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Okay! Now that I’ve build a completely automatic mana generation system to run back home, I think it’s about time to run off and start exploring the world I’m in. Unfortunately for me, I don’t actually have the stuff needed to make more maps(I’m terribly low on iron!) so I’ll have to go mining first. I’ve also just installed a new mod that I’ve been playing around with in another pack and decided I really liked the look of and fit well into Manasteel’s mods. That mod is Applemilk&Tea2, which adds tea and stuff. You’ll see once I get around to showing it off.

I get back from mining, and the amount of iron I get from it allows for me to make 14 new maps. Also, I’m level 30 again, so it’s time for another enchantment!

This time, I’m going to enchant my boots. I’m hoping for feather falling.

Unfortunately, I get the worst enchantment I could have possibly gotten from it, and just get Unbreaking III. Not even something mostly useless like Projectile Protection! Unbreaking, which will only reduce how much mana it takes to repair it a little. Right after I made my infinite mana machine, too...

Oh well. At least they’re shiny. Speaking of, before I go, there’s something I want to make. It’s called Phantom Ink, and it allows for you to hide the armor you’re wearing, making it appear invisible. I like my skin a lot, so I want to make some!

It’s a little expensive to make, requiring a mana pearl, but you get four per craft, enough to make the entire set invisible. I don’t actually like the whole super-shiny-all-around look, so this is ideal.

Looks like the sapling device is filling up on seeds and mushrooms really fast. I’ll have to think of some way to deal with those.

There, nice and visible again. Anyway! I realized that 14 maps is, like, a lot, and decided to use about half of them to create a map wall in the room down below. I don’t know if that’ll be the final location for it, but that’s where it’ll be for now.

The blocks you’re looking at aren’t actually birch planks, but birch map frames, from Bibliocraft. I figured that since I’m using Bibliocraft for the maps, I should try using it for the frames, too. It’s possible that this way will be less resource-intensive as well, instead of using item frames.

After several days of waiting for a response to how to copy the maps in Bibliocraft map frames and not getting a single response, I decide to just go with the vanilla method.

This is all of the area I’ve explored thus far, on a wall. It’s actually a bit smaller than I remember, but I really like how perfectly everything on the island fits onto this wall. Size 3 is perfect for a picture of the island!

Anyway, in order to finish mapping it all out, I’ll need to go mining for iron. Again.

I noticed that the top part of the wall felt a little hard to reach and see, so I put a little pedestal in front of it for me to stand on. Wait, I have an even better idea.

Perfect. A perfect little table in front of it, which I can stand on whenever I please. Also, as I’ve been standing in here, I’ve found myself struck by a dislike of the plainness of it all. Let’s make it a bit more interesting.

Much better! Nice and wooden. No more hard hard stone everywhere! Anyway, back to those new maps...

Since I’m gonna be looking for iron, and not other, rarer minerals, I think it’s a good idea for me to go looking in some exposed ravines.

To adventure, Brownie! I’m thinking I should clear a few paths and build a few bridges while I look for ravines. I’d like to slowly develop the island!

The first bridge I have to make is actually across a stream I made myself. After that, I have to make one across an actual river.

It’s been awhile since I last saw this thing. It’s good to be reminded of where it is, just by the river.

There’s the other one. Good to keep track of them.

Found a ravine, at the edge of the estuary. It’s dark, though, which will make it a bit less- you know what? I don’t want to deal with mobs while I’m getting iron. I really just don’t. I’ll find another ravine.

While walking back to get back on Brownie, I found this beautiful white horse. I should probably tame her and bring her back, but I didn’t bring any wheat.

While on the hunt for ravines, I stumbled upon this strange structure. It’s all grey and stone brick, and has a double chest at the back. However, I’m a little wary of such structures after my time with Lancer, and notice that that chest at the back has a little red outline around the lock- trapped. Obviously, to open this, I will have to disarm the trap, though I don’t really know what the trap is. Judging by the lowered floor, I’d say it opens up into a pit of doom when you open the chest, but I could be wrong. Either way, the best option I can see here is to go around the back and take a peek at what the wiring does.

The building is longer than the only visible room is, a clear sign that something’s amiss.

Shoot! In trying to discover how the trap worked, I accidentally triggered it, releasing a flood of lava from above. Darn. This seems familiar, though I’m not sure where from.

Inside the chest, which I have no issue with opening now, is a whole pile of goodies, ranging from food to manasteel to thaumium to stencils to sonic goggles. Crazy! No way I can carry all this back home in one go, either. I’ll leave it alone for now.

I never really considered how cool it was, but it’s pretty cool that the village is perfectly sheltered from the sea by a large mountain range like it is. That would have some geographical significance but I don’t really remember what.

