It was a beautiful day outside, where the rivers were lazily running through the hills, the trees covered the earth with rich branches that left shadows all around them, and the animals were living in peace with nature.
Suddenly, something different disturbed the peace, a black spot appeared out of nowhere in the air, it was plain and mesmerizing at the same time, it didn't stop just there it grew bigger and bigger when suddenly as it stared it stopped.
Out of the black spot a man was roughly thrown out, he was not a normal man, he was tall, wore a plain white shirt and some black pants, he had brown hair, brown eyes, and the most unusual thing, he was made of squares. But he wasn't the only one like that, the trees were made of squares, the earth had the shape of a square, and even the animals had the edges of a square.
It was a world made of squares.
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I opened my eyes only to be immediately blinded by the sun.
"Ugh* why is the sun so strong? and why-.... Is that a tree from Minecraft?"
Suddenly I stopped rubbing my eyes and looked confused at the tree of a popular game from my childhood, after a few quiet minutes trying to understand what had happened I started to look around only to see that everything was cube-shaped.
"Did I watch too many Minecraft videos and now I'm having dreams about it?"
That could be possible since it wouldn't be the first time when I binge-watched a show or a game and went to sleep quickly afterward. And if I didn't finish the series, my mind would try very hard to continue that activity even in my sleep.
But still, this one felt different.
"Maybe I can even open up my inventory *Ha Ha"
*POP*
Suddenly a gray window appeared, which took me by surprise.
"What! Is this my inventory? and it's empty, who would've thought."
I say this to no one in particular, but this action alone managed to calm my nerves which were slowly rising.
"Well, let's go and have some fun until I wake up! "
I got up on my feet and went to do one of the most essential steps of the game, which was getting some wood.
The tree was not too far from me, and with excitement that I didn't know I had, my punch went full force at the defenseless tree trunk.
"AW! Why did it hurt? Isn't this supposed to be a lucid dream?"
Then the new reality struck me like a brick. I wasn't dreaming, I felt pain, I'm alive in this bizarre world. How did I get here? my memory is a little fuzzy but I don't remember dying like other characters.
But I put a stop to that train of thought because I knew it was not the time for me to panic but take action and build a shelter before night. I looked at the position of the sun, it was right above me, which meant that I only had half of the day before it was dark.
I looked at the tree again with determination.
"With pain or not I still have to get wood. Sorry tree, nothing personal. "
Then I started to punch the block like a madman, until all of a sudden the block of wood disappeared with a simple pop sound, leaving the tree floating mysteriously in the air, ignoring the laws of gravity that I was so used to. Still in pain, I looked around to see where the block was, but with no luck.
I then remembered that I had an inventory now, so I quickly opened it and there it was, a piece of Oakwood occupying one of my previously empty slots. On the upper right corner, there was my crafting 2 x 2 square, where I quickly put the login, and converted it into 4 planks, then out of those I took 2 to craft 4 sticks.
" I may be desperate to work quickly, but that doesn't mean that I should work stupid, I don't know if I can nor do I want to find out if I can destroy my hands handicapping myself, so I'll use a stick to be safer"
My inventory was a 9 by 4 square with two separate smaller squares beside the inventory tab that represented my hands. I dragged the stick to my right hand, and out of nowhere I had a straight stick with the length of a meter, it felt unnatural but beautiful.
I swung the stick at the tree block with newfound force, but instead of the wood cracking like expected, my stick snapped into two to my great surprise.
"So sticks are not indestructible as in the game, they're more like a real stick in a way. Maybe it would work if I stabbed it instead of swinging at it?"
And I raised my hand with another stick, and stabbed the top of the log with it, and to my relief the stick didn't break, and a crack appeared on the wood block.
"Yay for my fists, but time is ticking so should quickly upgrade to the wooden axe, but for that I the crafting table. Don't know how that would work, but this is Minecraft now, so I shouldn't question it."
I broke the rest of the tree down and started to prepare the crafting table while waiting for the leaves to decay.
