Terra Tinkers Construct is fine.

However, if you only have the Tinkers' Construct original mod... if I remember correctly, armor plates made of stone cannot be used directly; they are only used for casting molds and cannot be used in equipment assembly. As for chain base, it's even more straightforward; even if you lower the requirements to the minimum, you should at least use copper.

What should I do?

So, you're just stuck with the limitations of the original Tinkers' Construct and have to play naked in the early game?

Should we first abandon our unrealistic fantasies, stick to the original plan, follow the Yeti to Chernobog, and then escape to collect materials?

"...No, there's another possibility."

A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. He pulled a cobblestone from his inventory and slammed it onto the crafting table, carefully recalling the feeling of passively triggering "analysis" earlier. As the green grid, visible only to himself, rose from the table and covered the cobblestone to generate the model, he repeatedly emphasized in his mind:

—Scan the current substance as a material tag, connect it to my memory as a database access and record the meaning of "妻六一二尔IXII……"

—I remember it very clearly… Absolutely, absolutely in one module, this thing was used as armor material!

As a player who stayed up all night modifying Tinkers' Construct add-ons in a modpack and ended up in a time warp, Milan has absolute confidence in his memory in this area!

Almost simultaneously, the message that had been flashing in his "Component Manufacturing Options"—"This material can only be used for casting molds and cannot be used in synthesis"—flashed, and the analysis feedback came from his consciousness:

—Iterative scanning has been completed, and the associated module [Mushroom Concept] has been retrieved. The material data has been updated.

【rock】

-Tier 1 Tools/Armor Materials

- Armor Performance Attribute: Stone Solid

—Material data update completed: rock, wood.

Ah, thank you, Mushroom Master, for saving my life.

Milan never imagined that even after transmigrating, a certain master of the domestic Tinker's Soul module would still be able to save him from dire straits; now he has finally crafted a set of transitional equipment that can keep him alive in the early stages, even though the quality is so low that he wouldn't even bother to look at it in the game, which has greatly relieved him in reality.

Anyone would feel incredibly safe with tons of gear stacked on their body.

After selecting what he had on hand, Milan put the short-bladed scythe back into his inventory, temporarily suppressing the surprise of the updated mod material library; his priority was to fulfill his promise to the Yetis—to give them something "interesting" in return.

They've already tricked people into doing hard labor all day; they can't just stand up for their boss like this.

What should I get?

He already has an idea.

"Boom~"

Returning to the surface from the right-angled tunnel, the warm, slightly earthy air was immediately replaced by a biting cold wind; a number of Yetis had already gathered at the entrance, and Petrova was still directing them to stuff the last few baskets of pine needles and wild grass into the bottomless compost bin.

With a soft sound, another clump of pixelated bone powder popped out, and Milan casually absorbed it into her body along with the previous batch.

"Thank you for your hard work."

Milan's voice was filled with sincere gratitude. He looked around at the curious yet somewhat tired Yetis and nodded, indicating, "The collection work can stop now. Thank you all very much for your help. This amount is enough for now."

"Is that enough?"

The Yetis visibly breathed a sigh of relief, as did Petrova; Frostnova's gaze remained calm as their eyes all focused on Milan—he clapped his hands and first looked at the Yeti who had been on the logistics shift with him that day.

"Ah, wait a moment at the warehouse, I'll go and replenish the timber I applied for earlier."

"There's no need to calculate it so precisely."

Froststar frowned slightly, but Milan just smiled and said, "What is borrowed must be returned; that's the rule."

—The craftsmen are quite particular about their work.

A few still slightly resentful yeti muttered a few words.

"Next, it's time for everyone to work on this."

As he spoke, he abruptly changed the subject, and with a thought, a dozen or so identical charcoal-black lumps appeared out of thin air on the ground.

"This is……"

Petrova, who was practically the camp's chief steward, looked at it and said with a puzzled expression, "Charcoal?"

"Yes, [charcoal]."

The Yetis were certainly not some impoverished force that had never even seen charcoal, but these few pieces of charcoal were different from the types they had used before. They didn't look like traditional firewood charcoal, which was rough and porous, nor did they look like coal, which was irregular... Instead, they looked pure and dense, with an almost velvety sheen.

Milan nodded, and Petrova crouched down and carefully reached out to touch it. The charcoal, with its pixelated texture, felt warm to the touch. She tried to pick it up, but found that even though she was mentally prepared and tried her best, she couldn't lift it up.

"Don't be fooled by its small size; it took me a lot of effort to condense it into this form."