Back at home after a lot of mining(I gave up on trying to find a ravine), I have decided to make my first ring, the ring of magnetization. This is fairly cheap, just requiring some iron and gold, and makes me suck in nearby items to myself. Very handy when dealing with lava.

With all the iron I got from mining, I was able to make 28 new maps. That should be enough for now! With this, I can finish making the map of the island, and get ready to make the bigger world map.

First, though, I’d like to make an enchantment for my Axe. It’s remarkably slow when cutting trees for some reason, so I feel it’s time to fix that.

Unfortunately, I get exactly the opposite of what I need, and instead get Unbreaking and Silk Touch, on the least useful tool to get it on. Dangit, I needed efficiency!

Ah well. Clearing paths can wait another 30 levels. Shame, I could have really used efficiency there. Anyway, let’s explore!

For the most part, the unmapped western coast ends just after the edge of the map I originally made there. While exploring the southern part of it, though, I stumbled upon something pretty cool.

A dungeon! A skeleton dungeon to be precise. If I can find a way to, say, move this spawner, then I’ll have a free and infinite supply of bones, bone meal, and maybe even thaumcraft treasures. I don’t know if I actually have a way to move them in this pack, though.

The loot is.. Rather underwhelming. Shame. The pizza crumbled to dust in my hands.

To the farthest southwest point on the island, I found a lone coconut tree! I’d love to take one of them home and grow them myself, but in order to do that, you need jungle saplings, and I haven’t found a jungle yet. I can technically make them with Botania, but I feel like that’s just discouraging my own exploration to do.

There’s not much more to see after that, so I return home, having explored all of my coastline.

With that, all of the land on my island has been fully explored. There’s still a lot of terra incognita in the seas, and I’d like to fix that. It also looks like, fortunately for me, I don’t have to spend maps doing the full 5x5 map wall, and can just get away with a 5x3. Good, that’ll save me maps, and more importantly, iron, for the bigger intercontinental maps.

This is like the eighth time I’ve found a creeper staring at me through that little gateway. It’s a little weird, it’s never any mob other than a creeper.

Anyway, now that I have the land mapped, it’s time to map the seas. It’s finally time to use one of the mods I have installed specifically for exploration, which I as of yet haven’t even touched. Archimedes’ Ships Plus!

While I could go and build my boat out in the river estuary, I don't think that’s a particularly good idea. There’s actually a natural harbor in the island already, which I would much prefer to use. Plus, it’s near the villagers, too!

While clearing the path to the harbor(I’m actually making the path now) I ran into a bit where I had to go up a really steep slope. Rather than take the ugly route(a steep staircase) I decided to make terrain walls. I think it looks really good!

So! It’s taken me quite a while, and I didn’t take many screenshots in the process because it was rather monotonous(it also took like a week or two to do), but I’ve successfully completed the path to the village. The path to the bay itself will take a little more doing, but the majority of the way there is complete. I have so much birch wood now, I don’t know what to do with it all. Now, for pictures!

The path begins at the little bridges near my base. I tried out some of Botania’s Trodden Earth block here, and while it looks superb on flat ground, I really dislike how it looks when going up even a small incline. I’m not sure how to use it.

Past the little bridges, we head a little along the banks of the Koma, before turning around a Greatwood tree to head south. I had some flowers in my inventory, so I tried marking the path with them. I may continue that with the flowers my sapling generator makes, I need to get rid of them somehow.

Here is the bridge and terrace and silverwood I was so proud of. I don’t think the silverwood has a pure node, as there’s no magical forest surrounding it.

Past that is a little path that hugs the cliff, and another terrace. This one continues to hug the mountains, until it reaches a dry riverbed.

When it reaches that bed, a little bridge takes it to the other side. The path after continues, curving around a bit, before reaching the only major canyon/river on the entire path.

This is the big bridge. This was the only conceivable crossing, so I also ended up making a tunnel, straight into that exposed stone. The bridge is unfinished, due to me running out of oak logs with which to make the supports. I’ll either finish it later, or tear it down and replace it with a proper material, like stone or metal. Hah, as if I’d ever have enough iron to make it from metal...

Also, this bridge is pretty close to the trapped tomb thingy that I found earlier. I need to move the loot home already.

Past the tunnel, the path continues though remarkably boring birch forest. The path leads up a little hill, the highlight of this section.

On the other side of that hill, the path immediately goes down to the more interesting riverside. I’m not sure if this is the Koma or not, so I’ll refrain from naming it for now. That river has a little bridge going across it.

That bridge is the last major crossing until the village, fortunately. I don’t like how this one looks, and I’d like to replace it once I am ready to dedicate more towards transportation infrastructure.

A little ways along the little peninsula the bridge brings us to, and we’ve reached the village, which is guarded by a friendly black bear.

