Chapter 18: The journey – part 3

After a restful nap, teetering in and out of consciences in that hour of pure bliss upon waking I get out of bed. The last thing I remember is going crazy harvesting skin cells and producing an ungodly quantity of cells. I then wandered into bed in exhaustion and passed out. At least basic cells are sorted for now.

I well and truly got wrapped up in that mod like I was drunk. didn’t even get tons done just prepared to get “tons” done. I made several small barrels from actual additions, they apparently have fascinatingly large storage capabilities, if not really ugly. Far cheaper than diamond chests after all.

I will have to get into actual additions eventually; another very cool and useful mod. For now, I have no intention of aiming towards the end game in any mods. I have hardly been here long; I have a lot of time here, no point rushing. So for now I will improve my quality of life, have fun and see if I can find anything exciting.

Not to mention I also lack sufficient quantities of vital ingredients including modded ores, ender pearls, dimensional resources, and magical materials. Nothing to be done but take everything one step at a time.

Looking out my ship, no land, interesting colours, or clouds in sight; the only direction is from my compass. Nothing to be done but be patient, eventually, I will reach a nice big landmass but for now; none what so ever.

Getting back to what I was doing yesterday, but making some headway this time. For now, I retire my analyzer, I have enough cells, for now, placing it inside a barrel specifically for genetic meddling.

Cracking my fingers and dramatically cracking my neck I get to work. With all ingredients in hand, I craft a DNA extractor, decrypter, splitter, breeder, combiner, and centrifuge. Other structures exist but I don’t need them now, I have the barebones set up done.

Immediately improving all the machines with hoppers for automation and chests, a few overclockers each as well I get to producing my first enhancement. I don’t have much iron left or even coal for that matter, I need to go mining very soon. Potentially with far greater ease after I settle my roots.

Resource gathering tangent aside I get back to my work. Funneling the new cells into the extractor; pumping out its component. I continue this process going through each consecutive machine moving by hand the end result into the next machine, burning through coal like a forest fire. I successfully got several incomplete genes for extra health and a ‘lot!’ of basic cells, which will be far more important later.

Starting the process of breeding a complete cell for extra health which involves sacrificing, for 2 points; a cell of the same type of 1 point for a basic cell sacrificed. Considering the relative ease to gather the cell of this type I only kept a handful and sacrificed the rest.

Having produced the cell and storing it safely I get to the… unpleasant part, “sigh”. Strapping my arm I line the needle against the v of my arm and, chicken out!. It is far harder to injure yourself even to your own benefit than you think; a mental wall saying “stupid why are you hurting yourself”.

Taking a moment to gaze at the ocean, concentrating, internally meditating; focusing on steeling my will for the unpleasant event. Drawing my face into a thin line I take the needle to my arm and draw the blood slowly, the sucking sensation due to my poor skills causing great discomfort.

“damn, that sucked,” I say in a frustrated tone, I can't help but to complain. Sadly if I choose to do this mod, more of this will come.

Taking a moment to rest as my blood pressure has dropped slightly; once I feel better I begin to centrifuge the blood. Using the DNA combiner I mix the cell into my blood then further centrifuge it. Watching as the blood spins at high velocity, entrancing. Quickly complete I can see many layers in the blood, plasma, blood cells, and other liquids.

Placing the needle against where I just took the blood, arm tied, vain exposed. Holding my breath I puncture my skin, with a slight gasp I inject the fluid quickly to end my suffering murmuring “it’s a vaccine” repeatedly.

“It was not a vaccine” I manage to say as my chest burns in pain as I feel like lava is being pumped through me. I wished I could pass out, but I was not to be blessed with relief.

I felt my skin crawl as my mind grew dull with fog, wishing for the pain to disappear. I don’t know how long I stayed sat in the fetal position, the hard floor my only comfort.

“is it over” is all I could say to mentally prod my self to awareness, already hidden in a mental corner to ignore the pain as best as possible.

With sitting up I realize I am soaked in sweat, with body aches all over myself. Take a moment to catch my breath. Looking down at my self, I can only nod in appreciation at my guessing skills, my skin took on an ever so slight silver tint, it feels still like skin but more rubbery, still soft to the touch but difficult to pull on.

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“I hope it was worth it” as any future enhancements will definitely need to be amazing to go through that again. I should have thought that through, I was incompetent, to say the least.

Well, I am glad no one was watching.

“I need a bath… shit” I left my bath behind. Nothing to be done it was shoddy anyway. I also don’t think salt water is suitable for bathing. None the less I shall have a bath. Quickly checking for recipes for baths; a surprisingly massive list. I settle on a wooden bath, iron, wood of my choice. Not too bad, with it quickly crafted I place the bath near the fence so I can quickly drain the water into the ocean.

