By some miracle my character has yet to perish! I've also checked my settings a couple times now to make sure I actually am playing on the Hard difficulty. I know my game is in Hardcore, the big red writing tells me so every time I open my world.
It's just... whilst this is my first time playing on Hardcore, I've always played on the Hard difficulty, and in past games there seems to be a lot more danger. Rush mindlessly into a dark cavern and there'll be 40 odd things in there waiting to come at you... I've not seen anything like that this time around. It's disappointing.
I've also realised that I need a goal. What is my goal? Other people try to rush The End as soon as possible; I'm not other people. Obviously I'd like to get to The End, and that'll probably be my death if the Nether doesn't kill me first, facing that dragon. xD But my personal goal? I guess just make the nicest base possible before a Blaze flings one too many fireballs at me while I'm hunting for Wither Skeletons, and quartz for my manor. 🤷♀
At the end of my last post I had started building a library for my future enchantment needs. It was while taking this screenshot I realised that I really needed to beautify my gravel paths a bit more. I'll have to get on that at some point.
First things first though. Enchantment!
To create my enchanting table and my Nether portal, I needed obsidian. The easiest way of acquiring obsidian? Throwing a bucket of water over all the lava in my mine network!
Also found some more diamonds whilst throwing water all over the place. Great success.
With the lava safely covered, I liberated the diamonds from the ceiling then carefully extricated the obsidian, very slowly, with my unenchanted pickaxe. I stopped after 29 blocks. I have no willpower. That, and I didn't really need much more than that. Maybe later, if I'm building something fancy. With a faster pickaxe.
With my obsidian in hand, I rushed back to my farm and scurried around for my leather. I had enough for 51 books! Which is probably enough for the bookshelves necessary, but I like having extra on hand.
My cows weren't growing up fast enough to slaughter for their leather. I'd need to go on an adventure.
Naturally, after exploring just a little ways past my nearby swamp and taiga biomes, I found a Dark Oak Forest biome. My favourite. The biome where I would've set up my home if only I had originally explored a little further.
Alas.
At least I knew it was there now. I could make a very long path to it and call it part of my over-extended base.
And not finding many cows, I decided to slaughter the horses instead.
I did find a herd of Black Beauty horses though, which I kept alive for personal reasons. They shall become my transport at some point. 😁
With horse-leather abound, I made my way back to the library and completed my work.
I know you don't actually need that many bookshelves to get your enchanting table up and running, but aesthetics. There was once a point when I'd build all sides three bookshelves high! But that was because I had false information.
I managed to get Smite II on my sword, and a couple of Fire Protections and Blast Protections on my armour. And I got one pickaxe with a mere Fortune I and another with Efficiency III.
It's a good start! Can't be amazing right off the bat.
With my trusty new gear, I decided to go up and explore that abandoned mineshaft a bit more, and started coming into contact with enemies for a change.
I swear there's not as many as I thought there would be.
Maybe it's because I've always played on multiplayer servers before and they've adjusted their Hard difficulty to actually be hard? I don't know.
After exploring through the mineshafts for a while, I at last found what I was looking for. A cave spider spawner!!
I kept note of its location and will be back to make an XP farm out of it. Hopefully there's another one close by so I can have a double spawner set up.
The last time I made an XP farm out of these guys, I was unprepared and died a couple of times due to not knowing that drinking milk cures poison. This time I know better. These spiders will not be the death of me this time. I'd rather my Hardcore death be somewhere more interesting. 😅
My main reasons for exploring the mineshaft were to find cave spider spawners and to acquire a little more XP whilst waltzing along. I needed one more enchantment for my new bow.
I managed a measly Power I, but that's enough for now. We're only just beginning.
So, I made my Nether Portal and jumped in! Praying that my Portal in the Nether spawned in a nice place.
Of course, it didn't. It spawned right on the edge of Lava Doom, there was a ghast flying about, and I hurried to protect my Portal and make it a touch more safe.
That's better. Kind of. For now, anyway.
I travelled around a bit, trying to see if I lucked out and spawned near a Fortress. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. I wasn't that lucky.
While exploring, I mined a stack of quartz to take home. Quartz is my favourite decorative block in the game. My future manor shall be lovely! I didn't hang around for long in the Nether though. I prefer to close the game in the Overworld due to past mishaps where, upon logging in, for some reason my character has spawned in the ground. Hasn't happened for a long time, but I'm still paranoid about it and definitely don't want that happening in the Nether.
And, of course, after hopping through my Portal, I spawned somewhere I wasn't supposed to.
Just typical.
In my next post, I'll obviously be finding my way home from wherever-the-hell-I-am and playing Nether Math to reposition my Portal so I actually appear where I'm meant to! 🙄
Until next time,
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