Chapter 13. Mysterious stranger?

POV: Bobby

The Trader closed the wooden door after he left. Whatever I expected to find when I returned, was surely not this, I still don't know how to react to this encounter.

The first time I saw the wall, I was impressed but also scared that maybe pillagers had raided the village and made it their base, but once I saw that everyone was safe and sound, the only worry left was the person standing in the middle of them all. He was a tall man, with a full iron armor on him which showed that he had power and wealth. I thought he was a knight sent by a noble to check on me, but I quickly dismissed that once I looked closer at his face, I saw his nose, or more so the lack of one. The more I looked the more things looked weird, but I didn't manage to get too much information, unfortunately, because he was covered in iron armor.

After I managed to calm down, I asked what happened while I was gone, and although I do care about my people, I know that they're not the best storytellers. So I had to ask the Trader for more details. And while he told me a very short version of what happened, it was shocking nonetheless. The village was attacked by monsters as I feared, but the Trader managed to defeat them, and even chase the Enderman out of the village. I suspected that it was someone that I saw in the neighborhood village, which worried me. A story like that would be pretty shocking in general, one human against a wave of zombies and winning without any casualties. But the shocking part came after all that, together with the villagers they started to build a wall, not just a simple fence surrounding the village, no a full-on wall 5 blocks tall, and to finish all of that in just half a day, which is an impossible task to accomplish in the first place. But let's just say that with enough manpower they managed to do that, another impossible task they managed to do was to gather all the materials for all of that. It takes an incredible amount of time to break the wooden blocks, even with the tools, and my villagers do not have an attention span long enough to break the trees. So that only leaves the Trader who either has a method to break blocks faster or already has a few stacks of wooden blocks in his inventory for some reason. But even with all that mystery I'm grateful for what he did, he did a better job in half a day than I did in a few weeks of working. I then decided to celebrate the new defense, to ease up the villagers after my outburst.

After a while, I retreated to my home and told one of the villagers to call the Trader to my place once everything was over.

After a few hours, I heard a knock at my door, and I let the Trader in. I did call him a trader, but I wasn't too sure about that since I didn't have too much information about that job in the first place, the only thing that I know is that a wandering trader walks vast amounts of land to trade with different people with exotic items. I tried to get some information out of him about his skills especially, and as I thought, he had a skill that I never heard of, the Trading skill, which is what he said it's true then it's a good skill that could attract the attention of some unwanted people, unfortunately, he doesn't know how he got the job in the first place. He also seemed interested in my brewing station, so there's a potential trade in the future if he wants some potions. Maybe we'll exchange some information as well, I'm pretty curious about what the world outside the borders looks like. I asked what plans he had for the future, and suddenly he froze, then started to make a painted face so I had to end the talk there, since we were both tired, most likely.

Now alone again, I had to think for the next plan, since the village is safer than ever now. I looked around my room and stopped at my homemade brewing station.

"I should level up in brewing."

Even if I was tired, the excitement of getting to the next level after one more potion gave me enough energy. I took an awkward potion from a beral and entered the brewing station inventory. I then put the potion at the base and added some sugar to the top as the main ingredient. Now, usually, I'll use some blazepoder as a heat source, but unfortunately, I didn't have any right now so I had to improvise, I opened the trapdoor under the station and let the heat of the wash all over it. I could now see the brewing progress bar.

Now that contraction would've been a breakthrough in the field of alchemy if it only didn't have this one major flaw. When you put the blaze powder as a heat source you don't have to worry about the process. But with this method, you have to control how much heat should stay, otherwise, the potion bottles would break from overheating, and you had to guess most of the time when the time was right to do the change since there was no visual indicator of the change until it was too late.

On top of that, after all that suffering, your final product would be only half as good as a normal one. My potions last for around 30 minutes, while a perfectly good potion lasts for a full hour. But that didn't discourage me since, even with all of those, I still get the same amount of XP as a normal potion.

Finally, after the last particle ran through, the potion was done. I then quickly checked my skill tab:

_______________________________________________        

                                     SKILLS

_Crafting lvl 5

     312/1.000.000

_Brewing lvl 3

    10/10.000

_______________________________________________

"Finally! I'm level 3 now."

I started to do a small victory dance and went to bed after realizing how late and tired I was.

"I wonder if the Trader has some blazepoder, or knows where to get some. I'll ask him tomorrow if he's ok."

