Awaken!

GASP!

A young man with dirty brown hair and pale gray eyes woke up in the middle of a pond. He wore a coarse brown shirt with dark-green pants as well as a confused look on his face. The young man was Kaleb Blackstar.

Where was he? The young man scrambled to the surface of the pond for air. Kaleb looked around and saw that he was surrounded by forests. The trees, upon closer scrutiny, looked different from what he was used to. They looked…rectangular.

A little distance away, Kaleb saw a vast sea with glimpses of mountainous lands in the far distance. The young man, blessed with sharp eyes, could see that the mountains were not like any mountains he had ever seen. In fact, they looked more like pyramids – composing of blocks on top of blocks.

Kaleb quickly swam to the sandy shore before him and laid on the sand in exhaustion. Wasn’t he at Terreview Plains? How did he get here? No…there was an even more important question. Wasn’t he…dead? He had clearly self-destructed.

Could this be the fabled reincarnation? Can’t be…Kaleb looked at his reflection in the water and noticed that his appearance hadn’t changed. That’s right. This was something else.

He could not dwell on this topic for too long as he noticed the squarish sun hanging high up in the sky. It was already noon. Kaleb needed to search his surroundings and build a shelter before night came. Who knew what kind of creatures prowled within the forests at night?

Kaleb walked up to a nearby tree and prepared to punch it. However, he couldn’t gather much strength. Without his energy core, he could at most use a tenth of his original strength – the strength of two bulls.

Nevertheless, he should at least be able to knock down a few trees before sunset. Kaleb gathered two bulls of strength into his right fist and slammed it onto the tree. With a loud thud, the punched area began to splinter.

Feeling hopeful that he could bring down this tree quickly, the young man continued punching. Several thuds later, the tree began to shake unstably. One more punch should do the trick.

Kaleb smashed his fist into the tree once more and POP…pop? Instead of crashing down like a normal tree should, a mini-version of a block of wood appeared as it floated gently before him. What the fuck is this? How did this happen?

Kaleb looked up and gaped in even more surprise as he observed the tree. Most of the tree was still standing upright as if floating in the air. The young man reached out to touch the tree, hoping it was an illusion and saw the small block gravitate towards him.

PLOP!

The block of wood touched his body and immediately appeared as a medium-sized version in his hand. A display appeared before him, causing him to gasp in surprise.

He tried to swat away the display but his arm went through it. Was he hallucinating? He rubbed his eyes but it was of no use. Kaleb focused on the display and saw an image of him on the top of the display.

He noticed that as he moved his head, the image moved as well. Above the image was his name – Kaleb Blackstar. To the left of the image were four slots with impressions of his head, chest, legs, and feet respectively.

To the right was a square made from four slots followed by a larger square. Above the squares were the words: Basic Crafting. Below the squares, there was a book. He tried opening the book and some information appeared in his mind.

The book contained various information about the world as well as a recipe list for crafting different types of items. There were many items, but they were grayed out as Kaleb did not have the necessary ingredients.

The young man found out that the four slots with the impressions were his armor slots that he could use to equip himself with armor. The four slots under ‘Basic Crafting’ allowed him to do some basic crafting of items. However, to craft more complicated items, he needed a crafting table.

According to the book, the mid-section of the display – consisting of 27 slots – was his inventory which he could store many items in. The nine slots below the inventory were his ‘hotbar’ which were the items he could quickly switch in his hand without opening the inventory.

As more information surged through his mind, he found that he was in a cubic world known as Endsia and the world were one of many worlds in the ‘Minecraft’ universe. After reading some material, Kaleb realized that there wasn’t much sunlight left before night hits.

He quickly closed the display as per the book’s instructions and looked at the block of wood still in his hand. He focused on his hand and tried to switch to one of the empty slots in his hotbar. A few seconds later, the wooden block disappeared.

Surprised, Kaleb tried willing the block to appear again and it did just that a few seconds after. So, the time it took to switch from one slot to the other were a few seconds. Keeping a mental note on the discovery, Kaleb continued breaking the remaining blocks of wood.

Once he acquired all of the blocks, he noticed that the tree’s leaves were still floating in the air. Though slowly breaking apart and falling to the ground, the phenomenon still defied all logic. Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, Kaleb continue to the next tree and started grinding for wood.