Standing in his mob farm, Alexei faced a logistical problem: how to get the villagers upstairs.
One of them, a tall woman with the same vacant expression they all shared, had been leaning closer and closer to watch what he was doing. Her oversized face now hovered only a few centimeters from his own.
He pushed her back gently. "Personal space. It's a thing."
"Hmm?" she responded, tilting her head.
The villagers were, to put it charitably, extremely curious about everything. He had already caught several of them sticking their heads down through the gaps in the mob-killing platform to stare at the zombies and skeletons below. When the monsters noticed and started reaching up, the villagers would panic and run in circles until they forgot what they had been scared of.
It was like watching tall and stupid toddlers.
"Okay," he muttered to himself. "Transportation options... I can't use leads, already tried that, they just slip off. Minecart rails would work, but I would have to build an entire track system. Bubble columns need soul sand or magma blocks, and I do not have either."
He had been searching for a simpler solution when a memory surfaced. It was a small, almost useless piece of Minecraft trivia he had read years ago.
Villagers could climb ladders.
It was one of those weird quirks of the game. The developers had programmed villagers to be able to climb up ladders, but apparently never bothered giving them the ability to climb down. Which meant if you put a villager at the bottom of a ladder, they would ascend. And once they were at the top, they would stay there.
First, he needed to block off the water column he normally used for safe landings, otherwise the villagers would just climb up and immediately fall back down into the water.
He placed cobblestone blocks to seal it off, then surveyed his test subjects.
The woman was still watching him.
"Congratulations," he told her. "You've been selected for an important scientific experiment. This is a great honor."
"Hmm~?" She tilted her head the other way.
"That's the spirit."
He walked behind her, placed both hands against her back, and pushed. She stumbled forward into the passage that led upstairs, saw the ladder, and, after a moment's hesitation, started climbing.
Alexei watched her ascend, half-expecting the whole thing to fail and for her to just stop halfway up and stand there forever, stuck in limbo. But she kept going.
"Nice."
He turned to the remaining villagers, who were all watching him.
"Alright. Everyone in the ladder tube. Single file. Let's go."
Getting all villagers up took about ten minutes of continuous pushing and corralling. Every time he got one started up the ladder, another would wander off to investigate something fascinating. By the time the last one was climbing, he was starting to understand why some players just built villager murder machines instead of trading halls.
He grabbed the beds from the luxury cells he had built downstairs, no point leaving them there if the villagers were moving, and followed them up the ladder.
When he emerged into his courtyard, he was greeted by an unexpected sight: Yan, standing there with her arms crossed, examining one of the female villagers.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
She glanced at him, then back at the villager. "I could ask you the same question. Who are they?"
"They're, uh... villagers."
"Villagers?" Yan stared at him.
She had gone back to examining the tall female villager, poking and prodding at her arms and face. The villager didn't seem to mind, just made confused humming noises and tilted her head.
"They feel human. But they're..." She waved a hand vaguely. "Not very bright, are they?"
"That's putting it mildly."
Over the past few days, he had tested the villagers' intelligence. They were clearly smarter than Bessie. They could navigate their surroundings, use doors, and recognize job site blocks. But anything beyond simple tasks was beyond them.
One of the other problems he had discovered: breeding villagers was significantly harder than in the game.
He had tried everything he could think of. He gave them food, built proper houses, and placed beds according to the correct requirements. But nothing worked. The villagers showed no interest in reproducing. That was probably for the best, considering how unsettling the idea was in this world, but it meant his plans for an iron farm would have to wait.
Not that he was hurting for iron anymore. In just two days of trading, his iron stockpile had exploded past two hundred ingots. Today alone, he had made one hundred fifty-six iron ingots.
The resource loop he had discovered was genuinely broken, and he loved it.
"I'm going to set them up in their work rooms," he told Yan, who was still fascinated by the villagers.
He spent the next hour getting everyone situated. Each villager got their own small room with their job site block and a bed.
"Beautiful."
Now for the main reason he wanted the librarians: enchanted books.
Finding specific enchantments was going to be a nightmare. The Enchantments mod had added so many new possibilities to the pool that getting any particular book was like winning a very boring lottery.
He needed two books most urgently: Mending I and Protection IV. After that, Efficiency V and Thorns III would be nice. Everything else could wait.
