Hearing Zack's words, Hannah glared at him while eating her duck leg rice.
What kind of comment was that!
Why was it embarrassing?
What's wrong with the name "Master Builder"?
People always need some hope!
Sure, it was ugly, but at least it was still a house, right?
"Hmph, don't look down on me. If it were you, you wouldn't do much better. This game looks simple, but it's actually pretty hard. Just imagining how the house should look already makes you struggle." Hannah shot back at Zack.
That was exactly how she felt.
She hadn't even played much of the game yet.
But just building a house seemed like it could keep her busy for a long time.
The controls weren't that complicated, and in Lucas's promo trailer, the houses and castles all looked beautiful.
But once she tried building herself, she realized how hard it was.
There was nothing to copy or reference, so she couldn't just imitate something.
She had to build purely based on what she pictured in her mind, and that turned out to be really difficult.
Worse, when imagining a house, your mind naturally connects it to real houses.
But in the game, everything is made of cubes. If something didn't look right, you had to figure out how to replace it with blocks.
And as she replaced piece after piece, the house ended up looking nothing like what she imagined.
"I got it!" Hannah clapped her hands and looked enlightened as she cleared away her empty plate.
"What did you get?" Zack asked, confused, sitting down where Hannah had been.
While Hannah was eating, he had also tried out Minecraft for a bit.
Even without the tutorial, he had picked up some of the basics. He had just crafted a stone hoe and was about to go find some coal to make torches when Hannah suddenly shouted, startling him.
"Hah! Do you know why my house turned out so… special?" Hannah asked Zack.
Hearing that, Zack could only complain in his head.
That prison? You call that special?
It was just ugly! Ugly in a ridiculous way!
Of course, he would never say what he was really thinking. He just put on a look like he was listening.
"As the saying goes, you can't cook without rice."
"Sure, I might not really deserve to be called a master builder yet. But I think my skills are not just what you've seen. The real reason this house turned out like this is because I didn't have the right materials. That's why I couldn't build the style I wanted!" The more Hannah spoke, the more confident she became.
Looking at the wooden 'prison house' she had built, Hannah had to admit one thing: the house really was ugly.
And she couldn't help but think it over. After all, she had only used wood the whole time. How could a house built with just wood look good?
If she had more kinds of materials, the house would definitely look much better.
As the saying goes, you can't cook without rice.
Building a house is the same.
Without good materials, how can you build a nice-looking house?
So Hannah quit the game, looked at the save file called "Master Builder World," and deleted it.
It was a bit of a dark history.
Then Hannah started fresh, chose Creative Mode, and gave her character a new name: Vishwakarma.
"What kind of weird name is that? Not Master Builder anymore?" Zack, sitting next to her, asked curiously when he saw the new name.
"Hmph, haven't you heard of the saying about craftsmanship beyond human skill? Vishwakarma was the god of architech." Hannah snorted and explained the meaning behind the name.
Zack took a sip of water and stayed quiet.
Nobody knew what kind of house she would build this time. The only reference was the previous 'prison shack.'
But her explanation for the new name sounded convincing.
Vishwakarma, craftsmanship beyond human skill? He wanted to see what she could actually build.
Zack stared at the computer screen, ready to see what kind of amazing building Hannah would make.
"There are so many things in Creative Mode!" Hannah exclaimed in surprise as she entered the game.
Compared to Survival Mode, which gave you nothing at the start, Creative Mode was completely different.
She could freely fly around and build however she liked.
The key thing was that breaking blocks only took one hit, and she had unlimited resources.
Even better, she could pick from all kinds of materials, most of which she had never seen before.
Glass, doors, windows, carpets — everything was there.
When Hannah saw all these materials, she felt a sudden rush of confidence.
"So you think my building is bad? Let me show you what I can really do." Thinking about what Zack said earlier, Hannah's face turned serious.
From this moment on, she was determined to prove herself.
She would prove that the prison house was just an accident.
Looking at the huge range of materials in her inventory, and with the ability to fly, Hannah quickly picked a beautiful place with mountains and water.
Like before, she started with the foundation. But now that she had materials, she thought she could afford to be a bit fancy.
She decided to make a bigger house.
She first filled the ground with stone blocks. Then, in her mind, she recalled the amazing buildings she had seen during her travels.
She picked her building materials and placed eight pillars.
Then she began building the walls around them, using the pillars as supports.
Around the foundation, Hannah carefully worked piece by piece.
She laid carpets and other things on the floor.
Then she found a special block called glowstone.
It could shine brightly, working as a replacement for torches.
Glancing at the still-unfinished roof, she decided to use glowstone to cover it.
That way, the whole place would always stay bright.
Glass, diamond ore, emeralds — anything that looked nice, Hannah added it in.
About fifteen minutes later, Hannah felt it was almost done. She stepped back to admire her work, but the moment she saw it, she went silent.
The house in front of her looked… strange.
When she was building, she imagined something grand and beautiful in her mind.
But as she kept placing blocks, the actual result somehow went wrong.
It just turned out different from what she had pictured.
It felt a little unfamiliar.
You could tell it was a house, but no matter how you looked at it, it just felt off.
The house was square and neat, looking very orderly.
The front was built with a marble-like material, with glass used instead of walls, making it look see-through.
The ceiling was made entirely of glowstone, shining brightly.
For the structure, Hannah had copied the symmetry of the Forbidden City.
She even built a long staircase at the entrance, dug a trench and filled it with water, then placed a wooden bridge across it.
It all sounded good in her head, but just like with design drawings versus real buildings, the gap between imagination and reality was way too big.
The glowstone ceiling sparkled, but with so much of it, the whole thing just looked strange.
And that water trench at the entrance—Hannah had pictured a peaceful scene of "a little bridge, flowing water, and homes," but in the end it looked more like a sewer.
(End of The Chapter)
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