Project Overworld

As time progressed, Keith's base went through several changes. A few extensions were made, notably in the underground, and some machineries could be found on the outside.

Overall, the base now resembled some sort of a factory and smoke could be found escaping from the roof of the mansion.

The only downside of his base for Keith was its appearance. He did not especially want to waste time developing housing materials and arranging the base in a neat fashion.

Especially more so since he found out that escaping players from the spawn were coming closer to his position every day.

Keith also progressed a lot during the last months and developed quite the number of devices.

He finished to construct a super-calculator, made a few more automatized drills and improved his energy generation. He made a few poles relied by cables to route electricity more easily between his various machines' locations as well.

Just in case, he also created a few automatic turrets which could detect movement and shoot towards its origin.

Up until now, however, he only got to spot a few animal corpses riddled with bullets.

It was a relief for Keith because it meant no other player got close to his base, but he also felt quite ashamed for murdering these poor beasts.

They were not real, only part of the game, but still it was an unsightly scenery to behold.

To lower his guilt a little, Keith used their meat as food.

It proved essential to him because he lacked quite the bit of supply until now, so he warmly welcomed this new source of food.

The calculator was not made for his personal use because he already had his real world computer for the purpose of calculating things.

Instead, it would be used for his various devices. Indeed, there was sometimes the need to instantly process an information, and the super-calculator could them all for each device individually.

Thus, it was currently used for his automation purpose, such as processing the movement detection of his turrets, the rate at which a drill dug depending sturdiness of the rock, etc.

It was also an essential advancement for his future projects. It would be the case for flying machines, because those would need to process lots of information on the environment to stay stable.

That was precisely what he started to work on as of recently, and he was studying hard to make the premise of a rocket.

Making a rocket was not that hard, it only required a base as well as some fuel and you could pretty much fly with just that.

Only, Keith did not need to explore the landscape from above, nor did he have time to waste for this. The purpose of him making a rocket was to reach space, and that would be a whole new level of difficulty.

One had to consider wind, gravity, air resistance, stability of the engines and that of the whole rocket, plus many other variables in order to successfully reach the upper atmosphere and the outer space. And that was not all, the rocket needed enough fuel to take off and to travel back to Earth safely.

For now, Keith did not have sufficient resources, nor did he have sufficient knowledge on the subject.

Not far from here, a lone player was traveling while grumbling.

Recently, Eric joined a small group of players who wanted to develop technologically and without disturbance.

With his new friends, he left the world spawnpoint looking for a peaceful place.

He was now tasked of exploring around the area they wanted to settle on, to find out if this place was not already the territory of a guild or another group of players.

'Why does it was to be me, of all people? While I'm wandering around, I'm pretty sure they are enjoying themselves and crafting some tools...' Eric thought.

After some time, Eric decided to climb up a small hill before calling it a day.

Only, just as he arrived at the top of the hill, several sounds of explosion traversed his right ear and he collapsed on the floor while the usual interface appearing on death showed up before his eyes.

[You are dead]

- Reappear in bed (1 minute remaining)

- Reappear at spawn (5 seconds remaining)

/

'What the frick? What was that?' he thought.

He decided to wait and reappear at the bed he slept before leaving for exploration. Itwas laid near the spot his friends decided to settle onto and he could not wait to warn them about his discoveries.

Just as he opened his eyes, some of his mates noticed he just respawned on the bed and rushed towards him :

- "What happened? Did you get killed by another player?", one of them asked.

- "What killed you?" another one inquired.

To which Eric replied : "I don't really know. I heard several shots being fired and I died instantly..."

The eyes of its comrades opened wide after this declaration.

- "Several shots? You mean that the group of player who attacked you used firearms?"

Eric shook his head and explained : "No, he was probably alone. The shots came from the same direction."

After that, even their jaw could not stay closed.

- "What?!"

- "Wait, does that mean this player used a semi-automatic rifle or something like that?"

- "Seriously?! How is that possible? A player has already created such weapon?!"

All of his friends were astonished and questions busted out of them.

Only, Eric was even more stunned than them and could not give an appropriate answer.

He was not sure of it, but just before falling to the ground he caught a glimpse out of the 'thing' that shot at him.

And if he was correct, it was a lot more troubling than what his friends initially thought of.