by Cube Kid
The Adventures of Burbo the Cow—Volume 115.
Max must go to this spot to read.
I flipped through a few pages, and had to put it down.
Grammar, spelling . . . Burbo the Cow didn't need such things. Nor did he need an actual story. The book was pretty much just him walking around randomly, talking to mobs.
I won't even comment on the artwork.
So, the president of Minecraftia is a huge fan of the cow, eh? Yeah. I highly doubt it. In fact, I don't think Minecraftia even has a president. I think that's the only fake review for that silly book.
What a scam.
I really don't get it.
Max wants to be a librarian, so why is he reading this stuff?
It really makes no sense, you know?
At least now I know where he got 'hejjo' from . . .
Come to think of it, I haven't seen Max much recently. That's the final good news of today!
No, there's even more good news: we have school tomorrow. It's really weird, but I'm actually happy about it. Well, the building test isn't until Friday, I recently found that out, but that's okay.
It gives Stump and I yet more time to work on Project X.
That's what we're calling our house idea.
It makes it sound cool and mysterious, you know?
I mean, let's say you're out getting ice cream with a friend, and there are all these kids around. You could mention your 'school project', and get totally beat up.
Or, you could say something about 'Project X'.
Just slip it into your conversation, real casual:
So, Project X is coming along pretty good.
Yeah, we'll be in the final stages soon.
Just a few more experiments.
Yes. Just a few more.
By the way, the ice cream in our village rocks. I think I'll go get some Friday after the building test.
We've got all the flavors.
Creeper crunch.
Ghast tear swirl.
Magma cream ripple.
My favorite is diamond ore chunk.
THURSDAY
Something super lame happened this morning.
It all started a few weeks ago, when my mom's best friend said she saw a creeper in the village. During the day.
She didn't see much of it, she said. Only its face. It was hiding in some tall grass near a wheat crop.
The past few days, more and more of my mom's friends keep saying they've seen this creeper.
By all accounts, you'll only see it out of the corner of your eye. Or, maybe you'll see it pop up out of some hiding spot. But you'll see only it for a split second, and always just its sad little face.
Then poof—it's gone.
Supposed sighting of the 'village creeper'.
Pretty hard to believe, honestly.
Last week, when I told Steve about it, he said it reminded him of UFOs or bigfoot sightings. Whatever those are.
He said, it could be the result of people's imaginations.
After all, why would a creeper sneak around a village? It makes no sense.
I had to agree.
Sadly, my mom's not as skeptical.
So, after I woke up this morning, she handed me a leash . . . and pointed at Fluffles.
Yeah.
Fluffles is our cat. I had to bring him with me to school today.
As you probably know, creepers are terrified of cats. My mom just wanted me to be safe.
It wouldn't have been so bad if Fluffles was a fully grown ocelet, but he's just a baby. No one else had to bring a cat to school during this 'creeper scare', of course.
Not even the girls.
As you can imagine, Max took full advantage of this.
He made kitten noises whenever he passed me in the hall. Later, he pretended to be afraid of Fluffles; started calling him 'Danger Kitty'.
There was nothing I could say, really.
(Hey, I didn't need to say anything. I'll get my revenge. After Stump and I unveil Project X, Max is gonna cry like a baby ghast.)
Fluffles kept mewing during class, too. More than a few teachers glared at me.
I'll admit, at one point, I even thought about shoving Fluffles into my school chest (Steve says they're called 'lockers' in his world).
Knowing me, though, I'd forget all about him and leave him at school, then I'd get grounded for months. Probably my mom would come to school and tell my teachers (in front of every student) to please make sure I took Fluffles home.
Whatever.
It doesn't matter.
Max already knows the kitten's name. He made sure to rub it in whenever he could with stuff like:
"Hey there, Warrior Runt! How's Fluffles?"
And later:
"Warrior Runt! Sir! I hate to interrupt you, my lord! Please forgive me! I just want to know. How many creepers did Grandmaster Fluffles slay today?"
This is the part where I'd write 'hurrrrg' a bunch. I won't, though. After today, I don't have the energy to be angry. I'm just gonna go back to our hang out spot and work on the house.
Tomorrow is the test. Finally.
If I fail tomorrow, my chances of becoming a warrior are pretty much done for.
And I'm having doubts about my house idea. Maybe it's not good at all. Maybe the teachers will hate it, just like they hated my furnace house.
What would a warrior do?
Better yet, what would Steve do?
I've been wanting to get his opinion on my house idea, but he hasn't been around lately.
It's just me, now.
Tomorrow, all I can do is try.
FRIDAY
The mobs creeperbombed us again last night.
I woke up to the sound of baby slimes raining down upon the roof of our house. All the slimes were gone by sunrise, though.
