Glass Bottles

To brew potions, one needed a few things. The brewing stand, the potion ingredients and the bottles.

Technoblade just crafted the brewing stand and realised it was another decorative block much like his enchanting table. Instead, he now had a Microbrewery in his system tab beside the forge where he could customise his potions by sacrificing ingredients.

The cauldron beside his brewing stand was the mysterious setup requirement required for the system to magically pull water into glass bottles and brew a potion. However, Technoblade had an issue.

He had the ingredients… but not the bottles.

Why did he not have glass bottles? Simple. He did not have glass.

Why did he not have glass? Because he lived in a biome that wasn't a beach or desert. The stray pockets of sand he collected from here, and there weren't enough to make him all the bottles he wanted.

Technically, there was a small chance of fishing up bottles, and Technoblade had already found two from his fishing activities. However, he wanted to have more than that. He needed more sand for different purposes, like making glass panes for the windows and lamer aesthetic purposes. He wanted the power to craft as many glass bottles as possible at the snap of a finger. Technically the crafting workshop will do it, but it feels good not having to cancel his orders due to the lack of materials.

Either way, this won't do. Thankfully, he knew the place with a little more sand, clay, gravel and witches.

Yes, he would visit the slime. Thankfully, he already knew where one was.

"I know that killing witches is not a productive way to obtain my glass bottles," he told his horse named "Carl". Yes, he was the fastest of the lot, and honestly, Technoblade probably took the longest time trying to tame Carl, but it was all worth it.

"It won't be the most efficient way of getting glass bottles, but that's not the only reason I'm doing it," he told the stallion, who neighed on its hind legs just as Technoblade climbed onto its back, raring to go.

"Onwards!"

Carrying the supreme God of War on his back, Carl galloped like the wind across the meadow, jumping across the moat without needing Technoblade to open the fence gates.

Together, pig-man and horse raced through the grassy plains following the cobblestone trail and arrived at the swamp's edge before night fell.

"I'm going to need you to be on extra good behaviour," he told his pampered steed and fed him some sugar, patting his mane. "I'm going to build a temporary stable that I need you to stay inside, away from monsters."

Neighing in response, Technoblade assumed his prized horse understood the assignment and turned his back to build the slightly more luxurious stable with a slabbed roof, four blocks tall. He secured the entrance with trap doors because he hated hitting his head trying to get in and out of a height-limited entrance and did not want to risk his horse making out with a zombie. Skeletons could also shoot his horse if he only used fence gates. There wasn't a lot of space for Carl to dodge in his small stable. Even if he was a war horse who could trample monsters to their deaths, Technoblade wanted his horse safe without a scratch when he returned.

The stable was completed just before the moon rose, so Technoblade quickly went to fetch Carl, who had been so distracted by the grass back in the meadows.

"Oh, for crying out loud!"

Despite his complaints, Technoblade was thankful the horse had enough sense to remain in the range of his sights. Any further and Technoblade would have to put out posters for his missing stallion.

The journey back to the stable wasn't easy as they had to start dodging arrows from skeletons that spawned in. The zombies were slow, and Technoblade cut them down with ease. He took two arrows to his arm and one to his back but recovered quickly from the damage.

Getting Carl into the stable, Technoblade put some torches inside to prevent monsters from spawning in it. The number of monsters outside increased drastically as darkness covered the land completely. He could hear at least fifteen monsters surrounding his tiny stable, but Carl wasn't afraid.

"Who's a good boy?" he asked and nuzzled the horse. After a death scare from the mob, Technoblade decided against exploring the swamp for resources at night. He had to put his sand and clay collecting mission on hold. Thankfully, the stable was a sturdy, safe shelter in which he could make his underground base.

Digging a stairway downwards and expanding the section to set up a small mining base, Technoblade listened to Carl's neighing upstairs. According to the new quest tree, he should go on a witch hunt for more than just bottles.

