He's not entirely clear on what enchanting gear does other than making it better, but better equipment will be worth it. So off to hang out at the xp grinder for awhile.

The XP grinder is basically just a bunch of spiders, collected so that it's easy for him to kill them without them being able to reach him; he gets little green-glowing balls from it, and when he gets enough of those, he can enchant the gear using lapis and the nearby enchanting table! There are three levels of enchantments, with the third being the best but requiring more of the glowy green balls (presumably XP).

When he enchants things, they get a purple glow to them, which looks slightly different depending on the base material; neither iron nor diamond look like the sort of armor and weapons Dream and Punz have.

It honestly isn't surprising he isn't as well equipped as Dream or Punz, he hasn't been here nearly as long.

But the gap is narrower now.

And his gear, once enchanted, is definitely better than before, so he achieved what he set out to do.

He heads back to L'Manberg, to check on how progress is going and to make sure morale hasn't crashed into the floor.

Morale seems about where it was before he left, honestly, which is to say 'not great'. Quackity's not there at the moment, but Philza's back; WilburSoot, Tubbo, Fundy, Nihachu, Ranboo, and Tommy are all there as well.

That is-- not ideal. Unfortunately he does not know the people here well enough to try and fix that.

...this is technically a solvable problem. Not in the short term, maybe, but if he is here in the long term it will be worth it. He's just going to have to introduce himself to people and talk to them.

...

People's names floating above their heads is strange, but also very convenient in this case. He goes up to WilburSoot. "I don't think we've been formally introduced." (Because that is less of a strange statement than 'Thank you for wishing me luck and not murdering me.') I'm Xiao Jingyan."

"Oh! Hello Xiao Jingyan! I'm Ghostbur!"

"Have you been in L'Manberg long?"

"I founded it! Well, Alive Wilbur did. I guess I've only been here for a couple weeks."

"I'm apologise, I forgot you were dead." and other sentences he never expected to ever have to say.

"It's alright, I don't really mind! It's nice to meet you, Xiao Jingyan. You seem quite nice."

"Thank you, I'm just doing my best." How do you talk to dead people who talk back, he never learned this. " ...I guess we're both the newest people here."

"Nah, Ranboo's newer than I am. Everyone else has been around for a while, though."

"When did Ranboo join?"

"Hmmm..." Ghostbur counts on his fingers. "Six days ago! So he's almost as new as you. He knew more about what was going on, though."

"People join regularly?"

"...Not very regularly? But a lot of people joined recently, you and Ranboo and Phil and Puffy are all pretty new. Before that was... Technoblade? And before that was Quackity and Niki and Jack Manifold. There was a lot more immigration once L'Manberg started, I know that. Before L'Manberg the most recent person to join the server was--me, probably? But that was a while ago. A lot of people joined because they heard about L'Manberg. Ranboo joined because he wants to be president, I--you know, I don't actually remember why Phil or Technoblade joined? But Quackity and Jack Manifold joined because Tommy wrote to them about the new country, and Niki joined because I wrote to her about the new country! I wrote to Schlatt, too, but I think he just visited? I remember him visiting but I don't remember anything after that and he's not here anymore."

"That's good to know. Thank you." It's not a complete understanding of the interpersonal situation, but its a start. "--Isn't Technoblade a wanted man? I am somewhat confused."

"Oh, is he? That doesn't make sense. We like Technoblade! I like Technoblade, anyway. Probably it's a misunderstanding?"

...That doesn't make sense. But also nothing here makes much sense, so having wanted posters due to some miscommunication with the scribes wouldn't be impossible? Just deeply strange. "I have not heard much about him."

"Well, I'm probably the wrong person to ask, I don't have a very good memory. Technoblade's friends with Phil, though, so he can't be that bad. Philza's my dad! He killed me." (This is all delivered quite cheerfully, as though it was all entirely normal and made perfect sense.)

...?!

He probably should not be making a face about this. He is pretty sure he is making a face about this. He does not know how to square the cheerful tone and the child murder. The whole casualness of it. And maybe that is just because death means little here (see: the fact he is talking to a dead man right now), but maybe it very much is not.

Also he needs to go confront talk to Philza about this, right now. "Excuse me for a moment."

"Sure!"

Now to find Philza, and get him out of earshot so they're can be a clarifying discussion.