He approached the first librarian and prepared to begin the tedious process of rolling for trades.
---
Several hours later, as the sun set outside, Alexei left the librarian's room looking thoroughly defeated.
"I'm trapped in RNG hell..."
He had rolled the first librarian's trades at least forty times. The best enchantment he had seen was Aqua Affinity I, which was not useless but also not what he needed.
"Whatever. I'll deal with this later."
He pushed the problem out of his mind and turned his attention to the hopper collection system.
The design itself was straightforward. Sixteen hoppers would funnel all drops into two chests, which he had positioned beneath the mob killing platform to ensure automatic collection.
The total cost was sixteen hoppers and two chests, and the entire system would take no more than fifteen minutes to complete.
---
The next two days passed in a haze of repetitive enchantment rolling.
Alexei had never fully appreciated how mind-numbing gacha mechanics were until he was the one standing there, breaking and replacing lecterns over and over while praying to RNGesus for something useful.
On the second day, he finally got something worth keeping: Rejuvenation III.
[Rejuvenation III:
Restores 3 health per minute. It can only be applied to chest armor.]
Three health per minute didn't sound like much on paper. But his maximum health was only twenty points total. With this enchantment, he could go from near-death to full health in just over six minutes. His natural regeneration at full hunger was two health per minute, which meant nine and a half minutes from death to full. With both regeneration sources active, he could fully recover in about three minutes.
"That's broken," he muttered, immediately applying the enchantment to his chest armor. "I'm keeping this."
Which brought him to today: the final librarian, and his last chance to get the enchantments he needed.
He stood in front of the lectern, took a deep breath, and began the ritual.
Tap tap tap.
He broke the lectern with his hand.
THUNK.
He placed it back down. Green particles swirled around both the lectern and the villager as the trade refreshed.
"Come on," he muttered. "Protection IV. That's all I'm asking for. Trade."
The interface appeared.
[Librarian]
[Level: Novice]
[Paper ×24 | 9 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×9 | 1 → Bookshelf ×1]
Tap tap tap.
THUNK.
"Trade."
[Librarian]
[Level: Novice]
[Paper ×24 | 15 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×10 | 1 + Book ×1 → Enchanted Book ×1]
"Oh, there's an enchanted book. Let's see what..."
He pressed his finger against the trade to see the details.
[Accelerated Wear I]
"Of course it's garbage. Why wouldn't it be?"
He reset the lectern and tried again.
Tap tap tap.
THUNK.
"Trade."
[Librarian]
[Level: Novice]
[Paper ×24 | 1 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×6 | 1 + Book ×1 → Enchanted Book ×1]
[Disarm IV]
Disarm IV was actually a good roll. It was a treasure enchantment, one that could not be obtained through an enchanting table and only appeared as loot or through trading. At level four, it had a high chance of knocking weapons out of an enemy's hands.
The problem was it wasn't max level. Disarm could go up to level five.
And more importantly, he didn't need it right now. His current weapon setup was working fine.
"Damn it," he muttered, staring at the trade. "Do I keep this or keep rolling?"
The smart play was probably to keep it. Treasure enchantments were rare, and who knew how long it would take to roll another one.
But the gambler in him whispered that the perfect book was just one more roll away.
"I can always get Disarm later."
Tap tap tap.
THUNK.
"Trade."
[Librarian]
[Level: Novice]
[Paper ×24 | 9 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×56 | 1 + Book ×1 → Enchanted Book ×1]
He paused, staring at the second trade.
Fifty-six emeralds for a single enchanted book was expensive. Which usually meant the enchantment was either max-level or extremely rare.
"Okay," he muttered. "Let's see what we've got."
He pressed his finger against the trade to reveal the enchantment.
[Sharpness V]
He stared at it for a moment, then sighed.
Sharpness V was objectively a good enchantment. It added 6.25 damage to swords or axes, which would make most melee weapons significantly more lethal.
The problem was that he already had an excellent bow that dealt twenty-five damage at full charge.
[Bow:
Power V
Poison III
Auto-Repair II
Infinity I
Punch I
Flame Arrow I]
His original bow, enchanted with Power IV, Mending I, Punch I, and Flame Arrow I, had been carefully deconstructed into its base components. The process yielded three pieces of wood, three string, and an enchanted book carrying the bow's enchantments, with an operation count of four. He had then combined that book with his current bow through a process of merging and remerging, minimizing the experience cost at each step.