As the sun sets, I spot a magenta-shirted theologian sitting atop a tree, studying the twilight sky. He occasionally changes which part he studies, silently watching, thinking, learning. Eventually, he goes back to the village, and lies down in one of the smaller homes. I can only imagine the vivid imaginings he must be creating, what beautiful books he must have written. I would love to become acquainted with him.

After a few days of clumsy negotiations involving the villagers tugging at the logs I had with me with their teeth, we negotiated a fence to be built around the village. It’s not particularly strong, but it’ll hold any zombies away for now. Once the fence was complete, the villagers were much more lively and happy than they were previously. In exchange for the wood for the fence, the villagers agreed to help me build the ship and dock. A fairly reasonable trade, I think.

From what I understand thus far, the village is very small, and has a simple ruling structure. Pretty much everyone’s treated like equals, but the two Alchemists live in the biggest house and make and enforce the rules. As far as I can tell, the other villagers are fairly happy with this agreement, as the Alchemists seem to be the most learned of the place, and are the only villagers with the power to defend anyone there. As of yet, I have yet to figure out what this place is called.

Enough time spent in the village, though. I have a mission! I want to make a ship, in the nearby harbor. Once again, I’m designing this in Creative before building it in survival.

As I’m having the alchemists, who are really just testificates of science in general(one of them said he was a shipbuilder’s apprentice before he became an alchemist), help me write up the plans for the ship, I decide to go and get the path to the harbor cleared. I go a little bit overboard and end up costing myself a lot of wood, but I’m happy with the result.

The path leads to the south of the village, towards the gulf that I haven’t named yet. It’s been lit and deforested along the way.

Past the boring part of the path lies an awkward spot, where in order to reach the gulf, I have to choose to go over a river, a hill, or a lagoon. I elect to go on the riverbank, and the result is...

A rather large mess of terraces. However, I think it adds quite a bit to the path’s character in this spot. Past the terraces, is the dock where I’ll be parking the ship.

The end of the dock has some Buffer blocks, from Archimedes Ships, which prevent the mod from thinking the dock is a part of the ship. To build the ship, though, I’ll need quite a bit of Oak wood, and some Iron and Quartz too. So, it’s time to head home!

Back at home(this path makes things so much easier), the Mana pools have managed to fill two and a half while I was gone. Good! It’s certainly not the fastest generator, but my plans for a super mana generator can wait. I don’t need too much just yet, though I’ll want to soon. Now, while I certainly do have plenty of wood, it’s not oak wood, which is what I need. A good deal of the forest on this continent is birch, particularly the forest I went through. I’ll have to cut down a lot of trees to build this thing. Additionally, to make the engine, I’ll need even more iron.

Iron’s proving to be a constant struggle in this world, as is gold, to a lesser extent. I know for sure that I can automate Gold, if I can find a way to break bedrock, but I’m not sure if Revamp’s mechanics will allow for vanilla iron farms.

For now, I can make do with caving for it, but I’m starting to exhaust the caves I can mine. Most of the ones near to my home have been stripped already, and while there is definitely some still around, It’s getting harder to find. Additionally, as I light up more and more caves, more mob spawns are forced to the surface, making it more difficult to traverse. Because of JAS, the Extra Utilities mob spawn blockers are made worthless, and the only way to make the surface safe is to light it up, and I have mixed feelings about that.

Anyway, to get enough wood to build the ship, I gotta go do some deforesting, but my current axe is... too slow. I’d love something that can cut it all in one swoop, but I can’t make anything like that yet. Instead, I’d like to just make a new axe and hope it gets Efficiency.

Woo! Not only is it faster, it also can beat away spiders! Awesome! Now, for the deforesting!

Lots of deforesting later! I like leaving the stumps, because it reminds me that I can and do make a lasting impact on the world here. I may clear them out later if I intend to develop the land here, but for now, stump land! That should be enough wood, too.

Looks like the villagers were anxiously awaiting my return! The two musicians here tell me that they plan to host a party to celebrate the friendship between the village and myself. The blacksmith lets me know that the plans for the ship are ready, and that they’re going to use a pretty cool experimental engine he contributed. The engine makes a sail completely unneeded, though they did decide that a flag would be cool.

This farmer here is one of the villagers that are helping me with the shipbuilding. He’s pretty cool.

A while of building later, we’ve successfully built the ship! I dub her, Expedition’s Wind!

Now that she’s done, I’d like to go thank and party with the villagers before setting sail.

The wild partying that ensues lasts through the whole night, and this is the only picture I took of it all. Fun!

With the ship completed, it’s time to wave goodbye to the village for now. These guys are pretty awesome, I’m glad I met them.

Without further ado, we’re off! Off to explore! Time to finally map out that unexplored sea that surrounds the land.

