John watched Steve slow down after a LOT of building and eventually collapse to the ground and fall asleep.
He sat nearby and kept popping anything aggressive nearby with Scans while letting the man do so.
For the record: Going to hell was a bitch to the mind, apparently. Or at least, whatever had been done to Steve had sort of twisted him into a half drunken, half terrified state of existence.
But it was wearing off now, and that was good. "I'll be honest, it was impressive to watch."
"Mrrr."
He ignored the cow eating his shoulder. At least the thing was polite about its hunger, and with only ONE cow nearby there was no risk of a cow-mageddon. Plus, someone to talk to… Which was nice.
John stared at the MASSIVE mountain of junk. "At least it was trivial to go down and snag some scans of Bedrock, if nothing else."
"Mrrr."
Shouldn't cows say 'Moo?' That felt like a cow thing. "Seems like he used up the iron blocks, coated it with obsidian, then just… Used everything else he was carrying."
Cobblestone blocks were intermixed with dirt and gravel and all sorts of junk. Even some logs and wooden planks could be seen here and there from the massive artificial mound.
The cow, currently tagged in his mind as 'Bessie' because he didn't feel up to picking out a good or original name right now, took another bite of shoulder. "The glass panes and blocks and stuff I think were intended to build that church he was talking about before we went to hell, but this massive whatever-it-is seems pretty neat too. In an insanity fueled and madness driven art kind of way."
"Mrrr."
Oh, was that a creeper heading this way?
"Hiss! HISSSS!"
[[Pop.]]
Welp, apparently so. More gunpowder Essence for conversion then. That stuff tended to store well as Redstone blocks when converted, something about the energetic explosions conceptually connecting great with the stuff.
"Mrrr?"
He ignored the confused cow. "How far are we from the resource base anyway?"
[[Displaying on mental map of area.]]
Oh. That was a heck of a walk, that was. Goodness. "Meh, something to worry about tomorrow then. How goes the conversion progress for the additional Ancient Debris ore?"
Mental graphs showing the current amount duplicated and the rate of raw material conversion into more ores began to resonate in his mind. Hmm… Pretty damned costly.
Plus, none of the duplicate ores crafted were pulsating like the two collected straight from hell. Wonder why?
Well, he had two to work with anyway… "Let's tear one of them open and see what's going on."
[[Extracting material from ore, storing released unattributed Essence (XP) and by products.]]
Huh, instead of mining the ore to get the contents, like with coal or diamond ore, you had to melt these things to get Netherite Scrap. Or nothing at all, if you were very VERY unlucky… This stuff felt very unstable despite how much Essence was stuffed inside of it.
So… Now he had one strangely pulsing Ancient Debris and one bit of pulsing Netherite Scrap.
Was it cheaper to duplicate the Ancient Debris directly, or to focus on the produced Netherite Scrap instead?
[[Conversion rate is 0.17% more efficient to produce Netherite Scrap from raw Essence due to not requiring the minor amount of unattributed Essence needed to keep it in an ore state.]]
So negligible then?
[[It is not possible to construct structures in block form with Netherite Scrap. It is possible to craft
Netherite Blocks via formed Netherite Ingots by fusing scrap with gold, but the commercial value of Ancient Debris ore may be higher than expected due to the rarity of collection and the crafted product not being naturally generated.]]
Huh. Well, we scanned gold ore and nuggets and bars and blocks, so that won't be a hassle. Let's generate some Netherite Scrap, fuse some ingots together, and get a Scan of a Netherite Block then.
John glanced at the pulsing Netherite Scrap… And assumed that this odd ongoing effect wouldn't persist after being melted and melded with gold anyway, so there was likely no point in heading back into hell to grab more of this stuff to try and make a pulsing Netherite Ingots or attempt to construct a pulsing Netherite Block.
[[Host is NOT recommended to return to 'The Nether' at this time.]]
Yeah, yeah. Sheesh! How long till we at least get a boring old 'normal' Netherite Block'?
[[Production completion time for first Netherite Block is estimated within the next two hours.]]
