While I was frustrated that the Fortune Enchant didn't work on the wheat itself I still continued to use the machine.
I don't think I'll be able to get enough to level up, but I should get enough to craft around 1.000 targets.
After this, I'll see if I can buy some bones from the surface while continuing to craft droppers.
I continued to cut the fast-growing wheat with one swift motion, but as time passed I realized that my inventory would be full of seeds in about an hour if things continued like this.
And on top of that Violet seems to be very interested in the Redstone clock and I was afraid that she would break it out of curiosity.
"Violet! Don't break anything from there, if you do I would be very mad."
She stopped from touching the observers and looked at me, before taking a step back.
I was thankful that she was listening to me since I wouldn't know what to do if I had a rampaging monster in my secret base.
The wheat kept growing and my hoe cut it quickly before everything went into my inventory.
As I was doing the same motion over and over again I began to think of a way to deal with the excess of seeds.
This wasn't a popular item to sell and I couldn't plant all of them even if I wanted to since I didn't have the space or time to take care of it.
More wheat was cut as I kept thinking of what else can I use the seeds for, and then an idea came to me.
The composter!
I can put the excess that I gather and make them into more bone meal, this is a genius plan!
I can use the same system as the furnace on the surface, I'll put a double chest with a Hopper to do all the work for me, actually, I can do multiple of those to make the process even faster!
Soon my inventory was about to get filled so I broke one of the Redstone lines to break the connection.
*Hiss
A deep hiss interrupted my thoughts as my monster friend was wondering why I did that.
"I had to do it, otherwise a lot of bone meal would be wasted."
Violet looked deep into my eyes expecting more of an explanation.
*sigh
"You know how I told you that dispensers can place a block of liquids instead of throwing it like the dropper?"
Her response indicated that she remembered.
"Dispensers also have the ability to use bone meal, that's why you saw the crops grow so quickly, it's very often used for those kinds of farms, with that downside that you're going to lose you hearing with time. That's why I broke the connection since there is no reason to waste more resources."
She then painted at the Redstone clock that was still working.
"You curious how that works?"
She nodded her head.
"I don't know the exact mechanics, but the two observers see each other and send a short signal through the Redstone dust, and once it reaches the other it resets the opposing observer and then a never-ending loop is created. Or at least that's what I think it's happening, I'm not someone who's specialized in this."
She understood everything that I said which was an interesting thing to see.
Monsters aren't too smart in this world, they are not mindless either but you can trick them pretty easily.
But there's only one exception, and that is the Endermans, you know they are intelligent creatures once you see their eyes.
This is the first mistake most make before their hunted by those creatures like you challenged them to a death match.
Nobody knows why this happens, but it's better not to try your luck.
But there's a difference between Enderman's as well, there are those who search for a block before joining a group, and then there are the odd ones out that stand among them.
You can look them in the eyes and they won't attack you with a first, maybe they will even warn you beforehand to leave them alone, but if you keep bothering them they will follow you from a distance and kill you when you least expect.
Those kinds of Endermans also have a tendency to prank people and are much harder to kill them their brethren.
Nobody knows why ther's a difference in their species, and what I see in front of me is probably something nobody saw, which kind of scares me but also makes me more curious.
Of course, I try as much as possible not to look into her eyes unless she tries to tell me something, I don't want to lose a life anytime soon.
But from what the people of this world studied about them, the stranger they are the smarter you should expect them to be.
And I've never seen anyone looking or acting stranger than Violet.
That means she's very smart, and now she's in the process of learning about one of the most complex and powerful subjects in the game.
Redstone engineering.
After I finished my explanation I went to make a few hoppers, chests, and composters.
Then I went back to the temporary farming room and placed everything in order.
"This is a composter, villagers can get the farmer job from it, or you can put organic items to make it into bonemeal, it also has an interesting option where it can send a Redstone signal with a Comparators help. I don't know too much about this but people made amazing machines with those."
Violet took one of the seeds and placed it in a composter, and like magic, it started to fill up.
Of course, I needed to put a few more seeds for it to work, but the fact that she could do this was amazing in itself.
I placed some of the seeds in the higher chests and let the automatic process do its job, then I connected the machine once again and got back to work.
Slowly time passed, and it was more boring than crafting surprisingly, not only that but my back was starting to hurt as well since I had to bend down to cut the golden grass.
At one point I just sat down and worked like that.
