I think I'm actually about to die.

For context, it's currently July. In the midst of summer where the sun's menacing glare can permeate through the house like sperm bypassing a well and intact condom.

"I'm... going to die...," I melted.

Lying on the wooden floor did no good; so did blasting the fan at maximum strength and standing in its direct line of sight, but it was better than nothing.

At least it made the heat bearable if only by a slight amount.

"That's it...," I gave up on life. "...It's GG, well played for me."

The world was spinning and I could hardly breathe properly. I reeked of sweat and my armpits smelled horrendous, but it was a rather familiar smell and I liked it.

It was nauseatingly foul, but it smelled good—you feel me?

However, it wasn't long before the heat broke through and I could practically see the air waving. It was that hot. I reckon I would soon evaporate into mist if this hellish season continues for much longer.

"I can't take it anymore...," I closed my eyes. "Just end me, please."

The temperature was slowly rising, cooking my fleshly body like I was a suckling pig over fire, before dropping significantly. It was super weird but a change I so welcomed.

I relaxed, about to lose consciousness.

The constant low hum of the fan had been replaced by the soft and soothing chirp of birds, and the cold breeze blew my hot body away, refreshing my soul.

It was majestic.

"Thank you, god," I gave my thanks.

It was easy to lose myself and fully indulge in the addictive feeling of comfort. The floor felt prickly but cold, and it was amazing. I immediately spread my limbs in a star shape and experienced the smell and texture of grass.

Life wasn't so bad after all.

I smiled and melted, but for a different reason this time. The grass had been nice to touch and grab and pull, it was heavenly. It wouldn't be strange for me to actually fall asleep and just die in bliss, I would so welcome that.

However, hardly a second after, the realization finally hit.

"...Eh?" I exclaimed. "Grass...?"

I instantly shot up to sit and the sight of towering trees took over my vision. It was confusing. The world still felt unbelievably real though so it shouldn't be a dream and despite this situation, I failed to panic.

I was way too occupied by the blue screen floating mere inches near my face.

[ Welcome to Minecraft ]

"I think I died for real...," I muttered.

Immediately after, I laid back down and gazed at the swaying leaves.

It only took a few seconds before I adapted. The gamer inside my soul refused to acknowledge confusion and directly accepted the words from the floating screen despite how weird and crazy-sounding it was.

Judging by the situation, the best move possible was to quickly adapt and I gladly did so.

"So...," I muttered. "Minecraft huh?"

It was an unexpected transference.

The world of cubes didn't function quite as well here but it was glaringly obvious. I was living in reality and my body was still the same, not cubic. The world was also normal so calling this world the alternate realistic universe of Minecraft, was quite apt.

There was a bit of a problem though...

"How the hell...?" I frowned.

Right beside me was a floating apple, bopping up and down. It defied the laws of gravity and it just shattered my belief that I was stuck in a realistic world.

Turns out, the genre was fantasy.

The apple was quite big and round, fresh and very red, and it looked appetizing. Before munching on it out of curiosity though, I turned and spun it around, examining every corner.

A weird analogy since it was a sphere, but it's the thought that counts.

"Nothing seems off...," I muttered.

I took a bite.

It was, as expected, sweet and juicy. The freshest apple I had ever taken a bite of and this forest must have tons of them as apples were the only fruit to ever be in the vanilla version of Minecraft.

Now I want more.

With this, my temporary goal was hereby established—to eat and taste every delicious food in this world. Apples were a staple food source for now until I find something else to replace it, but honestly, I think I won't ever grow tired of eating them.

I took another bite.

And another.

The juices were dripping down my chin and fingers. I had essentially become a messy eater and who was I to complain when the food was this good? Besides, eating messily had the potential to look erotic.

Too bad I had no skill in that regard.

The apple was incredibly sticky and sweet-smelling that I would probably attract ants, which was an uncertainty since this world didn't follow my views of what was normal.

Although Minecraft, in the vanilla version, had no ants so the odds were slightly in my favor.

"Goddamn...," I exclaimed. "It's delicious and scrumptious and exquisite and—what the hell!?"

[ Satiety Full ]

Apart from the message screen, the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that after five bites, the apple literally disappeared from my hands. Hardly a second later, my stomach felt full and even the sticky juices were gone.

The game mechanics of eating had also been implemented and it was messing with my head, further shattering my worldview of common sense.

I swallowed a mouthful of saliva as I stared at the screen which showed 10 full hunger bars. The screen disappeared after a while and I sat there in silence, thinking of what else this world had in store.

"Status...," I tried it out.

But nothing showed up.

"Inventory...," I tried again.

This time, a screen display popped up and it was hilariously similar to the game that I chuckled out of nostalgia. I had 36 slots of free space that would each store a stack—64 of the same item—and above it was the crafting menu and my full body portrait.

Sad to say, but everything was barren.