While exploring to the far northeast, I encountered another landmass that wasn’t on the island, which I really need to name. It’s swampy and wet, something that my homeland doesn’t share with it. Interesting.

This new landmass has a few very tall rocks between it and mine. I wonder what caused a formation like this... All the rough spires and murky swamp on the other side gives this strait a perilous feeling.

I anchored briefly to check the inside of the swamp, wanting to add it to the map. I want this map, which includes all of the homeland, to be complete, even if it requires entering this perilous new world!

Indeed, this new world clearly has a good deal of mysteries I don’t understand. Inside of this swamp’s brackish waters, I found a strange, floating blue light.

On the very edge of this map, I discovered another oddity, this strange little bush. Further inspection reveals it to be a tea tree! There’s a few of them about, I pick up what I see for further cultivation back home. Aside from the tea and general scary feeling of this area, there’s not much to see. I didn’t go beyond the map’s edge for fear of getting lost.

Anyway, more coastal mapping! Expedition’s Wind goes so fast that I can hardly keep up with the her, sometimes I even have to slow down to finish coloring one part.

With all of that mapped out, It’s time to head home, finish the map wall, and use my terrible image editing skills to make it fancy.

Home at last! The map of the island is finally complete, and I can start really naming things in earnest now. Not to mention move on to decorating! First, though, it’s time to make this into more of a proper map.

Names, I have decided, aren’t happening yet. I’m waaay too bad at image editing and I don’t want to bother with that frustration right now. Instead, decorating time!

To get started, we’re gonna need a Decobench, the new requirement to make all the cool stuff Decocraft adds.

It goes in my little office, and it’s a very pretty little model. Not quite office-ish though, so I may change it eventually.

Inside of this beautiful worktable is a very unique interface. In the slot up top, you put clay, green dye, red dye, and blue dye, and it stores them. When you craft an item using this table, it draws from that store, and makes them! Pretty cool, right?

Already, my kitchen looks much more like a kitchen, and much less like... An empty room, I guess. I’m not very good at this whole interior design thing, would love some feedback on what I do.

My bedroom’s floorspace has been significantly reduced, with the realization that my house doesn’t have a bathroom. Or a a closet. I still have enough space, though, and now I have a loft, too! Plus, you know, a bathroom and closet. I don’t have the stuff that goes inside either, but that’ll change.

I’ve decorated my office, with the sort of things I’d expect to see in an office.

Such things like a desk or two, some bookcases, some tables, and some display cases up top. There’s seven of those in my house. Additionally, one of the desks is a Thaumcraft research table, or will be as soon as I place some scribing tools on it.

Done! That’s one of the first steps in advancing into Thaumcraft, and will allow me to begin doing some research.

I would not make for a very good office worker. Upon getting out of my seat, I immediately jumped onto the table I was sitting at. Also, it just occured to me that my bottom floor has a floor of raw sandstone, which really isn’t a fitting material for someone who likes comfort like me. I’d much prefer some carpet in my office, and some tiling in my kitchen and dining room. I don’t actually have that much wool, though...

Meanwhile in the garden, I’ve planted the tea tree saplings I brought back from the treacherous strait.

After a little while of sheep farming, breeding, and dyeing, I have completed the carpeting for the floor. It’s a sort of Ls-hugging-each-other design, which I sort of copied from Zeno. I couldn’t understand half of what he was saying when he made his dome patterns, but I thought this part was pretty.

This new desk is superb for moments when I just want to have the game open while writing on something, or looking something up. I tend to act as though there may possibly be an invisible little turtle on a cloud with a video camera following me around, so I like to look like I’m doing something corresponding to what I’m doing out-of-game in-game. In this case, putting in a little table of contents for my chapters for people who’d rather avoid searching through chapters. Also, writing this.

Meanwhile in the kitchen, I’m trying out a little pattern using the portuguese pavement from Botania. It’s definitely a tile, which is more than can be said of the normally preferred stone bricks, but it may be too small of tiles. That, or I should just change my pattern. I think I’ll do the pattern switch, the 2x1 rows isn’t quite what I imagined.

This new pattern, with 4x4 blocks of the same material slightly offset from each other, provides a much nicer effect than the previous. I’ve also decided to floor all(of the first floor) but my office with this tiling pattern, for consistency’s sake.

I may have fancy diningware now, but I’m still an American. Delicious!

Actually, I’m still not content with the pattern, so let’s try another one. This’ll do.

I noticed I wasn’t seeing any mana bursts through the walls, so I went to go check on my tree farm, and it looks like it’s full on mana! At least, the main storage is full. The leaf-buffer isn’t. Looks to me like I’m going to need a way to start using this mana I’m making!

... Next time. This has gone on for long enough, after all. My house’s been decorated, my map explored, my path(to the village) created. Next chapter, wherein I will probably do more botanical automation! See you there!