How they managed to leave the city, with the wall being there, I don't know. And I don't care. I'm not complaining at all. It meant me being able to walk to school without incident.
Incident.
Thinking about slimes and that word at the same time makes me remember the 'slime incident'.
That's something I've been trying to forget.
Once, when I was ten years old, I was attacked by a baby slime. The thing had been waiting in a dark alley all night. Waiting for a kid like me to just come strolling by.
When it jumped out at me, I panicked, and ended up dropkicking the thing as hard as I could.
It went flying through a window into some woman's house. Somehow, it landed in the furnace—she'd left coal in the fuel tray, and the slime started cooking. Baking, rather.
She thought I'd done it intentionally, and again, the elders were involved, and my parents. It took hours of explaining just to clear my name. By then, the woman's house reeked of what could only be described as slime casserole.
After I arrived at school, though, I forgot all about slimes.
Every student was nervous, today.
Except Max and Razberry.
All 150 students were just standing around, at the edge of the village. A flat field perfect for building tons of houses. Each student had a building partner, which meant there were 75 teams.
Sarabella teamed up with Aera again.
I guessed they were probably going to make another mushroom house. Maybe some improved variant.
Each team was given a section of the field to build in.
Wooden signs were placed in each team's designated area.
Stump and I compose the team known as . . . 'Danger Kitty'.
I chose that name to spite Max.
My thoughts were, after we beat him, the teachers would call out our team name and he'd be furious. Of course, Max is a good builder. I can't deny that. Even if we do beat him, it'll only be by a few points.
The test will begin shortly.
I'll update soon.
Well, we finished our house.
Here it is. Don't laugh, please. We think efficiency is what the teachers want, remember
?
And now, it's time to unveil . . . Project X.
LIKE A BOSS.
The overall idea is a bit similar to the old furnace house. Except with less furnaces, less space and additional things like a crafting table, an enchanting table and even farms.
To save space, the bed is built into the roof.
To cut down on block usage, part of the roof is made of stone slabs. You can craft two stone slabs with one block of cobblestone.
The inside is pretty compact.
Two squares of dirt floor we turned into a wheat farm.
There's an enchanting table, and one wall is a bookcase to power up the table slightly—a crafting table and multiple furnaces are all accessible. Due to lack of space, a torch had to be set onto one furnace.
(By the way, the enchanting table was given to us. We obviously can't craft such a thing. Its inclusion also won't raise our score. It's just to show what's possible.)
Oh, about the chest on the left. The lid wouldn't open with a wall above it. We used some upside down stairs there.
Here's a side view of Project X.
Note the two patches of farmland on the corners. One's for melons. The other, for pumpkins. They're both accessible from the inside. You just gave to reach your arms across some blocks.
Our whole idea was, we wanted to make a house that offered as much as possible, while taking as little as possible to construct.
Efficiency, in other words.
The other day, Stump and I imagined ourselves as warriors.
If we were far away from the village, we wouldn't have tons of materials to build with. We'd have to be effiicient.
So, we thought and thought, and ended up with this.
It's the ultimate survival house.
I mean, let's say creepers blew up the whole world. Blew up every block in Minecraftia, except for this house. No problem. We could still survive forever in this house.
It'd be boring, though. It'd be a life of standing in a tiny little house, eating nothing but bread. Sometimes a pumpkin. Drinking water.
That was another reason why we included a bookcase. During such an end of the world scenario, at least you'd have something to read. But while building the house today, Stump and I ran into a problem.
One of the books in the bookcase was super lame.
Lamer than any of Max's favorite books.
'Diary of a Minecraft Chair'.
I honestly don't know how it got there. And I was really hoping the teachers wouldn't spot it.
I mean, the book's description is something like:
"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a Minecraft chair? What problems does a Minecraft chair face during Minecraft chair school? What does a Minecraft chair eat? Come find out in this diary of a Minecraft chair written by an eleven year old Minecraft chair!"
Number of pages: 3.
Wow.
Just wow.
The teachers would fail us for sure if they saw that.
Whenever a teacher got close to the bookshelf, I made sure to stand in front of it, particularly that book.
Anyway, I don't know if the teachers will like it . . .
After all, Max's house is kinda cool as well.
They took the girl's mushroom house idea from that last building test, then dumped lava all over it—they discovered that lava doesn't burn giant mushrooms.
Not only does the lava prevent mobs from attacking, it lights up the area.
You could find such a house pretty easily at night.
I hate to admit it, but it's not a bad idea.
However, many others didn't have such great houses.
Such as the kids next to us. They built a dirt house.
By the way, 'Team Noobamuffin' isn't their real team name.
