Witch Hunt

Observing the witches made Technoblade realise something. If a witch spotted him at a certain distance, they would drink a speed potion and hurry towards him in a straight path. They had zero consideration of anything else in their tunnel vision state, and Technoblade wondered if he could use that to his advantage. Thankfully, he was still faster than them on steroids with his maxed-out speed.

His goal was to gather a hundred witches in a pit for prime entertainment and watch them battle it out. The winner would then fight against him, and Technoblade would prove his superiority again to the world.

It was a perfect strategy.

But first, he needed to find a good location to dig – the pit.

Running back and forth to mark out the deep caves, Technoblade realised that witches were not the only monsters that spawned. The regular zombies, skeletons, cave spiders and vampire bats were here, but they were fewer. Witches terrorised most of the swamp biome.

If Aftercraft had monster spawning mechanics, Technoblade never figured it out. Instead, he learned to provoke witches and lure those regular monsters into killing the witches for him. Zombies were probably the most powerful monsters as they dealt the most damage when in a witch's immediate range. However, it took several zombies to kill one witch. Skeletons had a higher survival chance in a fight against witches, but the fight took forever. Losing patience, Technoblade eventually interfered.

Witches were not immune to the effects of poison, and they did not have milk to get rid of the effects. So much so for being a master of buffs and debuffs when cow piss can cure it all. Knowing that poison was effective against his mortal enemy made things very interesting.

As Technoblade dug around the perimeters of the cave and blocked off certain cave sections, he found the ideal location for the pit. It was a distance from where he started mining down from Carl's temporary stable. However, it opened up nicely into a huge stoney ravine. The terrain was treacherous, with witches spawning in the maze-like caves leading to it.

This had to be the heart of the cave. Technoblade could not find a better spot. He mined the diamonds and rare ores when he could and used the tons of netherrack in his inventory to make the ravine a little shallower. The ravine ledges were expanded adequately so that he would not fall off them instantly. However, Technoblade deliberately left some gaps between the ledges and placed trapdoors to fool the witches into thinking they were solid blocks.

When a witch gave chase, Technoblade would sprint across to the other side of the ravine using his broken bridge. The witches, on a chase, would follow his path and assume that trap doors were solid blocks and safe to cross. They should fall into the pit below. It wasn't a huge pit, about ten by ten blocks wide and two blocks deep. If every witch that fell in stood on a space without walking around, a hundred witches should be able to stand shoulder to shoulder.

The preparations were complete, and all Technoblade had to do was find some witches to lure them into his trap. The witch hunt was closer to a game of tag. When Technoblade spotted a coven of witches, he would get up there and swing his fist at the closest witch so that she would scream and gather the other witches' attention.

Witches had terrible eyesight, and Technoblade learned that the hard way. The first time he tried to lure the coven, he failed and ended up killing the witch. It was easier than he thought it would be, but the moment he snuck up on the next and failed to kill her in one strike, her scream alerted the group. They started hurling different potions at him, and Technoblade almost did not make it out alive.

The lesson learned from that encounter was how witches turned into bitches really fast if he failed to kill them in one strike. The critical attack chance did not come very often, so Technoblade would rather play safe than sorry.

"See you, suckers!"

As planned, the screaming magic users fell into the pit, and Technoblade stuck a tongue at them. That was six more to the pit. From the top, it was starting to look like a yuck fest. The greenish skin and black robes moving haphazardly in a pit built out of netherrack reminded Technoblade of mould.

The pit was starting to get crowded after a few more trips. Technoblade lost count of the exact number, but he estimated that there were about sixty witches in his pit. It wasn't enough for a proper witch hunt. The quest tree wanted him to eliminate a hundred witches, and it should count as long as he had the final kill.

There was a secret to Technobldae's pit. From the side of the ravine, he made a secret stairway that would allow him to sneak to the side of the pit and swing his sword at their feet. Technoblade considered taking some numbers out but reined in his temptation. Although he would not succeed at reaching a hundred witch kills the first time, watching them kill each other would be most satisfying.

In short, Technoblade was so bored that he was going to create his own entertainment in Aftercraft. It was a little gory for the faint-hearted, but the Romans did it often in the Colosseum. Gladiators would fight to the death for people's enjoyment, and nobody questioned it.

"My very own witch hunt hunger games edition," he admired the angry witches in the pit. If they spoke English, he would hear many colourful curses.

Repeating his evil game of tag, Technoblade gathered the other thirty witches he needed and finally, it was time to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

"Dear witches, I thank you for taking the time to be gathered here today for a once-in-a-lifetime event. Congratulations! You're the special few, or many, who have been selected to participate in the very first witch hunt! Aren't you excited?"

If witches could boo, Technoblade would have been jeered off his broken bridge stage from above. He was way out of potion range and could afford a small chuckle at their plight.

Unfortunately for them, Technoblade was the one in absolute control.

"Only one may be chosen as the winner. You have only one job, and it is to kill me. However, not all of you are worthy of being my opponent. Slay your sisters to prove that you are the strongest witch, and I will grant you the right to contest for my head. Good luck, may the system admin be forever in your favour."

The last part sounded weird but Technoblade thought he made a good speech. To start the event with a bang, he shot an arrow at a random witch and got the party rolling.

Potions flew, curses spewed, and magic spells hit friend and foe alike as every witch scrambled to survive the pit of chaos. Technoblade didn't bother lifting a finger as he enjoyed the party above with a satisfied expression.

That's right, kill the one that is the weakest! What did they think that speed potion was going to do? Unless witches had brooms or found a way to make a levitating potion without the help of shulkers, she wouldn't reach him.

