"So, what's the purpose of the new smithy?" Steve asked, because after Pinkie had worked hard to set up her house, in no time he mentally reflected, he and Alex had insisted that she take a break for a few moments and fulled the girl off to the side, where she joined them and Octavia for a bit of lunch, bread and meat.
"Well, I know you can make weapons and gear with a Crafting Table, but according to the tome I read the ones made from this smithy should be far stronger and tougher for us." Pinkie replied, taking a moment to gesture to where the smithy rested, which was currently melting down the mass of iron she had slipped inside it a few moments ago, "Supposedly I can use one of the tables to turn some of the cobblestone we gathered earlier to make the basic parts, like a pickaxe head for example, before putting said part on one of the smithy's work tables and pouring some metal over it. Such a thing should allow me to make a reusable cast for later, as there are other types of metal we can use and I'll be able to pour out a tool part made out of iron, or gold, or maybe even something much harder... according to the tome there are also a couple of metals in the Nether, so we'll have to explore there at some point. In fact, if we could get our hands on some, I can even craft special weapons made of dragon bones, weapons and tools out of something called Netherite, and even Manyullyn... whatever that is... the possibilities are endless."
"Meaning, with her powers, you won't ever run out of tools to get the job done." Octavia said, something that amazed both of their companions, due to the fact that their faces revealed that they were stunned by this information, before she took a moment to think about what Pinkie had said, "Though if we want to get at some of the tougher materials we'll have to take our time in the mines, searching for anything that might allow us to get even deeper than before... do you think we'll find some redstone while we're down there?"
"We should, as that's fairly common at times." Alex remarked, as while they were waiting Octavia had shown them the journal she had written her strange dream in and now she was considering what it might mean, though she did know that they would have to go deeper than before to find the material.
A few moments later Pinkie got up, having finished her food, and headed back down into the smithy, where they watched as she took the patterns she had crafted earlier and some of the wood she had gathered to make the wooden parts that were the basics of her work. Steve guessed she had said cobblestone since they had a lot of it, thanks to the mining they did earlier that morning, even though she intended to follow the book from start to finish, hence why she was starting with wood, and with her powers she never had to worry about running out of materials. One thing that was interesting to them was that there were schematics for each tool available to Pinkie when she glanced at one of the tables, which looked like they were linked together, and she wasted no time in making the necessary parts out of wood before turning to the smithy. The first thing she did was empty out the iron into the basins, creating a decent amount of iron blocks, before she slipped in the pieces of gold they had recovered, and more to make things faster, where she moved over to the tables that she could make new parts on and placed the wooden pieces down.
Sure enough Steve, Alex, and Octavia watched as she poured out the gold onto the parts and made the casts she had just told them about, without damaging the parts in the process, allowing her to collect all of her casts and stash them in one of the chests before turning back to her workshop. They observed as she spent some time smelting the gold into ingots and whole blocks, even though when Steve asked if she was planning on making golden weapons she informed them that, according to the books, gold wasn't used like that. Supposedly there was an armorer book as well, according to what she had read in both of her tomes, but she'd either have to find it or figure out how to make it, though as she told them that she made sure all the workbenches were lined up against one of the walls, including a few more she just made. Steve and Alex were impressed by how fast and well she was working, all while talking to people no less, while Octavia wasn't even a tiny bit surprised, in fact she was used to hearing stories of what Pinkie could do, instead she just watched as the figure went to work with the smithy.
It wasn't long before Pinkie turned her attention to making actual iron tools for them, or at least for her, Steve, and Alex due to the fact that Octavia was behind them in terms of Experience in that area, though what she discovered was that, at some point in time, she could modify their tools with other materials. She was able to figure out such a thing by reading the tomes that were connected to the smithy, so once they found, say, diamond she would be able to melt them down as well and forge new tool parts. In addition to that she discovered something interesting, the tools made from her smithy, for some reason, were capable of leveling and becoming better, meaning the more they were used the better they would get, or at least that was her understanding of this discovery. The only other thing she made with the iron was something called a sharpening kit, which would allow them to repair their tools when they were out in the wilderness, so if one's axe or pickaxe broke, to the point where it wouldn't do anything, this allowed them to fix it.
