Nether wart was an essential brewing ingredient, and blazes were consumables as well as producers of brewing stand materials.
Clang!
A sword struck a blaze, producing the sound of metal collision.
No one knew exactly what material these things were made of, but they were quite hard.
Boom boom boom...
Several blazes fired fireballs, surrounding Levi in attack. However, these were completely useless... he held his shield forward, and they couldn't even break his defense.
[Achievement Unlocked: Return to Sender]
Blaze rod acquired.
Creak.
Several wither skeletons circled around from behind, attempting a sneak attack, but they couldn't even touch him. With precise distance control, Levi eliminated all these skeletons with just three sword strikes.
Sweeping Edge was terrifyingly powerful.
When he slashed with his sword, not only was the target directly severely injured, but the additional impact force also shattered the nearby skeletons.
This performance was much stronger than in the game.
After farming materials at the blaze spawner for a while with nothing else to loot, Levi chose to temporarily leave this fortress and mined some soul sand and glowstone.
On the way back, he also killed a magma cube and obtained some round magma cream... this stuff was good for treating burns.
Entering the portal.
"Phew..."
He breathed a sigh of relief upon returning to Middle-earth.
Honestly, the Nether was really too hot, and the sulfur smell permeating the air wasn't pleasant either. Home's fresh air was still the best.
Below the farm, Levi carved out another substantial space for growing nether wart.
[Achievement Unlocked: Local Brewery]
With blaze rods in hand, the first priority was naturally to make a brewing stand and brew some potions.
At this point, the enchanting table, brewing stand, and Nether portal had been arranged together by him, and he'd even built a hall around them, simply decorating these items.
It was increasingly resembling a wizard's dwelling.
No need for explanations this time... the facts were right there.
"Might as well just build a wizard tower," Levi thought, taking out freshly brewed swiftness potions, enhancing their effects with glowstone, and then adding gunpowder to make them splash potions.
Then he headed straight to the stables.
Smash!
The potion bottle shattered. He quickly pulled out two golden carrots and fed them to the two fastest horses.
Soon, a very fast foal was born.
This process was repeated twice more.
Finally.
Speed: 20m/s.
A ceiling-level excellent horse was born.
After building a separate stable for the best horse, Levi returned to continue working at the brewing stand, brewing some of every potion he could make.
Strength, swiftness, night vision, water breathing, fire resistance...
Unfortunately, the ghast tear from the ghast he'd killed earlier had fallen into a lava pool, or he could have had regeneration potions too.
He picked up the fire resistance potion from the brewing stand, his thoughts flying to Khazad-dûm.
Bet you didn't expect this, Durin's Bane... your flame is now ineffective against me!
However, aside from fire magic attacks, that thing's weight class was still formidable. Even without using flames, the Balrog could topple a large area of buildings just by charging around.
Forget the Balrog... even with Smaug, Levi still wasn't confident.
Not enough, still not enough.
He looked at the elven steel armor he was wearing.
Right now, he was still too weak.
Stronger, he needed to be stronger!
Levi looked at the twelve diamonds in his backpack, then at the Nether portal.
The Nether... still had things like bastion remnants, which had chances of containing netherite and random diamond equipment. Worth a visit.
He counted the items in his backpack, took fire resistance potions, golden apples, lembas, and other medical and food supplies, and stepped into the Nether once more.
"This way then."
Bastion remnants weren't easy to find, especially when everything became realistic.
Levi chose a direction and explored steadfastly in that direction, killing skeletons, laying stone paths, traversing crimson forests, eating roasted hoglins, and drinking potions to swim across lava lakes along the way.
Finally, after several days of exploration, on some day when he couldn't tell if it was day or night, he saw a dark structure looming ahead.
Some pig-headed, human-bodied creatures wandered within it... some carrying crossbows, others wielding golden swords and axes, with a few wearing armor.
Unlike the zombie pigmen he'd encountered on the road, these piglins looked somewhat more rational, with intelligent light flickering in their eyes.
Levi pulled out pre-made golden boots and put them on his feet.
Then he attempted to approach this dark bastion.
[Achievement Unlocked: Oh Shiny]
Several piglins carrying crossbows passed by, carefully examining this strange visitor, sniffing him with their snouts, and ultimately choosing to ignore him.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
He still had some psychological trauma regarding piglins. The first time he encountered them, he knew nothing and was quickly ganged up on.
Plus, these creatures dealt ridiculously high damage, some even carrying axes that shields couldn't block... one careless moment could lead to disaster.
Being able to avoid combat now was naturally good.
However, although he was temporarily safe, Levi knew that if he wanted the treasure within the bastion, he'd eventually have to fight these creatures.
As soon as he opened chests within the bastion, all surrounding piglins would automatically become hostile, so he had to find a way to deal with these creatures before they became hostile.
He pulled out cobblestone and built bit by bit, approaching the bastion.
Golden armor wasn't omnipotent... it could only fool ordinary piglins. When encountering brutes, he'd still get beaten, as they didn't care whether you wore gold equipment.
Along the way, Levi carefully avoided these brutish creatures with 50 hit points.
These things had enough health to go toe-to-toe with trolls.
However, no matter how strong these brutes were, they ultimately couldn't match the cunning of a despicable block man.
A piglin brute wielding a golden axe was patrolling his territory attentively. However, just as he walked into a dead end and was about to turn back, he suddenly heard several tapping sounds behind him.
Then he discovered that in just the time it took to turn around, a stone wall had suddenly appeared behind him, sealing the path completely.
He couldn't get out.
The brute was dumbfounded and could only helplessly grunt behind the wall.
Similar incidents occurred throughout the bastion. Not only brutes, but even ordinary piglin civilians couldn't escape being walled in.
One moment of inattention, and they were inexplicably trapped.
Some slightly smarter piglins, seeing these strange methods, suddenly remembered a legend about "ancient builders," but regardless, it was too late.
Levi successfully looted this bastion's wealth from top to bottom.
Very fortunately, he found diamond leggings, a diamond pickaxe, a piece of netherite, and a netherite upgrade template.
Besides these, there were also dozens of gold blocks dug from various hidden spots and golden carrots, crossbows, crying obsidian, and other miscellaneous items from treasure chests... so much that his backpack couldn't hold it all, forcing him to selectively take only valuable items.
The first bastion yielded a rich harvest.
Levi used the collected crying obsidian to make an item: a respawn anchor.
This thing could only be placed in the Nether and allowed the person bound to it to respawn four times, but only in the Nether.
This way, he could also revive in the Nether without worrying about sudden death.
After placing the respawn anchor near the portal and charging it with glowstone, Levi didn't linger or return home directly. Instead, he chose to continue forward along the path from the previous bastion.
One piece of netherite was far from enough.
Thus, he trekked through the Nether for a full month.
On this day, Levi came to another bastion, used the same method to seal all the piglins' paths, and opened the chests.
A netherite scrap lay quietly inside.
"Finally, complete."
He pulled out his crafting table and placed four gold ingots and four netherite scraps into it.
He crafted the fourth netherite ingot.
[Chapter Complete]
***
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