Damn that is SLOW. And expensive, the cobblestone reserves were just pouring into the conversion process like water. It would be MUCH more efficient and fast to use the raw supplies stored up in his Pocket as blocks of Bedrock, Emerald, and Redstone to build all this new stuff… But that would defeat the point.
After all, part of the reason why he was crafting Ancient Debris ore in the FIRST place was so he could better store away the Concepts extracted from other stuff when being recycled.
Right now, John was treating the four blocks like a bank or odd storage containers.
Ancient Debris ore for Conceptual energies and materials, like Eyes of Ender or magical stuff or Faith enhanced symbols; Bedrock for raw unattributed Essence (Or XP); Emerald for stuff that resonated with value such as currency or gems or jewelry or bonds or what have you; And Redstone blocks to contain energy related substances, like gravimetric pressure or potential energy or lightning or whatever.
The Scans captured from materials to be recycled or recordings taken of interesting targets were made and stored separately from all that… A sort of mental list of things easily crafted into existence with the proper amounts of these four base Essences when required.
But as of right now? His reserves of all four blocks had barely reached noticeable amounts.
Which one one hand was good! SO MUCH freed up Pocket Space!
But on the other hand was very BAD, because it meant that most of the stuff he and Jessica had collected so far ended up not being that valuable in the first place. Which was fair, a bunch of the 'dangerous' stuff his big sister had gathered while in Phineas and Ferb's Realm was basically just Concepts and Energy and Essence in the end.
Not much Value, especially considering how deadly some of it had turned out to be… And after efficient conversion and refinement, it all just seemed to melt away into tiny amounts of pure material.
So using the new and plentiful Essence from around here made MUCH more sense than wasting what few reserves of material and power he had gathered so far. Especially when crafting such expensive things as Netherite blocks or additional blocks of Ancient Debris ore.
Well, he SAID it was few, but that was only in comparison to how much pocket space it took up BEFORE all that stuff was converted. The amount of Redstone Blocks being stored away currently would be mind boggling to Steve most likely, if he wasn't currently already very boggled in the mind from going down to visit hell.
But John wasn't going to just hand over a few thousand stacks of Ancient Debris Ore from the stuff converted from HIS pocket no matter how small such an amount would be, so best to just convert NEW stuff using materials from around here instead.
Although he STILL wasn't sure why it was so expensive and slow to craft more stacks of Ancient Debris Ore.
[[Delays in crafting duplicates is due to oddities within source reference material.]]
John blinked. "Wait, the strange pulsing feeling from the original blocks? That's what is slowing everything down?"
[[Confirmed.]]
He tilted his head as the cow took another nibble. "Well, can't you just use one of the newly crafted blocks or scrap then? None of THOSE are pulsing like that."
[[...Evaluating.]]
John stared at nothing, but he felt the distinct impression that his Pocket was growing more and more astounded and embarrassed. Maybe even ashamed.
"Mrrr."
Shh cow, my Pocket System just needs a moment.
[[Evaluation complete, alternative process increases rate of production significantly. New reference scans designated. New estimated time of completion for first Netherite Block is negative 2.4 seconds.]]
John nodded. "So I was right?"
There was an awkward pause.
"Mrrr."
[[Alternative process established. Conversion rate accelerated.]]
Oh yeah, John was TOTALLY right. "Sweet, let's keep using the output from our cobblestone generators to make more Nether stuff for Steve to trade for stuff later then. We can go back to building up the reserve Essence blocks in the morning."
[[Confirmed.]]
He gently pushed back Bessie. "No, please don't eat my head. It feels weird."
"Mrrr."
Right, best prevent similar things later on. "Please set up some evaluations for all the stuff we Scanned so far. See if other issues like this one can be prevented in the future."
[[Confirmed.]]
The Pocket almost seemed to be blushing! Daww, that was adorable.
~~~Pocket System~~~
Steve groaned. "Wha? Where… Huh?"
The too bright sun vanished as a shadowy form loomed over his still worn body.
"Mrrr."