Once she was done with her work, as she didn't want to make armor without that book and whatever knowledge was in it, Pinkie handed over the tools she had crafted over the last couple of minutes, something that Steve and Alex took while Octavia nodded, as he understood why she didn't have any new gear.
"I noticed that you got a bit of Experience from crafting those items, and smelting other components," Alex said, though at the same time they departed from the village, as Pinkie told them the smithy was fine to leave alone, because Steve just wanted to spend a little more time in their new mine before they called it a day, "I take it you specialized in Crafting, like how Steve took Combat and I went with Mining?"
What she was referring to was the fact that their Skills came with three overall specializations that gained one more green orbs when they performed whatever action was associated with it, like how Pinkie had been crafting items, or how both she and Octavia had been mining earlier, or how Steve fought their enemies, apparently.
"Not really. I went with all three specializations." Pinkie replied, where she hopped along the path that they had taken not a few hours ago, leaving a stunned Steve and Alex behind for a few moments, while Octavia simply chuckled as she walked behind her companion.
Once more their new companions had to deal with the truth behind Pinkie's powers, that she was able to break rules and it made total sense for her, before following after her once more, allowing them to focus on the mine and what they were looking for, just more materials and redstone. As they did that, however, both she and Octavia glanced at the sky again, as they were so used to Princesses Celestia and Luna moving the sun and moon, so it was weird to see them moving without any assistance, but they said nothing about that to their new companions. While they walked Steve had them stop for just a few seconds as he found a skeleton, a white boned creature that stood as tall as him and Alex while wielding a bow, who was standing beneath one of the trees they had passed by earlier. He had the others pause for a moment as he drew his new iron sword and silently approached his target, who seemed to be keeping to the shade to avoid the sunlight, where Alex lowered her voice and explained that, in their world, they had to fight skeletons and zombies, who liked to linger in all sorts of shady areas before making their move.
The pair watched as their companion ambushed the skeleton and slashed at it, all while dodging the arrow it loosed at him once everything started, as he used the tree trunk to take it as he attacked his foe again, and it wasn't long before he was victorious, reducing the skeleton to a bit of Experience orbs before rejoining them.
From there they continued on their way to the cave, where upon their arrival Pinkie glanced at the walls and carefully set up a series of torches that ensured everything had enough light, as Alex informed them that monsters liked to appear out of patches of darkness and lighting them up ensured their safety. Of course that worked in their world and they really had no idea what sort of monsters existed in this one, as she and Steve were still learning about the rules of this world, but for now it seemed like they also followed that rule, light meant nothing appeared out of the shadows. As such she, Pinkie, and Octavia started to dig into the walls as Steve kept an eye out for danger, as there was one dark path and, while he could send Pinkie down it real quick, given her infinite torches, he didn't want to push her or Octavia too much too soon, since it was clear their world was different from his and Alex's. Octavia found that both Pinkie and Alex mined slightly faster than she did, thanks to them having iron tools and she was still at stone, but for now she was focused on finding redstone, the missing component that she needed to remake what happened in her dream.
As she dug a small hole around her, away from the others, she found a red ore that seemed to be what she was looking for, something that caused her to call Alex over to see if her thoughts were right, and, sure enough, Alex confirmed that it was redstone, to which she mined the four vein with a smile on her face. While she was doing that, and expanded her hole to see what else she could find, since there was no telling what else this mine had to offer, Steve found some zombies and attacked them first, using his empowered skill to attack, dodge, and take them down, though one scratched him before he was able to take it down. It wasn't life threatening, in fact he had suffered enough zombie attacks back in their previous world, so he simply stood nearby and kept an eye out for more enemies, since both he and Alex knew there were far more creatures inside the mines and that they were being lucky. As he did that and Alex focused on one of the walls, mining out more material for later, since building a wall around their base was important, since they had no idea if Pillagers existed in this world, Pinkie found a cave spider coming at her and, without thinking, slashed it apart with her iron sword.
To be honest she had no idea how she had done that, where she had to assume that her skills had acted up to save her, or something like that, though she did find a small light green orb, a Bezoar according to what her Inventory told her when she investigated it, and found that it granted immunity to poison.
