Reborn with Steve Stand

The black particle effects gradually dissipated.

Fang Mo returned once again to the familiar white world.

The tearful farewells and the sobbing, aggrieved shouts all vanished, replaced by an endless white void of deathly silence, without even an echo.

Fang Mo slowly opened his eyes, gazing at the platform suspended in the air before him, stretching endlessly into the distance.

"Goodbye, little snowman."

A faint smile curved at the corner of his mouth as he walked steadily toward the other side of the platform without looking back.

Even with the help of his partner, Fang Mo habitually checked his surroundings, like what minerals were running low in the warehouse or whether the monster spawner was overloaded, and he made sure to maintain various aspects of his home.

He also glanced at the industrial area.

But Alex was still focused on grinding away at the incomprehensible tech mods, merely giving Fang Mo a casual greeting when she noticed him.

The biggest shortage now was all kinds of minerals. Whether for the basic metals needed in the industry or the odd materials for Tinkers' Construct, everything required a steady supply of minerals.

Xiao Yao had already been working on making mining machines.

But at the moment, there weren't many mods capable of void mining.

According to his little partner, there were currently only two mods in their base that could perform void mining: one was the Matter Fabricator from the Industrial Age mod, which burns UU Matter to generate minerals from thin air.

The other was the Excavator from Immersive Engineering.

While efficient, it operated on its unique mineral vein mechanic.

If you wanted iron ore, you had to take a Core Sample Drill, run around the map, and scan each chunk to find one that had iron ore written into its code. Only then could you set up the Excavator to mine it.

Plus, mineral veins had limited reserves.

After mining for a while, the whole vein would be depleted, and you'd have to keep exploring for new ones.

So, neither of these void-mining mods was ideal. Xiao Yao had vented to Fang Mo about this, wishing they could unlock Environmental Tech, a mod whose mining machines were extremely powerful. A Tier 6 Void Miner would dig up so many minerals that even diamond chests wouldn't be enough—you'd need an entire logistics and bulk processing system.

If that wasn't feasible, other mining solutions like the Factory Mod's Laser Drill, Mekanism's Digital Miner, or Quantum Quarry from the More Practical Tools mod, or even Bedrock Ore Clusters, could also suffice.

Unfortunately, none of the mods Xiao Yao complained about had been unlocked yet.

Even the classic iron farm that used iron golems had been rendered useless due to the More Golems mod.

So Xiao Yao had no choice but to build Excavators or use the Matter Fabricator to generate minerals.

Even with just these two mods, the amount of ore being mined at home was astronomical. However, there were simply too many energy demands in the industrial modpack.

After all, mining machines were essentially void miners, which acted as an endless energy sink.

Not to mention there was also the Molecular Assembler to power.

So now Xiao Yao had fallen into a resource death spiral.

A shortage of resources meant the mining machines' efficiency had to be maxed out, but the machines themselves consumed vast amounts of energy, requiring more generators. However, building generators required tons of materials—rubber, iron, copper, tin, coal, and so on.

And then you were back to the original problem: lacking resources to max out the mining speed.

"Sigh."

Realizing this, Fang Mo let out a deep sigh. "This house really can't run without me for even a moment, or else it'd fall apart."

After saying that, Fang Mo strode back into the house.

At the wooden crate on the first floor, Steve quickly swapped out his equipment for his mining gear, then dashed out at top speed.

Now, some might say, "How can your black laborer out-mine an industrial excavator?" But clearly, they haven't realized how terrifying mod synergies can be in Minecraft.

Steve currently had two mining tools.

A hammer and a pickaxe.

The pickaxe had a cobalt handle and head, a binding from Metallurgy 4's Molten Gold, and was engraved with traits from the Tech Reborn mod's Yellow Garnet.

This gave the tool five abilities: Lightweight, Empowered, Inscribed, Duplication, and Auto-Smelt.

Traits like Lightweight and Empowered simply boosted efficiency, so we won't dwell on those. But the 'Duplication' trait had a chance to duplicate drops.

So, when you mined one diamond, there was a chance you'd get two.

At the same time, the Auto-Smelt trait meant that when mining ores, they automatically dropped ingots, benefiting from both Fortune and Duplication effects.

Thanks to unlocking the Abyssalcraft mod, Fang Mo had access to the Convergence Enchantment, which allowed him to enchant vanilla tools, then extract the enchantments using a disenchantment table and forcibly apply them to Tinkers' Construct tools. As a result, Fang Mo's pickaxe had the insane Fortune X enchantment.

What does that mean?

Mining a single iron ore could drop half a stack of ingots if you were lucky.

Fang Mo also had the Large Veins mod, meaning he'd occasionally stumble upon vast clusters of ore underground. With a hammer that could chain-mine these clusters, several chests wouldn't even be enough to store all the loot.

And let's not forget his even more overpowered hammer.

It was built just like the pickaxe but had an additional Coal Plate, which had a chance of dropping coal when mining stone—never missing a chance to farm resources.

Compared to before, Fang Mo had now unlocked Ender Storage.

That was like having a cross-dimensional logistics system. When Steve's inventory filled up, he'd simply open his Ender Pouch, toss the items inside, and continue mining.

Meanwhile, back in the warehouse, the Ender Chest would fill up. Xiao Yao's handcrafted logistics system would kick in, Thermal Expansion's pipes would extract the resources, filter out the junk, and automatically categorize everything. It was essentially an optimized logistics system without needing mods like Applied Energistics.

"Ah, the life of luxury."

After sending Steve off, Fang Mo stretched lazily.

Unlike Xiao Yao, he could multitask. Just a bit of attention on Steve would keep the mining going, freeing his hands, feet, and… other things.

Humming a light tune, Fang Mo cheerfully made his way to the second floor of the wooden house.

