After learning that Banner and Hulk couldn't stay awake 24/7 like dolphins, Mario left.
"Well, if they can't run nonstop, they can't. Not everyone can be a machine."
He returned to Sakaar through the waystone and immediately spotted Thanos sitting nearby, watching robots crank kinetic generators.
Mario paused. "Done already?"
Even though Sakaar wasn't heavily populated, it was still an entire planet. Was Thanos really that efficient? Or was he just practiced at this sort of thing?
Seeing Mario's return, Thanos stood and spoke directly. "Not quite. But the Grandmaster has surrendered. The Black Order can handle the rest."
What came next would involve significant bloodshed, but to him, such mundane slaughter held no interest. So he'd returned to observe Mario's operation instead.
"They're currently escorting the Grandmaster and gathering the planet's residents, selecting those willing to submit."
He glanced at the Mind Stone scepter in Mario's hand, but his expression showed no reaction. He'd already lost interest in the Infinity Stones, after all, nothing was more fulfilling than personally reshaping the universe through hard work and balance.
"There's one more thing. I need large quantities of soil and tools."
Mario stored the scepter in his inventory and looked Thanos up and down. "I knew delegating this to you was the right call. Follow me."
He walked to the waystone and transported them to his storage facility on Endstar. The warehouse contained massive quantities of supplies, including dirt blocks.
He opened a storage chest and began searching through the contents. Suddenly, a flash of green caught his attention.
Shit, I completely forgot about you.
Before, he'd been carrying the egg around everywhere, attracting strange looks, so he'd stuffed it into his inventory. At some point during cleanup, it had ended up in this chest.
If Thanos hadn't needed dirt, forcing him to come rummage through storage, he might never have remembered it.
"Perfect timing. Since I'm developing Industrial Craft now anyway, I can finally hatch this guy."
But with Thanos standing right there, he didn't put it on his head yet.
He handed over the remaining thousand-plus dirt blocks to Thanos.
"That's all the processed soil I've got. If you need more, you'll have to send people to gather it themselves."
Thanos looked puzzled, but Mario didn't explain. Instead, he gestured for him to follow. "Come here. I'll grant you access and show you something interesting."
He teleported with Thanos directly to the Overworld. Even the normally unflappable Thanos was visibly stunned by the bizarre landscape.
"Another dimension? That explains why your dirt blocks are cubic."
He looked around curiously, even staring up at the square sun. After wandering the cosmos for years, he'd never seen a sun shaped like a perfect cube.
"If you want dirt, just send your people here to collect it. But make sure they don't turn this place into a disaster zone."
Mario pulled out his shovel and struck a grass block. It instantly converted to a dirt block and dropped to the ground.
He handed the shovel to Thanos. "Try it."
Thanos nodded and swung the tool at the endless grassland. Just like before, a dirt block materialized on the ground.
He picked it up, then mentally commanded it to place. The soil in his hand vanished, and a dirt block appeared exactly where he'd intended.
A faint smile crossed his face. "I'll need large quantities of tools. Sakaar has many people. I'm sure they'll enjoy excavation work."
"Tools are easy. But this world isn't as peaceful as it looks. When night falls, monsters appear. Also, I need you to send people mining underground. Let me show you."
Mario led Thanos into the tunnel system he'd excavated previously, explaining basic information about the dimension as they descended.
He couldn't tell if it was his imagination, but Thanos seemed to be getting more excited.
Since he didn't need diamonds, he didn't take Thanos to the deepest layers. Instead, he brought him to shallow depths where tin and copper ores were most concentrated.
Pointing to ore embedded in the wall, he addressed Thanos, "This is tin ore. I'll prepare additional pickaxes. You just need to organize people for mining operations. There are other minerals here too, but they're mostly similar. Just mine everything and bring it back."
Thanos reached out and ran his hand over the tin ore, nodding thoughtfully.
"You're not concerned this world will be depleted?"
His reasoning was simple: all the special soil, seeds, and water Mario had provided clearly came from this dimension. Over-mining could exhaust resources and seriously impact operations.
Hearing this concern, Mario puffed out his chest confidently. "Dig however you want. If you can actually hollow out this world, I'll be impressed."
On this point, he had absolute confidence. Since it wasn't a computational simulation with processing limits, there were no boundary problems. The world was effectively infinite.
Clack-clack-clack...
The sound of bones scraping echoed through the tunnel. Thanos heard it too and turned toward the source. A skeletal figure nearly two meters tall was wandering from a natural cave into the mining passage.
Looking at the skeleton archer, he pointed. "That's one of the monsters you mentioned?"
"Correct. But this is just the weakest type, Skeleton Archer. Very low health. Want to test yourself?"
"Very well."
Thanos agreed. Since he'd eventually face these creatures in this world, he might as well assess the threat while Mario was present.
Not knowing the monster's true capabilities, Thanos recalled Mario's bizarre abilities and his expression became serious.
With explosive force, his entire body became a purple blur, appearing instantly before the skeleton archer like he'd chugged a Speed X potion.
He raised his hand to strike the skeleton's skull, but the archer reacted quickly, drawing its bow and firing.
Thwip!
The arrow buried itself dead center in Thanos' forehead with perfect accuracy. His body flashed red, and he involuntarily stepped backward. But he didn't give the skeleton a chance for a second shot. He stepped forward and crushed its skull.
The skeleton archer's health bar vanished instantly.
