Enchanting

Enchanting is the process of adding extremely helpful powers to your tools. These powers can help you mine blocks at unimaginable speeds, deal massive amounts of damage to hostile mobs, and even multiply the durability of your tools.

Before you can start enchanting, there are a number of things you will need, the most important one being an enchanting table, which can be crafted from four obsidian, two diamonds, and a book. The next things to make are bookshelves, an anvil, and a grindstone. The crafting recipe for a bookshelf requires three books and six wooden planks. Surrounding your enchanting table with bookshelves (up to a maximum of 15) will give you more powerful enchantments. If you don't use bookshelves, your enchantments will be pretty weak.

When you place bookshelves around an enchanting table, make sure that there is exactly one block of air between the two. If the bookshelf is too close to the enchanting table, or if anything is between the enchanting table and the bookshelf (even a carpet), the bookshelf will not affect the enchanting table's enchantments.

The crafting recipe for an anvil is quite expensive: three blocks of iron and 4 iron ingots (a block of iron is crafted from 9 iron ingots, so that's a total of 31 iron ingots!). An anvil is used to combine enchanted items, repair items, and add extra enchantments to items using enchanted books.

The crafting recipe for a grindstone is one stone slab, two sticks, and two wooden planks. A grindstone is used to remove enchantments from items, so it's quite useful if you got a really useless enchantment. It will also give you a small amount of experience when you use it to remove enchantments. (Note: The grindstone cannot remove curses!)

Enchanting is not free. To enchant an item using an enchantment table, you must pay a certain amount of experience levels and lapis lazuli. If you're combining items in an anvil, you only need to pay experience. Lapis lazuli can be found in small veins most commonly found in the deepslate layers, and it can be bought from cleric villagers.

Once you open the enchanting table's interface and put in a tool, weapon, or piece of armor, three randomized enchantments will come up for that item. Hovering over the enchantment will show its name. To the right of the enchantment will be a number representing the number of experience levels you need to unlock the enchantment. To the left will be an image of an experience orb with a number next to it, showing the amount of experience levels (and lapis lazuli) that you will actually need to pay.

Without bookshelves, available enchantments will be very weak and very cheap, with very few levels needed to unlock them. As bookshelves are added, the enchantments will increase in value and cost. If bookshelves are placed in a valid space to affect an enchanting table, mysterious runes will begin to be absorbed from them by the enchanting table. With 15 bookshelves around an enchanting table, the third enchantment will always require 30 levels to unlock it.

Once you put in the required amount of lapis lazuli and select an enchantment, the item will be given that enchantment. There is also the potential for it to receive bonus enchantments, in addition to the one shown. Once you have enchanted an item, you cannot add any more enchantments using the enchantment table. However, you can add more enchantments by enchanting some books or tools identical to the one in question and then combining them with the already enchanted item in an anvil. You can also do this with unenchanted items.

There are also some items that can only be enchanted through an anvil, and can't be enchanted directly in the enchanting table. For example, shields and shears.

The enchanting table.

The enchanting interface.

A bookshelf.

An enchanting table surrounded by bookshelves.