The small-cube forms of resources he encounters seem to be strictly indivisible.

What if he tries to scrape at the not-small form of a bit of rock with his pickaxe? Can he scratch either one of them? Does scraping count as a bop in that the cube busts if he does it enough times?

He can scratch ambient rock, at least if he uses the stone pickaxe; the wooden one isn't hard enough to leave a mark. Scraping seems to inconsistently qualify, or possibly qualify but only at partial strength, or something.

So the rock in large form does seem to be made of a substance that can be changed, much like the wood. Maybe he'll find a substance hard enough to dissect the tin. Separately, maybe something interesting will happen if he accumulates a sufficient mass of wood shavings. But first, does he have enough rock to put walls and a roof on his mansion?

He does! The stone version of the wood-and-X roof recipe looks a bit rough, but it matches the stone walls nicely.

Then he can install his furnace and see what it lets him do!!

The furnace looks very Stone Age, and has an abstract interface with which to accept wood as fuel; each cube of wood thereby donated causes a smallish amount of fuel to appear inside the structure, but if he tries to reach inside to mess with them, an invisible forcefield brings his hand to a gentle stop.

The interface also accepts ore as a—component? Reagent? Ingredient? The slot isn't labeled.

If he inputs both wood and ore, the furnace lights up and begins merrily burning.

He definitely wants to mess with the forcefield more once he's made something, but he doesn't want to interfere with it doing whatever potentially-hazardous thing it's doing. He only put two units of wood in before the ore, so presumably it will run out soon and he'll be able to see what happened.

Warmth radiates from the front of the furnace. Flames dance inside of it, obscuring whatever else may be going on in there.

After about thirty seconds, its abstract interface advertises that if he likes, he can retrieve {1 tin} from it.

He would like! Especially if he can retrieve it by a direct act of will without sticking his hand in there!

He can! He can retrieve it by a direct act of will!

The unit of tin comes in a small-cube-sized rectangular ingot, as stubbornly unscratchable as other small-cube-sized items.

Thirty seconds later, it offers him another one.

In total, his two units of wood yield {4 tin}.

He's refining metal all alone in the woods! In a bizzare dreamworld where everything is easy mode, but it's still so much fun! He skips over to his crafting table to put the tin down, because he's in a skipping kind of mood, and gets down to the business of figuring out the "stoichiometry" of this "reaction". Which reagent did he run out of first? How much wood and how much ore make how much tin? Tracking the number he's put in is a pain in the bum with no paper, but eventually he's going to have an equation!

It turns out that exactly 3 wood produces exactly 8 tin from exactly 8 tin ore.

Neat! And does six wood make sixteen tin from sixteen ore, or does it make eight tin in half the time?

Sixteen from sixteen!

Bruce wants to squee about this! He goes looking for the forest spirit.

The forest spirit is in its room, doing a happy little dance, possibly about the fact of having a room.

D'awwww. "Hi! I found ore and made tin!"

{congratulations!!} Happy small bounces.

"Thanks! Want anything in particular in your room? Also that room over there is nominally your bathroom if you want one but I have no idea if spirits take baths, so, do whatever I guess."

{don't know yet!} it says. {i will think about it.} Bounce bounce. {you make thing! very exciting!}

"I'm excited too! If you think of any things you want me to make, let me know! I'm going to go move all my stuff into this house."

And he can get his chair and crafting table in his workroom and his bedframe in his bedroom and bathtubs in both bathrooms and then disassemble the old house for parts.

It turns out that, in fact, almost every recipe at the crafting table that accepts wood also accepts stone as a substitute. The bathtub additionally accepts tin. The only one that accepts tin but not stone is the beam.

And there's another thing he can make at the crafting table now, with {1 wood, 1 stone, 1 tin}.

The wood bathtub and whatnot seem pretty good, but he definitely wants to see what the one-of-each thing is! Possibly it's an even fancier pickaxe; possibly it's something even cooler.

It is... an Advanced Crafting Table!

It offers him some recipes, but all of them require ingredients he doesn't currently have.