I assured Merry that I'd teach her what I know, but she would probably be disappointed.
I made five more books with Fortune 1 and combined them to get a Fortune 3 pickaxe. It was a little expensive on my levels but luckily I had someone that has over 100 levels named Undying Flame who isn't using them, so why let them go to waste?
"Thanks for the help girls, do you want to see the pickaxe work in action."
I tried to ask them with the best innocent smile I could give, but for some reason, they seemed to be on guard all of a sudden.
They both looked at each other and gave a nod.
"I guess it would be interesting to see."
I don't think they fell for my innocent smile, but they still accepted so that's good.
We went down the tunnel and searched for a cave system, on the way there I explained about the underground, and how it's split into two parts.
The one above zero is mostly made of stone that is easy to break with a good pickaxe and the ones below zero which is mainly deep slate, huge cave systems, and a lot of small lava lakes.
I also told them the ranks for ores when used for tools.
A wooden pickaxe is only used to get cobblestone.
A stone pickaxe it's stronger but still only useful until you get some iron ore.
The golden pickaxe it's the least popular to use since it's as strong as a stone pickaxe, less durable than one, and rare to find. The only good thing about it it's that it has high countability with enchanting.
Next is the most used one worldwide, the iron pickaxe. You can break any blocks except for a select few, and easy to find In any cave system. When you have this, you can say you are playing in the big leagues.
The diamond pickaxe is the pinnacle of this world, there's only one block you can't break and that's the bedrock which is at the bottom of the world. I'm guessing the core of the planet is after that unbreakable layer.
And the most powerful tool is made with Netherite. It has the same power as the diamond one with Knocknack absorption as default and can't be burned in lava.
"Netherite? Is it somehow related to Netherite scrap?"
Undying seems surprised by the use of that useless material, especially something so powerful.
"I'm not surprised you don't know about this. You have to combine it with gold ingots to get a Neithrite Ingot, and with a special table, you'll combine it with a diamond tool or armor to get the Netherite counterpart. And look here we have some gold ore, who wants to break it?"
"I'll do the honors!"
Undying seemed more excited about this than I expected, she took the pickaxe from my hand and hit the ore with a precision I did not expect.
Not too long after the block disappeared and a few gold ores disappeared into her inventory.
"That's weird, it gave me three gold ores instead of gold nuggets. And it's a lot less than I expected."
"Oh, I can see the confusion. In the Nether when you mine for gold you get gold nuggets, and with nine of them, you can craft a gold Ingot. But with this gold ore, you can smelt it and get a gold Ingot for one."
Her eyes were wide in shock and looked at the items in her hand which seemed to get heavier all of a sudden.
"No wonder you have so many riches at Bobby's village. It's just so easy to get them."
Well, I can't deny it, but it's not like anyone can mine as fast as me, so even if they have all the knowledge that I have, they won't be able to get the same results.
We entered the cave system and presented them with all the ores we found, they mined some iron, coal, copper, and even lapiz.
But I was still looking for diamonds, so I could make two more pickaxes.
"Now we're entering new territory, well light the tunnels with torches while keeping an eye out for monsters."
Like it was a signal, a zombie just passed the corner and saw us.
Like a hungry animal, it came toward us with the intention to kill.
"This is a perfect opportunity for you Merry, you're going to fight with the zombie. Here take my sword, well be right behind you in case something happens."
She was taken aback by the sudden mission but took the sword and was ready to fight.
She wants to be the hero after all, and her job is to fight the Monser Lord. Better to start somewhere where it's safe, then learn the hard way through trial and error.
The zombie changed his target to the one moving towards him.
With careful steps Merry got into a defense position, she didn't have a shield so she had to be more careful even though her armor would protect her pretty well.
"Die!"
All of a sudden she bolted towards the enemy and stabbed it in the head, the zombie froze for a moment before moving once again but much slower.
In a panic, she tried to take the sword back but got stuck in the head, so her next course of action was to push it to the side hitting the walls of the cave.
Surprisingly the sword cut the rest of the head which made the undead truly dead and Merry still with an adrenaline rush.
"I don't want to sound ungrateful but the fight was too easy."
"That's because you have the equipment of a middle or high noble, and you fought one of the weakest monsters."
"So this was an overkill."
"Kind of, but not for the reason you're thinking. While they're the weakest of them all, they usually come in great numbers on the surface, so an overkill will only make you tired and the rest of the swarm can finish the job with sufficient time. Also, not all zombies are the same, some of them can give you a status effect like hunger, where you'll rapidly get more hungry and more tired. You can see if you are affected by anything on your Status page."
We went further down the mine where we had a couple more fights, zombies or skeletons.
I let her try the shield, axe, and even a crossbow, but I had to give Undying the torch there since she knows how to fight better than me anyway.
"So when you fight someone with full armor try to shoot where's an opening. People are expecting to be attacked at the helmet, but a good strategy is to shoot at their arms, they usually don't guard those very well and it would greatly reduce their movement."
"Fascinating, I can't wait to try this."
