"I'm done!" Ian clapped his hands, looking at the residential buildings that had just sprung up, feeling a sense of accomplishment.
These residential buildings were ones he'd just picked up from the Zombie World—nobody seemed to want them anyway.
As for the process? Simple and crude—he'd spot a building he liked, dig out its foundation, lift it up with the power of the gale, and shove it straight into the Transmutation Tablet. Once re-summoned, the structure would automatically inherit Minecraft physics—no longer bound by Newton's laws.
"Now the new recruits won't have to squeeze into those matchboxes anymore," Ian muttered to himself.
He thought of the three-story "luxury villa" he'd built before, which Chloe and Anna had mocked mercilessly, and he couldn't help feeling a bit bitter.
Still, with these apartment buildings, they should finally be satisfied, right?
Once he finished setting up the "residential district," Ian turned to another matter—the End Portal.
'Since I ran into a Village before, there must be an End, right?' Ian retrieved materials from the Transmutation Tablet and began crafting Eyes of Ender. This item was the key to the End.
Whoosh—!
After crafting it, Ian tossed the Eye of Ender into the air. It traced an arc before flying off in a single direction.
"Heh, looks like it really exists!" Ian grinned and took off after it.
Sure enough, after a short while, he found the End Portal floating in mid-air.
One by one, he placed the Eyes of Ender into the sockets, activating the portal. Then, without hesitation, he leapt in.
"Huh? This is... the End?"
Ian looked around the desolate void. Only a few lonely obsidian pillars stood tall in the distance. His jaw dropped.
"This looks nothing like what I imagined! Where's the Ender Dragon? The End City? Why is there nothing here at all?"
Just then, he noticed a lone dragon crouched lazily atop one of the pillars.
It had its head drooped low, eyes half-shut, exuding pure lethargy.
Ian approached carefully, but the dragon didn't react. It merely lifted its eyelids in a lazy glance.
"You... are you the Ender Dragon?" Ian asked cautiously.
"Yeah, who else would I be?" The Ender dragon's voice sounded weak and bored. "What are you here for? To kill me?"
"Uh..." Ian rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "Well, I just wanted to look around..."
"Look around? What's there to look at?" the dragon interrupted. "If you're gonna kill me, do it quick. My shift's almost over!"
"Shift?" Ian blinked in confusion.
"Obviously! You think I want to be stuck in this desolate place?" the dragon rolled its eyes. "If I hadn't been forcefully dragged into this destroyed world, I'd be home watching my kids right now!"
"Kids? You have kids?" Ian was speechless.
"Of course! I'm a proud father of ninety-nine!" the Ender Dragon said, its tone swelling with rare pride.
"Ninety-nine?! Your wife must be a legend..."
"Ahem!" The dragon coughed loudly, cutting him off. "Anyway, you are killing me or what? I'm off the clock soon!"
"Wait, wait!" Ian waved his hands frantically. "Let me ask you a few questions first!"
"Go ahead. Not like I've got anything better to do," the dragon said, slumping back down. (T/N: Never imagined that would be the case xD)
"You said this world is destroyed. What do you mean by that?"
"No idea," the dragon shook its head. "All I know is this world's abandoned. No new life will ever spawn here again."
"But I've created a ton of creatures using the Philosopher's Stone! How's that possible?"
"Then they're probably just like me—forcefully pulled in from other worlds," the dragon replied flatly.
"I see..." Ian nodded, deep in thought.
"By the way," Ian suddenly remembered, "the first creature that ever appeared in my world was Chicken Bro. Why did he show up out of nowhere?"
"Oh, that one probably just had bad luck—fell into this world by accident," said the dragon.
"...Right," Ian sighed.
"Alright, questions over. Get it over with," the dragon said, stretching its long neck forward.
"Uh... okay." Ian reluctantly raised his weapon.
"Wait!" the dragon suddenly called out. "Take this!"
From beneath its wing, it pulled out a glowing purple egg and handed it to him.
"A dragon egg?" Ian asked in surprise.
"That's right. This is my hundredth child," the Ender Dragon said. "This egg can be hatched. It's not just a decoration."
"I can tell you've got potential, so I'm entrusting it to you."
"This..." Ian hesitated.
"Just take it! Don't get all sentimental!" the dragon snapped. "Now hurry up. I'm really out of time!"
"...Alright." Ian accepted the egg, then swung down his weapon in one clean motion.
As the Ender Dragon fell, the entire dimension began collapsing, leaving only the exit portal behind.
Ian, holding the dragon egg tightly, jumped in and returned to the Overworld.
"Now... how do I even hatch this thing?" Ian frowned, staring at the egg.
"Maybe... I could ask Chicken Bro?" he said, his eyes lighting up.
He summoned a Chicken and forced it to sit on the dragon egg.
"Cluck?" the Chicken tilted its head in confusion.
"Please, Chicken Bro! I'm counting on you!"
Returning to the base, Ian gazed at his now sprawling compound and began planning his next move.
"My EMC reserves are stable... but can you ever have too much EMC?" Ian thought aloud. "It's time to build something even more efficient!"
Without wasting a second, he pulled out materials from the Transmutation Tablet and crafted multiple Energy Collectors MK3, along with a Dark Matter Pedestal and the Watch of Flowing Time.
He placed one Collector on the ground for testing and immediately noticed the generated EMC flowing straight into the Tablet. That alone would save him tons of hassle.
Then he began the real build—laying out dozens of Energy Collectors MK3 in a precise array, setting the Dark Matter Pedestal, and mounting the Watch of Flowing Time atop it.
Hum—
A faint vibration rippled through the air as the Collectors activated. The surrounding air seemed to bend inward—though that might've just been Ian's imagination.
Watching the EMC numbers skyrocket on his Transmutation Tablet, Ian couldn't help but grin.
"This is way faster than my rail machine! I'll never have to worry about EMC again! From now on, I'll make two of everything—one to use, one to show off!"
With the EMC issue solved, Ian's mind wandered again.
"If the Energy Collector MK3 works this well in the Overworld... what about in other worlds?" he wondered. "Maybe I should test it in the Zombie World."
Once the idea struck, there was no stopping him. Ian immediately opened the portal and jumped through.
He found a remote spot and dug straight down—filling the tunnel behind him—until he was hundreds of blocks deep.
"No one should notice anything down here," he thought, setting down the first Collector.
Hum—
The machine hummed to life, but the EMC generation rate remained unchanged.
However, after a bit of tinkering, Ian noticed something interesting—the Interdimensional Energy in the Zombie World was regenerating faster than before.
"Perfect! Even better than I hoped!" Ian's excitement spiked as he pulled out more Collectors. But just as he was about to place the fifth one, the Ultimate Transmutation Tablet flashed a message:
[Ding... The current world's Energy Collector limit has been reached. Exceeding the limit will trigger world rejection.]
"Huh? There's a limit? Damn, I thought I could absorb infinite energy just like EMC!"
The Tablet seemed to grumble in his mind:
"Bro, you really think every world breaks the laws of thermodynamics like Minecraft? Most worlds barely have enough energy for themselves! Be grateful they even let you sip a little—suck too much, and you'll get noticed."