But peace didn't mean he could let his guard down.
Reaching out, Li Ke decided to test the logic of this world. He threw a tentative punch at the massive tree standing before him. The impact sent a sharp jolt of pain through his knuckles, but to his surprise, a series of pixelated cracks—those unmistakable Minecraft breaking textures—rippled across the bark.
Intrigued, he drew his sword and slashed at the trunk. The blade bit deep, and with a surreal pop, a miniature wooden block dropped to the ground.
But that wasn't the strangest part.
Despite having a massive chunk carved out of its base, the tree didn't topple. It remained there, defying gravity, suspended in mid-air as if the laws of physics had simply ceased to exist.
When Li Ke reached out to grab the dropped block, his hand passed right through it as if he were clutching at thin air.
"…This is beyond ridiculous. It's definitely MC," he muttered, giving a slow nod. "The fact that I can't even touch the items… that must be the 'rejection' I'm feeling."
Despite the friction between himself and the world's physics—preventing him from enjoying the classic Minecraft experience—Li Ke couldn't help but feel satisfied. The air was crisp, and the vibrant, rolling greenery was a welcome balm for his soul.
The only real issue was his aesthetic. Standing in the middle of this world, he felt like a graphical glitch. Every single thing around him looked like it had been pulled directly from the game he knew: Minecraft, or simply MC. A world built on the core pillars of survival and creative construction.
In this land, everything was essentially a giant LEGO set. You could take any material the world provided and piece together whatever your heart desired.
The problem? Even back when he played the game, Li Ke had never been much of a farmer or a completionist. He'd built a few dirt shacks, maybe a library or two, but he'd never even seen the credits roll.
Still, one fact remained burned into his memory:
This world was anything but safe.
At night, this world didn't just crawl with skeletons, zombies, and spiders. There was also a specific monster—one that snuck up on you only to detonate in your face: the Creeper.
And that was just the beginning. This realm was teeming with all sorts of hostile entities.
But there was something even more important to consider—something often overlooked in the game's core loop.
This world possessed an actual civilization.
Whether it was the reclusive Witches or the constantly besieged Villagers, their presence proved that other humanoid lifeforms and social structures existed here. The sprawling Dungeons and abandoned Mineshafts scattered underground were silent testaments to that history.
In the game, you barely noticed. As the player, you were essentially a god, and the world was your playground. But in a living, breathing reality?
"I just hope I didn't get dropped into My Three-Body," Li Ke muttered, pressing his hands together in a mock prayer.
My Three-Body was a masterpiece—a fan-made animation of the Three-Body Problem created entirely within Minecraft. It was arguably better than any high-budget CG adaptation, and it was the very thing that had introduced Li Ke to the Dark Forest theory in the first place.
But if he really had been dropped into that kind of world...
Li Ke could already feel the shadow of those god-tier civilizations loitering in his future. By the end of that story, those entities were literally rebooting the entire universe; they were indistinguishable from gods.
After finishing that frantic prayer, Li Ke immediately started another one.
"Please, just don't let this be a heavily modded world. Or rather, a 'Modded Minecraft' nightmare."
He hadn't played in years, but he still knew just how absurd Minecraft mods could get. There were metals that could drive you insane just by touching them, plants that multiplied exponentially until they choked out the planet, Time Machines, and even World-Ender Bombs.
Because Minecraft's freedom was so high—and its base code was simple and open-source—it led to one undeniable truth:
The modding scene for this game was even more unhinged than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which by now had basically devolved into a collection of NSFW/Adult mods.
Li Ke wasn't sure which god he was supposed to be praying to, or if he even had a signal out here, but he finished his little prayer anyway. Gripping his sword in one hand and his machine gun in the other, he scrambled to find some cover.
He managed to find a spot tucked against a cliffside where no big predators could sneak up on him—and hopefully, no annoying skeleton archers were camping on the ledges above. Once he was sure he had a clear view of the area, he ducked under a rocky overhang and pulled up his System.
His head was still spinning from that crazy shockwave. He vaguely remembered something tearing into him—a pain so intense it felt like he was being ripped apart.
