John blinked at the floating block of dirt, the only missed chunk from his most recent experiment.
So.
Apparently, most blocks were SO BUSY being a block, the pure ESSENCE of that block, that they didn't bother to acknowledge or interact with gravity.
Considering how fluids worked here, that practically wasn't even surprising.
[[Pocket.]]
There. Now the REST of that distant hill was popped and then collected into storage too. Forget the dangers of scanning, just the act of trying to Collect something was enough to pop these Essence blocks.
So much for his dreams of bringing his piggy pals along as pets. Darn it.
Oh well, this did at least simplify the whole 'escape the piggy pile surrounded by water forced lava death pit trap' situation significantly. And it was a good chance to better understand what was going on with this world!
He hummed as he carefully Collected the water source blocks, the lava source block, and everything else below his current pig pile level for several units in all directions.
And as they entered into his Pocket, he U̥͉͍̞̘̳n̴̗̘̹̺͈̙d̺̠͖e͙̜̬̘̬͝r̲̰͚̘̙̞̟͟s҉̜t̫͇̤ͅơ̖̩̻ơ̟̥̞̫d̮̞̟͇͍͔͢ them.
Dirt could be treated via tools to be transformed into very fertile soil, smooth stone would become cobblestone when broken but could be smelt back into that oh so smooth texture via a furnace…
And the concept of 'Furnace' was deep in the CORE of stone in general. Holy hell.
The wooden chest was more like an inanimate person, as it could store materials the same way that John's new body could… By attracting Essence into similar stacks and compressing them.
It wasn't powerful enough to draw drops in just by being in the area, not like his new body now could, but the entire structure was VERY efficient at storing them. The chest was formed from the Essence of planks which were crafted from wood (AKA, Tree trunk blocks).
Meanwhile, the hopper WAS able to draw in materials, from one direction and within a short range at least, but to gain the effect you had to use more valuable materials (Iron, mined from the same ore) and it also ended up limiting the storage amount buffered within the structure itself.
As a tradeoff though, it could absorb materials from other hoppers, chests, and so forth and then shove it INTO said containers through the other end if you set it up correctly.
How could a funnel of metal do this? Not entirely clear. It had something to do with the way the iron Essence was twisted inside itself, and how there was far TOO MUCH Essence within this one structure based on the crafting recipe.
Pretty sure that was how the chest worked too… It took eight planks of wood heavily compressed into a box shape that was only one block tall, and that did STRANGE things to the material.
For example? Two of these chests touching each other on a side would sort of magnetically attract each other and combine into a double chest. But attempt to add a third and it would be too much for the Essence to handle and they'd stay separated.
John absently began replacing the dirt into the pit around the pig pile, examining how the drops would easily transform back into blocks with a bit of effort and focus from a gathering source of energy… Aka, his Willpower.
Such a tiny spark of wanting something was MORE than enough to reconstruct the block sized material into its larger form… Although that was unlikely to work for mobs and animals like these little piggy babies who were so adorables yes you are!
John paused all deep thinking and pit safety work for a short piggy cuddle break.
"Oink."
The pigs couldn't care less either way, but that was fine too.
~~~Pocket System~~~
Digging deep underground (But not currently furiously hunting for more diamonds), Steve grinned as he heard a LOT of skeletons nearby! "That sounds like a spawner to me."
Down and to the left? No, just left, it sounded like they were on the same level. With caution he began mining through the smooth stone… And revealed a mossy cobblestone surface.
Bingo! "Alright, let's do this the smart way this time."
Spawner rooms were pretty much just raw profit if handled properly, even if early miners found them to be death traps.
A spawner would form naturally in the world, forming a metal cage with a specific monster enshrined within and then drawing energy from the land to empower itself.
Over time it would consume the material surrounding it to form a room to strengthen its structure… Then it would naturally obtain space to protect itself via corrupting the surrounding stone into cobblestone, then even further converting the cobblestone into mossy cobblestone
Side note: Mossy cobblestone? Rare stuff that, very valuable back home.
There were rumors that vines could be used to craft the stuff with normal cobblestone, but the connoisseurs insisted that none of that 'new fangled garbage' compared to the high quality mossy cobblestone that a natural spawner would generate.
Anyway, with room to work with the spawner could protect itself automatically by forming deadly groups of monsters to fight any invaders!
Which was neat.
But more important than all of that?
The raw power gathered in one space would transform into two grand treasures!
One was a one-off luck draw, as the energies not needed to generate more monsters would collect and gather into a naturally generated storage chest and begin to accumulate items.
The process took decades or longer to do, so it wasn't worth attempting to assist the procedure for infinite items or anything (Who would wait twenty years for one piece of string or an apple?), but you could stumble upon some really good stuff occasionally when the spawner initially forms, like emeralds or an enchanted book or what have you.
Some of the more odd collectors back home even insisted the wooden chest ITSELF was special in some way, and they would purchase the spawner chests at stupidly high prices or even fight over the right to do so… Despite all evidence showing them to be normal wooden containers any miner could craft easily.
Rich people were a bit odd, honestly.
