Emerald Economy

It took forever to reach back to his base. However, thanks to the number of villagers skyrocketing, Technoblade had difficulty remembering who everyone was, especially when they had the same faces. He gave his secretaries some instructions to manage career progressions, and by the time he returned, he had a bustling economy.

Resources were overflowing. Thanks to his lack of proper space planning for a population boom, Technoblade faced occasional small rebellions that the newly trained guards thankfully took care of. The population's happiness meter was twenty-seven percent.

The first thing Technoblade remembered doing when he got through his door was to stop Adam and Eve from procreating even more future problems. Then, he collapsed cold in one of their beds for the night, too tired to do anything else.

Now, he was back in his mansion listening to the awfully loud bleating of sheep on the rainbow bridge. His breeder was doing a good job feeding them even if his farmers were struggling to cope with feeding everyone, including his animals.

The notification from the system that Technoblade ignored previously turned out to be his quest reward. Like how villagers were introduced to this world, Technoblade received the travelling merchant's orb.

However, he did not want this important villager to mingle with the rest. In case of a riot, this VIV (very important villager) must remain safe and unharmed.

Procrastinating on a mountain of issues his territory needed his attention for, Technoblade casually dug out and decorated a new room for the VIV and spawned him in, unlocking the emerald economy that would save his village.

"Let's see what you have in your shop," he mused and browsed the travelling merchant's trades.

There wasn't anything impressive, and the prices were rather high. However, Technoblade could work with that. Under the sell section, he could sell just about anything his villagers could produce. Thankfully, he had plenty of resources. That would take care of his overflowing resources and his lack of emeralds. It was perfect!

"You!" he commanded a secretary. "Get the unemployed to regularly transport things into this chest storage in my mansion."

The secretary followed Technoblade's new commands and immediately changed the schedules for unemployed villagers. There were more unemployed villagers than Technoblade thought there initially were. Twenty villagers or more were casually walking in and out of his mansion in less than an hour, giving Technoblade no peace to think. The sheep on the bridge were loud, his castle was noisy, and Technoblade gave up trying to focus.

"Can I trade directly with the merchant without carrying resources to him?" Technoblade asked.

He had been trying to find a more effective trading method for the last few hours. The travelling merchant could trade using Technoblade's inventory. However, it would not trade with the items in a chest. If anything, it was unable to interact with any chests. That complicated things and Technoblade had no way to have all the items come directly into his inventory. As a result, the number of chests increased so quickly that his storage had to be expanded.

It was merely shifting one existing problem to a different place, and Technoblade hated the clutter that was starting to build up in his base.

Glaring at the uncooperative merchant, Technoblade decided to try something new. The unemployed villagers could transport goods and interact with chests. The secretary could assign villagers jobs, and Technoblade could engage in trade. There was something yet to be determined about secretaries, and Technoblade checked his villager register. The travelling merchant appeared there so he tried assigning it to a secretary.

Lo and behold, it worked!

"I should have known," the potato lord groaned.

Now that the secretary could do as Technoblade dictated, he placed orders for items to be traded. However, one secretary could only be assigned to trade one type of item with the trader. Technoblade had a myriad of items to be traded in. He also happened to have too many unemployed bums.

"That's it," he looked at the villagers trespassing on his private property with goods. Half of them had to go.

"I'm making a bunch of scribes. The more intelligent half of the lot will become secretaries!"

Actually, having many secretaries wasn't a terrible idea. Technoblade liked the idea of making an office, so he got to work on that immediately after sending the chosen ones to work as scribes.

While waiting for his army of secretaries, Tecnoblade decorated the special office for his trading secretaries. Honestly, they reminded him of day traders portrayed in the financial district movies. The only thing lacking was their pristine Gucci suits and solid briefcases.

While the scribes slowly worked their way into becoming full-fledged secretaries, Technoblade took the next few days making patrols in his territory. There were many issues to look into, and the most glaring problem was the lack of space in his territory. The population boom during his travels was an unforeseen accident. He definitely needed more tailors and farmers. The farm needed expansion, and Technoblade drastically increased the claim of his land area. He needed more land for production. Thankfully, the architect had no issues creating new rows of beds underground.

The animal pens were exploding, so Technoblade had to look into that first. As much as he loved having rainbow sheep on the connecting bridge, it was getting ridiculous with that level of noise pollution. Assigning the miners new duties, Technoblade ordered for a huge space underground to be cleared out. He also did a little gardening to bring grass down to the lower levels while lighting everything up. That was going to be the new house for all the sheep.

Similarly, Technoblade made new pens for every other animal on his territory. At the same time, he expanded the farms underground and spent way too much time building the collection system using redstone. The mineral miner did a great job collecting enough gold, redstone and iron so he could finally progress into an age of basic technology.

