Leaf Me Alone

By the time Technoblade regained consciousness, the sun was already setting. It did not take that long for him to fully recover his energy. More importantly, there was no change in his thirst and hunger meters. He half expected it to become dangerously low at this point, but the system administrators were merciful.

Not taking any chances, Technoblade quickly consumed the Juicy Berries in his inventory until both thirst and hunger bars were maxed out. Then, he gathered a little more of those fruits and looked at the mountain. It was already nightfall, so Technoblade decided to play it safer.

He was going to build a base near these very accessible berry bushes. At the same time, he confirmed that it wasn't as easy to plant these berries as it was in Minecraft. Aftercraft would not allow him to simply place it on the dirt to grow them. The action was not allowed, and he suspected the farming mechanics were slightly different.

The smartest thing was biding his time before daybreak and scouting his surroundings for a good spot to build his temporary base. While he still had to defeat the Ender Dragon to reach the reincarnation portal in Aftercraft, the system administrators did not give him a time limit. He could be here for as long as he wanted. Heck! If he wanted, he could live this out like a series Philza did before a baby zombie ended it.

Running around the mountain base, Technoblade harvested all the berries he could along the way. There were some good spots to set up camp if he wanted to, but nothing tugged at his heartstrings just yet.

After collecting over two hundred juicy berries as he ran around, the Blood God of Minecraft suspected there might be no item stack limit. With this number of berries, he could venture rather far for a few days before his supplies ran out. The power of unlimited storage was too overpowered!

Eventually, Technoblade ran into the perfect spot for his base. If there was a problem with the terrain generation in Aftercraft, Technoblade wasn't going to report it. Bugs were meant to be exploited.

A side of the mountain was bald with stone exposed, unhidden by the dirt blocks. Moreover, he hit the jackpot with a randomly generated pond near the exposed stone. There were also a few berry bushes and a few trees scattered nearby. His temperature gauge was green, so Technoblade decided to claim this spot as home.

Using the remaining dirt blocks in his inventory, the bored Potato Lord marked out the area he wanted to build his shelter. He could replace the blocks later. At the same time, collecting more berries and dirt until the sun rose did not hurt. He had no beds, so fatigue was the only thing out of his control.

The morning eventually arrived, and Technoblade yawned. After making a few runs to familiarise himself with the resources around his temporary base, his stamina was reduced to half. Eating and drinking helped to conserve the energy used, and the fatigue built up more slowly whenever his hunger and thirst bars were maxed. However, having to snack every hour in Aftercraft soon became annoying. He did not recall eating this much when he was alive. The person he had become in this world had a ridiculously high basal metabolism rate. If it wasn't for the default blocky design, his new body must have a truckful of muscles to require so much eating in a day.

"For such a muscular body, I'm surprised I can't actually punch wood without taking some form of damage. Can I really only punch leaves without incurring injury?"

The quest only required ten sticks. Technoblade could see the purplish hue in the sky signifying dawn. If he only collected nine sticks, he could avoid acquiring tools, right? Mobs would not spawn unless he was equipped with tools or armour. It was a loophole in the Aftercraft system that he would gladly exploit.

"To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself, Sun Tzu. You can't make me accountable for maximising a system benefit. I'm very weak right now without netherite armour," he reasoned to nobody in particular.

If the system administrators heard him, they never commented about it. Instead, they simply watched silently as Technoblade punched all the leaves of a nearby spruce tree. Although he had a five-to-six-block arm reach, the spruce tree was still too tall for the average-sized Technoblade to reach entirely. The poor tree looked so naked, with only five leaf blocks at the top of its seven-block-tall trunk.

"They must be conspiring against me!" Technoblade shook his head in dismay after looking at the number of sticks he got from punching all the reachable leaves in the spruce tree. "What are these terrible odds? System administrators, I demand an explanation?"

Again, the system administrators greeted Technoblade with only silence. Of course, they would. Why wouldn't they? They probably laughed at him for thinking he had the perfect plan to outsmart the system by not gathering ten sticks before the sun was up to avoid getting attacked by mobs.

Now that the sun was up, they must be laughing at him for wasting so much time during the night and depleting so much energy running around doing the most unproductive things.

"Eight sticks? Even a dead bush would have given more than that tree!" he moaned. "Can't you do anything about this?"

Again, the system administrators did not reply. Sighing, Technoblade looked at his fatigue building up. It would not be long before he would collapse again. Should he risk it?

"Might as well," he groaned. "I've procrastinated enough. There's no point in wasting another day, is there? I refuse to sleep out in the open on the dirt again. By the end of today, I should be sleeping on at least some kind of floor."

With that resolution, the Potato Lord picked another tree to be his victim. He punched every leaf block with a chant in his mind for stick drops. Sometimes, they dropped sticks. Most times, they did not. Technoblade punched leaf after leaf and ate when he was hungry or thirsty. The fatigue bar rose steadily, and by the time he checked the number of sticks he had in his inventory, Technoblade's confusion increased.

"What do you waaannnttt????!"

Overall, he had gone way past the required number of sticks and pebbles to turn in the quest. Yet, he did not receive the promised stone tool and cobblestone recipe. Was this a scam?

"I'd been scammed," he lamented in despair.

He had a grand total of 12 pebbles and 30 sticks after punching down three spruce trees' worth of leaves. Yet, he wasn't given the reward for his quest. What did he do wrong?

Taking some time to sit down, the PVP God of Minecraft sat down to look at the mails sent by the system admin. Did he miss something?

The sun was high above his head, but Technoblade neither felt the heat nor sweat. If anything, his temperature meter remained a lovely shade of green. Occasionally he would munch a juicy berry, but that was all. The wind blew, and the clouds drifted as noon turned into afternoon.

Finally, Technoblade found it in the quest mail. He read the attached detailed guidebook from the admin's first mail and did not learn what he was meant to do, but he learned a lot of useful trivia that could be applied in future warfare.

"I'm an idiot!" he laughed deprecatingly as he read those two sentences in the quest mail.

"I should have checked this first," Technoblade sighed but looked over to the [Achievements] icon and blinked twice.

A new window full of various icons appeared with descriptions, but Technoblade was only interested in the icon with green background at the very beginning of the complex mind map.

Ping!

[Quest: Sticks and Stones Won't Break My Bones

Requirements: Gather the following items and submit them to the system.

30/10 sticks

12/10 pebbles

Reward: Recipe for basic cobblestone tools

Would you like to turn in this reward?

Note: This reward can only be claimed once.]

Sighing with mental fatigue, Technoblade selected the [Yes] option and waited for the system to update itself.

Ping!

A new mail landed in his inbox, and the Potato Lord checked it immediately.

[Dear Player

Congratulations on completing your first quest! You may check the other quests available in the [Achievements] tab to be completed whenever you are ready.

The reward for [Sticks and Stones Won't Break My Bones] Quest can be found in your [Crafting Book].

Good luck!]

Looking at the orange sky, Technoblade groaned. As his fatigue accumulated, he had to admit this wasn't the new beginning he had hoped for. Before this, all he did was sleep and go to therapy. Now, all he did was collect resources and sleep.

If this continued, he might really turn into a pig.