Steve made a quick trip home, grabbed his gems and emeralds, then headed back to town.
But when he got there, the Blacksmith was surrounded—villagers packed in layers deep, with guards posted all around.
That caught him off guard.
His reputation among the villagers was still rock-bottom, so when he approached, the crowd instantly cleared a wide circle around him.
Which was honestly convenient. Last time he'd gone to feed his pigs, he'd been crushed in the crowd so hard he couldn't move—and even took suffocation damage. He hadn't forgotten that lesson.
That was the day he learned crowding could actually cause damage.
The commotion soon reached the Blacksmith itself. The villagers parted, and Halls—still sitting miserably in the boat—finally spotted that unforgettable blocky head.
"Hey! You! Let me out of here!"
Sitting motionless for hours had left his legs completely numb, like they'd been snapped in half. His patience was hanging by a thread.
But with the town guards finally there, his confidence returned, and his voice boomed louder than ever.
Steve jogged over, bounced to a stop, and—right in front of everyone—opened Halls's Trading Interface.
"Again?! You've gotta be kidding me!" Halls nearly lost it.
He considered himself well-traveled, but in all his years, he'd never seen anything like this—an ability that activated instantly, without the faintest trace of mana, yet completely immobilized him.
It was just… wrong.
He yelled to the guards for help, but they hesitated.
Halls had a bit of a temper, sure, but he was the only blacksmith in town and a skilled one at that. Normally, they'd back him up.
But this golem in front of them was something else entirely—strange, unpredictable, and clearly not intimidated by their presence.
And with Halls throwing around words like "soul binding" and "body control," the guards' heads were starting to ache.
Honestly? Their pay wasn't nearly high enough for this kind of weirdness.
Still, duty was duty. One of them stepped up and awkwardly patted Steve's blocky shoulder.
"Uh… sir? We'd appreciate it if you could release Halls."
"And give back my stuff!" Halls shouted. "He took almost everything I own!"
The onlookers peered inside and gasped—the entire shop was practically stripped bare.
But Steve didn't say a word. He simply placed a few emeralds on the Trading Interface, exchanged them, and came away with six iron ingots—two left over.
As soon as the ingots hit his inventory, that familiar chime rang in his ears. The voice from yesterday followed right after.
[Achievement unlocked: [Getting an Upgrade!] Just Enough Items! Configuring...]
[Configuration complete!]
The world around him shifted. The once-empty sides of the interface now displayed two new panels.
The left one, a collection list, was blank for now. The right side was filled with neatly arranged items—so many that the page numbers alone were staggering.
When Steve focused on an item, a crafting recipe list popped up beside it.
There were tens of thousands of iron ingot recipes alone, using over a hundred different crafting blocks. He'd never seen anything like it.
And these weren't filler decorative items, either—flipping through dozens of pages, nearly everything looked genuinely useful.
Iron shields for defense, shackles that could restrain targets, a whole range of metal alloys…
And in the "Sources" section, he noticed something else: iron ingots could be obtained by trading with blacksmiths, dropped by zombies, or gifted by elemental creatures.
That last part clearly came from another mod—probably integrated as an add-on.
For Steve, that was excellent news. The base game didn't have many achievements to work with, so the more mods he could unlock, the better.
[Current task: Complete the achievement [DIAMONDS!] to unlock mod — Spice of Life: Carrot Edition!]
The voice echoed again. Steve hadn't expected the next mod to be that one.
The Spice of Life: Carrot Edition—a simple but brutally effective mod. Its effect was straightforward yet incredibly satisfying: it tracked every type of food Steve ate, and for every five new foods, it permanently increased his max health by two points.
That didn't sound like much, but given how many food items he saw listed in JEI, he suspected this world had an absurd variety of edible things.
And if the mod didn't have a cap… this could easily become one of his most powerful upgrades yet.
Steve's mood lifted. Diamonds might be required to unlock it—but with JEI in hand, he had plenty of ways to get his hands on one.
Too bad there weren't any mods linked to the achievements between iron and lava.
He glanced down at the six iron ingots in his inventory and quickly formed a plan.
Two for an iron pickaxe from Halls, three for a bucket, and one left over for a shield.
Perfect.
Halls, meanwhile, had no idea what was running through Steve's head. He just stared blankly at the items in his hands.
He'd just been shouting for compensation—and suddenly, his palms were filled with a pile of emeralds the size of duck eggs.
Even though he wasn't an expert on gems, one look told him these weren't ordinary stones. Even if they were fakes, a single one could easily cover his losses.
So generous…?
No, wait—something wasn't right.
Where had they come from?
He was a dwarf, small in stature but with hands about the size of a human's. Even so, there was no way he could hold that many gems at once.
Before he could process that thought, his hands grew heavier again—two iron ingots had appeared out of nowhere.
Caught off guard, he fumbled one, and it clattered into the boat, striking one of the emeralds.
A faint crack split across the gem's surface.
"Ah!" Halls yelped, his brain going fuzzy.
The gem had cracked!
No—wait. What kind of metal was this? Iron? How could iron be this pure?
The ingot was nearly a foot long, its surface flawless and gleaming, every edge smooth and clean.
He couldn't even imagine the technique needed to forge something like this.
Magic? No. Those arrogant mages didn't have the patience for craftsmanship like this. It had to be some skill he couldn't comprehend.
Wait, wait, focus—
Halls shook his head hard, trying to return to the bigger question.
How had all of this just appeared out of nowhere?
The villagers had no idea what was going through his mind. The guards exchanged awkward looks, whispering among themselves.
"What's his deal? He just stopped talking… now he's holding bricks? Is he messing with us?"
Another guard frowned, stepping forward as Steve started to turn away. He reached out again and tapped Steve's shoulder.
"Hey, don't go yet—you still need to compensate Mr. Halls for his losses."
"Compensate?" Halls suddenly shrieked.
If not for his burly frame, people would've sworn it was a little girl yelling.
He clutched the iron ingot with trembling hands, eyes shining like they were filled with stars.
"Compensate? What for? What compensation?
"With this—this is more than enough!"