Technoblade wasn't a redstone engineer when he played Minecraft, but he knew enough basics for it to be useful on Aftercraft. Most of his time was spent designing the circuit, and Technoblade left the building to his useful servants. After all, those who do not work do not get to eat.

There were a few things in redstone circuitry that mattered. The first was hoppers. Hoppers are the things that helped transfer items even if they used plenty of iron. In fact, they would use even more iron when combined with a minecart. However, all that ferrous investment would pay itself off when Technoblade produced the Aftercraft version of an elevator to transport his goods without lifting a finger. He also liked how electricity in Aftercraft was limitless and did nothing to damage the environment. Removing redstone from the caves did not pollute the air when he used them to power rails for his hopper minecart collection system.

It was a beautiful system without many flaws of reality.

After extending his walls, Technoblade watched how his villagers became better clothed and fed. The number of villagers producing goods far surpassed the villagers guarding the village. More importantly, the happiness index increased to a respectable seventy percent. With this, Technoblade was certain that apart from adult villagers who did not wear brown clothes, everyone else was not at risk of becoming a rebel.

Emerald collection was still a slow process, but the office of secretaries coordinated well. Technoblade took the time to dedicate a job title under every secretary. It was as if this kingdom was slowly turning into a business empire. His secretaries functioned as department managers, and through them, Technoblade found it easier to manage production output targets and balance them with keeping the happiness index healthy.

In no time at all, Technoblade was finally able to purchase the first things he wanted from the travelling merchant. The emerald economy boom happened when the new batch of adult villagers graduated from the academy. Technoblade realised that he was able to rewrite Adam and Eve's happy hours using a scribe. Naturally, when he found out the best method to do population planning, Orphania was ready to run itself smoothly on a system without Technoblade's interference.

The architect expanded population spaces, the tailors and farmers kept people alive, and the teachers ensured only the best talents were ready for the workforce.

Technoblade learned that he could set up a scheduled roster to distribute manpower according to needs with a secretary to manage all other secretaries. The secretary in charge was one rare case of a secretary with over twenty intelligence points. On the rare occasion that such a talent was born, they evolved from a secretary who only knew how to execute pre-written instructions to a programmable AI capable of making decisions according to more complex pattern cycles.

"Orphania requires more tacticians like you," he told the semi-AI secretary he named "Joe" in memory of the present president because he lacked creativity. "The top secret priority is to groom a successor for infinite expansion."

Joe shook his head and retired just as the sun started setting. Even if there were villagers, Technoblade still felt lonely. None of them replied to him or offered any suggestions. They merely did as they were told, like mindless drones. It got boring after a while.

The great emerald boom meant Technoblade managed to buy a few items of priority. He snapped out some unbreaking enchantments and totems of undying as insurance that he promptly applied to his weapons, armour and tools. The totems of undying remained stacked in his inventory at all times. Thankfully, he did not need to hold them in his other hand at all times for the effect to work. The Aftercraft admins were merciful.

Although Technoblade was tempted to buy god apples, he held back. It was more important to buy a potion bag first in preparation for his dragon fight. It could hold unlimited potions. Luckily, someone in his village produced potions daily, although the potions were random. Technoblade wanted to stock up on potions and save storage space. His alchemist was very passionate about his job, and Technoblade had to force the man to take some days off work when he ran out of potion storage chests.

There was also a very expensive shield that gave Technoblade immunity against the dragon's breath. The dragon's breath in Minecraft was harmless because players could avoid it easily. However, the god of blood had no idea if the dragon in Aftercraft was the same. If the merchant sold it, there was no reason not to buy it just in case.

Technoblade would save up to buy that eventually.

At the same time, he needed to get two things from the travelling merchant that was considerably more expensive than the dragon breath shield. They cost emeralds by the blocks!

The first item was obviously the Commander Title that Technoblade needed to buy and bring his entourage to the end with him. That title allowed him to bring five of his best villagers, and Technoblade was still keeping one eye out on the talents he had. He already had a few names in mind, and surprisingly, the archer with over twenty points in dexterity could shoot better than him.

Yes, Technoblade held an unofficial shooting tournament with that villager and lost when that sniper shot creepers from the guard posts with deadly accuracy twenty times in a row without missing. Embarrassingly, Technoblade missed once. That man is a Chad and deserved to join Technoblade in his history-changing battle.

The other thing that Technoblade was forced to buy was the Stronghold Compass. Actually, it wasn't a must. He could also locate the stronghold using the ender eye tossing ritual. However, he wasn't willing to head back to the nether to stock up on ender pearls or blaze rods. This compass might cost ten emerald blocks, but it would be a worthy investment for laziness.

Presently, Technoblade was still broke. He only had twenty-seven emeralds. That only made three blocks of emeralds. His current production would only earn him two to three emeralds a day. It would take him a long while to prepare for the battle with Jean, if that was still the dragon's name in Aftercraft.