God knows how many bastion remnants Levi had traversed for these four netherite ingots.
Although he could mine ancient debris himself, not to mention how low the probability of finding these things was, whether mining them personally was faster than finding bastions was questionable.
The key issue was that even if he mined them out, he didn't have enough diamonds to make armor... he still needed to find a way to get some diamonds.
But bastion remnants could solve this problem.
In the chests at the center of each bastion, Levi could always find one or two pieces of diamond equipment.
Perhaps armor, or perhaps weapons and tools.
To take all these good things away, he had thrown away unnecessary food, potions, and such, even discarding a stack of iron blocks.
After all, iron was something he had an entire mineral vein to mine... more than he could ever use.
All his efforts hadn't been in vain.
Thus, his journey to the Nether came to a temporary end, and Levi returned along the original route.
The path of exploration was always treacherous... having to break through various rugged terrains, build roads across lava lakes, and carefully watch for various monsters that occasionally spawned.
But returning was much easier... he just needed to sprint along the roads he'd built on the way there.
It didn't take many days for him to return to the portal.
Along the way, he even found time to casually kill a few ghasts and chopped down some endermen while passing through the warped forest.
Weighing the slightly cool, smooth ender pearls in his hand, Levi thought these things would definitely be worth quite a bit if sold. However, if someone accidentally threw one from their hand, they'd certainly get quite a shock.
"Time to go home."
He somewhat missed the sunlight and air of Middle-earth.
Whoosh...
The sunlight was so bright that Levi could barely open his eyes.
Having grown accustomed to the crimson gloom of the Nether, suddenly seeing the dazzling sunlight and yellow-tinged green grass of the Overworld felt quite different.
"Autumn has arrived."
Feeling the cool breeze, he couldn't help but sigh.
In the blink of an eye, he'd been in this world for more than half a year.
He always felt like he was either adventuring or on the road to adventure.
Taking a deep breath to expel the lingering sulfur smell from his nostrils, Levi stretched luxuriously, enjoying the tranquility of the real world.
Then he went to the warehouse to organize his backpack a bit and walked straight to the enchanting table.
Very fortunately, or rather with not-too-bad luck, he had found a complete set of diamond equipment in various bastion remnants, some even with decent enchantments already on them.
After killing for so long in the Nether, his experience had reached level 42.
Levi spent all this experience enchanting books, constantly refreshing for the attributes he wanted.
When he ran out of experience, he went fishing. When he'd fished enough, he went back to enchanting.
After another week of fishing like this, the chests were filled with miscellaneous items... various enchanted books and bows, fishing rods piled up in several chests, some good, some bad.
Thanks to Luck of the Sea III, Levi combined the junk equipment he'd fished up at the anvil and even created a fully enchanted bow with the Infinity attribute.
Power V, Infinity, Unbreaking III, Punch II, Flame.
Although this bow's base attributes weren't as good as the orc bow, the enchantments on it made up for this shortcoming nicely. Until he had enough experience to enchant the orc bow, he'd use this one first.
Besides this, Levi also maxed out his fishing rod's attributes, using the enchanted books he'd fished to complete the missing Lure III and Mending on the fishing rod.
Of course, these gains were all incidental.
Most importantly, the attributes on the diamond set were all maxed out.
On this day, Levi came to the smithing table and took out the diamond armor and netherite ingots.
[Achievement Unlocked: Cover Me in Debris]
A set of exquisite black armor emanating a misty glow appeared on his body, looking hard and powerful in texture, with a sense of weight.
And, like previous armor, it didn't hinder the flexibility of his movements.
The moment he put on this armor, Levi even had the illusion that nothing in this world could move him anymore.
Four pieces of netherite armor provided a total of 4 points of knockback resistance.
This was a full set of Protection IV netherite armor.
Now, he was beginning to feel confident about challenging certain things.
But before that, there was one more thing.
Levi took out the ancient elven sword and completed the enchantments it should have.
Sharpness V, Unbreaking III, Sweeping Edge III, Looting III, Mending, Fire Aspect II.
After careful consideration, he didn't add Knockback to this sword.
Slashing an enemy flying with one sword... if they didn't die, he'd still have to run over and finish them off. Too troublesome and not conducive to combat.
With all equipment complete, Levi didn't stop his development efforts, continuing to mine, harvest crops, feed animals, brew potions, and smelt metals as usual, constantly accumulating resources.
"Unfortunately, whether in Middle-earth or the Nether, I haven't discovered anything like redstone."
Without redstone, he couldn't create automation, and many technologies couldn't be verified.
The days of resource accumulation continued for who knows how long. He worked day and night, doing things only he could do.
Resources in the castle accumulated at an incredible rate.
"Huh?"
On a pleasant morning, Levi was leaning against the city wall looking at the scenery when he suddenly noticed someone standing at the castle gate.
It was an old man wearing grey robes, a pointed hat, and holding a wooden staff.
At this moment, this dusty-looking elder was standing on a patch of grass at the gate, smoking Old Toby pipe-weed, silently staring intently at this massive castle he seemed to have never seen before, his brow furrowed so deeply it could twist into knots.
He looked like he was questioning his very existence.
"Either I've lost my memory, or this world has gone completely mad," the elder muttered to himself.
Seeing a visitor, Levi pulled a lever, and with a clang, the two iron doors beside him opened, startling the elder greatly.
"Oh, oh... stranger, greetings to you."
Although startled, the elder still greeted politely.
"Hello, may I ask what brings you here?" Levi asked while carefully examining this visitor.
Almost the instant he saw the elder's face, he could be certain of his identity.
That weathered yet benevolent face, and the pair of dark eyes gleaming with wisdom beneath snow-white thick eyebrows, left a deep impression on Levi at first sight.
No mistake... it was him.
The Grey Wizard, Gandalf the Grey.
"Hello, young man. I'm just somewhat puzzled. I don't seem to have ever seen such an extensively built castle in the wilderness. Although I appear to be getting on in years, I think my memory is still quite good."
With that, Gandalf took another puff of his pipe.
This helped him calm down.
"It's been less than a year since I last passed through here, and at that time this little plain didn't have so many things. Actually, I should say there was indeed nothing here at all."
"This is simply too strange."
"Yes, you remember correctly. A year ago there was indeed nothing here," Levi replied, then continued. "But I came here some time ago. I thought the geographical location here was quite good, so I built a castle."
"You're saying that everything here was done by you? Just you alone, and in less than a year?"
Levi nodded as if it were perfectly natural.
Gandalf's furrowed brow deepened even more.
Someone's about to be recruited...
[Chapter Complete]
***
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