Both of them seem to be bound over the art of fighting, and it makes me happy but also scares me since it was a violent topic.
Finally, we arrived at the place I wanted, a lava lake with a diamond vine not too far from it.
"It's here! Ladies, in front of you it's the most valuable ore in this whole world. The diamond."
They look in amazement at the gray block with a few pixels of light blue squares.
"Perfect, now go check the perimeter while I dig around the block."
"I don't think there's anyone here to steal the diamonds, we're pretty deep underground after all."
"I'm not worried about someone stealing the diamonds, I'm more worried about- Oh not you don't!"
A creeper ran from the dark part of the cave full speed towards us, I took my crossbow out and shot it right in the temple which made him stop his dash.
Before the girls took out their weapons to attack it, I ran towards it and kicked it away.
The kick was powerful so he flew back while getting bigger and bigger before exploding with a powerful boom.
A small crater was created but everyone was safe.
"What was that!?"
"That is the creeper, one of the most annoying mobs in this world, they tend to blow themselves up with their enemies, and for some reason, they always find you when you're too distracted with shiny diamonds."
"It looked quite familiar, but the explosion helped me remember it as well. Your world is dangerous as well if you have this kind of monsters."
Looks like Undying has some experience with them, I wonder from where.
"They're not that common, but if you manage to kill one before they explode then you can get gunpowder, and with that, you can make explosives and fireworks."
"They have guns here as well?"
"Not really, at least not that I'm aware of."
"But the name..."
"Don't know what to tell you, it's just its name."
Undying looked weirdly at the interaction between me and Merry but didn't question anything.
Instead, she looked around the area so we didn't have any more surprises.
While they were busy doing that I mined around the diamond vein, and I was in luck, no surprise lava underneath and it was a four-vein block.
I needed a few more to make the last two pickaxes but with Fortune 3 there's a high chance of getting it.
The girls came back and looked at me as I mined the diamonds with a wide smile on my face.
Any player no matter how old or new they are, will always feel excited to mine diamonds, and I'm no exception.
I didn't have a lot of luck this time unfortunately, I got seven diamonds from this, but it's enough for what I need so I'm satisfied.
"Undying can you craft me two more diamond pickaxes?"
"Sure, no problem Trader."
I put the crafting table down and gave her some sticks and diamonds.
After a few hits later I had three powerful pickaxes in my inventory.
"Now that we got that out of the way, I'll show you how to make obsidian."
I took a bucket of water from my inventory and let it flow over the lava, instantly making it obsidian.
"Wait, how is that bucket holding so much water, why is it still flowing? There's no more water in the bucket but it's still flowing water, What's going on!?"
Merry started to be more and more confused as the process was going. And I didn't realize how weird the concept of infinite water and lava is, because I'm too used to the game logic.
Well, I usually don't try to think too much about this world system and how it works, for the good of my mental health.
"What you see in front of you it's a source of water, you can pick it up with a bucket and move it somewhere else. You can also do this with lava, but it moves slower and has a smaller range of spreading."
"That's-, why-, how?"
She seemed even more confused after my explanation, it was so bad that her brain shut down when there was no logical to answer.
Poor girl, she better get used to this quickly or she won't survive the rest of the world.
"Anyone curious how a normal diamond pickaxe feels like? We have some obsidian blocks to test it as well."
From the look Undying gave me, she must've realized what I wanted to do, but accepted the pickaxe with a smirk on her face.
She saw how much I suffered mining it last time so she knows what to expect.
Jokes on her, it would be much worse on her part, than on ours so it would still be a surprise.
"I mean it's the second strongest pickaxe, I'm curious what's the difference when it's not enchanted."
So she took the tool out of my hand not seeing my hidden smile.
We started to hit the dark blocks with excitement, a few swings later it slowed down to a normal pace, and a few more swings later a confused voice spoke.
"I think we got scammed Trader, the last blocks got broken after a few good swings, but I don't see any progress with this block."
"Don't stop swinging or you're gonna lose the progress. And no we didn't get scammed that's how it's supposed to work. Do you remember when I said there are a few blocks you can only break with a diamond pickaxe or netherite?"
"Yes."
"Well this is one of them and I also kind of lied. You can theoretically break it with anything but you won't get the drop."
"Ok, but that didn't answer my question."
"Well, this block is considered an unbreakable block for this world because a few people know how to break it. But the reason most people think it's unbreakable it's because it takes a lot of time to break it."
"How long are we talking about?"
"Half an hour for me and you, and an hour and a half for Undying. "
Both of them stopped from hitting the block.
"You tricked us!"
"Don't stop mining or you're going to lose your progress!"
"Ughh!"
The mining sounds continued through the cave, and I amused myself with the idea that I wouldn't be suffering alone in this.
Maybe I should do this more often, it's kind of fun.
_________________
Well our Main Character became a teacher. Is he doing a good job at it?
Will he be dead soon like he's afraid to?
Can't wait for the next chapter to explore all that.
If you want to read ahead and see some of my artwork you can check up my Patreon: EnderStar