But aside from the literal treasure chests and the lottery of goods one might find inside… The SECOND grand treasure was the spawner itself.
You could, with enough effort, destroy it to earn a small chunk of valuable experience. A few dozen XP orbs or so, if you were lucky. Maybe use that to enchant a looting pickaxe or something.
If you were a Notch damned moron.
No, the real value wasn't in that small pocket change of power, it was in the spawner itself!
While it couldn't be moved from the found location (Energy vortexes formed spawners in one specific spot for a reason, even if no one was quite sure what that reason was), the spawner was an ongoing revenue stream and valuable (if dangerous) source of materials.
These spawning cages would naturally gather the energies from the world, the same ones that could spawn deadly monsters in the dark to kill unwary miners, and focus all that risk with one purpose and into one spot.
One easily contained, controllable spot.
Add some torches or lanterns to shut it down when not needed (It would simply gather up those dangerous energies without spending it when exposed to high enough light levels), and bam!
You were good to start constructing a harvesting and item gathering system!
With a bit of work? You would now have a safe and stable supply of one type of monster drop, in unlimited quantities.
Heck, if you were careful you could even trap the creatures into a kill space and slaughter them to easily gather lots of experience for enchanting your equipment anyway! All the benefits of smashing and blowing the damned spawner up WITHOUT being an absolute moron!
On one of the larger Instances Steve had visited in the past (The largest ones were called 'Servers' by the locals), they had even set up some clever redstone machines to weaken the creatures to near death!
One punch: BAM! Unlimited enchanting experience! So easy!
Oh sure, the spawner cages needed to detect a miner within range to begin producing threats, but in more stable Mining Instances that allowed multiplayer that was easy enough to handle.
But even alone, in a single miner world like this one, Steve could easily set up a secured room and sleep there or something to let the spawner generate enough materials to fulfill any future requirements.
So yeah.
Compared to a single spawn chest with some horse armor or a broken record or whatever in it, it was clear why spawners were so valued by his people, at least if you were willing to put the effort in and not be scared off.
Especially skeleton spawners like this one.
You could get the expected bones easily enough, which could be crafted into bone meal to rapidly accelerate plant growth… But you could also free arrows, or very rarely a bow… Even an enchanted one! The weapon would likely need to be reinforced or repaired, but free stuff was free stuff.
XP orbs, bone meal, arrows, and bows? All automatically gathered and collected with a bit of crafting into massive chests for easy access with no risk or danger to the miner himself?
Yes please!
Another clank had the miner pause in his work. Was this the right area?
After clearing a bit more space and ensuring no unexpected gaps or openings had shown up (Skeletons had a nasty habit of sniping him with an arrow or two if he wasn't careful.), Steve leaned close…
Near the top? Hmm. Best dig closer to the bottom and clear some space first.
Valuable materials or not, Skeletons weren't exactly the smartest of monsters. Dig a hole at foot level, crunch their bones with your sword or even your fist, and they were easy enough to kill off.
No, the REAL issue was to ensure you spammed torches in the room first.
If you didn't expose that spawner to enough light, those five or six skeleton archers would infinitely replace themselves in batches! Worse, if the spawning room had a pit or something that the deadly mobs could trip into the stupid thing would assume all its defenders had died and just keep making more.
Steve had heard horror stories of a double spawner setup (VERY rare to see them generate near each other) accidently being damaged due to a creeper explosion, and how the miner had not bothered to ensure they had been properly shut down or sealed before it was too late…
It had transformed his new base from 'Lucky to have infinite materials' to 'Oh look, a sea of angry death creatures.'
He wasn't exactly sure how that had been handled honestly… Probably flooded the base with lava or something.
Anyway, that would NOT be today's outcome!
With the bottom cobblestone block mined, Steve carefully placed a torch at his maximum range, as close to the barely visible spawner cage as possible… There!
Thankfully one could actually manipulate the world at a longer range than they would expect, so he didn't have to fully open a two block tall opening.
Which was good, because there was a CROWD of skeletons inches away that now had no option but to just stand there, unable to kill him. Couldn't even shoot him because they were too dumb to back up for a better angle or attempt something as groundbreaking as ducking or crawling.
Steve sighed in relief as the cobblestone chamber lit up, even as he began placing more and more torches in that room. Just in case.
He'd punch the skeletons to death later to save durability on his sword, but right now the important thing was to prevent an unending wave of clinkity-clankety bone related death from spawning.
Oh! There was the chest, although it was on the opposite side of the room, because of course it was. Well, whatever… It wouldn't take that long to get to it. And this was just a basic skeleton spawner, not something deadly like those damned tiny poison spider spawners where the freaking things could CRAWL THROUGH A SINGLE BLOCK GAP!
Nightmares. Nightmares for days.
As Steve continued slowly clearing the room and ensuring it was safe enough to eventually start constructing an automatic mob collection system, he was unaware that far above on the surface a young man was currently following traces of Steve's past construction work back towards his base.
Nor was he aware of the growing crowd of pigs ALSO following that boy.
It would probably be an interesting surprise at some point.