10 Divide and Eliminate

"When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move, Sun Tzu, The Art of War."

These zombies were too complacent. Didn't they know that the most dangerous and wanted Minecraft Monday Player was in their vicinity? Too bad for them. Technoblade was going to eliminate every single stinker after he tested his theory.

Creeping from the roof, Technoblade speed bridged over to that single door. Maybe this was too obvious a trap, not that zombies could tell. He built some 'walls' around the door to test whether these zombies could break them down or see through solid blocks. Technoblade readied his emergency blocks to stack upwards after he jumped into the one-by-one block hole to test the dangerous theory. However, there was one small problem. He had to thin their numbers first to prevent an alerted zombie from attracting more towards him.

The strategy of winning a battle with an inferior army was to divide and conquer. Technoblade crept quietly over his enemies. His plans were as dark and impenetrable as night. The zombies had no idea what was coming up, and even when he was directly within striking range of one, it did not sense him.

"Aha!" Technoblade attacked swiftly from his perch, and the axe made contact with the zombie, who immediately growled with hostility. However, even if he could now see his attacker, the zombie could not reach Technoblade.

"How'd you like that?" he laughed and continued hacking at the helpless monster while holding his breath as much as possible. It did not take long for the zombie to crumble and collapse into a pile of experience points that were automatically sucked into his body.

From a single zombie, Technoblade earned himself 5 experience points. The levelling system in Aftercraft wasn't quite the same as it was in Minecraft. Sure, there was an incremental difficulty when getting to the next level. However, it was easier to tell how many zombies he needed to kill to get to the next level. He needed 200 points to get to level 2, but he was nowhere close.

"Time to grind," he smirked, looked at his resources, and groaned. Whatever he had in his inventory wouldn't be enough to bridge over to the other zombies near him. Thankfully, the night was young, and he had plenty of logs from the day.

Sprinting over to his fort of chests, Technoblade hopped down and peered through the cracks between the chests. He could see the zombies from the chest fort, and none of them attempted to come to him, even if they could make eye contact. Technoblade wondered if he should risk it and lure a zombie back to test if they were able to see through various blocks.

First, he wanted to know what would happen if it tossed the tool out of his inventory and onto the ground.

Plop!

The axe fell to the ground, and Technoblade backed away to avoid picking it up again. Outside, the zombies groaned and started burying themselves back into the ground where they stood. The sight was so fascinating that the Potato King spent a few moments playing with this new discovery. He picked the axe up and waited for them to climb out of the ground, and before they could fully rise, he would toss it onto the ground.

Suddenly, this gave him an idea.

"Wouldn't that mean all I had to do in a pinch was to throw out every piece of equipment and armour?"

That discovery was huge, and Technoblade grew bolder. Who cared about dividing and conquering when he could make the enemy retreat? This was genius!

However, that begged the question. Was it feasible? There was only one way to find out.

After retrieving all the tools from the chest, Technoblade heard the groans increase and blinked in shock as the zombies started patrolling again. He didn't want to accidentally bump into a moving zombie during his tests. It was probably better if they remained stationary or had a smaller detection radius.

Tossing the tools out one at a time, Technoblade peered through the cracks and noticed the zombies differing in behaviour slightly as the number of tools in his inventory decreased. Was this what the system admin meant? Aftercraft's difficulty level was adjusted according to a player's readiness to cope. Technoblade had no problems taking advantage of a more favourable start in that case.

Ditching all his concerns over dying, Technoblade hopped over his chest fortress and broke into a sprint while munching Juicy Berries. He was there with a plan as the crafting workshop worked on his orders. He wanted to buy more crafting slots before the night ended, and he needed five levels. There was only one way to get those levels, and the night wouldn't last forever.

With the full set of tools in his inventory, Technoblade found himself quickly scurrying for the one-block shelter, and he readied blocks to hop on in case the horde broke the door. His fears were confirmed when a group of five stinky zombies broke the door down effortlessly. Technoblade quickly stacked upwards and swung his sword. However, his grip loosened in mid-swing, and Technoblade gasped as he watched the stone sword fly towards the angry monsters.

A zombie was already more powerful than him when unarmed. If it started wielding a sword… Technoblade can only retreat with his tail between his legs.

Thankfully, the zombies ignored his dropped weapon and continued groaning beneath his wood plank tower. The new discovery made Technoblade rejoice. If zombies could not pick up items, they would have to despawn. More importantly, he could not accidentally buff them. Also, if he screwed up majorly, he could simply empty his inventory, and they would have to go away.

