Chapter 3:
Mark was stunned. His last words... they'd actually become a mod pack in this world.
"This is insane! Did my dying thoughts really just turn into mods?" he exclaimed.
He felt a surge of frustration. He should have wished for more stuff before he died! Like, why not wish for the Equivalent Exchange mod or something?
With a mix of disbelief and annoyance, Mark stood there for a moment, trying to process it all. Finally, he let out a sigh. There was nothing he could do about it now. At least he hadn't spawned in the middle of a mountain range or something.
As Mark existed as this... Steve Stand, he realized he could multitask, just like in a video game. While Steve chopped trees, Mark could think about what all these mods meant for his survival.
He knew Pam's HarvestCraft pretty well. He'd played on servers with that mod before. It added a bunch of new crops, kitchen tools, and food recipes. It was cool and all...
But there was one problem.
Pam's HarvestCraft made the original food items less filling. Even simple stuff like potatoes, apples, and carrots wouldn't fill you up as much unless you crafted fancy utensils and cooked elaborate meals.
And that's when Mark realized the biggest problem.
He couldn't remember any of the crafting recipes from Pam's HarvestCraft. In the game, he could just look them up online. But here, stuck in actual Minecraft, he had no guides, no wikis, nothing.
Mark knew he wasn't the greatest Minecraft player. He could remember the basic crafting recipes from the original game, but when it came to mods, with their hundreds of new items and recipes... that was a different story. No one could remember all that stuff.
"This is not good," he muttered.
The lack of crafting recipes hit him hard. "Man, I wish I had installed Just Enough Items or Not Enough Items before I kicked the bucket. That 'G' key crafting table would be a lifesaver right now..."
Pam's HarvestCraft, he could probably deal with.
He wasn't a huge fan of that mod anyway. It was mostly about getting more potatoes. If three baked potatoes weren't enough, he could just eat ten, right?
But it was the other mods that worried him.
Like Avaritia.
Without the crafting recipes, just the Infinity Catalyst alone could keep him stuck in one place forever, and he'd probably end up starving to death.
While Mark was busy worrying about crafting recipes, his Stand, Steve, was diligently chopping down trees with that insane Minecraft chopping speed. Soon, Steve's inventory was full of wood.
Seeing the full inventory, Mark put aside his worries about crafting recipes for now and focused on organizing the items.
After a lot of rearranging, Steve's inventory now held about seven stacks of wood, over half a stack of cobblestone, a few stone pickaxes, and a bunch of fruits and vegetables from Pam's HarvestCraft.
Meanwhile, the sky had grown completely dark.
Faint cries and the rattling of bones echoed through the forest.
Suddenly, Mark snapped out of his thoughts. He'd been so lost in thought that he'd completely forgotten about nightfall. Mobs were already starting to spawn.
The first night in Minecraft could be deadly for newbies, with all those monsters lurking in the dark. But Mark was no newbie. He was a seasoned Minecraft player.
Without hesitation, Mark took control, guiding Steve to dig a three-block-deep hole. Using Steve's shoulders as a boost, Mark hopped into the hole, creating a quick and dirty underground shelter. He didn't want to share the cramped space with Steve, so he sealed up the hole above him. Meanwhile, Steve continued digging around outside. It was a classic Minecraft survival tactic.
After a bit of digging, Mark had a decent-sized underground basement, about three meters high, twelve meters long, and nine meters wide. He didn't want to waste resources building a fancy house just yet.
He placed torches strategically to light up the basement. On one side, he set up a crafting table, some furnaces, and some chests. On the other side, he planned to turn a 9x9 patch of dirt into an underground potato farm. Gotta have food, right?
With his stuff organized, Mark got to work mining. He already had a good amount of cobblestone, and he used the furnaces to make charcoal. Steve's inventory was now full of torches and stone pickaxes. Mining was actually kind of fun.
The rest of the inventory space was taken up by all those food ingredients from Pam's HarvestCraft. He had a lot of it, but each item only restored a tiny bit of hunger, and the variety was taking up way too much space. Mark wondered if he was going on a mining expedition or packing for a camping trip.
Shaking his head, Mark made Steve eat seven blueberries to restore his hunger, and then they set off to mine. Mark had Steve dig downwards at an angle, creating a branching, fishbone pattern as they got closer to bedrock. This was the most efficient way to find iron and maybe even diamonds.
After about twenty blocks, Mark's pickaxe broke through into empty space. They'd found a cave.
"Hmm?"
Mark was surprised. He held up a torch, and the light revealed several veins of iron ore.
Exploring a cave without proper gear was risky. It was dark, and monsters often spawned in caves. It was dangerous for Steve.
But Mark was a miner at heart. He had Steve place torches strategically to light up the cave and get a sense of the layout. Then they got to work mining the iron.
Soon, Steve's inventory was almost half full of iron ore.
Not wanting to get greedy, Mark quickly returned to the basement to smelt the iron and craft a full set of iron armor, an iron sword, and a shield. Steve was now ready for a fight.
With the new gear, Mark felt a wave of relief. He could finally defend himself properly.
After eating six bunches of grapes and two cucumbers to restore their hunger, Mark and Steve headed back into the depths of the underground.
Mark's luck continued. He'd been planning to keep digging towards bedrock, but it wasn't long before his pickaxe broke through a patch of mossy cobblestone.
He could hear the faint growls of monsters coming from the other side.
"What the...?" Mark couldn't help but grin. "A dungeon?"