelter, I realize too late I need grains of infinite, crap. Easy to get… on land. I can at least prepare the ingredients, which I do. Iron, iron bars, and cobblestone. Cobblestone in the form of 3 furnaces. Items ready for crafting I move onto the sag mill. It needs dark biometal gears, which are simply gears made out of an alloy that needs the alloy smelter and infinite grains. Nothing to be done I prepare the flint, pistons, and other small things I can, neatly organized in a small chest ready to craft.

The final machine I will need is a slice and splice to produce the circuit using a zombie's head, Grimm but needed. Sorry zombies but I will be using your mind more than you ever did. Looking at the recipe I need an alloy called soularium and a monster head as the most difficult ingredients. The latter will be sorted when getting the ingredients, so soularium. Relatively easy and hard, gold and soulsand, which is a common nether block in an alloy smelter. All comes back to the alloy smelter. Bloody useful it is and a massive bottleneck for now. I collect everything I can and squirrel it away for crafting at a later date.

With as much done as possible, I start to consider power options. My creed being no maintenance, green energy is ideal for now. It’s a tough choice really. Many things like solar panels need advanced ingredients. If I found a rubber I could make an industrial craft printer hmmm.

If I find a form of nickel I would definitely consider thermoelectric generators; they are my go-to early power generation. Actually, I have a source of nickel, if I pulverize the ore produced from iron essence from magical crops it produced nickel as a side product. I think I have a plan, find an effective method to pulverize iron.

A standard pulverizer from thermal expansion – perfect. It just takes a complex recipe of simple ingredients. Copper, iron, Redstone, gold, and flint all things I have. Well, that got crafted quick, although now I actually have to produce iron seeds and start farming them rapidly.

Taking Imperio essence, I have a small stock, I prepare 2 iron seeds and start my crossbreeding endeavors. I manage to get it up to 6 6 6 before using both a watering can and liquid time to rapidly grow so much essence; after crafting I have roughly 5 stacks of iron.

Setting the pulverizer up to my pitiful power system I put a hopper on top and a hopper below auto feeding iron inside and depositing it into a chest. I am on my way to power. I will need to farm more copper than I have so I also make copper seeds, requiring simple Accio. Going through a round of breeding and by the time I have it at the standard triple 5, I am near the shore, distractingly planting it I head over my deck to gaze upon the new place I have found.

Looking past the now cyan hue of the ocean I see a luscious beach, followed by a deep plain with waving hills, few sharp edges. I never thought id see such smooth angles in Minecraft. To the right, sparse trees slowly increase in density until a beautiful array of oak and birch create a light forest stretching into the visible distance. Looking further the plain turns into hills but nothing too tall. That’s fine though it will make a nice home I suppose. I look upon the distance and I see little of immediate value but forests normally lead to magical stuff from experience and I am sure those hills hide something cool.

Guess we will have to go exploring after I am settled in I suppose.

My ship breaking the line dividing the ocean and the land I audibly breathe out in relief, finally done. That was one hell of a journey. Flying over some of the rolling hills I look for a spot relatively flat that dips down somewhat. Didn’t take too long, Within a short walk of the ocean and forest while still having sizable room for expansion.

This is where I will build my home. Taking some of the stone I have gathered before I fly directly up, then off my ship build a flat irregular circle of stone, using my builder's wand I make it positively massive. I am talking over a hundred and twenty meters across on both sides. I will regret doing that later when I finally bite the bullet and build the rest of the island, “definitely will regret this, sigh”.

It actually didn’t take too long, looked weird with a giant stone circle in the sky but you must start somewhere. I can't progress down producing the decorative part of the island yet but I don’t need to. It just hurts my heart. Heading down again I begin collecting dirt, a lot of dirt. 120 blocks circled is more than you think. Creating a layer of dirt on top of the disk. With the builder's wand, it’s a breeze but both tasks took me easily a couple hours each.

The creative builders' wand has a recipe but… it is not easy so another day. Being creative I use my shovel but instead of breaking the grass, I slice out a 1meter grass block. Yes, didn’t turn into an item, hauling that back up to my foundation. I plant it in the center of my disk and water it. As suspected common sense works here unlike in Minecraft. Taking the time to use a watering can I spread the grass and all at random intervolves place Glowstone inside the ground throughout the disk, lighting it up completely.

I now have a giant floating disk in the sky I can call home that is at least somewhat safe. I should grow trees on the edge. Okay, taking out the stone I select the broad part of the circle roughly 40% of it, and mark it out with stone for where I will build a large stone home. Nothing fancy just a guideline. With that complete, I at least know where I can build now. Time to build a farm, which will then grow upwards in time but for now this is fine.

Tilling a 15x15 block area, the max range of a farming station, as I will be installing a farming station in time. I would like to change the dirt to fertile soil and all that but for now, a simple farm will do. Taking a large quantity of minicio seeds, which I took the time to gather when I was bored I plant them all, producing a massive farm, one step closer to the ability to fly I suppose. Surrounding the farming area with stone bricks, 2 thick as a walkway I ponder how I can make a massive tower look good. Function first of course, first, I create a stone brick box over the farmed area with a 4 high ceiling, allowing space for power, automation, and a whole manner of other things. Creating a simple 2x1 doorway in the dead center of the building facing to the side. I then take a glass and cut out the third row of bricks on each side, dividing them into cells by keeping a brick right in the dead center of each wall, creating an interesting window. Mostly for natural light more than anything.

I then take different varieties of stone bricks, switching out blocks so the bottom layer is more decorative. I replace the corners with stone pillars and surround them with steps producing a pleasant effect. I also create a slight rim using slabs at the top of the roof. I will repeat much of this on each floor I expand it. It looks okay now, not perfect but it is designed to be a very functional building, I will definitely pull out all the stops for my home and the island its self.

I go inside and I begin to place Glowstone onto the ceiling, spaced evenly to light up the farm so they grow effectively indoors. With that done I wander out, taking a break – love building, so rewarding.

I placed the farm not too far from the edge at the bottom right corner of my island, the outline for my home takes up the top middle of it, roughly 60 blocks squared, very large. This mental map is if you use cardinal directions of north and south. The ocean is to the East, forest South and north and west are more rolling hills.

It is getting late so I best get some shut-eye, I will have a busy few days now, not forgetting to harvest my crops before I do. I can't wait to build much more interesting stuff.