Milan smiled and explained, "You could say it's refined, or you could just call it 'charcoal.' This stuff burns with negligible smoke, and its calorific value is guaranteed. You can take some and try burning it to see how it works."

He wasn't lying at all: in the original Minecraft rules, charcoal can support torches and campfires to burn eternally, and as fuel, it can smelt eight items—whether it's eight steaks, solid wood, or eight pieces of gold ore, they can all be smelted into finished products.

To be honest, he was quite curious about what this thing would do as fuel for an open flame in real life.

"Really!?"

The Yetis in charge of logistics immediately perked up. For them, who were marching for long periods in the wilderness, clean fuel meant less exposure risk, while high efficiency and durability meant a more effective heating environment and less transportation pressure.

These guys had a guess, so they simply went and dragged out a flatbed cart.

Milan then flipped his hand and pulled out... several square-shaped, pixelated torches out of thin air.

Moreover, why does this torch appear to have only a wooden handle, with no cloth soaked in fuel at the top, just a black block that seems to simply symbolize "I have fuel"—and then nothing more? This thing just burns quietly in Milan's hand, with almost no flickering around the flame.

"And this one is a torch made from charcoal, which is quite troublesome to make."

It refers to a matter of going through a round of black-box operations at a workbench, or a matter of a single thought.

Milan handed a torch to the nearest Yeti: "Try it, just stick it anywhere."

Igor: "..."

The torch looked small and delicate, but Igor, an Ursus man, reached out and took it. He found it surprisingly heavy and substantial, quite different from its appearance. Holding the torch, it emitted a bright light and a surprisingly faint warmth. Igor weighed it in his hand, then noticed a pile of supplies on a nearby cart. There was a protruding iron nail on one of the carts, so he tentatively pressed the torch against it…

"——!?"

The torch landed steadily on the ground, but... it stood upright directly on top of the iron nail, which was less than one square centimeter in size!

Chapter 15 Fire

Stand up.

...No, it's been established?

"what?"

Where can you stick a torch? Milan said it casually, and Igor actually just used it according to his common sense—he found a nail, intending to try to fix the bottom of the torch with the nail, after all, no matter how you think about it, a normal object should have a normal way of being used.

But he really didn't expect that as soon as he put the torch on the nail, or rather, as soon as he had the thought of "just put it here", the feel from the torch changed suddenly - and then he discovered that the wooden bottom of the thing was not sticking into the nail at all.

It stood directly on the nail.

"Wow!"

A gasp of surprise rippled through the crowd.

Igor instinctively took two steps back and saw that the torch was firmly and vertically "adsorbed" onto the top of the small patch of iron nails. Neither the flame nor the torch shook at all, burning steadily and illuminating a small area.

"How can this be!"

"real or fake?"

A yeti approached incredulously, even bringing its face close: "How can such a thin nail stand up? And you can't even blow it away?"

The Yeti's expression grew increasingly astonished as he got closer. He seemed to have discovered something but couldn't be sure... Then he reached out and tugged at the cart; the cart shook slightly, but the torch remained perfectly still.

"It's not just nails."

—The item usage permissions seem to be fine?

The "item" itself serves as a carrier to adjust permissions, allowing one's creations to be used by others to a certain extent—Milan reached out her hand with a relaxed expression while contemplating the logical operations that resembled coding.

The torch, which had been firmly planted on the nail, slipped from his hand with a slight tremor. He looked around, found a larch tree at the edge of the camp, and casually poked the torch against the trunk.

……

The torch, as if without any process, simply stuck itself diagonally into the tree trunk; the flame remained steady, and the light remained steady, as if it were completely unaffected.

"what?"

The crowd of onlookers was in an uproar, with several curious people gathering around to observe this strange sight. Some tried to pull it off like Milan did, and found that it did require some strength, but after pulling it off, there were no glue marks or holes on the trunk, as if nothing had happened to it.

The torch remains unaffected throughout the process; even waving it upside down does not disrupt the stability of the light source, as if it would never go out—just as if it did not have the intense heat of a normal flame.

They got a playful idea and tried putting it in other places—and found that no matter what kind of surface or material it was, the torch could be easily "installed" on it.

"This……"

"This is so weird."

Seeing the Yetis looking like they'd discovered an interesting toy, Milan smiled and explained, "It has stable lighting, is unaffected by air currents, can be placed on most non-inverted surfaces unconditionally, is recyclable, and has a long lifespan..."