Normally, Mending and Infinity could not exist on the same bow. In vanilla Minecraft, the two enchantments were mutually exclusive. However, by first deconstructing the original bow into an enchanted book, he had bypassed that restriction and reduced the operation count to three.
He then combined it with a separately crafted bow that already carried Power IV, Poison III, Auto-Repair II, and Infinity I, with an operation count of four. The entire process had cost him only twenty-eight levels of experience.
The result was a bow with an operation count of five, which meant it could be enchanted one more time through an anvil before hitting the maximum. And if he was smart about it, he could potentially add eight more enchantments before hitting the limit.
The bow was nowhere near its theoretical maximum potential.
Which brought him to something he had been thinking about a lot lately: the operation count system.
In vanilla Minecraft, every item began with an operation count of zero. Each time it was combined with another item or enchanted book in an anvil, the count increased by one. The maximum was six. Once the experience cost of the next operation exceeded thirty-nine levels, the item could no longer be modified.
That was the basic rule.
However, there was significant room for optimization if you understood how the system worked.
The key was in how enchanted books were combined.
If you started with an enchanted book at operation count zero and applied it directly to a weapon, the weapon's operation count would increase to one, and the prior work penalty would remain minimal.
Instead of applying every book directly, you could combine books first.
If you took two enchanted books at operation count zero and merged them, the result would be a single book with operation count one. Applying that book to your weapon would increase the weapon's operation count to two, while keeping the overall experience cost manageable.
This pattern could be scaled further.
If you combined four enchanted books in pairs, and then merged those pairs into a single book, you would create a book with operation count two. Applying that to a weapon with operation count two would raise it to operation count three, while efficiently stacking seven enchantments with relatively low penalty.
By continuing this structured approach, the number of enchantments could grow exponentially.
A weapon at operation count four could theoretically hold fifteen enchantments.
At operation count six, a weapon could hold sixty-three enchantments.
In vanilla Minecraft, this fact was meaningless. There simply were not enough useful enchantments to justify such optimization. But here, in this world, things were different. The Enchantments mod added dozens of new effects.
"Oh, this is going to be disgusting," he muttered with a grin.
He could already imagine the result: a single arrow carrying sixty-three enchantments and inflicting sixty-three separate status effects on an enemy at the same time.
Blindness, burning, bleeding, hunger, poison, wither, silence, suffocation, weakness, slowness, nausea, frostbite, confusion, vomiting, electrocution, and weightlessness.
And that was just off the top of his head. There were probably more he was forgetting.
"Hahahaha..."
The laugh came out before he could stop it.
The librarian villager took two shuffling steps backward. She made a worried humming sound.
"Hmm~? Hmm?"
"I'm not going to hurt you," Alexei told her, still grinning.
The villager did not look reassured.
He reset the lectern one more time.
Tap tap tap.
THUNK.
"Trade."
[Librarian]
[Level: Novice]
[Paper ×24 | 9 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×45 | 1 + Book ×1 → Enchanted Book ×1]
He checked the enchantment.
[Auto-Repair III]
"Oh."
Auto-Repair III restored three durability per minute.
It was a treasure enchantment. It could not be obtained through an enchanting table and could only be found through fishing, loot chests, or villager trades. Unlike most enchantments, which were limited to specific item types, Auto-Repair could be applied to anything with durability. If it could wear down, it could benefit from Auto-Repair.
Its usefulness was universal.
If he passed on this, it might be days or weeks before he saw it again.
"Damn it."
He stood there for a long moment, weighing his options.
He could keep rerolling and might get something better. But this was already a maximum-level treasure enchantment, and it worked on everything. That was really hard to pass up.
"Alright," he finally said. "I'm keeping it."
He traded paper with the villager to lock in her profession. Once a villager completed their first trade, their job and trade offers became permanent. Even if he broke her lectern later, her trades wouldn't change.
[Librarian]
[Level: Novice]
[Paper ×24 | 9 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×45 | 1 + Book ×1 → Enchanted Book ×1]
[Librarian]
[Level: Apprentice]
[Book ×4 | 1 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×14 | 1 + Book ×1 → Enchanted Book ×1]
[Librarian]
[Level: Journeyman (Locked)]
[Ink Sac ×5 | 1 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×1 → Glass ×4]
He leveled her up to Apprentice and checked the second enchanted book trade.