"If I remember right," he muttered, opening his inventory and grabbing some snacks, "I clicked 'Confirm' on something called World Power right before I blacked out."
He chewed slowly, trying to piece together what had happened. It was pretty obvious now: even after getting everyone else out, he'd been a second too slow. Or maybe 'slow' wasn't the word—the point was, he'd been knocked way off course. Instead of landing in the Dungeon & Fighter world like he'd planned, he'd been spat out into this Minecraft-looking place.
"So," he whispered, staring at his screen, "what's the catch? What actually changed?"
Li Ke pulled up his status window, desperate for some answers.
Name: Li Ke
Level: 1
Skills:
Endless Planeswalker (LV3)Fragmented Primordial Power (LV1)Flame Keeper (LV1)Summon Merchant (LV1)World Power User (LV1)
Energy: None
World Power: None
Current World Records:
7 Days to Die (Destroyed)Minecraft (Temporary Residency)Food Wars! Shokugeki no SomaDungeon & Fighter
Li Ke stared in disbelief. He knew his energy points had been wiped, but his gut told him the real answers were hidden in his upgraded skills. He immediately tapped on the one that had clearly evolved.
[Endless Planeswalker — LV3]
You have become a veteran traveler capable of traversing multiple realms. You can now temporarily reside in and observe worlds without consuming Energy Points or World Power, though you are still unable to wander the Sea of Worlds indefinitely.
Temporary Residency Mode: You can physically interact with the world's matter, but you cannot replenish supplies here or fully utilize the local world's Laws of Reality. Warning: If you cross the line—such as using your own rules to drastically distort the local world—you will be annihilated or forcibly Expelled.Observer Mode: You cannot physically affect the world, but you may communicate with local beings (with their consent) and transfer energy or materials. Note: The World Will tax 90% of all energy transfers and charge a premium shipping fee. Any materials transferred that aren't returned by someone imbued with your power will become a permanent part of that world.
Keep it up, Planeswalker! The road to true freedom is just beginning!
Looking at the interface, Li Ke realized his level-up was likely a "reward" for all that bonding with the girls, but the System didn't give him a single hint on how to hit the next milestone.
"Something feels off about this," he muttered.
Still, priority one was figuring out his new reality. He glanced at his Primordial Power, saw zero changes, and moved straight to the new entries.
[Flame Keeper — LV1]
The Savior of Fallen Realms. You possess the power to use World Fragments to restore a destroyed world to its former glory.
A shattered world has chosen you as its vessel. It seeks to piggyback off your strength to rebuild itself. To succeed, you must track down its scattered fragments and missing components across the multiverse.
Divine Authority: Should you choose to complete a world using your own World Power, that realm becomes your absolute domain. You will be its God, controlling the birth and death of its universe with a single thought.Eternal Life: By reforging a world from its shards, you will receive a continuous stream of World Power. As long as that world survives, you can never truly die.
Current Recorded World:
7 Days to Die (Cost to instant-restore: 9,999 Gai-Thousand-Mahasahasra World Power).
"Okay, I know what a 'Gai' is... that's ten quadrillion. And if I remember right, a 'Kei' is ten trillion?" Li Ke stared at the screen, his brain starting to hurt. "But what the hell is a 'Thousand Mahasahasra'? That's definitely a Buddhist numeral, right? Are we seriously using ancient Indian math for these costs now?"
He nodded slowly, then promptly looked away from the screen.
Obviously, "Instant Restoration" was a pipe dream. As for hunting down scattered World Fragments?
"Yeah, right," Li Ke scoffed, closing the Flame Keeper tab with a dismissive swipe. "Those shards were blasted into the literal void. Trying to collect them now is a fool's errand—I might as well be looking for a needle in a galactic haystack."
He leaned back against the cool, blocky stone of the cliffside, let out a long sigh, and shifted his focus downward. If the big-picture stuff was out of reach, he at least needed something to help him survive the night in this voxel wasteland.
"Let's see if these last two skills are actually worth the trouble."