Steve made a quick trip home, packed up all his emeralds and green gems, and returned to the town.
But when he arrived at the forge, he found the place surrounded—three deep layers of villagers and guards in uniform. The whole street buzzed with noise.
He was surprised. His reputation among the villagers was still rock-bottom; when he approached, the crowd instinctively parted, leaving a wide empty ring around him.
At least that made things easier. He still remembered once getting crushed while feeding pigs—stuck between mobs of villagers until his health started dropping. That had been a painful discovery.
That was also the day he'd learned about entity collision damage.
...
The commotion soon reached inside the forge. The villagers stepped aside as Steve came into view—his familiar square head instantly recognizable to the dwarf sitting miserably in the boat.
"Hey! You! Let me out already!" Holls roared.
He'd been sitting there motionless for so long his legs felt like splintered logs—numb, stiff, and throbbing. It was pure torture.
But now, with the town guards behind him, he found his courage again. His voice boomed through the forge, filled with righteous anger.
Steve hopped forward cheerfully, right in front of everyone, and without a word, clicked open Holls's trade menu.
"Again?! Are you kidding me!" Holls almost collapsed.
He prided himself on his broad experience, but this—this was beyond anything he'd ever encountered. A power that triggered instantly, with no visible magic, yet could completely paralyze him. No chants, no glyphs, no energy waves—nothing.
It wasn't magic. It was something else.
He turned toward the guards for help, shouting, but they only hesitated.
Everyone in town knew Holls. He was gruff, sure, but a talented blacksmith and the only one in Bardley capable of working fine steel. They didn't want him hurt—but they'd never seen a golem like this either.
The square-headed creature gave off no killing intent, just… indifference. And that somehow made it even more unnerving.
The guards exchanged looks. This job didn't pay enough to deal with walking disasters.
Still, duty was duty. One of them stepped forward and patted Steve's blocky shoulder cautiously. "Uh… excuse me, sir? Could you maybe… release Master Holls?"
"And my stuff!" Holls shouted. "He took everything I had!"
The onlookers glanced inside—and gasped. The forge was stripped bare. Not even a hammer left.
But Steve ignored their noise. He placed his emeralds on the trade bar and calmly exchanged them for six shiny iron ingots, leaving two gems behind.
The moment the iron entered his inventory, a cheerful chime rang in his ears.
[Progress achieved: Going Hard! Installing mod – Just Enough Items...]
[Configuration complete!]
The world shifted around him.
Where there had once been a plain trade interface, two sleek new panels appeared on either side. The left was empty for now—a collection panel. The right was packed with item icons, neat rows stretching for dozens of pages. The sheer number at the top was staggering.
As he focused on an item, a crafting recipe hovered before him—an elegant, layered display.
There were thousands of recipes for iron ingots alone. Hundreds of workstation types. It was more content than he'd ever seen in his old worlds.
Flipping through the pages, he realized they weren't filler either—each looked genuinely useful.
Iron shields for defense. Iron shackles for restraints. A dozen alloys, tools, and gadgets.
And there—mob drop entries: ingots obtainable through blacksmith trades, zombie loot, elemental gifts…
So the mod had merged submodules, integrating multiple systems.
That was excellent news. The more mods the world fused together, the greater his potential.
Then came the next notification:
[Current Objective: Complete "Diamonds!" to unlock mod – Spice of Life: Carrot Edition!]
Steve's eyes lit up. He hadn't expected that one.
Spice of Life—Carrot Edition. Simple but powerful. It tracked every food he'd eaten, and for every five unique types, it permanently increased his maximum health by two points.
It didn't sound like much, but with this world's vast food index—visible right there in JEI—it could become one of the most broken progression mods in existence.
If there was no upper limit, this could make him unstoppable.
The thought thrilled him. Diamonds were the key—but with JEI showing him every possible recipe and source, finding them would be trivial.
He just needed a pickaxe and some lava-handling gear first. Unfortunately, the intermediate steps didn't seem to unlock any new mods.
No matter. One thing at a time.
He glanced at the six iron ingots and quickly made a plan:
two for a pickaxe, three for a bucket, one for a shield.
Perfect.
...
Holls, meanwhile, sat in dazed silence.
A moment ago, he'd been shouting for compensation. Now, his hands were suddenly filled with a dozen glowing, duck-egg-sized emeralds—each flawless and pure.
Even as a blacksmith, he could tell these were worth a fortune. Real or not, one alone could buy back his entire shop.
So generous? No… wait.
Where did these come from?
He blinked at his hands. Dwarves might be small, but his palms were broad, calloused from years of hammering metal—yet even he couldn't hold this many stones at once.
Before he could make sense of it, two iron ingots materialized on top of the gems.
One slipped free, falling onto the boat's wooden floor—and hit one of the emeralds with a sharp crack.
"Ah!" Holls yelped as a fine fissure split the gem's surface.
He froze.
Then his eyes widened, drawn to the iron itself.
Wait. That wasn't normal iron.
The ingot was a full foot long, its surface impossibly smooth, gleaming faintly under the forge light. Not a single impurity, no grain, no marks—just a perfect metallic sheen.
What kind of metalworking could do this?
Magic? No. Wizards had neither the patience nor the craft for such purity.
This… this was something else. Some higher smithing art he couldn't begin to understand.
But one question still burned in his head: how had it appeared out of thin air?
Around them, the guards exchanged puzzled looks, completely misreading the scene.
"Is he playing tricks again?" one whispered. "He's just… standing there with a brick. What's going on?"
"Careful," muttered another. "He might be dangerous."
Before anyone could act, Steve stepped aside. A guard reached out, tapping his shoulder again. "Hold on—you still need to compensate Master Holls for the damages!"
"Compensate?" Holls suddenly screeched—his voice so high-pitched that several villagers jumped.
Clutching the iron ingot to his chest, he gave it a reverent lick, eyes shining like twin stars.
"Compensation? What compensation?" he shouted, voice trembling with awe and joy.
"This—this is enough!"