Max replaced their sign with one of his own.
After our building time was up, everyone just waited for the outcome.
The teachers were 'hurgg'ing a lot.
Student's faces were grim. Not too many were talking.
I was kinda afraid.
No, not 'kinda'. The fear I felt, it was impossibly heavy.
It felt like a furnace was inside my stomach.
It was the same as when I ate a slice of that cake Sarabella crafted a couple months ago.
That cake was so hard, I remember. It probably could have been used as a weapon of some kind.
But I didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I ate it. To accomplish this, I had to dunk my cake slice into a bucket of milk just to get it soft enough to chew.
Sorry, I'm rambling. I do that when I'm nervous.
Update:
Now, the teachers are gathering . . .
They're going to announce the top three house designs.
Stump's sitting next to me, his blue eyes wide, and filled with fear. He wants to be a warrior, too.
This is it. It's all or nothing.
We're just waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
And then—
Update:
HURGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
HURGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
Hurgggggg.
Hurgurrgurgurgurgrugrgrurgurgggggggggggg.
. . .
. . .
. . .
Hurgg.
(Sorry.)
I just had to get that out.
I'm . . . going crazy.
Let me explain.
Standing before 150 silent students, the head teacher said:
"Coming in first place for best house design is . . . Team Danger Kitty."
I honestly couldn't believe it. The teachers praised our house even more than the girl's mushroom house from before.
It was a miracle.
The most efficient house they've ever seen.
Their words.
Not a daydream.
Not my imagination.
I couldn't help but smile when Max freaked out; for a second, I almost felt sorry for him, until I remembered all the harassment he gave me the other day.
Even now, I'm so stunned, I can barely even write. So, forgive me if I don't write much.
I'll update later when my heart stops pounding and my hands stop shaking.
Okay, so, the teachers said our house still has some flaws.
Like, a few things could have been done better. Still, they used the word 'impressive'.
Impressive.
Actually, another word came before that one—'very'.
Very impressive.
(I'm not gonna hurgg again. I promise. I'll keep it under control.)
I gave Stump a huge high-five; he was responsible for half of the design. A lot of students came up and congratulated us, afterward.
Not Max, though.
"Too bad warriors aren't all about building," was all he said.
His buddy Razberry chimed in:
"Yeah. You can't build mobs to death. Nooblords."
I don't care about what he said, though. It's the first real accomplishment I've ever had in my life. I'm too happy right now.
At one point, Stump nudged me with his elbow.
"Runt," he said. "Our. Scores. Look."
He was so excited, he couldn't even speak in sentences, just single words.
I was still out of it; the shock of such a huge success was still flooding my mind. I eventually realized my friend was holding and staring at his record book.
When I saw his building score, I couldn't even breathe.
He was level 16.
He'd raised a few levels in the past few days. He was level 3 yesterday.
Today, my friend went from 3 to 16.
BOOM—just like that.
His building score was insanely high as well.
I whipped out my own record book and stared at it in total disbelief.
Farming, crafting and building all went up from our efforts.
Obviously, the biggest gain was in building.
A jump of 60 points.
BOOM again.
BOOM like a charged poo screamer (now that would be a scary mob).
I tried to sneak a peek at Max's record book, but he wouldn't let me; he was being as secretive with his record book as he is with those ridiculous cow books.
Last time I saw, he was level 15. Maybe he's level 20, now? I'm catching up, then. If I keep doing well, and working this hard, I might overtake him.
His team got third place in the competition, though. I probably didn't make huge gains on him. The only thing holding his design back was the inherent danger that came from walls of lava.
A different group of girls got second place. They had a similar idea as ours. Their house was basically just a hole in the ground, set up with crafting tables and such.
Even though it's Friday, there was no 'Mobs Defense' class.
They let us off the hook.
They said we had to do some reading about mobs on our own this weekend.
At the end of the day, I got ice cream with Stump, Sarabella and her building partner, Aera. Their team got 11th place which is still respectable. Sarabella says they're gonna work harder for the next building test.
While we ate our ice cream, the four of us decided to form a partnership. We'll share our building ideas, and attempt to shut Max out of the next test. Those girls aren't exactly friends with him, either.
However, there's going to be many more tests, and not all of them are going to deal with building.
From farming to mining, we'll cover them all.
For now, I just need to relax a bit. I've been stressing myself out.
Hurrrmmmmmmmm.
This diamond ore chunk is amazing.
Oh.
Be warned.
I heard there are a few other villager diaries going around.
Just know, such diaries weren't written by real villagers. They were written by zombies, and not even cool zombies, but the kind of zombies that walk around with flowers in their hands. They're smart, though. They're trying to spread lies about us villagers.
So, be careful.