Minecraft: Simple as That

CHAPTER 1

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I scratched my head as I stared at the tree before me.

Without context, it may look like I was tripping since it was only a tree. But this tree was different.

It was block-shaped, for one. As in, it was a blocky tree.

Second, it resembled too much of Minecraft's Oak Tree. The simplest tree that you can find in the game. With just a few Oak Logs and a good number of Oak Leaves that decorated around the top few logs, the tree is the most common one out of the many variants in the game.

Now, it might sound weird and stupid... But I reckon that I've transmigrated into a Minecraft world?

To be frank, thank god it wasn't a reincarnation; transmigrating means that I kept my body instead of having to revert back to being a baby. That would be a nightmare, especially at night in this world.

Just to be sure, I double-checked my visible body parts.

I look the same. Not blocky was the first thing that came to mind. And my arm length and shoulder span felt right, and his legs looked the same; that's great news. Nothing had changed between collapsing onto my bed and waking up in a Plains Biome.

I then looked over to the distance.

The grassy ground was blocky...

The trees looked blocky...

Even the clouds in the sky were blocky...

Yep, I'm in Minecraft. There was no doubt in my mind anymore. Hmmm... This was a problem.

Minecraft. The game of the decade, most would probably agree with. Ever since it was released to the public, it was all the craze at the time, especially on YouTube, where YouTubers would cover and play "Let's Plays" of the crafting survival game that spanned over years worth of content.

Playing and watching the game shaped many people's childhoods.

But... I wasn't talking about people who grew up with Minecraft. Sure, I spent my childhood watching the game, but playing it was a different story! By the time I could get my hands on any form of gaming device, I was already 15. At that time, Minecraft slowly faded away due to the repetitive nature of the content and videos around it, so I instead played other games that caught my eye.

By the time I actually played the game, I was in my 20s! And I didn't even get to the Diamond age before quitting because I had better use of said time to play co-op competitive games with buddies!

I didn't even defeat the Ender Dragon, man!

And now you're expecting me to survive in real life in said video game that I had no knowledge of other than the basics? It's so over.

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Alright, after relaxing from my sudden outburst... I found out something crucial.

THE SUN WAS MOVING TOO FAST!

It's been... What? Five minutes, so far? And the sun has already moved from the far left to the center of the sky, in my point of view! If this keeps going, then the sun will set in the next five minutes!

I had to get my shit together.

Jessie, we need to mine!

Walking up to the blocky tree that made me question my life choices, I took a deep breath and prepared for pain as I did what every Minecraft player does the moment they spawn into this world.

I punched the oak tree log.

Surprisingly, no pain at all! And the log that I punched had a small crack at the center, meaning I was making some progress. I quickly tested something, and it turns out I only had to punch the log at 30% power for it to "mine."

A few more swings, and then—

PLOP!

A small, floating block of Oak Log was staring back at me. I curiously reached for the dropped Oak Log. It disappeared as soon as I touched it—And now at the bottom edge of my vision, HUD elements started to appear.

9 identical squares lined up at the bottom of my vision, with 10 icons of Hearts above it on the left, while another 10 icons that represented my Hunger Bar were on the right. The iconic HUD of Minecraft finally showed itself.

And in the first square of the Hotbar, there lay the fallen Oak Log that I mined just now.

This was exactly like the game, huh? So, where was the full Inventory—

Oh, I just had to think about it? That's useful. A pop-up that I could mentally move around appeared as soon as I thought about needing my Inventory menu.

A total of 27 Inventory slots, 9 Hotbar slots, 4 Armor slots, and an Off-hand slot were available to be filled at any given moment.

And just above the 27 Inventory slots was the 2x2 Crafting menu. By mentally dragging the Oak Log to one of the four slots of the Crafting menu, I could convert a single Oak Log into four Oak Planks.

I kept the Oak Log for now, though, as I continued punching the remaining logs off the tree. My OCD demanded for all the logs to be mined before converting them into planks.

It took a few seconds, but I finally took down the last log of the tree, giving me five Oak Logs. Converting them into planks, I am now in the possession of 20 Oak Planks. Neat. I immediately converted four of the planks into the basis of Minecraft itself, the Crafting Table, while crafting eight sticks at the side by using four planks, 2 of each vertically to form 4 Wooden Sticks per 2 planks.

Placing blocks on the ground was simple enough; I just had to toss the small blocks in my Hotbar onto the ground.

Now with the Crafting Table set, the number of things I can craft is endless. Not really, but you get my point; having a 3x3 Crafting menu gives me more options to craft stuff.

First things first, a Pickaxe. Three wooden planks on the top three Crafting slots, and two sticks down the center craft me a Wooden Pickaxe. It was much larger than I thought it was going to be and more comfortable to grip than it looks, considering that the shaft itself had uncomfortable-looking edges that looked to be a nightmare to wield.

Mining the dirt beneath me with a couple of punches, I finally reached the second layer of this world, Stone. Swapping over to the Wooden Pickaxe, I went to town with it, raising the pickaxe before slamming it onto the stone surface, watching as it cracked slowly but surely.

Eventually, I got three pieces of Cobblestone, something that took a bit too long for my taste, but enough to craft up an upgrade to this slow Wooden Pickaxe, a Stone Pickaxe! This baby is faster in mining speed, more durable, and does more damage overall.

Looking up at the sky, I estimate I had another 2-3 minutes of mining before I had to make shelter, so I quickened my pace.

In a minute's time, I had enough Cobblestone to make stone variants of all the tools that I needed. I quickly made them in one go, crafting a Stone Axe, a Stone Shovel, and a Stone Sword.

I then made a Furnace, but that's for the foreseeable future since there was nothing that I could smelt with yet.

Using the newly crafted Stone Axe, I used all of my remaining daylight time to chop down the nearby trees. Doing so netted me a good 30 Oak Logs, which should be enough for now. I also made sure to grab an Oak Sapling by using the Stone Axe to clear off all the Oak Leaves, since you should always replant a tree that you chopped off. Reforestation, and all that.

As the sun started to set, a bit of panic seeped into my actions as I tried to find the original spot where I placed the Furnace earlier. I already cleared a nice space to call it "home" temporarily; I'm not going to waste it!

Reaching the hole in the ground, I hopped right in and sealed it off with a block of Cobblestone... I didn't think it through, as the entire space became pitch black because I cut off the only light source from entering.

Not to self-sabotage, but I screamed like a little bitch as I furiously scrambled to smelt something in the Furnace. Eventually, after calming down a bit, I managed to find the Furnace before interacting with said device by punching it.

Putting an Oak Log at the top while fueling it with an Oak Plank, the world regained light as the Oak Log was being smelted.

Wiping the cold sweat off his forehead, I just relaxed on the cold, hard floor and waited as the Furnace soon finished smelting the Oak Log into a piece of Charcoal. It wasn't worth it, to be honest, but I was a desperate man that needed light.

So let there be light. In my Crafting menu, I moved the Charcoal and a Wooden Stick and crafted them into four Torches!

Boom! We have light, everyone.

Placing one onto the ground, I simply stayed silent, staring at the light source being emitted by the Torch as I let the time pass.