With that complete I take stock of it I have enough freshwater. The answer, not a chance. I have a few buckets of freshwater but wasting it while in the middle of the sea is foolish.

With a sigh I fly low, grabbing some saltwater from the ocean. I wonder if I know any way to turn it into normal water. It was never an issue I concerned myself with inside the game.

With saltwater in hand, I light a crucible and get to heating the water. I could probably make freshwater by collecting the steam but I cannot be bothered for such little reward. Maybe if I run out il set up a system but for now, it is fine. When the water starts boiling I empty it into the bath before starting to boil more water.

By the time the second cauldron is boiling the first has cooled down to a reasonable temperature. I have to wait a while though as I added the second batch but I managed to have a bath, wasn’t that bad after all. My father always used Epson salts maybe it won't hurt you but actually soothe you.

I stayed inside for a short while, a half-hour at most. Enough to feel refreshed. Even with all that night is approaching, not here yet but in a few hours. I guess I was in a painful state longer than I imagined. I also drained my day with obsessive genetic engineering fun. Still have a few hours of daylight though which is nice.

I choose to do something that will be useful in the longterm while it does need light normally; Glowstone saturates my ship. Crop sticks. In this case minicio, I will have to cross-breed it with wheat or something until I get a second minicio to crossbreed.

Crafting crop sticks, simply wood. I make several stacks and collect my devil can. Creating a small plot of land to crossbreed. With the land ready and the seeds, I place the crop sticks, they come in the correct bundles and position in the item format so placing them is a breeze. Placing the minicio and wheat opposite each other, space in-between. I place 2 chopsticks between them stacked so the bred crop appears there. I speed up the process of growth with the watering can until both plants are mature.

While they do their thing at the normal time I craft a seed analyzer; long overdue I say. With that done I check the plants, not crossbred, I further speed it up with the watering can until a needed plant is formed. With luck, it produces a second minicio crop seed. Taking both the old plant and new plant, disposing of the wheat I analyze them. Both 1 1 1, for those uninformed the giant microscope looking thing the analyzer shows the name of the seed and 3 numbers: Growth, the rate at which it grows, Gain, the amount you gain from the plant, the yield. Finally, the strength, the chance the plant will give its best genes to its children, or in this case, I also believe crop health.

Obviously, the first 2 are incredibly useful. Minicio is a slow plant, all magical crops are but this massively speeds up the process. A step towards producing an obscene quantity of materials. Still, it’s a massive time sink taking a long time to cross-breed the plants. Except I have the watering can which speeds It up massively. I also have “liquid time”, but I don’t need it. Even with all this, it's still a very slow, manual, and tedious process, but made worth it with a combination of useful items.

And with that, I take the time to set up the same system but with 2 seeds of the same type – minicio. With the first stage complete I spend a long time producing stronger crops, rotating out old seeds with better new seeds. I noticed that it was getting far harder to increase the abilities, diminishing returns. After 3 3 3, it became noticeably slower and after 5 5 5, it slowed to a crawl. I shall not be perturbed, collecting my thoughts I do the next reasonable thing, expand the operation. Normally I wouldn’t do this because it quickly improves and becomes redundant but going through tens of generations of plants for a single improvement in one of the three categories, becomes worth it.

With my plan in mind, I realize that the “watering can” can only work ina 3x3 so I expand to doing 3 at the same time and create another zone which I speed up with liquid time. Effectively increasing my speed to x8. My ship with its size limitations cannot exceed this, but this is fine. All lower grade seeds after they have been used to further the strength of the crop are disposed of in the most honorable way possible. Tossing them into the ocean. If they are lucky maybe they will float to shore and produce a new line of its species.

I managed to get up to 8 8 8 by the next morning, but at the cost of my mind, frazzled from exhaustion and the repetitive actions. The speed slowed to all but nothing after 7 7 7. To further improve this I will need hundreds of crops to improve it further to 9 9 9 or 10 10 10. Maybe higher but that was the max in the game. I can see this as being a task completed by generations, improved upon like a family mission. I cheated the whole system with a watering can that speeds the crops up to something like 20x or 30x. Crazy, combined with liquid time and know-how I cheated the whole system. I can completely see a single crop being refined over 200 hundred years into an impossible valuable crop with supernatural properties.

Well, no one ever said I had to play by the rules. I can see it already automating this, growing thousands, speeding them all up. Creating a seed that grows instantly dropping tens of items per harvest, filthy levels of quality.

For now, I am happy with my current seed, propagating it into a large quantity I dispose of the inferior seeds. Even if they were produced over a long time. With that complete, I promptly head to bed and pass out. Long day.

During that night I dream of an empire rules by my monopoly on high-quality materials. God, I love magical crops, another path to gaining flight. Armour based but still good. Good furnaces too.

I am so gonna look stupid wearing pink armour just because it gives me flight “sigh” chuckling to myself.