After it was done and placed on the grass, I started to notice something different. The crafting table looked more 3D, I mean I am in a 3D world in general but the texture in the game was just a cube with an image on it so it didn't feel too real, but the one in front of me had depth, it had design and texture to the touch, it even had some tools beside it that I could pick it up.
I tried to take one for a closer look, but then an invisible force stopped me from taking it more than one block away from the crafting table.
"So I can't use those as a weapon, I can only use them for crafting in some way. But first, let's see if I can make the axe in the first place. "
I put the recipe in the 3 x 3 squares, 2 sticks, and 3 wooden planks, then like magic a holographic arrow appeared pointing to a wooden axe placed in a square.
I tried to grab the axe, but my hand went through the image like it wasn't there.
"Hmm, maybe I should use those tools around the table? "
I picked up a hammer and hit the center square of the recipe, the sticks and planks started to deform and merge, but it wasn't completely done, so I hit it a few more times, and then a wooden axe appeared out of nowhere on top of the crafting table.
"Wow! I didn't expect that to happen, and -AUCI! The edge of the blade is pretty sharp, even if it's made from wood."
With the new tool at my disposal, I started then to cut down more trees around me with more ease and efficiency, and even though I could see the durability going down, I didn't need to worry since I could always make a new one.
Slowly the sun started to go down, I decided to stop collecting and start building my first shelter in this new world.
Quickly I opened up my inventory to see my progress.
-70 Oakwood
-23 sticks
-10 Apple's
"Even though I had to make another axe, that was a pretty good harvest if I say so myself! But now I'm hungry and thirsty, looks like this world isn't like the Vanilla Minecraft that I know of, I should look for a source of water now, then I'm going to build around it. "
After I broke the crafting table, I started to wander through the woods searching for my next location. Luckily for me after about 10 minutes of wondering I started to hear the noise of running water, I quickly got there and saw a 3-block-wide river.
With a smile on my face, I started to get closer to it.
"Not too small and not too deep, this is perfect for me! "
But even with this stroke of luck, It was a bit of a challenge for me to drink since I didn't have palms or a bucket where I could hold the water, so I had to get on all fours to drink it directly from the source, hoping that the water was drinkable.
After I had my fill, I ate two apples and started to look more closely around me to see what kind of place I was now.
It was a small clearing surrounded by woods, and the river running through the center of, it was the perfect place to start a small base.
" Ok, let's start building then! "
I quickly made a 5x5x3 tall house cube out of wooden planks, with a doorframe facing right towards the river, but quickly after I placed the door to fill the space.
The newly placed door didn't have windows like in the game, instead, it was smooth wood down. Maybe it's better this way since I don't want to be shot by a skeleton through them.
After everything outside was done I went inside where it was dark, and that didn't make me too comfortable, I didn't have torches to light up the place, and I didn't know if mobs could even spawn there like in the game.
So the only choice that I could think of at the moment was to use slabs on the floor to stop my growing anxiety.
Outside is slowly getting darker and darker, and even though the door looked very sturdy I didn't trust it too much, so I put some planks on the door leaving space only for my hand to go through where I can freely open the door.
After everything was done I crashed on the wooden floor in exhaustion. I'm in a different world, a video game world on top of that, and I don't even know how I got here! Why I'm I even here? Will I be able to get back to my home planet?
Slowly my mind grew tired like my body, even though I used an axe to get materials that still made me exhausted. With a bed or not, I'm going to sleep, tomorrow me is going to deal with the rest of the problems.
I closed my eyes and sent my mind into the sweet embrace of sleep.
Once the sun goes down, the living go to sleep, while the undead is raising for the hunt, they may be weak as one, but the strength is in their endless numbers. Undead flesh, endless flying arrows, and many more horrors brought by the moonlight.
But there's still hope for this corrupt world, once the moon goes down to sleep and the sun starts to rise, the monsters shall flee in fear into the darkness. Otherwise, they'll be cursed with eternal burning.
