2 New Update

The first thing that made Technoblade aware he was awake was the sound of sheep near his ear.

Sheep? What was going on? The last thing he remembered doing was writing a draft of his video script before calling it a day or night as he was too tired. His brain had never felt this clear, although he was starting to find the sensation of the bed odd.

Opening his eyes, the peculiar scenery felt both familiar and odd to him. He knew he had seen this blocky texture before but couldn't recall where. Was it some kind of new texture pack? It looked somewhat realistic yet physic-defying.

"What kind of update is this? The sheep look more stupid than before, and the tree branches aren't even connected to the leaf block."

Yes, he recognised it now. This was Minecraft, even with the new texture pack and unfamiliar blocks. The sun was as squarish as he remembered it to be. The water was as still as it was programmed. Yet, little changes were sprinkled everywhere, like how the sheep had a more 3D texture to its eyes and face shape. The grass had more than a diagonal pattern and looked closer to actual grass patches with a height that did not reach his blocky knees.

Wait. Blocky knees?

For two whole seconds, Technoblade looked at those uniform legs with sharp edges and awkward joints. He recognised this design somewhere, and while he saw something similar when trying to beat Minecraft in hardcore using the VR headset, it was different. Things felt too realistic, and it felt like a dream.

Technoblade ran to the small river to confirm his horrors. He ignored the strange flowers that did not sway with the artificial wind and paid little attention to the sound of his footsteps traversing across grass blocks. The grass didn't flatten under his steps, but he had a shadow on the ground as the sun rose.

The water was clear enough despite its unusual stillness and ripple animation from time to time. The salmon swam in schools, and Technoblade spotted seagrass growing at the bottom of the shallow three-block stream. Nothing else in Minecraft had reflections, and mirrors were not craftable in vanilla. He might catch a glimpse of himself if the texture pack installed was advanced enough.

Bending over the river bank, Tecnoblade rejoiced at the texture pack's power. He was lucky that this new texture pack allowed some faint reflection of his avatar. He could finally admire his beautiful face! However, his confirmation only added to his confusion. As handsome as this pig skin was, it was strange how he moved with this much precision. It was as if he was truly in control of the avatar's body. No VR technology was this advanced, not that he knew about.

Reaching up to touch the golden crown on his head, Technoblade realised that it would not budge from his head. He felt no hair on his head and could not reach beneath the crown as he had no fingers. It was really odd.

"What a strange dream," he muttered and took a look around. With this level of realism, he might as well enjoy this dream. It could be some premonition about a new game update coming soon. Maybe he can do a video commentary about this when he wakes up.

Every Minecrafter knew that the first thing to do in a new game was to punch some wood. It didn't matter if the wood was needed at once. It was an instinct to do so.

Hence, Technoblade looked around. There were some trees nearby. He knew he spawned in some sort of flower biome. There was a myriad of colourful flowers in the vicinity, beautiful rivers meandering around dirt mounds and some regular deformed oak trees on the hills.

Walking over to conserve some hunger, Technoblade stared at the oak tree. In this perspective, the tree was way larger than he was used to seeing when playing the game without a full-dive VR experience. He knew that he was technically two blocks tall and one block wide. The regular oak tree was about five blocks tall, and from his line of sight, it towered above him way out of reach. How did he punch down an entire tree this far out of his arms' reach in the game? Chuckling, Technoblade smirked. Gaming logic was impeccable.

Whatever. He wasn't the best in karate, and the man behind it was a massive nerd. However, Minecraft was fair to everyone. How hard could punching a tree get?

Without hesitating, he swung his cube-like fist at the tree and instantly regretted his decision.

Pain shot through him faster than a bullet. Almost immediately, he yelped as his unseen knuckles throbbed with pain. That should have broken a bone! Why did he feel pain in a dream? It was too unfair! This was his dream. He should be granted immunity!

"What the-? How is this possible?" he yelled and winced at the pain. Something at the corner of his vision flickered. For the first time, he caught a glimpse of his unusual default view.

On the upper left corner of his view was a permanent health bar down by half a heart. Below it was a hunger bar, and Technoblade was already down by half a chicken wing indicator. Below those two more familiar bars, Technoblade realised that the game mechanics in this dream game were a little more complicated. He wasn't very familiar with all the mods, but the bar with a water droplet should indicate thirst, and the one with a snowflake should indicate temperature. Ah, that bar with "XP" indicated was a no-brainer. He didn't have anything, but Technoblade looked forward to gaining enough levels for enchanting. The bar with a "Z" sign at the front was low but slowly increased with time. That had to be a sleep meter, right?

"How is this so real?" he wondered to nobody. More importantly, he couldn't believe he had overlooked that for so long.

Punching a tree shouldn't hurt. There was only one modded Minecraft game that made punching a tree hurt him. If Fundy didn't program this, it could only be a Minecraft mod-pack similar to RL craft. In that case, he had to find flint to craft tools to get resources. Unfortunately, there was no gravel in sight.

Thinking for a bit, Technoblade tried to recall Sun Tzu's sayings. What would the famous war strategist say in times like this?

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle," Technoblade smirked.

Indeed. It didn't matter if this was a dream or reality. Whenever he started something or found himself in an unfamiliar situation, the key to the best outcome was always to gather all the information he could. Although he had great knowledge about this familiar game, there were also too many unknown elements. For instance, being unable to punch a tree for wood was new.

With that, Technoblade decided to look within himself first before externally. The strange bars on the top left corner of his view were unusual. There were also other icons at the top right corner of his vision.

It was safer to assume that there would be mobs in this version of the game and that he was playing in hardcore where anything could kill him. Apart from ensuring that his survival meters were kept within acceptable ranges, he had to find a way to access his inventory and crafting slots. Without the ability to craft items, he was as good as a pig waiting for the chopper in a slaughterhouse.

"Is there a way to craft?" he asked aloud, talking to himself the way he normally did.

Ping!

[Welcome to Aftercraft, Technoblade. Would you like to read the System Administrator's last message for you?"]

The unusual system prompt message in Technoblade's face startled him so much that he fell onto the ground on his sore bottom. Yet, the window did not disappear. It was still very much in Technoblade's face.

The options below the message made Technoblade raise his non-existent brows. The "No" option was greyed out and unselectable. Why ask him to choose when it was compulsory? People can be really strange at times. With a sigh, he selected the only option available. It was the only way to get rid of this eyesore message, so it had to be done.

[Yes.]

Immediately, Technoblade felt himself getting sucked into a vortex full of pages and words. The world before him faded as knowledge of the System Administrator's last message became crammed into his head at light speed.