We continue our exploration for maybe another hour or so? I really need a better way to keep track of time. We are only collecting ores and ressources I already have in my inventory now, to avoid fully filling it up. The walls change again and again, new types of rocks and stone being displayed in a surprising amount of color diversity. Reddish rock, white rocks some blue, some orange, other dark and sometime even black. We also pass veins of ores that neither Mewtwo nor I manage to mine efficiently. My pickaxe barely leave scratches on the stones surrounding the materials and Mewtwo's attempts result in barely traces of the ore being freed. Still we continue our exploration.
As we go deeper, the cave also fills with more life. We encounter more monsters, a couple zombies still too fast, two other spiders, and Mewtwo has a duel with three skeletons blocking our paths through the tunnel. He wins easily by shaping stones into darts and then sending them either into their ribcage or through their head.
I have started to lay down torches behind us, to let us know which paths we have taken and which we have not. Our tunnel branched out a couple of times, and this is our only way to leave a track behind us. I just hope the local pokemons won't mind, or try to eat them, or play with them. That would be a bit of a problem.
Speaking of pokemons, we met a few. We finally found out who has been eating all these ore veins. A colony of aggrons, lairons and arons.
It seems the armored pokemons have diversified their diets as the pokedex section tells me they are supposed to only eat iron. But here Mewtwo and I watch them go through aluminum, copper and or any metals they find. Each of the pokemons shells has turned into a beautiful patchwork of color, although a hierarchy seems to have formed depending on which of the pokemons has the right to better metals. The first evolutionary stage of the line, the arons are small, barely knee-high quadrupedal creatures. Their small bodies are black covered by a thick shell of whatever metal they have eaten. They have a big round head, with large eyes, blue with a tiny black pupil in the center. Their roundish bodies are supported by four stubby legs. Most of them are happily playing with each others or competing for a vein under the supervision of their next stage: the lairons. The lairons are bigger, getting as high as my pelvis in term of height. Like the arons, their bodies are black and covered in metal armor, but they are bigger and longer, more reptilian in nature than the arons. Their head also now has a more triangular shape. The eyes beneath the armor are still small black pupils in blue sclera. Their armor look to be segmented now, as are their four thicker legs. Their feet now have three claws each. Finally, overlooking the entire assembly are three of aggrons. They stand on their hind legs, looking like armored dinosaurs. The are covered in segmented metallic armor, but somewhat less so than their previous stages. More of their black body are visible, although the body themselves look, like segmented armor no. They tower above their pre-evolution, the two horns on their heads almost scraping against the ceiling.. Still they seem slightly smaller than Mewtwo. One of them spot us and narrows their eyes in our direction.
We both bow our head in respect and continue on our way. We do not want to aggravate these pokemons. Just like you did not want to aggravate the zubat colony right? I stare at Mewtwo with mock anger. Please let that go. You really did not think on that one did you? I groan as the teasing continue.
After this encounter, we sporadically encounter monsters, and quickly dispatch them out. The strangest one was a smaller version of the zombies. The system identified it as a baby zombie, the tinier version of zombies... and neither Mewtwo or I know how to interpret that. Do the zombies reproduce? Were there children brought by Eziakophael and this is their remains? Or are they just as the system say, tinier versions of zombies? It did give us a bigger haul of experience than the rest thought. Double the normal amount in fact. All and all, our final count as we decide to take a break is eighteen monter slain. I have gone through almost all of my power reserves. We break out the some food out of my inventory and take a meal. I have no idea what time it is. We went down late in the afternoon, so maybe around nightfall? Or maybe the night might have already fallen? I should have asked how the villagers knew the time. Maybe that would have unlocked something?
While we eat, I divide my experience point and Mewtwo looks through the new recipes we have unlocked, trying to find one for a furnace. I now have a full additive one percent in strength and resistance, and the other two are almost at five. Once I am done I join Mewtwo in our recipe scouring. I end up finding it first, but Mewtwo finds one of the parts we need to make it before me. A furnace is, surprisingly, not too hard to make. It requires cobbled stone, which I can make by combining rocks together. A cobbled slab, made from the cobbled stones. And finally, a fire pit. This one requires logs, which I have, sticks, which I also have and finally, a block of coal, or some other types which I do not have access to yet. I first assemble the fire pit, then the cobbled stones and associated slab, and then put them all together in the crafting grid. Seven cobbled stone arranged in a n configuration, with the fire pit in the center and the slab just below. And I obtain a furnace. I immediately turn it into a chip and equip it. My upper arm opening still feels strange, but I ignore the feeling as I slot the wooden chip in an empty emplacement.