He paused, not saying the word "unlimited" directly: "In short, it has a very long service life, and it is very convenient for both nighttime surveillance and lighting inside and outside the camp tents."

As for keeping warm in extreme situations... Milan isn't so sure about that: it's well known that torches in Minecraft don't light. Although they can remove snow layers and melt ice into water within a 2-block radius, it's true that you don't feel the heat of fire in real-world use.

So he simply didn't say anything.

But some people noticed this unusual thing.

"and many more."

Froststar walked over to the torches the Yetis were playing with. Unlike the others, she didn't try to touch or remove them; she simply stood there quietly. The playful Yetis quieted down, and the noise they had been making because of the novelty of the toy subsided—the moment Froststar appeared, their attitudes became more respectful.

A moment later, Frostnova slowly raised her hand, removing her black tactical glove to reveal her pale, slender fingers; she approached the halo of the torch itself with extreme caution and tentativeness, as if sensing something with her extraordinary body temperature.

"Warm..."

She turned to stare at Milan, her voice soft, tinged with disbelief, yet her words were remarkably certain: "It's not the heat of flames...it's just warmth, a very gentle warmth..."

"Rather than generating heat, this feels more like directly repelling cold and keeping the area at a constant temperature... This is definitely not just a tool for lighting!"

In an instant, even her expression showed shock and inquiry.

The onlookers instantly realized the problem. They all turned to look at Milan, even holding their breath: no one in the Yeti squad didn't know that Frostnova had extremely low body temperature and was extremely sensitive to heat due to the special symptoms of Oripathy. This made her very susceptible to damage from seemingly ordinary heat—ordinary campfires were almost no match for the chill emanating from her body, and even food with heat, even if not very hot, could burn her esophagus and internal organs.

The fact that she could feel "warmth" is no ordinary matter—it's simply abnormal!

—Ah, so this works normally too. So there's a warm feeling in the pit. It's not just the furnace that's doing this.

Milan understood the phenomenon of another game setting materializing, but also felt a little helpless: this situation alone had significantly increased Frostnova's attention, and even the Yetis' mood had changed drastically—the atmosphere wasn't exactly dangerous, but rather a little tense because of their concern.

However, this is also why he believes it's not the right time to pull out all the stops, or rather, it would be better to keep more things under wraps for now.

The confidence to play with ease at the poker table always comes from having a sufficiently strong hand.

Now that he had some trump cards up his sleeve, he shrugged, revealing an expression that was a mixture of helplessness and inscrutable wisdom, and used the words he had prepared before climbing up.

"Anyway, it's good enough that it can be used as a lighting tool. As for the principle behind it, it's hard to explain... Don't ask. If you ask, it's about regulating Yin deficiency. If you ask again, it's about Yan Kingdom witchcraft, you know what I mean."

If you really ask again, then all I can say is that's how the code is written.

"..."

What do I know? Who do I think I know?

Even the usually aloof Froststar showed such a meaningful expression for a moment; but she did not continue the topic, she just gave Milan a deep look.

—I may not be well-read, but do you really think I've never encountered witchcraft?

Emotionally, she actually wanted to say that.

But after a moment's rational thought, she dismissed the idea: Does it really matter whether it's witchcraft or not?

Chapter 16 Froststar's Considerations

Whether it's witchcraft or not is hard to say for sure. After all, Frostnova has seen Sarkaz witchcraft before and knows that it's hard to explain—but it doesn't really matter.

The goodwill and value shown by the other party are genuine, and there is no reason or need to coerce them excessively; otherwise, it would be counterproductive and even more meaningless.

So she didn't press the matter. Looking again at the steadily burning torch, her fingertips twitched slightly at the edge of the light before returning to their usual cool indifference:

"Keep these charcoal and torches safe and distribute them to night sentries and the wounded first."

"Okay, big sister."

Petrova immediately responded, and her gaze toward Milan became even more complicated: before the Yeti Squad became independent, they had once existed as an auxiliary unit of the Shield Guards; they may not know the differences between different spells, but they at least understood the extraordinary nature of this thing called witchcraft.

Froststar turned and left, and Petrova went about her work. The Yetis, seeing that the commotion had ended, greeted Milan with laughter and went about their own business. They never had any issues with Milan herself, and after realizing that what they had done was not meaningless, they no longer had any complaints about their previous work of cutting grass and collecting leaves.

As for Milan... Milan secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

He'd gotten through that ordeal—but honestly, he wasn't sure if he was ready to say goodbye to the Yetis right now.