After placing the furnace down, George contemplated his next move. He opened his inventory and tapped the book icon located at the top left to check the currently active quest.
[Quest ongoing, Find or craft an Enchanting table]
[Reward: 16 lapis and 1 free enchantment.]
"That's doable," remarked George to himself.
George left his small house and explored the immediate surroundings for interesting structures or cave entrances. After a short while, he found nothing of interest.
Finally, he decided to venture further and find a village or other interesting structures.
Before heading out, he took a moment to prepare. He gathered extra food from the nearby mobs, cooked it, and crafted a spare sword and pickaxe. He also double checked his inventory to ensure he had everything he needed. Additionally, he constructed a tall pillar near his house, topped with a torch, so he could see his little settlement from a distance, though the moss might be hard to miss.
George decided to pick a random direction and start walking. The path he chose led him through a relatively wide plains biome, followed by a sparse taiga. His view was obstructed by small mounds and trees from both biomes, making it difficult to see further ahead.
The plains and taiga are two biomes where villages are relatively common. After passing through the empty plains, George finally entered the taiga. Right away, as he moved past one of the tall trees, he was ambushed by a zombie wearing an iron helmet and wielding an iron sword. Unable to react quickly enough, George was slashed across his arm by the zombie.
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Despite the attack, George barely felt anything, just a slight stinging sensation on his arm. In retaliation, George swung his newly made iron sword and immediately severed the zombie's arm like butter, and made a deep cut on the zombie's torso.
After the initial attack, he immediately struck again, and the zombie turned into smoke.
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"Phew, the Sword is indeed way lighter than the axe," he noticed.
George pushed through the trees, cutting down the occasional lurking mob. Engaged with two zombies, he failed to notice the creeper sneaking up until the familiar hiss split the air.
A deafening blast thundered through the woods as the creeper exploded point blank. George was hurled like a ragdoll, slamming into the ground with bone-shaking force. Blood seeped from jagged wounds, and the sickening crack of broken bones echoed in his ears.
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"Damn it…" he rasped, spitting blood into the dirt.
Fortunately, the explosion completely obliterated the zombies, leaving George temporarily safe.
"Shit, come on, heal faster," George hissed, wincing in severe pain.
After five minutes had passed, he finally stumbled to his feet with the support of a nearby tree, his legs still shaky.
[George
Armor: 30
Armor Toughness: 0
Health: 40.54 + 0.1/s
Attack Damage: 10 + Tool Damage]
"I need to craft a shield. Why haven't I crafted a shield yet?" George exclaimed, panicking.
After that deeply traumatizing experience, he vowed never to let his guard down again. He had grown too arrogant.
George quickly chopped down the nearest tree and placed a crafting table on the ground. He arranged the wood and the iron ingot in the required pattern and crafted a shield.
A large rectangular shield appeared on top of the crafting table. George lifted it and strapped it to his left arm.
Feeling much safer, George decided to continue his journey. Still tense from the earlier incident, he avoided most of the mobs along the way. Finally, he reached the edge of the Taiga biome, where he spotted a village, a plains biome village.
"Finally, a village!" George exclaimed, feeling some of his lingering tension melt away.
Breaking into a run, he quickly arrived at the village. What greeted him were the familiar blocky villagers, each with large noses. Most of them ignored him, but a few looked at him with interest.
"Will they care if I take their stuff?" George wondered with mild concern.
They did not react. Even when he entered one of their houses, they mostly just stared at him.
George quickly located a library, breaking the bookshelves and collecting the books in his inventory. After all, books were necessary to craft the Enchantment Table.
After mining and collecting all the books, George set out to find a blacksmith. Blacksmiths are known to have valuable items such as iron, iron equipment, tools, and even diamonds.
Fortunately, he didn't have to search long before he found one. He entered the rectangular building and walked over to the chest against the wall.
Saying a small prayer, he slowly opened the chest. The familiar inventory menu appeared, along with a separate menu for the chest's contents.
What he saw nearly left him speechless. Inside the chest, he found 6 diamonds, 5 obsidian blocks, and 3 iron ingots.
"That's insane!" George exclaimed in excitement.
Not long before his freak accident, he had come across a Reddit thread where someone claimed to have discovered 6 diamonds in a blacksmith's chest, apparently, the odds of such a find were around 0.3%.
George quickly pocketed all the items and turned to face the sun.
"It's time to head back," he noted, glancing at the descending sun.
In just a couple of hours, it would set completely, and he didn't feel confident enough to face the night.
He set off, jogging out of the blacksmith building, and took a quick look around the vicinity to see if he had missed anything.
Suddenly, George noticed a large, roughly 3 meter tall, blocky humanoid creature that was as white and sleek as his armor. It was an iron golem. George stared at it for a while, contemplating whether he should leave it alone or attack it to harvest iron, as he often did when he played Minecraft.
After a short period of contemplation, George decided against it. He wasn't brave enough to fight such a behemoth, and he didn't want to face the consequences if anything went wrong.
He turned around and began retracing his steps to the village. Deep in the taiga, George spotted something terrifying. His expression instantly soured.
It was a creature the size of a dog, with small appendages flailing wildly.
It was a Rupter.
Without hesitation, George dashed towards it with all his might, quickly closing the distance. The creature, sensing danger, immediately began scurrying away and darting between the trees.
However, it wasn't fast enough to escape George. He soon got within melee range. Realizing it couldn't flee, the Rupter abandoned its earlier tactic and leaped toward him.
George blocked its charge with his shield. he quickly raised his sword and cut the creature in half.
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"Why are the parasites here?!" he exclaimed in panic.
The parasites came from a mod called Scape and Run Parasites. Ruptors can infect other creatures, creating assimilated parasites. At first, this isn't too bad, but as they infect more and more animals, the difficulty increases significantly. Some parasites can one-shot players even if they're wearing fully enchanted, modded armor, while others can't take more than 14 damage, regardless of the weapon used against them. Some parasites even adapt and become completely invulnerable to certain types of damage.
Eventually, the surrounding biomes become infected, spreading the parasites rapidly across other areas and threatening to destroy the entire world. To slow this process, players must kill the parasites.
In a wild frenzy, George quickly collected the drops from the parasite, Rupter viscera, and made a mad dash back to his base.