With the fundamental needs of food and sleep secured, Steve's thoughts turned to defense.
His three-block-high house was solid, but it was essentially a box dropped in the wilderness.
The constant threat of groaning Zombies and other, possibly stronger, creatures manifesting at night meant he needed a clear buffer zone.
The forest provided excellent cover for his base, but it also offered excellent concealment for anything hostile.
He wanted to secure the perimeter to create a safe working and farming zone.
Steve grabbed his Stone Axe and set to work, focusing on the boundary between his base and the thick surrounding woods.
His first priority was a fence. Fences were excellent, simple barriers that mobs struggled to bypass.
He needed a staggering amount of wood, but his nearby oak farm was still only growing saplings.
He hiked a short distance and began a disciplined harvest, felling several dozen trees, converting the logs into planks, and then arranging the planks into the fence pattern: two sticks above a plank in the 3 z 3 Crafting Table.
It was repetitive, back-breaking labor that would have been impossible for the quirkless office worker, but now Steve powered through it, occasionally eating a piece of cooked mutton to sustain his dwindling hunger bar.
By mid-day, he had enough materials.
He began placing the Oak Fence sections around his entire complex: the house, the small tree farm, and the wheat field.
The fence snapped into place quickly, forming a neat, two-block high perimeter that immediately felt like a defined boundary between civilization and the wild.
He built a small Fence Gate for access, placing it on the side facing his car's hidden location.
Fences were good, but Steve wanted redundancy. He remembered from his gaming days that the simplest, most effective defense was often an environmental trap.
He equipped his trusty Stone Shovel and began digging a trench just outside his new fence line. He focused on a single-block-wide, two-block-deep moat that encircled the entire compound.
The digging was arduous, consuming stack after stack of dirt and gravel, but the Stone Shovel remained resilient. Every shovelful brought him closer to absolute security.
The trench served two purposes:
Deterrence: Mobs would fall into the two-block hole, slowing them down and making them easy targets for his Axe.
Resources: The dirt and gravel harvested filled his inventory, which he used to compress and flatten the ground inside the perimeter.
As he was digging the last section of the trench near his water canal, he suddenly broke through the gravel layer and into a large deposit of gray, metallic-looking stone.
When he broke the surrounding Cobblestone, the vein revealed itself: it was large, and glinting with a familiar reddish hue.
IRON ORE (12).
Steve stopped digging. The sound of his own breathing filled the air. He wasn't even mining for it, and the system had placed a vein directly into his defensive works. It was a massive stroke of luck.
He quickly switched to his Stone Pickaxe and carefully mined the entire vein, pocketing twelve blocks of Iron Ore.
The remaining daylight was spent carefully lining the bottom of the two-block-deep trench with smooth Stone blocks, making it difficult for mobs to climb out without a jump.
He then placed his final remaining Torches on the fence posts, illuminating the corners of the compound.
As night fell, Steve retreated inside his fortress.
He bolted the windows and doors and admired his work. The new, large space felt protected.
He immediately turned to the Furnace, excitement thrumming through him.
He placed the twelve Iron Ore blocks into the top slot and used a stack of wood planks as fuel.
The metal began to glow and melt. After a minute, the first block slid out, cooling into a smooth, heavy Iron Ingot (1).
He watched the furnace intently, the promise of true tools warming his base far better than the fire itself.
Twelve Ingots. Enough for a full set of basic Iron tools, and perhaps a small set of armor or a shield.
He knew what the morning held: the forging of the first true piece of technology in his new world.