29 – Underground farming systemTM

Their moment was interrupted when Tyla got out of her tent, and approached them. She coughed lightly, drawing the attention of the two to her. Lumia just smiled, and let go of a very embarrassed and red-faced Jacob.

His mind immediately returned to the task at hand.

“Ahem,” he coughed too, “I see that you’ve changed as well.”

“Yes. It’s only us two for now, but I predict that all of the tribe will change within a few days.”

“Well, that was unexpected. I hope it’s not a bad—”

“Of course it’s not!” She interrupted him.

He felt a weight lift. “Oh, good. I feared it would be. Lumia seemed happy, but I couldn’t know.”

“Don’t worry.” Lumia said. “All the others are quite thrilled by this change. They’re also quite jealous.” She added.

Jacob smiled faintly. This woman was dangerous, if she learned to use her weapons. Already she could stir his mind the way she wanted, and he dared not think what would happen if she got even better at it.

“In any case,” he shook his head as if to clear away stray thoughts. “I need to ask a few things of you. Do you know of the Nether, and of the End?”

The two elves looked puzzled.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t look so sad. This could be a good thing, assuming the portals work. Now, as for the rest, I see that things are going well around here!”

“They are!” Lumia beamed a proud smile, then proceeded to give him a thorough report of the changes of the last few days.

Seeing her zeal, he did not interrupt her. It seemed that, at last, she had found her purpose among her people.

“You did a wonderful job, Lumia.” Jacob said, and his heart warmed when he saw her reaction. “Now, let me help along with a few things.”

“Are you going to seclude yourself again?”

“Not exactly, but I have a lot of things to test. First, though, I’ll build something nice for you.”

Taking out his excavator, he dug down into the ground. Around the hole he built a small fence, with a sign that told Gyhlot to build something nice here for the entrance of the underground farm. Then, he created a vast space underground.

At the center, right where the stairs coming from the ground ended, he made a long corridor out of wooden planks. Then, around it he placed water source blocks one next to the other, creating infinite water in the middle, and covered them with lily pads so that they could be walked on.

The rest of the space was filled with tilled dirt, illuminated by ceiling lamp posts covered in torches, and the walls replaced with stone bricks.

“It’s done!” Jacob said, pointing at the tilled soil behind him. “An underground farm proper. I’ve already planted the seeds. You should have your first harvest very soon. After that, you can just call me to replant everything so it grows faster.”

“Awesome! Thank you!”

“I’m not done. We need meat, right?”

“Uh, we have hunters going through the forest…”

“No, no. It’s still dangerous, with the mechanical wolf roaming around. But since they’re already there, ask them to bring back two of the same animal for however many animals they can. Edible, of course.”

“Okay.”

With that, Lumia darted away and Jacob was left alone once again with his thoughts.

“Phew. So many things to do. Better to get working.”

He rushed back to his tower, with the intent of making the best of the time he had before the hunters came back.

The first thing he wanted to test was the build height limit of this world. He went to the top of his tower, selected the gigantic stack of dirt in his inventory, and started pillaring. He went up and up, occasionally stopping to look at the view from up here. He could see quite far now, despite the light haze that built up in the distance. The edge of the forest was at least eight kilometers away, where it was closest, and impossible to spot on the other sides. Building a sky bridge all the way there would take up at least eight thousand blocks, but it would probably be worth it.

He kept going up. After using almost a thousand blocks, he decided he went far enough. There seemed to be no height limit in this world, and this brought a smile to his face. Taking out his assembled shovel, made at a tool forge out of the best materials and alloys he could make both for the components and the modifiers, he dug down. The speed was impressive, and he reached the balcony of his tower in no time.

A ding.

Tool level up!

He smiled. Another modifier slot for his shovel!

He rushed to the tool forge, and started dumping the required amount of redstone in the modifier slot for the shovel. However, no matter what he tried, it didn’t seem to work.

“Odd. I did it just a few days ago and it was working…”

He tried again, but to no avail.

He scratched his temples, itchy because of all the sweat. He was getting quite agitated, not only because he just dug at least a kilometer of dirt, but also because he feared what this failure would imply.

“Crafting table, now!”

He selected four wooden planks blocks, and tried to make a workbench.