"Here take this"
"hmmm"
"you there! the one with a headband, yes you! bring these ores to the blacksmith"
"hmhm"
"what splendid day to start mining hehehe"
"hmmmhmmm"
John was inside a natural cave that he extended by mining through it. Behind him were a few villagers that scuttled back and forth carrying blocks of stone. A convenient way to handle John's mining problem. Since every block in his inventory from the overworld affects John, he couldn't mine without going to the surface and discarding them. However, with his new followers he could drop his blocks and they would carry it outside.
A long time ago John arrived at a village. After some confusing events John ended up becoming some sort of head or ruler. They understood everything he said and would follow his commands. Each one of the villagers had unending stamina like he did as long as they ate regularly. The villagers could fight zombies and skeletons but those acts were left to the iron golems patrolling around.
The iron golems were large, almost robot like humanoid machines that delivered strong punches that launched anything they touched far away into the distance. John spent time with these villagers and found out that they were indeed "alive".
They had children, nurtured bonds, cared for the sick and sometimes had hobbies. John realized that he couldn't treat the overworld like his playground anymore. There were creatures with sentience, capable of loving and teaching the others around them. So John learned their speech, Hymns that delivered more of emotion than information. John wondered how they managed to cooperate with each other without the exchange of verbal tasks or requests but they seemed to do just fine.
John discovered the village in a valley sorrounded by forested mountains. The people had farms of wheat and domesticated cows, herds of sheep as well as free ranging chickens. It was a mystery how the villagers managed to do all these with how strong the animals in this world.
Each villager had jobs to perform in the village. There were bone hunters that specifically hunted skeletons for fertilizers and zombie hunters existed as well. What interested John was the blacksmith. The blacksmith had forging knowledge that John never new.
The iron in the overworld was many times stronger than iron from earth, John assumed that the iron he harvested would possess the perfect quality when crafted in the crafting table. In reality the already strong iron was further improved by the crafting table. John had focused too much on the design and utility of what he forged or crafted that completely ignored the materials.
What's even worse was that the reason he travelled the overworld was to find diamonds to replace his iron gear. He never explored the full potential of the things he had. The revelation he gained was the existence of steel. A sword hanged from the blacksmith's walls revealed what he didn't see for years.
The existence of steel was revolutionary. John's iron wear was able to withstand charges from cows, although it would get dented it held on regardless. The important point here is that steel is an alloy of iron that is many times more durable and stronger than iron.
If John replaces his armor and weaponry with steel he would be harder and stronger than before.
The blacksmith showed John his process of making steel. The blacksmith stacked pieces of bones from skeleton monster without creating too much space or air gaps in the stack. The bones would be covered in wet clay about 3-4 inches thick that would be left to dry. When the clay was dried cracks would appear on the surface due to shrinking which would be plastered with more clay. The blacksmith would sorround the clay covered stack with dirt walls wide enough for someone to walk on top.
When the cracks in the clay are covered and the dirt enclosure is done, the blacksmith takes lava from a pit in a cave near the mountains and pour it inside the enclosure until the clay covered bone stack is engulfed. Lava wouldn't dry up in the overworld unless expossed to water so the heat stayed consistent for many days. When a week has passed, the blacksmith digs a hole in the ground beside a dirt wall and puncture a hole for lava to flow through.
When the dirt enclosure is rid of lava, the blacksmith breaks open the hardened clay to collect now turned charcoal bones. The charcoal bones would be brought to the forge to be crushed into extremely fine black powder. A cauldron of molten iron would be at the ready to recieve the fine powder and would be mixed together for a long period of time. After an hour or so the mixture is poured into a mold for it to cool. The final product, a greyish metal stronger and tougher than iron.
The charcoal bones were the carbon that strengthened the iron. John tested the steel sword from the blacksmith by smashing it into an iron sword that he made. The steel sword nearly split the iron sword in half without receiving any trauma on its surface.
Naturally, as soon as John learnt the steel making process he started his own at a faster rate. He used his furnace to turn the bones from skeletons he killed into charcoal and reforged his gear. He made use of his technique of "Make one with hand and make another with crafting table" until no improvements could be made.
During this forging and reforging spree, John made two discoveries;
one, if he adds more of the skeleton carbon dust the resulting steel would become harder, resistant to scratching but would lose some of it's flexibility. An impact strong enough to get past the material's load would create small cracks and even potentialy break it. Basically, more carbon=hard=brittle.
two, he could make multi layered steel. Multi layered steel was basically soft steel with a small concentration of carbon sandwiched between high carbon steel. The external layer was rigid and firm, capable of taking blunt force trauma and piercings without breaking. The middle layer gave the external layer impact absorption and flexibility, And the final layer was for added support.