"Hehe, time for the second floor."

Fang Mo pushed open the door and boldly entered Xiao Yao's bedroom. As soon as he did, he caught a pleasant scent, probably a characteristic fragrance of a girl's room, which Fang Mo found rather enjoyable. He even wondered if he'd smell just as nice after transforming into a little white-haired loli.

At that moment, Xiao Yao was lying on the bed, seemingly resting.

But to Fang Mo, she was just like a sleeping baby cheese, and one that wouldn't wake up at that.

After all, the little troublemaker's consciousness was busy grinding machines elsewhere. Unlike him, she couldn't multitask—whenever she controlled her Stand, Alex, her main body would lose consciousness.

Having done this many times, Fang Mo didn't even hesitate before lunging forward, his hand reaching expertly for the little demon by her side. But this time, he failed… because in the next second, she suddenly opened her eyes and kicked him.

"I knew you were up to no good!"

Xiao Yao shot up, glaring at Fang Mo as she shouted.

"Uh…"

Fang Mo's smile instantly froze, looking like a child caught doing something wrong, guilt all over his face. "Uh… How are you still awake?"

"My Stand is working over there. I saw you come upstairs!"

Xiao Yao pointed angrily at the window.

And she wasn't lying. There really was a window on the left side of the room, made from Tinkers' Construct clear glass, which didn't obstruct any view.

"Hm?"

Fang Mo glanced at the window.

Sure enough, in the distance, he saw a bunch of power lines.

It finally clicked for him. Alex must have been setting up wind turbines in the sky, and while laying the wires, she had noticed the second floor. From that angle, she could see what was happening inside.

"I-I was just tired…"

Realizing the situation, Fang Mo tried to argue. "I mean, I just spent all that time conquering a dungeon, barely getting any sleep. Now that I'm home, what's wrong with wanting to cuddle with my wife and take a nap?"

"Then why were you grabbing my feet?"

Xiao Yao questioned.

"I was cold." Fang Mo confidently replied, "You don't even have a blanket here. I've got this condition where I get diarrhea if I catch a chill. I was worried I might mess up your bed, so I had to find something to cover my belly button."

"?"

Xiao Yao shot him a strange look, clearly unable to hold back a smile. "Why not just shove my toes in your belly button then?"

"Hey, watch your manners. You're a girl, after all." Fang Mo sighed. "I was just looking for a white scarf. Heaven knows, I didn't mean anything else."

"I should really surround myself with obsidian next time I work," Xiao Yao grumbled. "No… maybe bedrock. Obsidian might not be enough to stop you, you pervert."

"Bedrock won't work either," Fang Mo shrugged. "If your Alex can break bedrock, why can't my Steve?"

"Tch."

Xiao Yao frowned, seemingly thinking of a solution. "In that case… I'll have Alex eat me and spit me out after the work's done!"

"…Huh?"

Fang Mo was taken aback.

Using the Gluttony ability to eat yourself? What kind of ridiculous operation was that?

"Even Florida men can't top this." Fang Mo almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of her idea. "You should cosplay as Abby. I'd love to slap your forehead—your brain's imagination is off the charts…"

"?"

Now Xiao Yao wasn't happy. "I only think like this because you drive me crazy! Do you think a normal person would do the things you do?"

"What did I do that was so wrong?"

Fang Mo retorted, "I told you, I just want a good rest, but you're misunderstanding me."

"Fine, fine. I misunderstood, right?"

Xiao Yao chuckled in exasperation. "Then lie down and get some sleep. I won't work anymore, just watch you. If you can't fall asleep in three hours, you have to transform into that white-haired loli."

"And if I do fall asleep?"

Fang Mo asked.

"Then whatever you say goes." Xiao Yao, clearly a bit irritated, agreed, challenging Fang Mo, "Dare to bet?"

"That's what you said."

Fang Mo grinned, "No take-backs."

"I don't go back on my word!"

It was clear Xiao Yao hadn't realized how serious things could get, as she confidently stood her ground.

"Haha, alright then."

Fang Mo laughed heartily, flopping onto the bed and pulling out a strange, brick-like object from behind him. "Goodnight, wifey, I'm going to sleep!"

And with that, Fang Mo promptly smashed the object onto his head.

In the next second, he collapsed onto the bed, sleeping like a newborn baby.

Seeing Fang Mo's ridiculous antics, Xiao Yao was utterly bewildered. She hadn't expected him to cheat in such a ridiculous way.

But what she thought afterward didn't matter.

Because Fang Mo, having used a sleeping aid, had already entered a deep sleep.

Yes, this wasn't just regular sleep. Since the Minecraft world had no immediate threats, he took this opportunity to connect to the Dream Gate and visit the real world, mainly to check in on his parents.

Unfortunately, Fang Mo had chosen a bad time for his nap.

In the real world, it was currently the afternoon, and his parents wouldn't be sleeping. His sister, Fang Xin, was still in school.

But since he was already here, Fang Mo didn't want to leave so soon. So, he wandered through the dream world for a while, finding a few strangers who were napping and sifting through their recent memories like watching movies, catching up on any major news on Earth.

After a bit of this, Fang Mo had a decent grasp of current events.

For example, which new anime had taken the top spot this month, what cool games had launched on Steam, and what kind of dark humor and major news stories had surfaced online.

It's safe to say that the people sneaking in an afternoon nap were truly talented.

After this unique way of catching up, Fang Mo contentedly disconnected from the Dream Gate and returned to his body.

"Xiao Yao! Xiao Yao!"

As soon as he woke up, Fang Mo excitedly shook his little companion. "I finally know if Hawking has to drink in Central China or not. He doesn't have to!"

"…Because he prefers sitting at the kids' table!"