This is brilliant!

Using this new information, Technoblade tossed more tools from his inventory and learned that the zombies gradually stopped attracting nearby comrades when he had only three tools in his inventory. They also became more lethargic with lesser tools, and he could easily outrun them.

With only one tool in his inventory, he need not run as they stopped chasing or moving. Unless he was at their eye level and within five blocks, the zombies did not patrol or pay any attention to a player. Also, from a dangerous trial and error, Technoblade learned that two zombies must be present to break down a door.

"So it takes ten punches to kill a zombie, six hits from a tool that isn't an axe or sword, five with a stone axe or sword. That's not a huge difference, but it's better than nothing. Killing zombies while standing stationary doesn't consume stamina, although it decreases thirst and hunger slightly faster than the normal rate."

By now, Technoblade had overcome his slight fear of heights. The zombies were still below him and groaning ten blocks below. It was a relief that phantoms did not spawn right from the beginning of Aftercraft. He hated to be knocked off his perch and sent back to that nauseating hell. After nine blocks up into the air, he stopped smelling the stench of death even if he could see and hear them.

Using the new levels he attained, Technoblade bought another crafting slot from the shop and rejoiced at the additional items he could craft. However, that happiness was short-lived when he noticed something strange about the countdown timer to completion.

"I've been scammed!" he cried. "All that killing and you're telling me I cannot craft them simultaneously? What more do you want?"

Returning to the shop, Technoblade scrolled down only to discover there was more to what he saw previously. After purchasing an additional crafting slot, the new option to purchase a one-time skill called [Simultaneous Crafting] existed.

"And it costs… 15 levels!"

Sighing deeply, Technoblade looked at his stamina and hunger bar. He probably had enough to grind for another fifteen levels. After all, it only took him less than an hour of smacking zombies leisurely to get five levels. He could manage fifteen levels, right?

Coming down, Technoblade devised a new strategy. He needed a lot of zombies and fast. However, he also needed a safety zone to retreat to while taunting new zombies. The less he ran around, the better his stamina conservation.

From what he learned, Zombies could only see him through doors. They could not see him through chests or solid blocks like planks. They were able to climb and jump up one-block height items like in Minecraft, but they were dumber and would fall into pits to get to him if there were no other options.

The discovery was accidental when Technoblade made a hole in the ground where the broken door was. Zombies simply walked into the hole even if they could not climb out of it.

Quickly, all the information he learned about zombies in under two hours started falling into place. Technoblade still needed six more hours for the furnace to be crafted, but he refused to waste time in the future waiting for it. If anything, he wanted to purchase that expensive [Simultaneous Crafting] skill.

The plan was simple. He had all the tools he needed and just enough bridges to lure zombies over to his pit of doom. Technoblade wasn't against using cheap tactics such as burrowing underneath to get to his enemies. If he could kill them by gnawing on their toes through a hole in their floorboard, he would.

Hence, he put all the tools away and started building a maze-like structure to trap zombies in several locations so that they could call more comrades that would spawn around them so that Technoblade could rotate killing zombies that fell into his pits. It was a primitive type of mob trap, but he was limited by resources and circumstances. The furnace was already coming along, and Technoblade refused to cancel that crafting order.

Technoblade retrieved all the tools from his chest when the trap was ready and waited for zombies to spawn.

The plan was perfect, and Technoblade watched with pride as the first zombie growled against his door that was stuck against a wall. Quickly, he trapped the poor fool attempting to break the door on his own with planks behind, leaving a window just enough so it could watch as the backup he summoned fell into holes that Technoblade dug.

After repeating the process four times, Technoblade ran from one pit to another, killing zombies with his tools. However, the durability did not last very long as he wore tools quicker than he could get the items to craft them. Eventually, he had to resort to punching them as he no longer had any more cobblestone to craft new stone tools.

The process was tedious, but eventually, Technoblade earned all fifteen levels in the next two hours of mind-numbing and nose-clogging grind. He bought the [Simultaneous Crafting] skill and watched as the fences he wanted to create earlier started to count down.

"Finally!" he whooped in joy, but the edges of his vision flickered, indicating his fatigue reaching its limit.

With the last of his stamina, Technoblade crawled back to the safety of his chest fortress and slept the rest of the night off.