"Far from the castle, Harry was thriving, exploring the block world and acquiring new resources that would make him stronger."
The twilight of dusk filtered through the cracks of the factory roof as Harry drifted to sleep. The world outside was gray and quiet, the kind of stillness that came before a storm. As Harry was falling into Morpheus's embrace. His thoughts were already drifting toward the world that had changed everything — the block world.
With sleep taking over, he felt the same pull as before. The faint hum of unseen energy brushed past him, and a familiar seen unfolded before his eyes: hearts, hunger, and the hotbar waiting below. The pixelated blocks around him and as he opened his inventory it showed what he remembered a iron sword and pickaxe, a few cobblestone and wood blocks, and some seeds gained from punching grass along the way.
Closing the inventory he surveyed his surrounding, The cave walls around him glowed faintly from the entrance, and beyond them, the blocky world stretched wide, a empty clearing besides some trees every now and then expanded from the cave entrance.
He quickly remembered his motive for coming back and started towards the entrance of the cave, each step landing with the familiar thud of shoes against rough stone. As he passed the entrance the sound of stone quickly was replaced by the crunching of grass.
After exiting the cave imbedded in a hill, he decided to get to the vantage point of the top. Quickly scaling to the top of the hill, Harry stopped.
From this height, the world unfolded before him: a vast oak forest to the front, its green canopy stretching endlessly; to the left, a towering mountain range, pale gray streaked with white; and to the far right, glimmers of blue water — a lake, maybe an ocean. Too far to tell.
Harry breathed deeply. He believed that Here, everything had rules though they had to be discovered they were atleast clear. No lies, no surprises. If he wanted to thrive, he only had to learn how to play by them.
As he was in thought he felt a bit weak and quickly checked his hot bar, the 7 empty icons in his hunger bar stood out prominently. He realized he would need to get some food fast, he did not want to find out what happened at 0 hunger.
He moved toward the forest. Even though he had to dumb himself down due to the Dursleys, that did not stop him from listening to the lectures. He remembered that forests typically had animals within them.
As he moved the sounds of his shoes pressing through grass mixed with the rustle of pixel leaves above echoed in his ears. Then, movement — flashes of white between the trees and he saw it. Sheep.
He slowly approached, sword ready.
The first sheep turned, head tilting — and Harry charged, the blade flashing.
The sheep lit up red and started to run, but before it could Harry slashed again finally ending it.
The animal vanished in a puff of white smoke with 3 raw mutton and a white wool block dropping, and Harry blinked, surprised. And muttered quietly "So animals here did not leave a body?"
He quickly recomposed and rushed the other sheep that did not seem to care one of their own had been slain.
As he was slaying the other sheep he noticed a new animals that had appeared in the area brown and white, a cow he believed quickly cutting down the two sheep with 4 raw mutton and 1 white wool combining in his hot bar with the others he moved towards the cow and as he ran at it he jumped and slashed down, trying to replicate a image he saw in a comic one time a surprise happened.
Small particles appeared around the cow and it died with the single hit. Turing into smoke and dropping 3 raw beef and a leather
Harry was surprised he had needed two hits before to kill a animal but this time it was only one, after a moment of thought he realized that his jump had caused his attack to deal more damage to the cow, a ability of the world perhaps or a gift granted to him he did not know.
Deciding to test his theory at a later time he placed his furnace and started cooking the meat with the few planks he had left. The fire inside flickered softly, light reflecting off his sword as he waited. Once he had gotten in his opinion a acquit supply of food, 7 cooked mutton and 3 steak.
Quickly eating 3 mutton restoring his hunger from 1 to a full 10, with his hunger restored, he went back into the furnace to recollect his wood, but when he checked the furnace again, the wood inside had burned to ash.
He sighed slightly. "Okey. More wood."
The forest loomed all around him. Drawing his axe, Harry began chopping.
The rhythmic sound echoed between the trees — thunk, thunk, thunk — each block breaking cleanly into floating logs. Each log entering his hot bar, when he finally ended his resource collection due to his axe breaking.
The light began to turn orange, Harry's inventory showed a neat total: 3 stacks of logsand 58 in another slot after his axe broke after mining 250 logs along with the logs in his inventory he also had almost a stack of sticks and saplings from the decaying leave.
He glanced toward the horizon — the square sun sinking low — and began to head back. By the time he reached the cave, the last light had vanished. The world dropped into darkness with unnatural suddenness.
Inside, the air was cooler, still.
Once inside he opened the crafting table beside the furnace, He crafted a few stone pickaxes, after making his 4 pickaxes he decided to adventure deeper into the cave now that the night had fallen outside, he turned toward a darker section of the cave wall. A faint shimmer of black dots caught his eye.
Quickly walking over He swung his stone pickaxe and a oddly shaped black item appeared in his inventory with the name coal and a new recipe unlocked.
[New Recipe Unlocked: Torch]
The message pulsed briefly before fading. Harry smiled faintly. "Progress."
Mining the rest of the coal he obtained 9 coal. Opening the menu, he crafted his first batch of torches 36 in total.
He placed the first near the entrance, then another deeper inside. Each torch lit the cave in soft amber, pushing the darkness away in widening rings.
He followed the tunnel downward, each step echoing quietly. The sound of dripping water came from deeper inside. As he walked he mined the ores he found along the way gaining 7 coal and 12 raw iron.
The deeper he went, the more the air changed — colder, heavier. He turned to place another torch.
Clack.
Harry froze. The sound wasn't stone breaking or gravel shifting. It was sharper, irregular.
Clack Clack Clack
He swap from the pickaxe to his iron sword, moving a single step forward. The torchlight flickered over rough walls and deeper shadows.
Another sound — closer this time. The scrape of something against stone. As he shifted toward the sound with his sword in hand,
he saw a what looked like the back of a skull poking out from the top of a stone block.