[Riptide II]
"Completely useless," he said aloud. "But I guess the book-to-emerald trade is nice."
Four books for one emerald was an excellent conversion rate, especially now that he had sugar cane farms running. Paper was essentially free, which meant books were essentially free, which meant emeralds were essentially free.
The Journeyman-level trades were not immediately useful. He did not have any ink sacs, and he was unlikely to obtain them anytime soon unless he went out of his way to hunt squid. However, the glass trade showed promise. One emerald could be exchanged for four glass blocks, and glass was essential for redstone circuits. It allowed signals to be extended cleanly and helped reduce wiring complexity.
It was not urgent, but it was valuable to have the option available.
"Alright," he said, closing the trading interface.
His inventory now held twelve copies of the Auto-Repair III enchanted book and sixteen emeralds left over from the trades.
He looked at the villager, who was still eyeing him warily, and pulled a stack of bread from his inventory.
"Here for your trouble," he said, tossing a dozen loaves to her. "You've been very helpful."
Her expression immediately brightened. She clutched the bread to her chest and made delighted humming noises.
"Hmmm! Hmm hmm!"
It was kind of adorable.
He had noticed that all the neutral and friendly creatures in this world seemed to have at least some degree of intelligence.
"Probably shouldn't think too hard about it," he muttered, turning away.
He left the villager room and headed back down to the mob farm.
---
He had spent the past several days almost exclusively focused on rolling for enchantments. His only break had been half an hour spent upgrading his Efficiency IV pickaxe to Efficiency V through book combining.
Everything else had been handled automatically by the hopper system he had built.
Which meant he hadn't gained any new villagers in days.
Time to fix that.
He also needed to start planning for his first trip to the Nether. That would require a full set of diamond armor, which meant he needed to finalize his trading chains with the toolsmith and armorer.
The main reason for going to the Nether was quartz. Specifically, Nether quartz ore, which could be smelted into quartz and then crafted into various redstone components.
And if his luck wasn't completely terrible, the two librarians would eventually sell either a clock or a compass, both of which could be deconstructed into redstone dust along with their other components.
Once he had a steady redstone supply, he could finally start building the automation systems he had been planning.
The diamond source would be the toolsmith. He had been clearing that villager's trades mindlessly for days now, and the toolsmith was only one transaction away from reaching Expert level.
Interestingly, the Journeyman-level toolsmith didn't sell diamond hoes like he had expected. Instead, he sold iron shovels enchanted with Efficiency III.
That was acceptable. Combining four Efficiency III books would produce an Efficiency V enchantment if done correctly. In any case, the toolsmith would unlock enchanted diamond axes upon reaching Expert level, which was likely only a day or two away.
The armorer's diamond armor trades would take longer. Reaching Expert level would require several more days of work. By then, he would likely already possess a full set of diamond armor acquired through other means.
Still, it was worth checking. If the armorer's pieces carried useful enchantments, he could remove and repurpose them.
---
Alexei woke up the next day around noon, which had become his default schedule ever since building the hopper collection system.
Why wake up early when the mobs were being killed and looted automatically?
He made his way down to the mob farm platform, and opened the chest connected to the hopper network.
The efficiency was immediately obvious. Instead of items scattered across the killing floor, everything had been neatly funneled into storage.
He did a quick mental calculation as he pulled items out. The total yield was about twenty percent higher than manual collection had been. Probably because nothing was despawning while he slept or got distracted with other projects.
"Not bad," he muttered, transferring everything to his main inventory.
The first thing he grabbed was the bones. Two and a half stacks of them, which he immediately deconstructed into bone meal.
[Bone Meal ×504]
He kept two stacks as backup and used the rest to spam-grow his sugar cane farm. Within minutes, he had several stacks of sugar cane, which he crafted into paper at his workstation.
[Paper ×288]
He could trade that to the librarians for thirty-two emeralds, which would help fund his ongoing enchantment projects.
He briefly considered selling books instead of paper, but he was running low on leather. Plus, he needed to keep a reserve of books for crafting bookshelves once he finally got around to building a proper enchanting table setup.
He made his way to the librarian rooms and started trading. Paper for emeralds, and emeralds for enchanted books.