I now have a new window available: furnace window. Also, quest completed. Two XS candies for Mewtwo, 15xp for me. Nice. And of course, new quests.
I look at the new quest. Are all the quests going to be like that now? One completed, two more to go? I am not really complaining, and neither is Mewtwo, more quests means more rewards and faster growth, and the Trio knows we really need that. Am I really starting to consider them as my gods? I am as well. Mewtwo snorts. We might as well right? That is what they are. Indeed, and if they disagree, I am sure they will let us know.
Anyway, back to scouring the recipe book for seared brick. With the addition of the furnace chip, an entire array of recipes has been unlocked as doable. We look, but quickly a huge problem arises. The brick icon is the same as the ingot icon, and there are a LOT of recipes that takes either a block, dust or raw ore and output an ingot or a brick. In the end, we have no choice but to scour the recipes almost one by one. We can quickly discard the raw ores ones, but that still leaves a lot of recipes to go through.
This time, it is Mewtwo that possibly finds it first. It is an ingot shape result from the furnace, but what appears to be the supposed portable smeltery seems to bring us here, so that should be it. The recipe asks for a block, which is made out of two other blocks and a weird shaped something... what is that? I have never collected any of those materials. This is going to be a problem. Clicking the weird shaped material gets us recipes we can barely make sense of. They either ask for machines we do not have or other items we never saw. What are we supposed to do here?
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Maybe we should experiment? You still have some space in your inventory right? Yeah I do... Hold on... what if they are guiding us far more than we realize? You made the psychic hatchet, and they they ask you to make both a pickaxe and a shovel! Maybe... Maybe what we are looking for are things that can be easily mined with either of the tools... YES, exactly! Alright, what let's resume our search, but let's leave the ores alone for now.
We both get up and resume our exploration. Neither of us feel the need for sleep at the moment, which is surprising for Mewtwo. I remember the first night we met he ended up exhausted after helping me out. Hey, are your levels helping with your stamina? It appear they do. I have done a lot, yet barely feel any sort of strain.
Our exploration lead us to another large open cave. From where we enter, the path continues along a steep incline. We can see more ores around us, but also a new type of stone. Darker and with a more brick like surface. The system qualifies it as deepslate. As we look deeper into the ravine, we can see the walls slowly transitioning from stone to deepslate, until the entire floor is nothing but deepslate. However, this new material makes the other ones stand up more. All these other variant of stone become easily identifiable, as well as something else. A light grey- An arrow thunk next to me and a spear skewer the archer that just fired. We can't have a minute of calm. Placing torches has stopped the monsters from coming behind us... Mostly but still they come.
Anyway. After that interruption, we look at the new material before us. It sticks our like a scar. Light grey in color, my pickaxe simple goes straight through without ever truly mining it. I only leave deep indents and have a bit stuck on the point of my tool. Well.... We found our shovel candidate number one I would say. Mewtwo nods and I look through my templates. Shovel head... shovel head... Nope didn't make it. I groan in annoyance. Fine! A quick look almost make me facepalm with my left hand again and I put a singular pattern on in the middle of the top row of my crafting grid. I then make a stone shovel head and then assemble the entire tool. And voilà, a shovel.
The time it took me to make it has Mewtwo complete his psychic tool quest, and I am presented with clay. Clay? Clay. Gray soft material, soft due to the humidity of the cave no doubt. I store it and yep, that was the weird looking material. So clay and two other materials that will appear as block in my inventory...
We continue to explore the surrounding as I pass Mewtwo his rewards. Mewtwo accepts them and then look at his next quest. He then stops. Uhhh... Astra? Yeah? Look at my next quests... I look. And I also stop moving. The first one is... It's a fucking grocery list at this point.
Wait you already have the bow? Must be with the stone projectiles I have been launching at the skeletons. That one was not too hard to figure. True... but that is also not the only quest Mewtwo has unlocked.
