Chapter 50. New plans
There weren't a lot of pages to read, but enough for me to think a lot about.
The summary of the message was about Aisha looking for her brother in the Pillager outpost where she last heard from him. It was an easy infiltration until she got too close to an Evoker and got found out. But not before finding out that Prince Amun was working together with the Pillagers.
Once she was caught, the prince decided not to kill her as he did with her brother, instead, he sent her to mine obsidian for the rest of her life.
It's been two years since then, and in that time she managed to make herself pretty influential with the prisoners and become their leader, they only needed an opportunity to escape.
That's where I came into the picture, an invisible man managed to sneak into the factory, and the most important part, managed to get out unnoticed, she did say that if he finds me, I should be recruited or forced to help at least. But since neither I nor Froggy have been contacted by the head guard, I can only guess he gave up.
As for how did she make sure the message was sent?
Well, Omar had to beat up some guards bad enough that they wouldn't be able to guard the factory that night, which would be the sign she would be looking for, and prepare the prisoners for it.
On the pages was also the plan for escaping. It wasn't too complicated, he only needed to break them out when the New Year's party was at its busiest.
How was he supposed to do that? I have no idea, but I can only guess he has a good method if it wasn't even worth mentioning.
"Well, this is some interesting information we got here."
"True, do you think it would affect our escape plans?"
"I think it could help us honestly. I mean what is a better distraction than one of your most important factories going on a run? Actually, I think this is the best thing that could happen to us, everyone would be too busy to catch the prisoners that know how to break obsidian over two half-important people."
Both of us gave a sigh of relief.
Finally, we had a solid plan to escape, we could use the tunnels to get as close as possible to the gates, and with an invisibility potion, we could easily pass the guards that would be too busy looking for the prisoners.
The only thing that makes me hesitate it's the unknown veritable such as the Prince.
He told me that he wanted the cursed books to catch a pillager, but from this message, I understand that the Prince works with the pillagers.
So then, who is the true target of those curses?
I could ask Froggy's opinion, but I live in a world where a bolt of lightning hits a villager it becomes a witch, I don't want to test the power of an oath.
I'll try to figure out what's the plan while I'm with the Prince enchanting.
So for the next few hours, we just talked about our day and then went to rest for the next day.
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"What's so hard to understand about doing a simple oval? Is that shape too complex for your mind?"
The Prince was yelling at my ear while correcting my mistake, showing me the proper way to write the letter.
I feel like I'm back with my parents doing homework.
Not the best of times.
My initial plan was to play dumb with learning the new enchantment and try to drag this as long as possible.
The good news is, that this level of enchantment is more complicated, more precise and with a different font to use.
The bad news is that I didn't need to fake it, I'm actually struggling to learn the new font for this enchantment.
"Does it really need to be precise? I know the Enchanting table is picky about small mistakes, but it didn't have a problem with the others."
"There are two types of enchantments, the one created by the system and the one created by humans. You can make small mistakes with the one made by the system, but the one made by humans needs to be precise."
"Wait, you can actually make your own enchantments?"
"Yes, but most of those were made in the time before the great war. For some reason we can't make complicated new ones like the Vein Miner Enchantment, only some simple ones like the Glow Enchantment."
I knew about other enchantments besides the original ones, but I didn't expect some of them to be so useful, it's too bad that they're very hidden on the higher floors of the library.
"How do you know which one is made by the system and which is manmade?"
"The ones made by the system can also be obtained with the trading tab"
That made sense actually, but now I also want to learn how to make my own enchantment.
But that's a very far goal to achieve, I still don't fully understand the language of enchantments, and the fact that I'm skipping to the higher tiers doesn't help me at all.
So for the next few hours, we kept rewriting and practicing, until finally, the Prince had to leave for his work which left me alone in the enchanting room.
"Finally! I can have some peace and quiet now. Ok, I have to change things up, I don't think I can keep doing this for two more weeks, is there any way to cheat the system?"
I sat down and rubbed my head to hopefully calm down the headache.
"Is there a way to print it? I saw some videos in my world where they cut some words into wood and filled the letters with ink and that's some primitive printing machine."
But can this be even replicated here?
I know that the villagers can craft stuff without using the crafting system, I saw a chair just one block tall, it was a shocking discovery the first time I saw it, and when I asked around they told me to use the tools on the crafting table but not for crafting, instead for sculpting a block.
That was one of the first things I searched in the library once I had access to it, and it was an interesting subject to study.
The only downside of people doing this is that it's not recognized by the system, since it wasn't made by it, so you can put the item in your inventory, but you can't stack it with other similar objects.