John combined his discoveries into his armor, tools, and even weapons. He was now a mobile tank, he tested it by standing infront of a creeper and surviving the blast without recieving a nick in his armor. Although John missed the dark color of his iron armor utility outweighed flair so he was fine with his current state.
His mace and anchor-axe also experienced upgrades in strength and durability. John was certain his anchor-axe was sharper than his old one but he couldn't make any conclusive proof to support his theory.
Back to the present. The reason John was making a hole in the mountain was actually for the villagers. One of the skeleton huntsmen reported news of pillagers appearing near their borders. John was creating a hideout for the villagers to go to when the pillagers arrive. He wanted everyone to hide while he dealt with the invaders.
In the game, Villagers were peaceful non combatant mobs but in this overworld they actively hunted skeletons and zombies to fasten the production of their farms. The idea was, If villagers in the game were weak but strong in this world, what about the naturally hostile and strong ingame mobs? John already knew the answer.
He would barricade the cave with stones and set up traps around it to reduce the enemies numbers and then finish them off.
After mining tirelessly, the safe haven was finished. A dome ceiling dotted with everburning torches and stone buildings neatly arranged in a circle. The circular village was divided into four parts with roads made out of neatly arranged stone bricks. A series lamp posts was aligned beside the road illuminating the sidewalks. The roads lead to the center which contained a giant oak tree in a small island sorrounded by a small pool of water containing live fish that John stole from his pet chicken's stash.
The pool was enclosed in an iron fence to prevent children from going in and getting electrocuted by the fish inside.
John was weirdly satisfied with his work. When he was building his castle in the island it was just to scratch an itch and satisfy his fantasies. Building for people felt different, he saw the faces of the villagers express awe at the speed of his construction and happiness at the beauty of his designs. John's heart was filled with happiness and childlike joy, the loneliness he felt in the island that Bohk stunted was completely washed away by the villagers.
Suddenly, the villagers started kneeling on one leg while facing John. Perhaps it was their expression of gratitude or maybe a vow? John would perhaps find out one day, For now, he had a pillager problem
____________________________________________________
A group of pillagers were walking towards a village that one of their scouts discovered. They were expecting to massacre everyone and steal their properties before going back to their base but the silence of the village was disturbing. There was no one guarding the entrance, no iron golems, and the farms were harvested.
The pillagers entered the village and broke down doors but found nothing in their search. They prepared to loot whatever they could get but was interupted by the sound of metal hitting metal.
*bang**bang*bang*
The sound reverberated through the village, it came from the mountains. Perhaps it was the sound the of villagers escaping, the pillagers went to investigate.
What they found was some sort of steel golem? it had sharp features and eyes that glowed in iredescent blue. it was banging two pans repeatedly only stopping when it saw the pillagers. The metal creature just stood atop the stone pillar and just stared at the pillagers.
Annoyed by the stalemate, a crossbow weilding pillager fired a bolt that sped towards the head of the metal golem. The scene of a blown up head wasn't given to the pillagers, only a large tower shield appeared in their sights that easily deflected the crossbow bolt.
Seeing that their initial attack failed they decided tk charge towards the enemy and break it's pillar so they can kill it. The pillagers didn't expect the enemy to jump from it's safe spot and head towards theirs. The Metal golem summoned a giant hammer mid air and smashed it onto the rocky surface they stood on.
The pillagers felt as if the ground beneath their dissapear as they fell towards a deep pit. The last thing the pillagers saw was the golem hanging from a chain connected to its waist as they lost consciousness.
John's trap was successful. He lured the enemy into a pit that he dug just beside the cave he covered where the villagers hid. The pit was twenty meters deep and the bottom was filled with highcarbon steel spikes, anything that would fall in it would surely die.
John knew that he couldn't use the cow attracting technique he used a long time ago since the pillagers were definitely smarter and walk around the hole when chasing him. John made use of the rock in the mountain to craft a half meter thick lid that he placed over the 10 meter diametered hole. He made a tall platform to attract the enemies attention from the ground and tied a chain around his waist to hold him when the lid caves in.
The stone cover broke and the pieces did not stay midair since it was one solid entity. If John covered the hole with stone blocks only the place where he hit with his giant hammer would break while the others would stay. The stone lid was a singular piece, that was why breaking its center destroyed the whole piece.
All 18 of the pillagers where in the impaled and dying. John covered the hole and waited a few minutes before he descended into the pit. He didn't feel anything for the pillagers, anyone who wanted to kill was fair game for John. Years of massacring hoardes of zombies and herds of cows desensitized him as well to taking lives.
The pillagers didn't drop anything special aside from a crossbow. To John, the crossbow was another addition to his growing arsenal. He was already thinking of adding impact activated bombs on the crossbow bolts by using blackpowder from creepers.
The crossbow was simple, John would improve its drawing power and appearance.... maybe make it big as well? maybe.