By the second day, all the basic resources had been collected, and the development team members were busy constructing various resource-farming machines, but the palace at the initial spawn point still looked unchanged from the first day.
Today was when the true work would begin.
At this moment, everyone was developing without a moment's rest. Alto's hands flew across the menus as he switched blocks so fast they became a blur.
"Give me the coral!"
"The direction of this observer is wrong, pay attention and check it!"
A massive world eater was taking shape before them. As the final block slotted into place, Alto checked it thoroughly from every angle.
Ensuring there were no issues, he pulled the activation lever directly.
In the sky above, rows of TNT blocks poured down like a waterfall and cleared out a massive area of terrain in enormous chunks.
Like a brush sweeping across a canvas, the TNT cleared the path ahead while the water removal systems operated simultaneously. Soon, this massive perimeter was excavated all the way down to the bedrock layer.
The crystal's location was naturally avoided during the process.
With the perimeter cleared, farming became incredibly efficient and various cross-dimensional mob grinders took shape across the base.
A boat-based gunpowder farm provided a continuous supply of explosive materials, and a slime factory produced nearly endless slime blocks. To top it off, the Cross-dimensional mob grinders provided a wide variety of resources from both worlds.
A spectacular sight appeared at the portal gateway in the Nether. Monsters began pouring out of the exit like a waterfall and died instantly upon landing. The dropped resources were collected by hoppers and transported to automatic sorting systems.
Then Alto traveled to the End portal and gave the End dimension a complete makeover.
Utilizing the principle that the obsidian platform refreshes whenever an entity enters The End, he trapped a wither skeleton to break the obsidian and built an obsidian farm.
Heading to the Nether, they deployed twenty tunnel boring machines controlled by ten development team members to mine ancient debris.
Later, feeling the output wasn't enough, he directly built a world eater in the Nether.
Also, a piglin farm produced a steady stream of gold nuggets to craft golden apples and golden carrots, and the excess gold was sent directly to a piglin bartering station to exchange for ender pearls, potions, fire charges, and other supplies.
An endermite farm provided large quantities of shulker boxes for storage.
Just like that, the survival adventure mode was forcibly transformed by Alto into a creative mode with effectively infinite resources.
With nearly unlimited resources at their disposal, the formal construction of the fortress began.
The core crystal was naturally encased in obsidian to make it impenetrable, all for the sake of giving the lovely players a proper challenge.
He also used rails to transport large numbers of guardians and elder guardians from an ocean monument to the base.
The mining fatigue effect from the elder guardians, paired with obsidian, could slow down a player's mining speed by about thirty-seven times. Good luck trying to dig through that quickly!
On the outermost perimeter, they used bridge-building machines to set up the initial framework.
Then they directly applied the principle of lava turning into stone upon contact with water by pouring down lava falls, followed closely by water streams.
In a short while, a spectacular wall reaching toward the sky was successfully constructed, and after that, various traps and several defensive lines were planned and implemented one by one.
The players in the real world had grown increasingly impatient over the past few days.
On the first day, looking at the distant plains revealed absolutely nothing there.
By the end of the second day, a giant wall spanned the entire horizon and blocked all vision of what lay behind it.
The players who were still watching were instantly dumbfounded.
["What the hell? What is that thing?"]
["Everything was empty yesterday! Where did this wall come from today?"]
["No way, they built such a massive wall in just one day? Isn't this blatant cheating?"]
["How did they do it with only thirty people?"]
["I know! They must have enslaved the villagers to build the wall for them!"]
["Right, that has to be it, but how exactly did they accomplish it?"]
["The main problem is we can't see the situation inside at all!"]
The players fell into a heated discussion, but over the next few days, they couldn't see anything except for that imposing wall.
The seventh day ended.
All defensive facilities for the entire fortress were completed.
Alto even had time to build some landmark structures for aesthetic purposes.
Finally, he destroyed all the external mechanized devices to prevent players from salvaging them for resources.
The Nether received special attention. It would definitely give the players a nasty surprise.
[System Notification: The seven-day development period has ended. The finals have officially begun! Ten thousand participating players will enter simultaneously. Countdown: 10, 9, 8... 3, 2, 1. Teleportation starting!]
White light swept across the plains as ten thousand figures materialized in an instant. Everyone arrived in their purest initial state without any equipment.
As soon as the players landed, they started chattering excitedly.
"Brothers, charge forward!"
Then, looking up at that giant wall reaching toward the sky and stretching for miles in both directions, a wave of shocked exclamations exploded across the plains.
"Holy crap! Lava? They actually turned the entire wall into a wall of fire!"
The originally confident atmosphere instantly deflated.
"How the hell are we supposed to get through that?"
However, some rational players began analyzing the situation.
"Blocks in Minecraft are much easier to destroy than real walls. It just looks intimidating. We can use dirt blocks to plug up the lava flow."
"Right! Why didn't I think of that?"
"Stop complaining and hurry up to punch trees and mine stone. Let's make basic tools first!"
The players immediately scattered and ran toward the surrounding forests and hills to begin their race against time for initial development.
Atop the giant wall, the figures of the development team appeared.
They were all clad in purple armor with enchantments glowing around them, holding enchanted swords and powerful bows, with elytra equipped on their backs and totems of undying ready in their inventories.
Alto watched the sea of players below with considerable interest.
The sounds of tree-punching in the woods and the dull thuds of digging dirt by hand on the hills intertwined into a chaotic symphony.
Soon, the originally lush forest was harvested clean, exposing the bare ground beneath.
"Team up, team up! Let's divide the work and develop together!"
"Who's going to lead the charge with me? We'll take them down in one swift attack!"
Some players teamed up to divide the labor of gathering wood and mining.
Others ignored everyone else and developed rapidly on their own. The entire scene looked absolutely chaotic.
Within a short while, the first batch of wooden tools was successfully crafted. The players then swarmed toward natural caves and began frantically digging for stone and iron ore.
Simple equipment began appearing in large quantities.
Meanwhile, the player group had already split into two distinct factions with clashing philosophies.
Nearly half of the players, driven by an eagerness for quick victory, had just crafted stone swords from two stones and a stick and couldn't wait any longer to rally together.
They gripped their crude stone swords tightly.
Without even taking time to craft a single piece of armor, they began a massive charge toward the giant wall.
Shouts and footsteps shook the plains beneath them.
"Charge! While the development team is unprepared, let's breach the wall directly!"
"Armed and ready! Thirty people can't stop us at all! We'll overwhelm them with sheer numbers! Charge!"
The group surged toward that towering barrier like a tide, their hearts full of confidence that they would be the first to breach the defenses.
Hey guys, sorry for the late post. It's pollen season currently in Germany, and my eyes are really swollen from time to time, which makes it hard to read and write. But the season will soon be over, and I will, in general, start writing more once I'm done with Terraria, because I have a shit ton of ideas I wanna write about in this story, which I'm having a hard time implementing, due to my limited knowledge about Terraria. Thanks for still reading, you guys are great^^