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I woke up surrounded by darkness and soreness all over my body. I don't know how this body works, but it sure likes to complain like the old one. I got up confused about where I was in the room and slowly started to feel around until finally I got closer to the barricaded door and tried to open it up through the empty space. It wasn't easy but I finally managed to push the door letting the almighty sun do its job and brighten my room.
"Looks like it's morning outside, and hopefully the monsters are hiding or turned into dust by now."
Even though it was day outside I hadn't broken the barricade yet, instead I stayed in silence for another 10 minutes listening for any dangers.
But I was only greeted by the calming sounds of the flowing river, I finally broke down the block blocking my door, and slowly and silently looked everywhere around my base for any monsters.
"Ok! The coast is clear with no zombies in sight. What's the plan for today? "
I looked at my house in its full glory. It was not a pretty sight, so I changed my view of the trees and the rest of the field.
"Looks like I need to fence this area. But I think I should get some coal first, to make some torches for some light at night. But I'm not crazy enough to get into a cave without armor. And that leaves me with burning wood to get charcoal. Let's get some cobblestone!"
I started to dig the stairway to stone a bit further away from my camp, I didn't want to have a monster hideout too close to me.
I used my wooden shovel to dig the dirt out, and I didn't have to dig for too long, because 3 blocks deep I could already see the gray stone under my feet, I then switched to my wooden pickaxe to mine the new uncovered stone. This time it took more swings to break it, even more than the log.
After I mined 15 stone blocks, now I had to get back and make a furnace with new tools to work faster around here.
I got into the house and put the recipe for the furnace on the crafting table, but something weird happened. Instead of the normal holographic arrow pointing at the crafted item, now the arrow was covered by a big red X.
Confused I touched the red X and a text appeared:
_Insufficient levels of Crafting Skill_
"What do you mean I don't have levels in crafting? Since when do I need levels to craft something in Minecraft?"
I looked at the message again and thought how different this world is from the original game. I opened my inventory to see if I missed something by chance but to no avail.
"Maybe I have a different tab for Skills? "
Then out of nowhere, something appeared in front of me.
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SKILLS
_Crafting lvl 1
73/100 xp
_Enchanting lvl 1
0/100
_Brewing lvl 1
0/100
_Trading lvl 1
0/100
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"I... I did not expect that to happen. So now I have to level up to be able to craft stuff? What's the max level?"
I keep asking questions that nobody will answer. Besides crafting, looks like I need to to lvl up Enchanting, Brewing, and Trading.
"Is the Trading skill related to the villagers by any chance? I wonder if I can communicate with them in this world since it's starting to get further and further away from the original game."
But since I didn't know about the Skills tab, maybe I'm missing some other stuff that I don't know about.
I tried different popular words from video games, but the only one that showed results was the STATUS command.
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STATUS
Name:???????
Health: 20/20
Attack: 1
Defense: 1
Speed: 5.6 blocks/sec
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"I don't know if it's good or bad, or if I can grow them naturally, or only with weapons and armor? And why is my name all question marks?"
I decided that I shouldn't focus on those questions for now since nobody was going to answer them, instead, I should figure out how can I level up my skills so I can actually survive out there and not hide every night in darkness with wooden tools.
Since I already have some XP, I can only assume that I got those from crafting. So let's craft some more for the next level.
After some crafting in the hut, I found out how much XP I have from every item I make:
-Planks 1xp
-Sticks 1xp
-Slabs 3xp
-Tools 10xp
-Door 3xp
-Chest 7xp
-Wooden bowl 2 xp
-Stairs 5xp
-Fence 4 xp
-Gate fence 5 xp
I didn't get the XP per item, instead, I got it per conversion, so when I used 2 planks to get 4 sticks, I didn't get 4 XP but instead just 1 XP, and if I used 4 planks I'll get 2 XP. But I wanted to stop here since I didn't want to waste all my wood in one go. I then opened my skills tab, and I was greeted with a pleasant surprise.
