Chapter 48: Screw killing the wither

Mind coming into focus, almost like a camera the world comes back into my view. Listening to a light ‘pitta patta.’ Rain slowly falling, it's very peaceful; I have always enjoyed the peace of rain. It turned out rain is a type of ‘pink noise;’ that’s why it aids you in sleep and helps you relax.

I thought it rather poetic how romanticized rain is, and coincidentally it's also a type of pink noise. Although that brings into question, is pink a romantic color, I would argue red is.

Smiling at my light mental arguments, I rise from my slumber. A slight ache mars my face from falling asleep inside my diary. Reading the last few lines of the diary are all but illegible. Once my mind has cleared of the morning fog, I fix those little errors in my diary. Reading through it brings the past day into startlingly clear clarity. Idly enjoying Jengal and his rather similar mothers surprised expression; it brought fun to my day.

I stayed like that for a while, enjoying the soft noise in the background and the recent fun days I have been having. Yet, everyone must get out of bed eventually… excluding your death bed; that’s a special exemption.

Rising from my warm cocoon I find a morning glow permeates my room, I suspect it's dawn. Checking my clock quickly verifies my guess.

Heading downstairs, I find a bundle of webs set onto the exit of the stairs. If I didn’t know better, I would assume it an accident. Fortunately, I know better; that spider seems to get satisfaction from either scaring me or pranking me. Sometimes both at the same time.

Finding my way to the kitchen, I cut up a variety of fruit. I managed to get my hands on a pomelo from the market. Back home this was called the king of citrus. This was because it was positively gigantic, a large citrus fruit the size of your head. The color varies but the one I most commonly consumed was green; thankfully this one is the same as what I am used to.

Taking great care, I slice my knife around the equator of the fruit. Using my hands, I tear away the thick skin, creating a hollow shell of rind and skin. The most notable thing about pomelo is its large quantity of inedible parts. Along with intricate veins of chewy material make it a fruit that requires skill to prepare.

Of course, you could muddle through it but your returns would be low and the quality poor. My first attempt resulted in a couple handfuls of broken balls of citrus. Of course; it still allowed me to try the product. To which I verified I loved it and spent the time and effort to improve upon my skills.

Using graceful hands and muscle memory I quickly strip the majority of the inedible outside. Cutting away at excess to expose the fruit inside. Using my knife, I trace along the veins in a V shape, remove them deftly.

Once done, I use my hands to pry apart the segments before extracting the fruit into large, whole segments. Devoid of any inedible parts. I place this fruit within the hollow shell before it was cut. This keeps it fresh and saves me from making a container.

With little concern for my appearance, I quickly tuck into the dry, zesty fruit. A light citrus flavor complemented by an almost imperceptible sweetness results in a rather divine dish.

I like ate far more than any reasonable human should, but I enjoyed it; that’s all that matters. I took the liberty to plant a pomelo tree. To which I will quickly appreciate, having your favorite fruit easily accessible is awesome.

I am forever grateful for the green thumb these magical objects gift me. In real life, I would have little hope of growing such a tree. Having lived in a colder climate I had no hope of growing tropical fruits. My only source; unreliable supermarkets.

While enjoying the fruit, I contemplate what a pomelo coulis would taste like? It likely would need reinforcing with either extracted pomelo or a separate fruit.

Having enjoyed my tropical breakfast, I check my ender mailbox. Finding it empty I promptly head to the main part of my castle. I was reminded recently of a rather unknown mod, one that was beyond op and I only ever used it once – ‘Geochests.’

These chests once activated will store an area of blocks, depending on size. It pretty much switches spaces, storing one within and replacing it with what was previously stored. If it’s the first store, it just switches it with air blocks. For example, if I build a small house, then store it within the chest. All that will be left will be a hole in the ground with air. If I place the chest down and activate it once more, somewhere else; it will deposit the house and store the blocks it relaced within.

At first, you might think, that’s not that op? You would be right… for vanilla Minecraft. Now think of all the mod items that, you can break but can’t gather. Good examples include thaumcraft structures, Evilcraft weather accumulators; the list goes on. In fact, when I played with it, it was even more op. It was able to store even unbreakable blocks… excluding bedrock. Which was a foolish oversight. I recall going into the mirror dimension and removing the walls, to which I add a personal, virtually infinite, unraidable base.

The best part? They were as cheap as chips. Now let's check NEI and remind me of the recipe… “that’s new, crap.”

Seems Felix is wise to this mod, he ‘improved’ the recipe by making it require a nether star for the first tier of the chest. Every consecutive size up requires 2 more nether stars; all the way to 64x64x64 in size.

Well, my mind is set, so I want geochests, so let's get some nether stars… the smart way. You can craft them with ‘extraterrestrial matter’, which is gained from enderman or ender dragon deep mob learning cores.

This mod is really easy to use, just time consuming to automate. Definitely worth it though I suppose. First, I place a coal block and rub Redstone dust and obsidian on it. Both of them become soot-covered, to which I craft them together to get charred plates. The most important item.