One of the librarians had accumulated enough experience to level up. The moment Alexei completed the trade that pushed him over the threshold, green particles swirled around the villager as he advanced from Apprentice to Journeyman.
More importantly, the Expert-level trades became visible.
He checked them immediately.
[Librarian]
[Level: Journeyman]
[Ink Sac ×5 | 3 → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×22 | 1 + Book ×1 → Enchanted Book ×1]
[Librarian]
[Level: Expert (Locked)]
[Book and Quill → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×5 | 1 → Clock ×1]
"Yes!"
That was exactly what he needed.
He had been worried his luck would screw him over and neither librarian would roll clock or compass trades. But here it was, clear as day: one emerald for one clock, which could be deconstructed into four gold ingots and one redstone dust.
Of course, he couldn't buy the clock yet. Getting the librarian to Expert level would take at least two more days of consistent trading.
He checked the Journeyman-level enchanted book out of curiosity.
[Watering I]
The enchantment made tilled farmland stay hydrated automatically when using an enchanted hoe. Which would be nice if he was manually farming instead of using bone meal to instantly grow everything.
He moved on to the other villagers, trading with each one in turn.
And then, finally, the main event: the toolsmith.
Alexei had been dumping iron ingots into this villager's trades for days, pushing him steadily toward Expert level. One more transaction should do it.
He traded a full stack of iron ingots.
Green particles exploded around the toolsmith as he leveled up.
[Toolsmith]
[Level: Expert]
[Diamond → Emerald ×1]
[Emerald ×27 | 1 → Diamond Axe ×1]
He immediately checked what enchantments the axes came with.
[Diamond Axe:
Fortune III
Smite I]
He stared at the interface for a long moment.
"Fortune III?"
He bought all three available axes immediately, not quite believing his luck. He deconstructed all three axes right there.
[Diamond ×9]
[Enchanted Book ×3]
With diamonds finally in hand, the first priority was obvious: craft a proper pickaxe.
Diamond pickaxes had 1,651 durability. More than six times what iron pickaxes had. They mined faster, lasted longer, and could harvest obsidian, which would be critical once he started building Nether portals.
His enchanted iron pickaxe had served him well, but it was time for an upgrade.
So he deconstructed it.
[Iron Ingot ×3]
[Stick ×2]
[Enchanted Book ×1]
The book had five enchantments: Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Fortune I, Smelting I, and Mending I.
More importantly, it had an operation count of five. Which meant if he applied it directly to a new pickaxe, that would be the last enchantment the pickaxe could ever receive.
He held the book in his hand and focused.
"Deconstruct."
[Enchanted Book:
Efficiency V]
The Deconstruction mod worked beautifully. When breaking down a multi-enchantment book, it kept only the highest-level enchantment. If there were multiple max-level enchantments, it picked one randomly.
In this case, Efficiency V was the clear winner.
He checked the operation count: still two.
"So deconstruction removes the operation counts from the deleted enchantments, but the count from combining books to create Efficiency V is still there."
That was fine. He could work with that.
He crafted a fresh diamond pickaxe and got to work.
The process took time and planning.
He started by applying Auto-Repair III. The anvil consumed six levels of experience, and the operation count rose to one.
Next, he combined Fortune III and Mending I into a single book. That cost three levels. Applying the combined book to the pickaxe consumed another six levels and raised the operation count to two.
Then came the difficult step. He needed to add Efficiency V without wasting too much experience. The enchantment required twelve levels, and when it was complete, the operation count reached three.
He hesitated before adding the last enchantment. At the moment, the pickaxe held only three enchantments. Using another operation slot on Unbreaking III and Haste I felt inefficient.
But then he reconsidered.
There were plenty of other useful enchantments he could add later. The remaining operation slots were more than enough.
And besides, Unbreaking III was too good to skip. Tripling effective durability meant his 1,651-durability pickaxe would last for nearly five thousand uses.
He combined Unbreaking III and Haste I into a single book and applied it to the pickaxe. The anvil consumed seven more levels, and the operation count rose to four.
When it was finished, he held the completed tool in his hands.
[Diamond Pickaxe:
Efficiency V
Auto-Repair III
Fortune III
Unbreaking III
Haste I
Mending I]
He took it outside and tested it on a cobblestone block.
Crack.
The block broke in about one second.