Based on what Steve could see this mine was one of the safest he had seen so far, there wasn't a lot for them to worry about and made that everyone could focus on mining, though sure enough there were instances where they had to stop and use the kits Pinkie had crafted earlier. Such a thing allowed them to repair their pickaxes with ease, though Octavia just stopped when hers reached that point since her tool was made of stone and not iron, so she wasn't sure she could use the iron sharpening kit with her tool. With that in mind she focused on gathering more of the strange crystals she had found, as she had one dream about them and suspected that if she had more of them she would be able to do more in due time, where Steve nodded his head as he saw what she was doing and followed after her, since Alex and Pinkie were fine on their own. Octavia found that the deeper into the earth they went the more things changed, as there were rivers of water and lava, either separate from each other or clashing, the latter forming stone and some dark material that Steve said was called obsidian, which they would need at some point in time, once they made diamond tools.
She discovered his reasoning in no time, obsidian was one of the hardest materials in the 'Overworld', as they called the main dimension of this world, hence why the Nether and the End were different dimensions, and it was used to make the portal to the Nether, something she would keep in mind for later on.
"So to get obsidian we need to find diamonds, which, according to what you've said, can only be mined with iron... and I'm going to say the correct Experience in mining." Octavia commented, which, if she was right about this, meant that it would be some time before they could get to the Nether, where some of the best materials for Pinkie's smithy could be found, at least according to her books.
"The Experience function is rather strange and hard to get used to." Steve replied, reminding her that he was used to just being able to craft whatever he wanted without any restrictions, instead of having to worry about needing the required level to use the tools that allowed him to survive in this world, before he paused as they reached the end of the passage they had been following, "Of course there's a chasm running through this area... reminds me of home."
The chasm was large, probably ten to fifteen blocks from one side to another in the vertical manner, though Octavia was able to find that it went off in both directions for a long time, so this would be a good area to explore once they had more gear, since Pinkie was looking for another book. When she thought about it, however, Octavia realized that if Pinkie took her first book and added something to it, maybe the patterns she used to start her on the path she had picked, she might get the tome she was looking for, which she'd be sure to tell Pinkie in due time. With that in mind, and Steve confirming that it might be better to come back later on, when they had armor, the pair retraced their steps as they made their way back to where Pinkie and Alex were working on expanding the mine. Since they had tested out their new tools, and were able to confirm that the sharpening kits worked, there was no reason to stay in the mine, at least for now, because night was coming, as odd as it seemed, and it would be best if they returned to the village for a time.
As they did that, however, Pinkie glanced off to their left, which was the right when coming to this place, and spotted what looked like a large tower made of stone off in the distance, something Steve and Alex had seen a few times since coming to this world. Octavia got the feeling that neither of them knew what it was, meaning they might head over there once all of them got a good nights sleep, though what Steve did know, from observing one before he and Alex had moved, was that it did contain a large number of enemies. Such a thing meant that they had to outfit themselves first, meaning armor was a requirement and that included leveling their defense skill to be able to wear whatever armor, making Octavia take a moment to wonder if there was a way for Pinkie to share Experience with them, as hers didn't seem to go down when she used it, so if they found a way to share it they might be able to boost everyone else to her level. She kept her thoughts to herself for a time, as she didn't want to excite Steve or Alex and then not deliver when they tried to do it, though with the materials they had gathered she knew that it was time to try her hand at something new.
When they got back to the village, as she expected, Alex inquired as to why Octavia needed redstone, to which she made her way over to the house she had picked out, a temporary base she informed the others as she liked the tower that was on the other side of the river, and focused on the Crafting Table. Once there she pulled out three of the crystals she had found in the mines, one of each to be exact, before placing them in a bowl and added in the redstone, which was when she started to stir the mixture and found that everything broke apart. What she created, however, was a glowing pinkish pile of dust that she called 'Salis Mundus', where she had no idea why she called it that, where she turned to a bookshelf that had been placed on the floor by the previous owner and sprinkled it on it. For a moment all it did was glow, like she had transferred the effect from the dust to the bookcase, before it shrunk before their eyes and all the pages and books just gathered into a single volume that was pulsing with magical energies, unlike anything she had felt before, a tome that, when she picked it up, was called the 'Thaumonomicon'.
As Octavia opened it, however, she found that there was an entry about the tome, looking like it had been penned in her own odd handwriting, speaking about the wonders of this magical book and the magic it knew about, Thaumaturgy, not to mention a tool that would aid her, to which she smiled as she looked forward to seeing what might happen next, unaware that something was silently observing her and the others.