Scammed?

"So.. I probably need some kind of extractor to collect the resin from a tree. Not only that, a steam dynamo, a compression dynamo, a bunch of pipes to make them automatic.. and.. uhh.. what else do I need?!"

「Ding! You forgot the fractionating still to refine the tree resin to tree oil and rosin!」

George nodded "Yeah.. that's one of the most important thing to make this kind of power system!"

In the end, he bought a lot of resin extractor and pipes while buying one of each machine that he just said. The cost was not too bad.. only half a million credits. But, keep in mind that it was only for one giant tree. And he still needed to check if the tree can produce resin or not.

Most people confuse tree sap with tree resin. The two substances are significantly different in several ways. All trees produce sap to a considerable degree, but resin exists in the domain of trees that belong to the Pinaceae family of trees like pine, fir and cedar trees.

George flew to one of the nearest trees to his mansion. He cut the wood a little to see if it produce resin or not, as he didn't know anything about this kind of tree. It was very big and.. blocky! He didn't even know what kind of tree is that.

All people said that deciduous trees do not produce resin, they produce sap. The sap is more watery than resin, which is thick and slightly amber color. Coniferous or evergreen trees like pine, cedar and Douglas fir could produce both sap and tree resin. And the leaves of this blocky tree is definitely green colored...

I know that we couldn't say that this is an evergreen plant, but there's no actual evidence that the leaves of this tree could be turned to orange color like maple trees in the autumn season, as there's no concept of season inside of Minecraft. Even if there is a mod that made it possible to have seasons, it was kinda hard to implement it on the twilight forest.

So George does that and waits till the resin came out. They will slowly come out from the "injury" to make a protection from any insects and pathogen. And the thing should be very sticky, not watery like a sap. If it is resin, it should look yellow, rose or white, each with an "-ish". The best way to check whether it is resin is to smell it. The smell is hard to describe either but I think you will know.

But.. he already waited for long, but there's no such a thing that came out from it. Even after an hour of waiting, nothing came out from it. "Ugh.. why won't it came out?!"

「Ding! It's because the tree was from inside a game! There's no such a thing as sap and resin in there!」

Seriously.. It made George want to kill the A.I. "Why didn't you say so earlier?!" He was fuming mad.. He wasted time, credits, and those machines..

「Ding! You didn't ask me any of that! And if you really have a brain, you can realize that immediately. Just see when you play Minecraft, do the trees suddenly released their sap or their resin? No, right?」

George frowned deeply when he heard that. "So.. why did you recommend me that thing?! You just recommend me a thing that won't work!!"

「Ding! Relax! I never said that it won't work! You need a special item to do that. Remember the keyword! The mod to have saps is from Minecraft, so we also need something from there!」

"So these resin extractor is useless in here?!"

「Ding! Of course, it is! Duh..」

George's face twitched when he heard that. "Fine! What do I need?"

「Ding! You need a machine called Arboreal Extractor. It's something from the thermal expansion that could extract tree sap and resin from a tree, without any energy.」

"Arboreal Extractor?"

A new pop ad popped out from nowhere.

< Arboreal Extractor >

An arboreal extractor (also known as a tapper) is a device that extracts fluid from an adjacent tree.

When placed next to the bottom of a tree (or huge mushroom), an arboreal extractor will start extracting a fluid. The amount of fluids that was extracted from the trees and mushroom is only 50 mB (Mili Buckets) per cycle, except for dark oak and spruce (They each produce 100 mB [Sap = Dark oak tree, Resin = Spruce tree ]).

An active arboreal extractor produces a certain amount of a fluid every 500 ticks (25 seconds). The amount of time increases when other arboreal extractors are extracting from the same tree. [ 1 Extractor = 500 ticks (25 seconds), 2 Extractors = 750 ticks (37.5 seconds), 3 or more Extractors = 1,000 ticks (50 seconds)]

The amount of fluid an arboreal extractor produces per cycle can be increased by placing fertilizer items in its fertilizer slot. The fertilizer will boost the device's production for 8 cycles per item.

[Price : 100.000 Credits]

George thought that it was fine, and he could afford that, so he bought eight of these arboreal extractors. He thought that if he placed only one arboreal extractor, it's going to be not effective. He must connect all of those with pipes to automate this thing, so he used all of them on one tree. As it said that if he used three or more arboreal extractors, it's using the same time.

He thought that 50 seconds per mB is kinda good. If he wants to make a bucket of resin, it needs 20 cycles of one arboreal extractor, but since he had eight of them in one tree, he only needs three cycles to make more than a bucket. So.. he just needed to wait for two and a half minute to make one bucket of resin.

"So.. how do I put these things? On the ground or it needs to be in the air?"

「Ding! This thing only works if it touched the soil. Keep this in mind, you can not break the leaves of these trees and the dirt below the tree, or else the arboreal extractors won't work.」

George sighed because the tree is only 2x2 blocks, so he could place all eight of those arboreal extractors that he bought.

He just needed to put a pipe on these arboreal extractors, and the resin part will be done. After that, he will need to set up some of the machines and connect it to an energy cell, and this whole thing will be done!

"One more question! Will the idea that I made is efficient or not?" George curiously asked. He didn't want it to be inefficient, so he decided to ask the A.I., as it was free of charge.

「Ding! I think the most efficient one is to use one arboreal extractor on one spruce tree, not this kind of unknown trees. And the rosin and tree oil production that you just made isn't really efficient. To maximize the production, you will need four more of those arboreal extractors and pair it with one of those fractionating still. So each fractionating has twelve arboreal extractors connected on each tree.」

"Ugh.. fine! Let's just do it like that! But, instead of twelve, we will use twenty four of these arboreal extractors. As trees besides spruce only produce 50 mB per cycle." When he thought about it again, he realized that there is a logic behind that reasoning. To be honest, it was pretty dumb to think about placing all of the arboreal extractors on one tree. The only problem is probably the pipes, but it wasn't too expensive to buy. So he bought sixteen more of those extractors with more pipes and placed each of the arboreal extractors on nearby trees.