Rich Boi Technoblade

Now that Technoblade had his personal nether guide, he made plenty of maps to track his trail. Even without cobblestone trails, he should be able to find his way back to base following the labelled maps.

The nether was huge, and Techonoblade wasn't taking any chances. Getting lost was the last thing he wanted to do. Careful planning was required, and Technoblade even brought all his gold along. He wanted to trade as much as possible when he found piglins and never return.

Thankfully, his new skill was rather systematic. It wanted to lead Technoblade to all the different biomes closest to his original portal. The first new biome was a wasteland, the one he spawned inside. It was rather huge and spanned several lava lakes. Technoblade had spent nearly six stacks of cobblestone bridging across the lakes when he finally saw a new biome.

The new biome was no better than the wastelands. Technoblade hated the basalt deltas because of the difficult terrain to navigate. One wrong hop, and he could land in very hot soup. Even though Technoblade had permanent fire immunity, the parkour challenge presented by the new biome annoyed him greatly.

Swimming in lava took way longer than speed bridging, so Technoblade took to the nether ceilings and followed his nether tour guide to the next biome that spanned a few thousand blocks away on foot.

Naturally, he fell asleep on his feet during the nether tours. Thankfully, there weren't many hostile mobs around in the nether. Technoblade made sure to barricade himself in a small room of slabs before he slept. The exhaustion meant he couldn't recover all his fatigue points, but it was good enough for long-distance travel. He did not want to test the theory of exploding beds in the nether, so Technoblade dealt with insomnia and poor sleep quality without grumbling.

Eventually, he came across the next biome with a huge change of pace. The warped forest was full of beautiful blue wood, and Technoblade used this chance to restock his wood supply. The nether was scarce regarding resources, and Technoblade collected some warped mushrooms, using his levels to buy another inventory expansion slot. It was an expensive purchase, but Technoblade refused to head back and drop his items off. He accumulated enough levels for a situation like this and ex[anded his inventory to a whooping six rows. That was the capacity of a double chest. Technoblade should have enough space for everything the nether could offer.

Collecting the regular brown and red mushrooms, Technoblade looked around for the crimson fungus. He had enough warped fungus and even made a warped fungus on a stick in case he spotted any naturally spawning striders with saddles on them for a hitch ride across the lava lake. The crimson fungus was scarce in a warped forest, but Technoblade knew it would be hiding somewhere. After all, The warped forest biome was huge.

His persistence paid off when he located three crimson fungi on a hill. Rushing over, Technoblade wasn't expecting to be led to something he was looking forward to finding. Those blackstone bricks in the distance sitting above the lava lake made Technoblade wonder if he could bridge over safely. He wasn't wearing any gold armour. However, those brutes would still attack him on sight even if he were.

"Bridge first, think later."

Technoblade took a dive into the lava with cobblestone in his hand and started bridging over with flames hindering his vision. The flames took a while to die out and took way longer to bridge over.

He could hear the hostile grunts from above as piglins patrolled, and Technoblade held his breath. He brought gold with him, but more gold would never hurt.

Apart from looting the chest, the fun about raiding a bastion was stealing the hidden gold blocks from the piglins and taunting them about it before trading with them while keeping them prisoners. Unlike the overworld monsters, these pig monsters did not despawn in the nether. Technoblade had time to formulate his strategy while mining upwards from the side of the bastion walls.

The piglins remained oblivious to Technoblade's invasion, and the master of strategies preferred to keep it that way. From below, he inspected the enemy's forces and wondered how he could separate the useful piglins from the harmful ones. There were four brutes from what he could see. Two were down below on the platform guarding the mound of gold blocks in the centre of the ruins surrounded by lava. Two were patrolling the upper levels, and there was a stairway connecting the two levels.

He was severely outnumbered. There was only one of him and many of them. While he was unafraid of fighting one against many, Technoblade preferred to do this without taking much damage. He could eat a golden apple before the fight, but he had to end the fight swiftly. Firstly, he had to find a way to isolate the two brutes and pick a good spot to make the prison.