After that, it's just, gold, dye, and a variety of Redstone and stone. Really easy recipes.

After which I craft a data chip, to which I combine an ender pearl. I also craft a deep mob learner, placing with inside. With that, I just need to kill a bunch of enderman. Now you might wonder, I haven’t seen many enderman, where am I going to kill a bunch. Given the ‘End’ is off the menu if I died to the damn wither, time to summon some enderman.

When a dimensional portal is broken, it leaves a tear in the world. Now if a large amount of these is together it destabilizes that part of reality. Which enderman are attracted to, or rather fall through during interdimensional travel. Or at least that’s the working theory.

Now I will artificially do that and kill the enderman that appears.

Breaking a couple of doors, I placed; stabilizer on hand to fix the tears. I wait, for a while apparently; 30 minutes had already passed. I was considering closing the rift by now; it had started to eat at the world around it. But I spotted a few purple particles appearing near it.

Before I knew it, a rather dazed looking enderman appears at the rift. Not wasting the opportunity, I strike. I get very lucky; with its dazed state I instantly behead it; dead immediately. Checking the data chip, I find it now says 1. 4 more to go before I have an easier method to gather enderman.

I continue to wait, eventually, the same telltale sign appears. I attempt to preemptively strike, but my timing was off and misses spectacularly. To which the enderman was shocked into the reality of the situation. Turning around, I was greeted with a fist; a very hard fist. I was thrown back straight into the rift which hurt immensely. Shivering from the cold void like pain it caused, I ready my stance.

Running towards the enderman, it teleports away. I expected this, turning around immediately I strike at a rather surprised enderman. Cutting a deep slice into its leg. It hastily emergency teleports away, limping from nearly having its leg removed.

Striking while the iron was hot, I ran towards the disabled enderman. He repeatedly teleports; which clearly drains him quickly as they got much slower. Jumping onto the creature I drive my sword through its neck into its chest. It stills quickly, surprisingly, and pleasantly dropping a endermans head.

I continue this process scoring another easy kill and a second annoying kill. A couple spotted me in time and teleported away. To which I didn’t give chase, they are too difficult to chase when they are in perfect condition.

I quickly craft a couple trial keys, a simple item involving ender pearls, diamonds, and iron nuggets. I return, killing 2 more enderman, creating 2 trial keys bound to a basic enderman challenge.

I stabilize the rift, for now, better safe than sorry. Using a spare key, I create a trial keystone. Placing it on a flat part of the land. Finding a neat key slot on top. I place the key within, activating the trial. Quickly a shield surrounds the trial, purple particles spewing through the area. And then I hear it ‘blink,’ “They are here.”

Quickly spotting an enderman, running towards me. They seem to be in an aggravated state, judgment clouded by the berserk mindset, I easily dispatch the monster. Next 2 spawn, and so on. By 4 I start to struggle, attacked from all sides, even if they are dumber than normal, I am overwhelmed. I was forced to consume, speed, strength, and health potions like water. I managed to pull through, but the final wave of 5 enderman are on the way.

Chugging some more potions I brace myself. Looking around, I spot… 7? “That’s not good.” Steeling my mind, focus crystal clear. I look at the closest enderman, some are teleporting but at least 4 are rushing me, firsts raised. Preparing I charge the first enderman, they teleport away in panic. Taking out my sword I strike at the next enderman. I leave a shallow cut but it backs off.

I am immediately tackled by 2 enderman striking me firsts respectively. Hurts like hell but my armors not for show. Tanking the hits, I manage to score a critical blow on one of the closest enderman, its partner fleeing; a coward.

Focusing on the heavily injured enderman, it's at the furthest edge of the dome. I sprint towards it, redirecting as it teleports. As far as I can tell; when they teleport while wounded, they rapidly lose blood. I manage to gracefully dodge most strikes from other enderman, accepting those I could not.

Heart set alight with the drive to kill; I drive my sword through the neck of the wounded enderman. And then there were 6. I continued this method until and 6 were dead. Thankfully I have a whole bag of health potions and a stack of golden apples. Not ideal to eat during combat but enough to sustain even the most difficult of battles.

As the dome descends, I find my data chip has reached advanced. Heading home, using clay, gold, and iron I make polymer clay and using gold, a machine casing, and a few other materials I create a simulation chamber. Hooking it up to my power, using hoppers to auto-feed polymer clay and remove the output. I input my enderman data chip.

I am now producing extraterrestrial matter and matter for enderman drops. I no longer need to concern myself with enderman heads; it producing them and almost every other enderman drops. I am happy about this; I always feel guilty killing intelligent monsters. Especially neutral ones like enderman. Now I should never have to kill another enderman.

Every simulation slowly accumulates experience, improving the data chip and increasing the drop rate of enderman matter. Although I don’t care about that right now, I at least have an easy source of wither stars; which is completely automatable if I wish.

Doing all this took half the day, I should make some dinner, I am starving.