I then went to sleep with a smile on my face

POV: ???????

The light of the day woke me up from my deep slumber. It wasn't the best sleep that I had, but it wasn't the worst either. The bed in Minecraft is a miracle of sleep, which I deeply appreciate. Now I had to decide what to do with my life in this world. I didn't want to have a mental breakdown right now, in this unknown world. So I pushed all my unease into one small box threw it into the deepest parts of my mind, and dealt with the aftermath another time, a better time hopefully.

"Let's decide on some plans then."

After some thinking, I decided for my long-term plans, I should find as much information as possible about different worlds and how they work. They have about 3 dimensions in this world, so it must have something. One other thing would be to defeat the Ender Dragon. Usually in the game, once she's defeated, the game is theoretically over and you even get an end-screen conversation with some unknown beings. Maybe that's a way for me to get back home.

As for short-term plans. I think I should level up my skills, especially the crafting one so I can craft some diamond armor, maybe even a netherite one. But I don't know at what level I can do that, so I don't know how long it would take me.

I also want to finish the defense of this village with an iron golem, so I won't have to worry about them once I leave. If I can make one in the first place.

So the next course of action would be, to do some mining and get a lot of iron. I should also ask Bobby if he has a pumpkin by any chance since I didn't see one growing in this village.

With all of those new plans for me to follow, I exited the house with a smile on my face.

I then went to some villagers to do some more trading to level up my skills, and because they restocked their merchandise only twice per day. Once in the morning and once at noon.

But on my way to find the Fletcher, Bobby found me and asked me a bizarre question.

"Morning Trader! I'm happy to see you doing well. I wanted to ask if you sell blazepoder by any chance."

I wondered why would he ask me that, and then I remembered that the wondering trader has some unique trades, unlike the normal villager. And since I'm supposed to be one, he asked me just in case.

"Sorry, Bobby. But I don't have any blaze roads or blaze powder on me. But I do know where to get them from."

"You do!?"

"Yes of course. Blaze roads comes from the monsters named Blaze, after you get the item, you can craft it into blaze powder."

"I never heard of that monster before, where can you find them?"

"You find them in the Nether fortress, usually there's a spawner that pops them into existence. But be careful when farming them, since they can catch you on fire with their fireballs."

"I don't recall seeing a Nether kingdom on the maps at the academy."

"Oh no, the Nether is another dimension, where the world has a ceiling, most of the blocks are red, with lakes filled with lava and danger at every corner."

"That sounds like Hell!"

"It has that nickname."

Bobby looked at me like I was a madam by telling him all of this.

"Then how are you supposed to be able to get to that dimension?"

"Well, the only way to get there is to use a portal made with obsidian."

"You're talking ability the unbreakable block? How are you supposed to make a portal out of a block you can't mine?"

"It's not that it's unbreakable, it's more like it's very hard to break and you need to do it with a diamond pickaxe to get the block."

"Oh, then that's an impossible task then."

The village head lowered his shoulders in defeat after hearing that. And I could see why, neither of us had a high enough level at crafting, and my trading skill was not high enough to access the diamond pickaxe trade. But that didn't mean we had no hope.

"That's not the only way to obtain obsidian through."

" Is there another way?"

I could see hope returning to his eyes.

"Yes! The obsidian block is not naturally spawned, it's the aftermath of water running into a lava source. And with that information, we can bring lava to where we want to make the portal and use the process to make the obsidian in the shape of the portal."

"That sounds as complicated, as mining the obsidian itself."

"It's not as complicated as it sounds. I can do this alone with no problem. My only question for you is if you want to come with me.

Bobby looked shocked at my question. But not for long before he was in deep thoughts.

" Yes, this is a chance for me to grow, even if it's dangerous."

"Perfect, then I want you to do something while I'll mine for resources."

"I don't know too much about mining, unfortunately. "

"Oh, don't worry I'll be able to do that by myself. I want you to find some pumpkins if you can."

"Pumpkins? We don't have it here, but I guess I can get some from the neighborhood village. What for?"

"Don't worry, it would be for the defense of the village while we will be gone."

"I don't see the coloration between those two, but I'll see what I can do."

He then left towards his house, probably to get some provisions for the journey.

I also continued on my way to trade with some villagers, I needed more emeralds and more XP, the grind never stops.