…A cow. Apparently.
Steve blinked, looking up at the upside down face staring down at him.
WHY was there a cow?
That felt like an important question.
Along with: Where was he, what was going on, and why did he feel so freaking exhausted!?
And his body flinched as he r̯͍͉̲̥͠e̬m͎̫̮̯e̡͔̝̻͍ͅm̤͢b̵͙̬̩̪è͔̣ͅr̖̼͡e̘̯͈̩̩̤d̞͈͔̭̲͡…
Nope. NopeNopeNope.
Repress.
And forget. "I did NOT sleep well." Something moved outside of his vision.
An annoyingly peppy voice spoke up. "Probably not, considering you only made sure your head was on a grass block. That smooth stone under your back isn't THAT smooth."
Oh. Right, him. "Good morning John." The smell of purple?
The cow moved off towards the other voice. "Good morning Steve! Since you're up anyway, why don't we… No, Bessie. I can't play right now. Just eat my arm or something and let me talk, alright? Thank you."
Huh?
An unseen cough. "Anyway, since we are both up and ready to go, would it be alright if we take a short side trip on the way back? I'm detecting some sort of
desert pyramid or temple over that way and it seems SUPER interesting!"
Steve stared up at the sky. Nothing stared back. Probably.
He was going to have to get up and deal with this, wasn't he? Notch damn it. "Maybe later?"
Because everything sucked right now and his brain was hurting. "I… I really want to go back to base first. Sleep in an actual bed. Just dig a few tunnels underground where nothing is m̵̀͡o̡͜͞͏v̶̧̧̕͜i͟n̨͜g̸̷̢ in the walls." And nothing unseen was attempting to r̵e̖̺̺̞̰̮͖a̠̭͈c̤̙h̭…
John's voice didn't seem that put out. "No problem! I can Scan it as we pass anyway, and you are probably pretty low on stuff to build things with anyway by now."
Low on stuff? No he wasn't, he had all those stacks of iron and glass and chiseled stone bricks and…
[[
Block the watchers, hide from sight: the endless sees what comes at night. Fires scald and lava broils while miners flee from sweat born toils…]]
…He still had obsidian blocks and iron bars and…
[[
...the unseen can not be unseen can not be the unseen can not be unseen can not be the unseen can not be unseen can not be…]]
"Right Steve? Steve? Oh that doesn't seem good."
His body tightened and his sword in hand, he would defend this long lost land. His reach was bound and mind undone but slice by slice the day'd be won…
"STEVE!"
Huh? "Sorry, what w͞er̢e̕ you͟ s̡ąyi͢ng John?" The whispers that burned and the heat that talked made one long for a moon lit walk…
"Hold this for a second, please."
HOlD wHaT f̥̬̼̦͓̖̤Ọ̬͖͍ͅr̯̠ ̞̙A̭̝̟̭͉͕̯
S͇̤̲e̠̲C͖̘̗͓̳̪̻o̫̼N̵d̛͚̯̜̳!̀?̪̼̣̞̮͔̱
[[
Ding!]]
Something warm yet far too light rests in his hands like soothing sheets on a freshly made bed, a cooling stream flowing through his head, a calming wind winding away the dread…
Steve looked at the block of Ancient Debris in his hands, one that didn't pulse or call unseen whispers or burden the world with existence.
He felt the texture sooth his grasp, and something unseen drained from his woes. "John?"
His friend hummed as another block of calmness was placed on Steve's chest… Had he been lying down this whole time? Hadn't he stood earlier? Or had he not? "I'll handle this Steve, you can just relax a bit more. Might move you onto a bed though after you stabilize a bit."
Despite feeling so worn, for some reason sleep came faster now. A more quiet, less burdensome slumber. "Wha?"
"Mrrr?"
Now the cow was back?
The confused man fell fully into the darkness as another block of untainted Ancient Debris ore was brought nearby. "Just sleep for now. You can't just destroy your mind and rebuild it like I can, we've got to fix this the slow way."
…Sleep?
He could do that. He could… Could…