We look at the quest in silence for a couple minutes. We look at it with a certitude that this is not the only paths Mewtwo will have access to. This is insane. Mewtwo finishes my though. Yeah, insane. If these paths can only be unlocked with levels, then it will be a long time before he can unlock all of them. It's not like there are things that could help him... Maybe other pokemon could tutor him in their own paths? Wait! "Mewtwo, what about the crystals!" I whisper. The realization makes me break the silence we had maintained. My voice, even as quiet as it is, echoes loudly along the walls. Crystals? OH RIGHT! He connects the dots too. I bring out those I had kept stored.
We have the terra one, which Mewtwo already has a mastery of in the path of stone, the blue one, aqua, that seems to be associated with the path of the stream, and the white one, ordo, the path of purity. These three crystals, Mewtwo has at least the start of a mastery to them, the lowest one being aqua. Then the ones he has no paths for, for now. Ignis, the red crystal, he can guess would be the path of fire. Aer, the soft yellow crystal he is unsure, maybe another path he has yet to think of? And finally, Perditio, he can feel a darker path from it, one he almost reels from, yet can feel possibilities from.
He passes me back the three crystals he already know and has the three unknown orbit him. It is funny to see the three crystals orbiting him once more. I do not see it, but I can imagine his mind slowly connecting to the crystals. I smile and we continue our exploration. I look through Mewtwo's list of tools one more time, trying to figure which could be helpful for our future, and then compare them to recipe for our two remaining mystery blocks. And I actually find something. The answer? The hammer. Both of the mystery blocks can be made with a hammer and a another block. And one of those block is a block of cobbled stone. I look for a recipe and obviously it asks for more templates. I wince, but this could be huge. I create a stone hammer and then a cobbled stone, and put it into the crafting grid. I obtain a block of gravel. I blink. Gravel? GRAVEL??? WE PASSED SO MANY PATCHES OF THE STUFF!! FOR FUCK SAKE!
My internal rant even stirs Mewtwo out of this little trance and he looks at me, curious as to what has happened. Oh not much, we might need to start gathering more types of blocks, but I also need more space and... This is quite the vicious cycle is it not? I need more space to store more items, but for that I need more items, but for that I need more space, and the circle goes round and round and round and... I sigh. One step at a time. Let us see if we can figure which mystery block gives us the last of the mystery blocks to make the mystery block that might give us seared stone. Aaand it's gravel... This time, I do slap myself with my left hand, and I just let the pain radiate in frustration. So I make another block of cobbled stone, turn it into gravel, notice that the hammer is getting used up and then put the gravel block back into the grid and obtain... sand... I feel so tired, yet... How could have known? How could I have divined that clay, gravel, and sand, combined together would give us... grout? Wha- whu uuuuuh? It's... It take the block out of my inventory. What the FUCK is grout?
Well as it appears, it is a semi-solid mixture of sand, clay, and gravel. The clay acts as the binding for the gravel and the sand, and together they form this squishy, gritty barely holding together light gray block. Mewtwo looks at it, holding it and playing with it for a minute. The result is... not much. The block holds itself well together, it can be separated in smaller parts, but then these can be stuck back together. So... Not much in term of immediate use. I put it back in the inventory, where it rejoins the other one the recipe gave me. Yeah, I get two blocks for one craft. That's at least a good thing out of this experience.
And finally, I open my new furnace screen. There are three slots available, one for the input on top of another one I am unsure what it is for. They are separated by drawn grey flames. Then next to the drawing, an arrow pointing into the final slot, the result slot. I put the grout into the input and wait. And wait... And... nothing is happening. Why is nothing happening? I look a bit more into my furnace window. Ah... I made an assumption here. I though that, since I mostly work with energy, I could just plug the thing in and it would work, but no. I need fuel. Does coal work as fuel? I had to use it to make the furnace so maybe? I take a piece of coal and plug it in. The piece of coal disappear and the drawn flames lit up. The arrow slowly fill, and I start to sweat. Why does it feel so hot here now?
I notice Mewtwo moving slightly away from me. Then I look at my left arm. HOLY! My left robotic arm now has orange and reddish light escaping below its armor finish. I can feel the heat radiating from within. It did not suddenly turn hot here, I am the heat! Oh this is bad, I realize and sure enough, my coolant is going down. Fuck. I look back at the furnace window and notice that the recipe is done. I now have a seared brick... Wait only one? Also why is my arm still burning up??
