Globetrotter

Waking up feeling revitalised to take on a new day, Technoblade closed the mining shaft to the deep caverns permanently. There should not be a need to return to this place now.

The nether star in his inventory spoke volumes about how much progress he had made thus far. From waking up without armour, Technoblade was now truly invincible against all overworld monsters. He had the best weapons and armour that no regular monster could hope to defeat but the same could not be said about the ender dragon.

According to the detailed guidebook, Technoblade must raise an army to bring along with him for the dragon conquest. His secretary worked hard to ensure Orphania worked seamlessly, and Technoblade decided to take this beautiful day to commemorate his brilliance.

"Of all the things I don't have, it had to be obsidian."

Sighing, Technoblade made a quick trip to the burning forest and mined four pieces of obsidian. He let the crafting workshop craft his beacon as he returned just in time for dinner with the new babies.

"Hello," he greeted the teacher in the nursery. The babies were learning well, and thanks to his only couple's private education, these children were becoming more capable.

Checking the villagers in training, Technoblade counted that there were enough around to start expanding his productions to something more complex. With enough basic resources, it was time that Technoblade upgraded to the iron age. That's right. He needed a lot of blacksmiths to make the gears and tools he needed for that private army. At the same time, he needed more secretaries to oversee these people.

Sleeping the night off, Technoblade resumed work in the morning and chose the most intelligent graduate of the lot to become his next secretary. Due to the exceptionally high intellect stat above twenty, this new secretary was able to manage more villagers, and Technoblade quickly reserved this person to be his army commander. He chose another person to be in charge of his domestic operations, and the new scribe took on the secretary role without complaints.

"Train five miners," Technoblade assigned the iron pickaxe tools to five villagers with high strength and stamina. "I need a blacksmith, a toolsmith, a weaponsmith and an armourer on top of one mineral miner. This team will be in charge of producing enough for the rest of the villagers who need jobs."

The junior secretary got to work at once, ushering the fresh graduates to their job site. Technoblade studied his quest tree. In addition to the iron age, there was a husbandry section of the quest that he could complete for bonus leadership points.

The number of leadership points he could gain would indicate the number of people he could bring to the end. Presently, he could only bring one NPC to fight with him. Honestly, that wasn't enough. Technoblade thought about it. He needed at least three NPCs to help him win the final fight.

After reading through the village occupations and abilities, Technoblade shortlisted a few useful villagers that would make a good raid party. A priest was basically Aftercraft's version of a healer. The magician was akin to a free positive effect dispenser. The effects would be random, but Technoblade liked having that sort of upper hand against a dragon. The archer was the last NPC he thought would be nice to tag along with his raid party. To be more specific, he needed dragon bait. The archer was a good distraction so that Technoblade could work on decimating his enemy. He doubted that villagers could aim well. The skeleton archers sucked at shooting, so Technoblade did not count on archers to take down the end crystals.

Ping!

With the beacon finally ready, Technoblade decided to make a basic beacon in his mountain base. However, upon collecting his trophy, the system sent him a new message.

[Congratulations on completing the [Bat Signal] quest. You have unlocked a new skill [Overworld Biome Tracker]. Please refer to the updated quest book to learn how to activate your new skill.]

Oh.

OH!

This was it! Initially, Technoblade thought he had to place the beacon down and activate it to complete the quest. He did not have enough blocks to make a full beacon activation and hoped nine iron blocks would suffice. However, now that he had what he needed for a long overworld exploration trip, Technoblade decided to put off making the beacon pyramid for a while. He parked it beside a furnace and made plans to leave on his business trip.

According to the guidebook, Technoblade needed to unlock this overpowered travelling trader to purchase items he could use in the dragon fight. It could sell him things like enchanted apples and totems of death protection. Those were more useful than the entourage he could bring along. Yet, the more important reason for wanting this trader was its ability to introduce an emerald economy.

Technoblade could only get resources by collecting them manually or producing them on a farm he constructed. He could use villagers as free labourers to collect them on his behalf if it was within his rather limited territory. However, that was rather time-consuming, especially if the resources he needed required travelling or waiting time.

The travelling merchant was akin to a creative mode shopkeeper that could sell him things beyond his biome using emeralds as a currency. There was nothing in the guidebook stating the merchant's prices. Still, if Technoblade could turn in villager products to the travelling merchant in exchange for emeralds that he could later use to buy the things he wanted, it was a huge problem resolved.

However, there was no such thing as a free lunch in the world. It was as if the system admin wanted Technoblade to understand the travelling merchant's pain and follow in his footsteps before giving him the powerful trader. Technoblade had to travel to ALL overworld biomes that his new skill could locate. Thankfully, the system combined his [Nether Biome Tracker] and [Overworld Biome Tracker] skills to extrapolate a new skill called the [Globetrotter]. This new skill worked like a map and allowed Technoblade to mark his treks.

Marking his mountain range as home, Technoblade looked at the greyed-out areas. These were undiscovered zones, and the map expanded indefinitely. If he toggled the tabs, he could view the parts of the nether he had already explored previously. Looking at the map, he realised how far that bastion was compared to the fortress. At the same time, his beach resort and woodland cabin could be found on the overworld map, even if they were tiny. It wasn't very far from his base, although they were in the opposite direction from the swamp.

"What do I need for the long trip?" he asked. Honestly, Technoblade did not travel frequently. Usually, he would pack clothing and essentials like toiletries or even entertainment. However, travelling in Aftercraft was different. He had to wear armour, carry a bed, and bring some tools to tough it out in the wild because he had no access to whatever his villagers were doing and pack enough food to not starve.

Thirst was a thing that made Technoblade slightly concerned. Of the long list of biomes he had to visit, the desert was one of them. The game allowed him to drink seawater without getting dehydrated. However, Technoblade would be in trouble without enough things to drink in such a barren landscape.

Or would he?

"Let's test it," he grabbed two buckets and filled them. For some reason, water buckets can stack in his inventory, much like milk buckets. Technoblade did not question it. Sure, he could drink directly from the bucket like a glass bottle. However, the water will eventually become empty after drinking from it.

Digging a hole in the ground, Technoblade filled it with water and dug two more holes next to it to make a tiny trough. Then, he filled the other end of the dirt trough with water and watched as the water in the centre slowly levelled itself, turning into a water source that Technoblade could use to refill his buckets and take a dip in the small artificial pond.

Grinning, Technoblade scoffed. If he was allowed to make infinite water and drink from it, this game was as good as easy mode for him. All he had to do was bring enough food and hunt any animals he came across to extend his food supplies. He did not intend to return to his base before he found all the overworld biomes, and the list was rather long.

There were ten biomes, and while some of the biomes were easy to locate, others were trickier to navigate. For instance, Technoblade needed boats to find the Ice Ocean, Tropical Ocean and Salt Ocean. He had already found the beach biome and the Warm Ocean, so those were two biomes off his list.

===

…

Undiscovered biomes: 10

Flower forest

Mushroom meadows

Tropical jungle

Desert

Savannah

Snowy mountain

Ice Ocean

Wasteland

Tropical Ocean

Salt Ocean

===

Staring at the list, Technoblade sighed. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. He should probably leave before the sun sets.