Back in Minecraft, witches were hated monsters. They were not a very common sight. Witches were not always born. Sometimes they were made. On a very rare occasion that lightning struck a harmless villager, they become reborn as an evil witch full of ancient knowledge. They were known to throw splash poison potions and were immune to almost any sort of fire damage. Most annoyingly, their knowledge of brewing regeneration and health potions meant that players who could not deal damage fast enough would be unable to take them down. In fact, They could sometimes curse a player with blindness and slowness in extreme cases, sometimes induce nausea and then finish them off with a powerful blast of arcane magic.

In short, they were Technoblade's nemesis. The witch hunt was overdue, and thankfully, the new quest tree for starting a village and repopulating Aftercraft gave him an olive branch.

Villagers no longer naturally existed, and zombie villagers were not a thing. However, if he proved his worth in the witch hunt by exterminating a hundred witches that plagued the deep mines beneath the swamp, the system admin would gift him with two very precious souls of villagers that could be rebirthed into Aftercraft.

The new quest tree made Technoblade's heart tremble. Villagers! Finally, he could have some human companions in this dimension. Although they would not be anything like Philza, Quackity or Tommy, it was better than becoming his own conversation partner. If he continues this for any longer, he might start developing multiple personalities.

Digging to the deep mines would be much quicker if Technoblade did not insist on making a sensible staircase. Even if he broke the Minecraft rule and dug straight down, he would not die easily. The lava walker, fire immunity and permanent weightless enchantment that made him slowly fall through anything meant Technoblade wouldn't die. However, climbing back up would be a pain, and Technoblade refused to deal with that problem later.

Hence, the spiralling stairway to the depths of witch hell.

Eventually, he made it. Surprisingly, there were no caves to mine into. Technoblade thanked Carl, his lucky star, for the smooth-sailing experience thus far. To make matters better, he could hear a deep mine cave nearby with the cackling of magical hags.

"Hopefully, they don't spread warts," he prayed hard and mined towards the direction of the cackling.

Thankfully, with his night vision ability, everything was clear as day. The moment Technoblade mined into the cave, he spotted the coven of witches. They looked nothing like Minecraft's witches with black hats and purple dresses. If anything, these witches looked green.

Literally green! Thankfully, they were not covered in warts. If not for the black hooded dress they wore and the wand they carried that resembled a stick, Technoblade would have thought they were female zombies.

Taking aim, Technoblade used a regular arrow and sniped at one of the witches. The unsuspecting witch screamed with agony as the arrow made contact with the back of her head. However, she did not die, and Technoblade cussed, following up with another arrow.

Unfortunately, the timing of his shots was too slow, and the witch drank a health potion, bringing her back to full health. The other witches realised that an intruder was nearby after hearing the scream of their sister. They patrolled more aggressively, and Technoblade held his breath. This was bad.

What did the mediaeval people do during witch hunts again? That's right! They burned them on stakes in a campfire.

However, witches could cancel out fire damage by drinking fire resistance potions. Technoblade needed a better solution. Drowning was also not going to do well as witches knew how to brew potions of water breathing. If anything, the power of potions made them tougher to deal with than creepers.

"Brute force is the way to go with these hags, but I'm not stupid enough to run around mindlessly."

That's right. He needed a smarter way to do this without putting himself at too much risk.

Sun Tzu once said, "If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him." Technoblade thought hard about it. He was outnumbered, and the enemy had overwhelmingly annoying abilities to negate most of his attacks.

His enemy was superior in strength and numbers, so Technoblade would avoid direct confrontation. Witches were also considered temperamental in their behaviour, switching up potions according to their circumstances. Technoblade wondered if there was a way to use that to his advantage. Although these witches were powerful, they were self-centred and chose only to save themselves. They could have used splash potions like a god potion splash in Skyblock, but they did not.

Maybe that was their weakness?

Even as they circled beneath him with their cackles, Technoblade smirked in superiority. He found an exploitable weakness. The witches drank good potions and threw nasty ones. If he could instigate a fight among the coven, like how he sometimes made skeletons shoot each other, he could wait it out and collect the dues with minimal effort.

For that to happen, Technoblade needed to prepare the stage. A grand stage for the grand hunt.