I didn't even have any armor equipped nor was I carrying anything on my person. The loose clothes I wore to beat the heat didn't even register as armor, and it was just pathetically sad.

At that moment, another notification popped up.

[ Achievement get ]

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Oh ho...," I exclaimed.

It stroked my gamer ego.

The need to collect every conceivable achievement was ignited and there was no stopping me from doing it, except death of course, but I wasn't planning on experimenting with my life on the line just to see if the respawn function worked.

I stood up and walked around, gathering fallen apples and storing them in the inventory. The feature was simple, I just had to hold the item and stuff it in the screen's face.

After that, I was free to click, hold, and drag the item to whatever slot I wanted. That said, the overall slot dimensions were sorted in 4 rows by 9 columns, with the fourth and lowest row separate from the other three.

It was the quick hotbar and would always be in my vision—only if I permitted it to—circling my body. The rest of the slots were hidden if I dispersed the inventory screen so it worked just like in the game.

I dragged the almost half a stack of apples to the far right end of the quick hotbar because it was just common sense. Anywhere else would be blasphemy to the god of sorting.

"Meee~" a sheep came up to me.

It was staring at my face and as the gamer instinct took over, I took a step forward and punched it square in the face. The little thing ran around, screaming in fear and I was just watching it run in a frenzy before it calmed down and started eating grass.

The passive mob AI mechanics were also working.

"That's just stupid," I facepalmed.

In any case, I walked up to it and the sheep didn't even run when I just smacked the hell out of it earlier. If this was the real world, it would've ran, traumatized.

I hugged the sheep and its wool was so soft that I practically melted.

It walked and I willingly got dragged away. After about a minute of walking, we arrived at the last standing tree, and before my eyes were the vast plains full of cows and pigs and other sheep scattered all over the place.

The sheep were numerous so it wouldn't matter if I killed three of them to craft a bed.

"Ah, I wish I spawned near a village...," I muttered.

Spawning near a village would make life so much easier. Food was abundant and trading for materials like ingots and a treasure map was the most efficient, for my circumstances of course.

I had no intentions to mine, work at night, and risk myself into the arms of danger by going to another dimension, so staying in the overworld was the current best plan until something urgent pops up.

There was no need to speedrun.

"Ah right, got to try that...," I exclaimed.

I let the sheep go and headed for the nearest tree. Its color was similar to a regular oak tree in the game, so that was convenient. I ran my hand across its bark before suddenly punching lightly with a jab.

It didn't hurt.

I punched again, with more force this time. But as with the previous punch, it didn't even hurt, like the pain just wouldn't register. My hand looked fine, wasn't red and had no scratches, so this must be another game mechanic.

Similar to the game, I would never take damage from punching things—except from armor with thorns as an enchantment. The screen even showed my heart count, following my wishes, and it was still at 10 hearts.

I was, quite literally, the strongest man in this world.

So anyway, I continued punching the tree but instead of showing cracks like the game intended, there was a floating screen with a progress bar.

It reached full after a few more punches and the wood just popped out, floating above the stump, becoming a small and pickable item. It was ridiculously messing with the laws of science.

Even the rest of the tree was floating.

"Goddammit...," I facepalmed.

I half expected it to do that and actually seeing it happen was nothing short of plain ridiculous. At least the item didn't turn into a cube version and was still round, just miniaturized. If it did, I would honestly just slap myself silly.

Why even make everything look realistic when every mechanic was staying true to the game?

"Just make the world out of cubes why don't you...," I taunted.

Nothing happened though so I assume this was an intentional world design.

I picked up the item and held it in my hands. It felt light. It didn't just make the wood small, it practically erased the weight to make it easier to carry. I shrugged and placed the item down on top of the stump.

It grew back and the tree was back to normal.

Like I didn't just break it.

The experiment brought answers and more hypothetical questions. I couldn't be bothered to finish my experiment without at least making a bed so I went to work, gathering wood one punch at a time.

I got 5 wood from one oak tree.

[ Achievement get ]

[ New recipes unlocked ]

"Oh right...," I muttered.

I opened the inventory and found a new feature installed. It was a book and clicking it opened a new window on the left side which showed the current items I could craft.

This was a recipe book meant for beginners and boy was I thankful they added this.

Part of the game from the old times was figuring out the recipe and it was a disaster. Memorizing recipes or having a separate window with the recipes from the wiki page readily available just to progress was an absolute nightmare, but as I played more, it became instinctive and no longer a problem.

They added this book in the later updates and the problem was hereby fixed. The community was happy and I was too.

I clicked the wooden plank icon and all the oak wood I had were transferred to one of the slots in the 2 by 2 crafting grid. I clicked the resulting 4 plank output repeatedly until I ran out of oak wood and the 20 planks were directly sent into the inventory.

As per usual behavior in the early game, I used 4 planks to craft a crafting table and used 4 more to craft 8 sticks.