In the game, an Efficiency V diamond pickaxe could break several blocks per second, nearly instant mining. This was much slower.
But he already felt satisfied.
He used three of his remaining six diamonds to craft a diamond axe and kept the other three as backup.
The axe got a similar treatment: Efficiency V, Auto-Repair III, Fortune III, and Unbreaking III.
Total XP cost: thirty-two levels across all the combinations.
Final operation count: three.
He had decided not to add Mending to the axe yet. With 1,651 base durability, it would never wear out just from chopping trees. And using an operation slot on a single enchantment felt wasteful.
Unlike pickaxes, which were mostly limited to utility enchantments, axes doubled as excellent melee weapons. There were plenty of combat enchantments he could add later. Better to save the operation slots for when he needed them.
Also, he was completely out of Unbreaking III books. He had a few Unbreaking I and II lying around, but those felt like downgrades. It was not worth the slot.
"Once I have more librarians, Unbreaking III goes on the priority list."
For now, though, he had other priorities.
Mainly: keep farming villagers.
---
Two days passed.
Alexei spent most of that time in his mining tunnels, testing out his new diamond tools and gathering resources. The pickaxe performed beautifully. Productivity had never been higher.
But today, he wasn't in the caves.
Today, he had been assigned babysitting duty.
He looked down at the girl following him around the courtyard, staying exactly two steps behind him at all times.
Mengyao had changed since her body tempering. Her hair, which had been black before, was now a vibrant crimson that fell to her waist. Her eyes had shifted to a red-gold color.
"Yan told me we should spend time together. Something about 'cultivating bonds between disciples' and 'generational harmony.'"
Mengyao just nodded.
"But I think she just didn't want to babysit," he added.
Mengyao's expression didn't change, but he caught the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth.
"Yeah. That's what I thought too."
The problem was, he had no idea how to entertain a kid.
He couldn't exactly take her down to the mob farm to watch him slaughter zombies. That seemed like a great way to traumatize a child.
"So, uh," he said, gesturing vaguely at the courtyard. "Do you want to see Bessie and the others?"
Mengyao looked at him.
Then she looked at the courtyard.
Then she looked back at him.
"...All right," she said quietly.
"Let's do that," Alexei said.
He led her toward the mooshrooms first. Bessie and her red-capped companion grazed peacefully near the spirit fruit trees, entirely unconcerned with being watched.
"These are mooshrooms," Alexei explained. "They're cows. But also mushrooms. Don't think about it too hard."
Mengyao stared at them.
"Can you milk them?"
"Yeah. You get mushroom stew."
Next were the bees. Several hives hung from the spirit fruit trees, and the bees buzzed contentedly between flowers and their homes.
"These are bees," Alexei said. "They make honey. Also, if you hit them, they attack you and then die. So don't hit them."
"I wasn't planning to hit the bees."
"Good. That would be a terrible plan."
And finally, there was the chicken.
It had appeared the day before. A pure white Minecraft chicken stood nearly seventy centimeters tall, wandering around the pen and making soft, absent clucking noises.
"This is a chicken," Alexei said.
Mengyao gave him a flat look. "I can see that."
"I'm waiting for it to lay an egg so I can..."
He trailed off.
Inside the pen, resting on the grass, was an egg. It was unusually large, about the size of both his fists pressed together, and it floated slightly above the ground.
He blinked.
"Huh. Speak of the devil."
He walked into the pen, picked up the egg, and examined it for a moment.
Then, without hesitation, he smashed it on the ground as hard as he could.
CRACK.
The egg shattered, yolk and shell fragments scattering across the grass.
"Ah," Alexei said, genuinely disappointed. "Nothing hatched. That's a shame."
Behind him, Mengyao stood frozen.
You hatch chickens by smashing eggs? she thought, staring at the shattered egg. And you just did that in front of the chicken that laid it?!
The white chicken, for its part, seemed completely unbothered. It just kept pecking at the ground, making quiet clucking sounds, entirely indifferent to the fact that its potential offspring had just been violently destroyed.
Alexei brushed egg residue off his hands.
"Well," he said. "That's unfortunate. Guess I'll try again tomorrow."
Mengyao continued staring.
This sect was insane.
Everyone here was completely insane.
And she was stuck with them.
---
---
I got sick for a while. I'm still recovering, but I'm better than before.