And for some weird reason, once a block is sculpted gravity has an effect on them.
That's why it's not used to make important stuff since they're not unmovable like a normal block.
"But let's try it anyway, this way I can relax my mind for a while."
With that said, I take out a crafting table from my inventory and look at my 3 tools:
Saw
Hammer
Scissors
I then put two plank blocks on top of each other right beside the crafting block.
"Since this is a wooden block, I'll use a saw for my experiment."
With the saw in my hand, I cut around 1/7 of the block, it was a slow process and also weird since I didn't see the braking animation of the wooden block, but finally, the plank fell off onto the crafting table.
"It really works! I can also pick up the remaining block like an enderman, it's a weird sensation."
I put it in my inventory where a text informed me that I have a chopped plank block.
But what I needed for this experiment was the small slab, and for this, I needed to use the scissors.
"I really don't have a lot of tools to use, I think the system doesn't want us to make our own items, only the ones made by itself. Wait, is the system sentient?"
I waited for a response, but nothing came.
"Yeah, that fingers, otherwise I would've been connected when I first got into this world."
The scissors were uncomfortable to use, it was hard to scratch a curved line so I had to be careful, but the fact that I had a paper to guide me helped me greatly.
After half an hour of scratching, I finally finished one word.
"Finally it's done! Now let's see if it works."
I wouldn't use the Redstone ink for this since it's just a prototype, so instead I use my feather to smudge all over the words.
Then with a flip of my hand, the excess ink was erased.
"This is so convenient."
Next, I put a blank paper over the scratched word and pressed hard, then quickly turned the paper to see the results.
But to my disappointment, there were only a few ink marks on the paper, but nothing that resembled a letter, let alone a word.
Then I facepalmed.
"Of course, it wouldn't work, the word is supposed to be out not dug in the wood. This complicates the process more than it should."
Even though it wasn't a success, I still wanted to try. First I cut a smaller cube, I only want to do a latter this time.
After I marked with ink the shape that I wanted, I slowly chipped away the wood. It took me about an hour but it was finally done.
It was slower than actually writing it, but this is more fun and relaxing, even if it's harder.
"Time for the real test."
I put some ink over the letter and then stamped it on the paper.
"It works, it actually works! This is revolutionary for this world, it would make enchanting so easy."
If the enchanting table accepted this. But I didn't let that thought bring me down, I made some progress, and it could help me level up enchanting much faster if it works.
"But it's too much of a risk to start it now."
I sat down thinking of a solution to this particular problem until I finally got it.
"I don't need to make the letters myself, I can ask someone else to do it for me!"
There's usually a Fletcher in the crafting room, I could ask him to do all the hard work and I'll pay him later. I'm sure he can do a better job than me anyway.
But first I needed to write all the letters individually and they needed to be perfect.
"Looks like I'm back to writing."
It didn't take me long this time, since I already have some experience, and it's easier to write the letters individually than in a whole sentence.
I didn't want to waste time so I went directly to the crafting room where the Fletcher villager looked bored out the window until he heard me coming.
"It's been a while since I saw you, getting back to grind the crafting skill?"
"Not necessarily my friend, I'm actually looking for you. Do you know how to sculpt in wood by any chance?"
"I got this job because I can do odd jobs with the crafting table tools."
"Awesome! Can you do something similar to this but with all of those letters, about 30 for each, and can you also make a square about the same size as a page?"
I showed him the letter that I chipped, the page with the rest of the letters, and a blank page to scale the board where the letters would stand.
"That's a big order you have there, but it can be done."
While Fletcher looked a little surprised by the sudden request, it looked like it wasn't that shocking for him.
This makes me wonder what kind of orders he usually gets to this point.
"Of course, I'll pay for taking your time."
Then I took out two golden apples and put them on the table.
That finally got a reaction out of him, he was shocked, and he didn't believe what he was seeing in front of him.
"A-are you sure about that?"
"Yes, of course, I mean I'm taking up so much of your precious time at work, so I need to compensate you for that. I hope this is enough."
"Yes, it's more than enough!"
The villager quickly rebounded like I was about to take back the apples.
"How long do you think it would take to finish all?"
"In 3 days I should finish your puzzle, don't worry, I'm an expert at this."
The man said with confidence.
I was shocked when I heard the time, I expected a week at minimum, but I guess experienced people work faster.
"Thank you, sir, I'll be back in 3 days then."
With that I got out of the room, I still had to enchant normally in case it didn't work.
Let's hope I didn't waste this time.