At times like these, I missed the internet where I could put a video or music in the background and mindlessly do a task.
Now instead I had to actually pay attention to what I was doing instead of half doing it.
What a tragedy.
I continued to cut wheat for what felt like hours, and after the dispenser finally ran out of bone meal I decided to stop for today.
Already a few hours passed, and while it was raining outside, you never know when someone is looking for you while underground.
So I placed all the seeds in the chests, crafted all the wheat into hay bells, took a few blocks of Redstone and cobblestone, and went to the surface.
The water of the swamp was still cold, but I couldn't hear the heavy rain anymore.
I quickly went back to my house and took a shower to clean myself.
I even made a campfire to warm myself since the sun wasn't out yet, while the rain stopped it was still cloudy outside, so nobody was out.
After I ate some golden carrots I got up and went to my crafting table.
First I would make the targets, the recipe beeing pretty simple.
A block of hay bale, surrounded by Redstone dust with the exception of the corners.
Once I placed the specific items a holographic arrow appeared that was pointing at the target block.
After a few hits with my Hummer, it went into my inventory.
I kept hitting getting more and more target blocks.
Hours passed, and the clouds were disappearing letting the warm sun greet the freshly showered earth.
"This should be a quarter done."
*slam
The door was opened with force and a panicked Froggy looked over the house until he saw me.
"Trader! Quick take your sword and come out, we're going to lose at this rate!"
He didn't wait for me to ask what happened as he left as quickly as he came.
What happened!?
Are the pillagers attacking us?
How is this even possible, do we have traitors among ourselves?
I dropped everything I had in my hands, took out my enchanted diamond sword and armor then left my house.
Once I was out I was taken by surprise with what I saw.
They were everywhere, jumping without a care in the world, they only knew hunger.
The attackers were the slimes.
I've never seen this many in my entire life, and I was a little intimidated by it.
"Oh good, you're ready, maybe that's a bit of an overkill, but it's better than not being prepared, we have to join the others, otherwise nothing would be left for us."
Froggy was running towards the closest slime with an enchanted iron sword and a shield in his hands.
Still, this didn't explain why this was happening in the first place.
Why are there so many slimes, why does everyone want to compete and kill them?
I run after Froggy and split in two a slime with one swing.
"What's happening? Why are there so many slimes?"
"This is their season, after such a heavy rain slimes will spawn at a higher rate than usual. This is a great boon for the Clan since if you get enough slime balls you can set your life for a few good months to come, so get as many as possible, show no mercy!"
With this we both continued to decimate any slime that came in our path, most of them were small, and rarely were there ones of medium size.
And the closer we got the the edges of the swamp, the bigger the army of slimes was.
Not only that, but most of the witches were out here hunting as well, and they were competing against each other.
There seems to be only one rule in this.
Don't take someone else's slime.
And how did you mark the slime?
You attacked it first of course.
This led to me seeing a lot of splash potions thrown at groups of slimes.
Instant damage, poison, jump boost, speed it didn't matter as long as you got them and yelled "mine" everything was a fair fight
It was an interesting sight to see since most of the smaller slimes were killed with potions.
But with time I understood why, most witches were simple farmers in their old life, they didn't know how to fight or have access to weapons, so it was better to throw potions at your enemy than get closer and potentially lose the fight.
Not only that, from what I could see most of them had stone swords as close-range weapons, so it took two swings to kill the smaller ones.
The medium slimes usually were killed by groups not individuals, since it was too dangerous if it concentrated on one witch only.
Of course, there were a few people who had better weapons and even armor that were going through everything like it was nothing, but we were in the minority.
Slowly the poor slimes were dying off, leaving back dozens of piles of their green remains.
After the last one was killed everyone cheered in unison, the battle was over and they were now much richer than before.
"OK everyone, today was a very successful day, now let's get to cleaning and celebrate the start of another blessed month!"
One of the elders spoke with a powerful voice which made everyone cheers once again.
I looked at the place where the Elder spoke and saw that everyone was there watching over the fight in the Clan.
This seems to be a regular acurance and maybe even a form of entrainment for them.
Maybe I should join then next time since I don't have problems with money right now.
As I was helping the others to clean and collect some of the slime as ingredients, a realization came to me.
"Froggy, did the Elder say a blessed MONTH?"
"Yes, this is the start of the rainy season so this will happen a lot more often in the next month."
Oh no, my peace!