Technoblade tried to spot any monster drops as another witch bit the dust. When a monster killed another monster with Technoblade in the vicinity, there was a small chance for the dead monster to drop an item. The witches were down to half their initial population, and Technoblade noted with delight the free glass bottles he could collect once it was over.

The witches were divided into several camps. The first group of witches only ever drank health potions. Technoblade classified them as scaredy cats. The next group of witches had terrible aiming and were probably broken from all the trauma. They were helpless against the vicious witches who cast magic attacks on everyone else.

It did not take long for the second group of traumatised witches to be eliminated from the grand witch hunt. Technoblade watched as the two groups battled it out. The passive witches continued sipping on health potions like unbothered regulars in a club. On the other hand, he spotted signs of exhaustion in the gang of mean witches as they cast fewer spells over time.

"I might have to jump in and do the honours myself," Technoblade mused. He had been watching them kill each other for over an hour. It is getting boring now.

Shooting a few arrows at different witches to test the water, Technoblade realised that killing the witches who tossed magic attacks worked. However, the scaredy cat witches remained as lively as they were before, sipping on health potions like the next boba tea.

Running down the secret stairs, Technoblade observed the feet from the side of the elevated pit. His sword couldn't reach all the witches, but it could take out the few closer to the edge. It was exactly what Technoblade did. It was not long before there were only four witches remaining.

"You know what? The God of War can fight four to one. Let's do this."

Opening the trapdoor that led to the pit, Technoblade wielded his sword and charged at one witch, beheading her instantly. The three startled witches froze, and Technoblade wasted no time.

Dodging the splash potions of poison and slow spell attacks was a piece of cake for Technoblade. He had nothing to fear when decapitating his enemies. Although witches were strong, they were not immortals. Drinking a potion took time, casting a spell took time and throwing a potion also took time.

They stood no chance if he reduced their health within two seconds.

Technoblade added four more witches to his kill count in less than a minute. The massacre earlier did not contribute to his body count as they did not die at his hands. However, the pit was not dug in vain. If anything, it was a good investment because it was easier to trap witches in an enclosed area for close-range combat.

Magicians had always been weak at direct combat and rangers as they were slow in nature and just physically unfit. If not for their superior intellect, magicians would be no different from ordinary peasants. Technoblade highly believed in a balanced education. Simply training his brains would not always guarantee him a complete victory. He trained his skills to the best of his ability as Technoblade, and the only thing that failed him in his previous life as Alex was his health.

Thankfully, he was appropriately compensated in Aftercraft.

"Let it be known that the God of War's legacy begins now! Every witch that I see will be killed without mercy."

From the hunted, Technoblade bared his fangs and became the hunter. It was a pity he did not have a rocket launcher, or he could have taken out multiple witches at once. Most people underestimated the power of crossbows but not Technoblade.

Between retreating to the bottom of Carl's stable for sleep and hunting witches, Technoblade spent the rest of the time exploring the huge deep cavern and mining precious resources. At this rate, he might have more diamonds than he knew what to do with them.

Ping!

After getting showered with poison when he failed to dodge the potion for probably the tenth time, Technoblade received a new notification.

[Congratulations! You've unlocked a passive skill [Poison Resistance]. You can check the new skill in your character tab for more information.]

What? That was a thing? For some reason, Aftercraft resembled an RPG game more than a sandbox survival game. Was this still the right genre? The quests started looking closer to a storyline. Was this really alright? Did that mean he could obtain the wither resistance skill by employing a similar technique? It would be most useful when fighting the wither boss.

Oh, yes. He had to fight the wither boss to unlock that quest tree leading him to the end. The system admin probably knew that Technoblade would bypass all the unnecessary things and speedrun this dimension if he could. He hated mundane things, and the system admins deliberately added some secret requirements to delay his Aftercraft record for beating the end boss.

Technoblade did not mind. He was learning to enjoy this. Fortunately, he did not need to visit a sea temple to fight the guardian boss. Swimming wasn't his forte. It would be a pity that he might not be able to visit the end cities for an elytra after defeating the ender dragon, so the next best thing Technoblade could do was jump off a cliff and watch the sunset with his new [Weightless] skill.

"There you are," he smirked. With poison immunity, he had to test the effectiveness of the skill.

The witches cackled and threw poison potions at Technoblade, but it did not eat away at his health. If anything, the potion effects were less effective with his resistance and lasted only a few seconds. Needless to say, he recovered quickly and defeated them with relative ease.

Immunity and resistance were different. It was the first thing Technoblade noticed. In fact, the skill [Fire Resistant] and [Poison Resistance] worked differently. He was completely unaffected by fire, but poison still weakened him even if the effects were drastically reduced. Who knew that the system admin would be so particular in English? As an English major, he approved.

Technoblade also tested his new resistance skill with cave spiders between killing witches and mining. Their bites still hurt as much as they did before, but their poison did less damage. It was a wonderful skill to gain, but Technoblade wondered if there would be any use for it in the future. Unless he was trying to eat a pufferfish, he doubted he would need this resistance against the final boss fight.

Ping!

[Congratulations! You have completed the quest [Hocus Pocus]. You have received two villager soul orbs in your inventory. A new quest tree is available.]

Yes! Finally, some intellectual companions!

Excited, Technoblade climbed his way to the surface, ignoring the new witches and monsters. He couldn't wait to return with Carl and check out his new reward. However, he needed to collect a lifetime's supply of sand and clay so that he never had to visit a gloomy swamp ever again.