The crafting table was surprisingly just a square tablet with a 3 by 3 crafting grid that didn't need to be placed down to use. I tried that by dragging a plank and inputting it to the grid, the resulting item was a button but I didn't take it and just retrieved the plank.

That was another experiment done.

"So there are new features due to the realistic plug-in," I muttered.

The world being part realistic and part game-like changed some of the mechanics for more convenience. I have to figure out the rest to know the full extent of the new mechanics and features added.

I looked at my inventory and the second feature was sitting right there. I found a new one quite quickly. It was directly below the 2 by 2 crafting grid, and it was a slot.

The newly formed slot and its silhouette coincidentally had the icon of the crafting table.

Without much thought, I put the crafting table there and the changes were instantaneous. The 2 by 2 crafting grid changed into a 3 by 3 grid, and I was elated. Now that's the epitome of convenience.

"Ow!" I exclaimed.

Something had fallen from above and smacked my head. I looked around and saw a stick along with a few plants that were in a budding seed form, already growing a few leaves, floating on the ground like an item.

I looked up.

There were still leaves and branches that were floating from the oak tree I just demolished but they were slowly disappearing, like how the game mechanics usually worked.

I backed away, then picked up all the fallen items once the last batch of leaves and branches disappeared from above. It was a hassle to pick up. The game mechanic of picking up items just by running close to them didn't work.

This was a demerit in the new mechanic brought by realistic settings.

"Well, can't always be surrounded with good things," I sighed.

I stuffed the last stick before suddenly gaining a new idea for an experiment.

Without much time to idle, I scrolled and clicked the stack of sticks, and almost an instant after, blue cubic particles coalesced on my palm before solidifying and forming a stick.

That was cool.

Despite having 15 sticks in the stack, I was just holding one. It didn't seem like the stick got more durable though, so the others must just be kept in the inventory. I did try to summon more through mental commands but it didn't work so this was one of the demerits.

I threw the stick to free my hand, but it was immediately replaced with another one. It materialized like the previous stick and picking up the one I threw just directly stored it in the inventory.

I was essentially not allowed to hold two items in one hand.

That was one experiment done.

Next was the dump everything function, and it worked just like in the game. All I had to do was click, hold, and drag the item out of the screen and everything would be thrown. The only difference was that the stack combined into just one item with a floating overlay above that told how many were in there.

I retrieved the stack of sticks and stored it in the inventory.

The main mechanics still worked like how they're supposed to so that's good, at least it wouldn't be confusing. That said, I tried some more stuff and found that I could dual-wield sticks.

My offhand wasn't restricted to just totems and shields so that's a good thing.

A lot of experiments were done as they were easy and took no time to implement, like figuring out if my clothes were stuck to my body. It wasn't, thankfully. It just wasn't counted as armor so it didn't show up on the equipped section.

"It's... so peaceful," I felt relaxed.

The calm breeze occasionally blew my hair back and it was refreshing, like a slow and gentle hike in the grassy mountains. It wouldn't be a bad idea to sleep on the grass for hours, but I had to find shelter soon as it was already noon, add the fact that I still haven't crafted a bed.

"Inventory," I called.

The first thing I need was a wooden pickaxe.

All of the others were basically trash and it wouldn't do any good to waste materials and craft a whole set of wooden tools when I could just directly make stone tools.

The wooden pickaxe was all I need in this tier.

"Really can't hate speedrun tactics," I chuckled.

I crafted the tool and no sooner than a few seconds, I got one more weapon on hand. It felt sturdy and should help me for a short time, granted that it would be replaced after mining three cobblestones before becoming fuel to a furnace, but it was still as important as the others.

I already found out that I couldn't break a stick in half.

It was one of the experiments I made. The thought that went through that was finding a loophole or a new feature involving broken items. It didn't progress past the questioning stage though as I wasn't even able to break it.

To be specific, I could destroy it in half but it would soon restore itself as if the world was fixing an anomaly. The stick had no durability just like how it was in the game, so I was severely restricted in what I could do.

This one was half demerit and half beneficial.

If I could somehow enchant this stick with knockback and flame aspect, I would essentially have a true unbreakable tool that would ward enemies away and set them on fire. But that's only if I could find or trade an enchanted book.

This was why spawning in a village was crucial to early game convenience.

In any case, with the durability experiment through the stick, it meant that every item in this world would never be broken nor destroyed unless it loses all of its durability or thrown into a cactus, lava, and the void.

The cactus one was still in progress though.

No matter, with the pickaxe in hand, it was high time for me to gather new materials and obtain my first set of tools. Then I could kill or shear a sheep depending on my luck in finding iron.

"I learned a lot," I grinned. "This pickaxe will be the start of everything."

In the near future, I would be flying in the skies with an elytra on my back, totem in hand, and a spyglass for reconnaissance whilst wearing a dragon's head as I journey to complete a world map.

This pickaxe was akin to the first moon landing.

—That's one step for technology and a huge leap to progression.