Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Its screen had not changed for more than half an hour.

This was Super Tomato’s live broadcast room.

He started the game by building a completely enclosed wooden house, lit it with torches, and sat down cross-legged.

Then he skillfully opened the panel, jumped to an external link, and found a TV series to start the “Chasing Drama Mode.”

From the start of the stream till now, others had gone through exploration, combat, death, reincarnation… Various scenarios had taken place several times in their live broadcast rooms, while he remained motionless at his starting point, watching the show.

He seemed to have no intention of leaving the house at all.

Viewers asked him in confusion what he was doing.

Super Tomato calmly replied, “I’m participating in the [Survival Challenge].”

The viewers were even more puzzled:

“You’ve been watching the show all the time! You haven’t stopped!”

“You don’t explore, fight monsters, or upgrade your equipment?”

“Others have built four-story luxury apartments, and you’re still in this matchbox. Is this how you join the competition?”

“Just roll up and get out of here!”

…

Super Tomato looked up and asked the viewers with confusion, “The goal of the [Survival] Challenge is to see who can live the longest, right?”

“Since survival time is what we’re competing for, why should I venture out when it’s so dangerous outside?”

His question left the viewers in the live broadcast room at a loss for words.

It sounded reasonable. Based on what they saw, it was indeed safe inside the house all the time.

Even if monsters were banging on the walls at night, it was just a disturbance in sound.

More importantly, with his strategy of never stepping out of the house, Super Tomato had survived from the start of the game till now, easily becoming one of the longest surviving players…

In other words: he had done nothing, yet he was leading in the game!

Even far ahead!

“Just stay home and don’t go out, all the way till the end of time.”

“My friends, this is the correct way to play the game!”

After concluding, Super Tomato lowered his head and continued to focus on watching the show, leaving the viewers in the live broadcast room doubting life.

—In fact, he only sounded so confident for the live streaming effect; he didn’t actually believe it deep down.

Because he thought that such an obvious loophole, which he noticed the moment he saw the rules, couldn’t possibly be ignored by Lincoln.

So there must be some mechanism later on that would force him out of the house.

However, despite all that, Super Tomato decided to do it this way, considering it as testing the game’s mechanism.

And it also served as a bonus to get more live streaming time, so why not?

*

Yi, on the other side, was moved to tears when he saw the minecart track.

Who knows what kind of mental journey he had experienced on his way down!

It’s true that his body wasn’t tired — there was no such feeling as “fatigue” in the virtual world unless it was specifically programmed.

But digging alone in the narrow cave, with hard rocks and monotonous tasks all the time, the mental pressure keeps piling up.

He kept going solely out of sheer unwillingness to give up.

Now that he saw the minecart tracks, his hardship was finally paying off!

He walked up and touched the tracks, and the system automatically prompted—

[Do you want to ride the minecart?]

[Yes/No]

Yi chose [Yes], and a small minecart appeared on the tracks instantly

He sat in the minecart, pushed the lever, and the minecart sped up in the narrow tunnel immediately!

It was only when Yi noticed a faint glint above his head that he quickly pulled down the lever.

The minecart abruptly slammed on the brakes, its wheels screeching against the rails, sparks flying everywhere. Yi felt like he was almost thrown out of the minecart by the enormous inertia!

Fortunately, the system kept his butt firmly glued to the minecart.

Only when he chose to leave the minecart did it disappear, allowing him to set foot on the ground again.

With wooden platforms set up, Yi could finally start to enjoy mining happily.

As luck would have it, this was a tungsten deposit, even higher in grade than iron!

Just a thin wooden board touched the wall lightly, and it was securely fixed in mid-air, making Yi feel that the wooden platform would collapse at any moment.

Although in “My World,” he had seen many such gravity-defying rules, in this new environment with new materials, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat uneasy.

Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened, and he successfully mined the tungsten ore.

He didn’t ride the minecart but instead followed along the tracks and found iron and tin ores nearby.

Without a doubt, he hammered away until it was completely mined out.

Then he continued to ride the minecart deeper, getting off to mine whenever he saw ore.

Halfway through, Yi felt that the copper pickaxe was too slow for mining, so he crafted a workstation, furnace, and processing ores into iron ingots, tin ingots, tungsten ingots, and platinum ingots on the spot.

After spending quite a few materials, he made an anvil and crafted a tungsten pickaxe and tungsten axe.

As for the precious platinum ore, he habitually turned it into a weapon—a platinum broadsword!

The remaining iron and tin were, of course, processed into armor, and he even made a tin bow for ranged attack.

With upgraded tools, Yi felt refreshed; all his hard work was worth it!

After changing his tools, the mining efficiency improved significantly! Feeling more than twice as fast, Yi became more and more excited.

So much so that when the minecart reached the end of the track, he still hadn’t had enough.

So he decisively rode the minecart and began moving in the opposite direction.

—He had first encountered the minecart track in the middle, and hadn’t been to the other side yet!

The minecart sped through the underground, and Yi felt exhilarated by this Fast and Furious experience! He couldn’t help but exclaim in English-

“I am the King of Miners!”

“Call me the Mumbling Master of Mining~~~”

The last string of sounds was not Yi suddenly learning fish language, but the minecart unexpectedly rushing underwater, his heroic speech interrupted and gulping a bellyful of water.

A row of bubbles appeared in front of him, indicating the remaining underwater breath holding time.

Feeling the minecart’s undiminished speed, Yi didn’t hesitate to continue charging forward.

One second, two seconds, three seconds…

Yi started feeling uneasy.

Four seconds, five seconds, six seconds…

Yi’s eyelids twitched.

Seven seconds, eight seconds, nine seconds…

Yi’s face was filled with panic!

‘No way?!’ Yi was desperate.

But it was too late to turn back now!

In a crisis, he didn’t hesitate to jump off the minecart and perform a desperate maneuver—placing the anvil in the dark, opening the crafting list, finding the empty bucket, and successfully crafting it with the last two iron ingots!

—Thankfully, the system panel didn’t require light to see.

The oxygen bar was nearly depleted, with drowning imminent, but a victorious smile appeared on Yi’s face—

All he had to do was scoop the water in front of him with the empty bucket.

‘This is the “My World” Empty Bucket Scoop Water Breathing Technique!’

The next moment, he had an out-of-body experience with a victorious smile on his face.

A line of text slowly emerged—

[Did you think you were a fish?]

[Character has died]

…

Yi resurrected again, entered the game world, and looked at his empty inventory, seemingly back to the starting point, as if he couldn’t breathe from the pain.

He angrily threw away the worthless copper sword in his hand and started to complain—

“Cloud Dream! You owe me my platinum broadsword! And my tungsten pickaxe, tungsten axe, and iron armor!”

“My poor platinum broadsword! I haven’t even used it yet ahhh!”

“Why!”

“Why would the mine be flooded with water!”

“Why is the empty bucket scoop water breathing technique ineffective!”

“Why is my life so miserable!”

“Why!”

“For what reason is this happening ahhh!”