Clatter.
The entire skeleton collapsed to the ground in a pile of bones.
He stared at the remains with confusion.
That's it?
Mario had been watching the entire exchange. Seeing the arrow sticking out of Thanos' forehead, he felt the urge to laugh but managed to suppress it.
Finally, someone else knows what it's like.
---
Mario placed the damaged pickaxe into the Tinkers' Construct tool station and repaired it, then inserted a large obsidian plate to increase its durability level.
Lifting his head to look at the long line of people waiting, he showed a bitter smile.
How did a good life suddenly start feeling like going to work?
Some things, once they had quotas or targets attached, became frustrating even if you'd initially enjoyed them.
But the one thing that excited him was never running out of ores again, and never lacking cobblestone either.
"Form a proper line!" he shouted irritably. The Sakaar residents under his management immediately stood rigid and attentive.
There were no troublemakers among them, probably because the Black Order had already "pruned" all the thorns.
After another hour of busy work, the crowd finally dispersed.
He wiped sweat that wasn't on his forehead and pulled an ice-cold cola from his inventory, chugging half the bottle.
"Ah... refreshing. From now on, things won't be this hectic. More than half their pickaxes now have Unbreaking IV, and some diligent workers have stopped breaking them altogether."
Mario slumped onto a nearby sofa, thinking back to when nobody had durability enchantments and people came nonstop with broken pickaxes. He couldn't help but shiver.
They can't use crafting stations, which is a problem... Whatever. If they can't use them, they can't. Probably won't have this many tool repairs again anyway.
He lay back in the chair, enjoying the sunlight. The warmth on his body made him drowsy.
Materials should be sufficient now. Time to craft the Quantum Armor set.
He reached out and pulled a block of TNT from his inventory, handing it to the creeper servant standing beside him. After two days of wearing the "green hat" on his head, the creeper had finally hatched.
The small creeper was only half the size of a normal one, looking cute and petite. A ring of crackling electricity surrounded its body. When it hatched, he instantly regretted not doing it sooner. If he'd known it would be this adorable, he would've hatched it immediately, even with people staring.
"Come on, eat up. Let's get your HP maxed out."
A newly spawned creeper servant could only explode once. Feeding it gunpowder or TNT increased its health and explosion power. After being fed TNT once, it could explode indefinitely without dying.
Just like a tamed wolf, it could follow commands or sit. But he found the little creeper even smarter, able to understand many of his words.
After eating the TNT from his hand, the creeper showed a distinctly human-like expression, squinting its eyes in pure enjoyment.
"In-game, you could feed it continuously until max HP. In reality, it needs digestion time. But its limit seems higher, already at 42 HP and still rising."
He patted the creeper's head. It shook like a puppy and nuzzled his palm. The creeper was a mutated high-voltage variant. Electricity crackled around its body, but since he was its owner, he wouldn't be harmed.
Taking the creeper with him, he headed to the UU-Matter fabricators. He'd already automated the setup using hoppers. As long as the power-generating robots kept running, UU-Matter would pour out continuously.
"Shame there are no fluid pipes. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to arrange everything so messily. Anyway, time to craft Quantum Armor, and a Nano Saber."
He looked at chests full of UU-Matter. The quantity was more than sufficient, especially with scrap materials keeping production running at maximum speed.
After rapid-fire crafting, he produced piles of components, circuits, advanced circuits, and more circuits.
"The circuit consumption is insane. Good thing I've got a whole workforce now."
---
After about ten minutes, Mario successfully crafted a complete Quantum Armor set.
Excited, he quickly equipped it. A powerful sense of security enveloped him. Now, as long as he had power, he was essentially physically invincible.
"But iridium ore consumption is still too high. If only I had Industrial Upgrade mods available."
He swung the Nano Saber, which resembled a katana, and slashed at a vibranium plate positioned deliberately nearby.
Without activation, the vibranium wasn't even scratched.
He activated the blade. The Nano Saber showed no outward change, but he felt faint vibration from the weapon.
He swung at the vibranium plate again. The material that normally absorbed all impacts suddenly lost effectiveness under the vibrating Nano Saber, emitting harsh screeching sounds.
The saber's energy drained rapidly, but the vibranium plate was cut open under the piercing vibration.
"Nano Saber... shame IndustrialCraft 2 doesn't have a Quantum Sword. That would be broken. And since it's quantum-based, it might even damage Dr. Manhattan's quantum body."
Wearing his Quantum Armor, he flew straight into the sky. His flight speed was exponentially faster than in-game.
Games prioritized playability, they couldn't let players fly so fast the screen became unreadable.
He circled in the air several times before landing. Then he used extra materials to craft another Nano Saber and a pair of Quantum Leggings.
"I'll give these to Ivan for research. It should inspire him. If he can make Quantum Spaceships later, as long as we don't run into cosmic-level freaks, we can dominate the universe."
He found Ivan, who was currently commanding robots to clear rubble and debris, and handed him the equipment.
Ivan examined the white trousers and blade. Their simple appearances fooled him. "Are these items special?"
"Ivan, they're incredible, especially relevant to your chainsaw project. Study them and see if you can reproduce the technology. You can also consult Tony. More brains means better results."
As Mario spoke, he drew the Nano Saber and sliced through a discarded safe nearby.
CLANG.
The sound snapped Ivan back to reality. His eyes burned as he stared at the gear. "Don't worry."