The piglins had simple minds. If he could lure the regular piglins with gold ingots into a hole, they would be trapped away from the main fight with the brutes. However, the bastion was a very dangerous place. The ruins were unpredictable, and he could accidentally fall into the lava beneath with a misstep. Those brutes wielding golden axes also had powerful knockback effects. His shield was almost useless against their choice of weapon. Fighting two piglins at once was unwise.

Digging around the structure, Technoblade decided to block off the staircase connecting the two levels. He could deal with the piglins trapped on the upper floor later. The gold below could wait.

"Come on," he teased the piglins who had their backs to him with a gold ingot. He tossed a few in a line on the floor and waited for them to scurry towards it.

With grubby trotters, they grabbed the gold ingots and inspected them for quality. Technoblade dug out a pit of two by two blocks using this precious distraction and threw even more gold ingots inside. The greedy pig monsters grunted and jumped into the pit without consideration, lured by the promise of gold, and Technoblade grinned.

So far, he had obsidian, some leather, and useless junk in general, but he did not lose hope. Passing the warped forest biome and not seeing a single enderman meant his only hope was to get ender pearls from piglins trades. The chances were slim, but he wasn't doing a speedrun world record. It didn't matter how long the trading process took. Technoblade was only concerned about running out of gold.

The trading process was considerably slow, with six working piglins in the hole. Technoblade could hear the sound of angry piglins from the upper floor complaining about not being invited to the party. However, he was still concerned about the brutes.

"Sorry, you can hold onto these gold ingots while I invite more friends to the party," he told the piglins, who ignored him.

Staircasing his way to the other side of the bastion, Technoblade nocked an arrow and took aim at one of the two brutes.

Twang!

The arrow made contact, and the smell of first blood awakened the lazy bastion. All piglins became on high alert about the intruder, but there wasn't anything they could do, even if they were antagonised. Technoblade sniped steadily until the two brutes from the upper floor were dead. Then, he sprinted back to where his holding cell was and tossed more gold ingots into the pit. He could collect the items later. It was time to lure the new piglins into his trap.

Grunt! Grunt!

Piglins fell from the ceiling and into the hole as they tried to get to Technoblade. The strategist admired his handiwork and showered his new captives with gold ingots, laughing as they quickly forgot their earlier anger.

"That's right," he cackled. "Give me ender pearls, and I shall let you live!"

The piglins worked tirelessly, and Technoblade went around the pit collecting his rent. Most of those items were useless, so he went around looting bastion treasure chests and refilled them with the crude he received from piglins.

The first ender pearls Technobalde received almost made him cry tears of relief. Although he only had two ender pearls after trading for so long, it gave him hope that he could eventually have twelve pearls. Having more pearls was better than having fewer pearls because he had no idea how many ender eyes would break as he located the end portal.

A safe number was twelve, but Technoblade feared that even a stack would not be enough because, unlike the regular Minecraft, Aftercraft did not provide him with F3 coordinate functions to locate the stronghold. He could only estimate it based on the ender eye's change in direction when he reached.

Technoblade refused to return to the nether no matter what. Thankfully, the inventory allowed him to stack similar items almost infinitely. He would trade every piece of gold he had on him and could mine from that gold vault beneath to milk all the ender pearls he could from these fools.

Ping!

[Congratulations on completing the [Big Spender] quest! All piglins will become passive towards you regardless of gold armour.]

The timely notification shocked Technoblade. Was this for real? It sounded so sus.

Staircasing down, Technoblade observed the brutes guarding the gold and frowned. They patrolled casually as if he wasn't a threat lurking in the vicinity. Still unconvinced, Technoblade decided to test them by shooting an arrow at the nearer brute.

The armed warrior screamed in pain at the attack and looked around for the enemy, raising its axe in the air but could not find any traces of its attacker. As soon as the rage subsided, it went back to patrolling lazily.