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SKILLS
_Crafting lvl 2 *UP
165/1.000 xp
_Enchanting lvl 1
0/100
_Brewing lvl 1
0/100
_Trading lvl 1
0/100
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But now I wanted to see if I could make a furnace since I leveled up, and once I put the recipe on the crafting table again, this time I wasn't blocked by a red X, instead I could actually craft it.
Once I had it in my inventory, I checked my skills tab to see how much XP I got from a stone recipe. And from 165 XP it got up to 175 XP, so 10 XP like the wooden tools, but once I crafted a stone pickaxe the numbers went up to 225 XP.
"So that means that I'll get 50 XP per stone tool, but the threshold now is 1.000 XP. So for the next level, I would probably need 775 XP. But at least the unlocked recipes will give more XP."
After I crafted the pickaxe, I decided to mine more stone and upgrade my tools.
Once I was done, the sun was at its peak on its way down, I quickly made a stone axe, stone hoe, stone sword, and another stone pickaxe. I then put the furnace in my hut and the two chests beside each other, and like in the game it became a doubled chest, but unlike the game the merging process creeped me out, it looked like they came to life and tried to eat each other, it wasn't a long process but it was an unpleasant one. Once I opened it up, there was only darkness, and a second later I was greeted by the chest inventory tab beside my inventory tab, I moved some sticks into it and then looked at the darkness in the chest again, and there was no change in it. I tried to put my hand into it, but once I was a block in I was stopped by an invisible force.
"Ok, I know this how it's supposed to work in the game, but it's very weird when I see it in front of me, I mean how does it even work?"
The more I thought about it, the more the headache grew, so I decided to ignore it and just check the furnace.
Once I put my hand on it, the furnace tab opened up like the chest, I split what wood I had left in 2, and put one up and one down for them to burn as fuel. Like magic, the furnace came to life on its own, and all of a sudden I had light in my house.
"Oh yeah! The furnace is a light source once it burns something."
I then walked outside to chop down some trees for more wood. After half an hour I got back to my base where only 3 charcoals were done, so that was 1 charcoal in 10 minutes, I put more wood in both slots of the furnace and took the fences out of my inventory to start putting them around my hut.
The process of fence merging was as weird as the chest one, where the two individual poles started to grow arms once they were near each other, and then connected so well that you couldn't tell the difference between the two arms.
Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of them, so I had to chop more wood and then craft into more fences. After I was done with marking my new yard, I walked towards the river.
"This is where I'll plant my crops, but is this fence tall enough to even stop anyone?"
The fence was a block tall, so I tried to lean over it, I was able to do it but after half a block an invisible barrier stopped me. But this barrier wasn't too hard, I knew that I could jump over it if had enough speed and force, but I hoped that the animals or the monsters didn't have that.
Now it was time to till the land for crops to be planted. I had to actually tilt the earth block manually, otherwise when I tried to hit it with the hoe it just broke the block. After I was done, I had about 12 tilted patches ready to be used, they only needed the seeds, and those came from grass which luckily I had enough around me.
I got close to a patch and started to punch it to break it, but to my surprise instead of seeds coming out, the grass just bent backwards like normal grass.
"Well this is embarrassing... "
After I few tries, I found out that I could get the seeds by pulling the grass out or cutting it with a hoe. I quickly got enough seeds and planted them on my farm.
"I hope I don't have to wait too much for the wheat to grow, I don't want to wait a few months just so I can taste some bread."
I then entered the hut to see that the furnace stopped emitting light. I checked to see how many charcoals I have now, and it was 32. I quickly took them out and with some sticks I finally had torches.
I put one on the wall, and the torch was already lit giving light to the dark room. It was weird seeing it, I tried to blow it out and I could surprisingly, but once I did that it didn't light up again.
"Ok, so the torches are lit at the beginning, but they can be extinguished, and won't lit back up again, this is an interesting discovery."
After that, I made more torches and put them in my house, around the house, and around the farm.
Today I made a lot of progress which I was proud of, but I had to quickly head inside because the sun started to go down, announcing the start of the night, and even with the fences around to protect me, I only felt comfortable enough to sleep without a barricade.
"I wonder what I should do tomorrow?"