Impressed by the power of gold, Technoblade confidently bridged across the lava lake and built a small wall around the treasury. No robber would rob a bank without taking extra precautions, even if they knew the guards were dumb. Technoblade wasn't taking any chances with these monsters. Who knew if they would suddenly have a change of heart?

Fortunately, the heist pulled through smoothly and Technoblade uncrafted the gold blocks into ingots. The piglins were almost out of gold ingots in the trading pit, and Technoblade collected crud. On the bright side, he had fourteen ender pearls. That was enough to help him locate the stronghold, activate the end portal and have a few spares in regular Minecraft.

Yet, why stop here? He collected almost half a stack of gold blocks from the treasury alone and had many more ingots from mining out a huge chunk of the nether waste biome for ancient debris. Why stop at fourteen when the nether roof was the limit?

Fuelled by greed, Technoblade dumped gold ingots and watched his workers scramble for the new ingots. However, a question lurked at the back of his mind as he watched the piglins throw items at him. Technoblade ignored how he felt like a girl in the strip club receiving gifts from strangers. Instead, he sieved through the good items from useless ones.

Where were the books? Surely he should have a soul walker book or iron boots enchanted with them by now. He spent more than five stacks of gold ingots. Yet there was nothing.

Tossing stack after stack of gold ingots, Technoblade's hopes fizzled steadily. He had more pearls but not a single enchanted boot or book. The potions were useless, and although it was nice to have more saddles stacked in his inventory, Technoblade preferred to trade them in for a single soul walker book. It would be very useful when travelling in the soul sand valley.

Ping!

[Congratulations on completing the [Midas Touch] quest! You have unlocked a new Piglin ability: Gold Shop.]

Reelin back the stack of gold ingots he was about to toss into the trading pit, Tecnoblade backpedalled a few steps to read the new notification.

Gold shop? For some reason, he liked the sound of it.

It took Technoblade three embarrassing minutes to learn how to activate the gold shop. It could not be located in his shop tab using the system. However, the moment he exited the system and held up his gold, the piglin presented him with an interaction option that Technobalde immediately accepted.

Accepting the piglin's offer to trade was the secret to opening the gold shop. Honestly, it did not matter which piglin he accepted the offer from. Technoblade gasped gleefully when he saw the new items in the gold shop. Everything else was not as interesting as the two books they sold.

Sure, Technoblade spent a few gold ingots on dragon-slaying enchanted arrows. It was probably going to be useful in the upcoming boss fight. He also bought arrows with freezing elements that would be useful against blazes and possibly wither skeletons. They did not sell anything useful against the wither boss, but it was alright. He didn't intend to fight the wither boss fairly.

The music disk everyone sought after, dubbed Pigstep, could be bought from the gold shop. Technoblade wondered if it was worth it. He had spare diamonds to craft a jukebox, and with no other forms of entertainment in Aftercraft, maybe he could afford to buy one even though it cost ten gold ingots. That had to be a rip-off, but Technoblade was rich.

The books right at the bottom of the gold shop surprised Technoblade. Initially, he thought they were different Soul Walk levels, but upon closer inspection, both books were at the maximum level they could possibly be.

Technoblade bought Soul Walker for a stack of gold ingots and considered if he should buy the other enchantment book.

"I know Jesus could walk on water. Do I want to be pig-man Jesus and walk on lava? I will be putting striders out of jobs."

After a not-so-careful consideration, Technoblade bought the second book and spent the remaining gold ingots buying ender pearls. It was cheaper to trade five gold ingots for an ender pearl than tossing stacks of gold at random piglins and hoping to get one. Technoblade bought a modest hundred pearls just in case and decided to keep the rest of the gold for himself.

Now that he had the enchantments he wanted, Technoblade decided to return home first to add the enchantments to his boots before looking for a fortress. After all, he hated the idea of sneaking at a snail's pace in a soul sand valley.