I looked around the base since Violet already teleported away with the first chest when a sudden thought crossed my mind.

"I won't be on this side of the Nether for a while, I wonder how things are in the bastion nearby?"

I had roughly a two-hour window before Violet would teleport me back to my base, and I thought that was enough time for me to look at the bastion one more time.

So I put my armor back on, drank a speed and jump potion, and went towards the bastion that I've robbed a few weeks ago.

I could roughly remember the way the bastion was, since it's been a while, and an hour later I managed to find it.

But something was different about it, it was too silent around the walls like there were no guards.

Sure, I saw a few sleeping guards last time I was there, but that was only a minority, and there should be noise from the common area where most of the brutes spend their day.

I slowly got close, expecting a warning shout of any kind, but I could only hear the early silence.

"H-hello, is anyone home!"

I waited for a few moments but didn't hear anything in response.

I was in front of the huge wooden gate and tried to push it on my own.

It didn't even budge.

"What did I expect, it takes a minimum of three brutes to open this piece of wood, how could I do it alone?"

Since I couldn't enter through the door, I was going to do it the other way.

Braking the wall.

The wall was four blocks thick surprisingly, but the blocks themselves weren't that hard to break, especially with an enchanted diamond pickaxe.

What I saw beyond the wall was something I didn't expect.

More silence.

I walk along the empty black streets with no soul in sight.

What happened here?

There was a huge opening in the middle of the building, where you could vaguely see the cage surrounded by lava, and when I looked down I was taken by surprise once again.

Everything was blown up!

It was like someone made a tower of TNT and lit it up while laughing evily from the distance.

"Who attacked the bastion, and why?"

I tried to go down the stairs towards the old man's home, but there were no stairs that I could use, and if I wasn't careful I was going to fall into the lava lake from underneath.

The next location I checked was the Chief's mansion.

I quickly passed the huge wall and was devasted at what I saw.

Countless skeletons with golden tools and clothing lying on the ground.

The whole bastion seems to be here, but since their only skeletons it must've happened a long time ago.

I quickly ran past them into the mansion where I saw more skeletons but were better equipped, I even saw a skeleton with golden armor which I could guess who it was.

The mansion was badly burned as well, I could see some huge holes made by explosives, and there wasn't a second story anymore.

The only option was to go down, so I went into the basement to see that everything was blown up, the only things I could see were the netherack.

But as I looked closer towards the big distraction, something caught my sight.

One was an empty portal frame floating in the air, but the thing that caught my attention was something underneath it.

There seemed to be a long tunnel going underneath the mansion, and it didn't look that bad.

I got closer to it, extinguishing the flames that got in my way until I managed to get inside.

The tunnel was four blocks tall and three blocks wide, with dark brick stone, basil, and shroomlights used for design.

It didn't look bad, it was my style, but one thing was clear.

This is where the invaders came from.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But why did they do this?

Was it because the chief was killed and they saw an opportunity to attack?

Is this all my fault?

Unfortunately, there was nobody who could answer that question.

I still had the speed buff on me, so I decided to pick one side and run as much as I could before I was teleported back.

So I did just that, I ran and ran for a whole hour, until suddenly I felt my guts being pulled and I was back at my base.

"*huff* Thank you Violet *huff* could you get the other chests as well?"

Violet just rolled her eyes but still teleported away, getting back to work.

I, on the other hand just laid down on my back trying to catch my breath.

Something big happened at that bastion, since not everyone has access to TNT just to rob, especially since it's so hard to get those materials in the Nether.

It would be much more efficient to use invisible potions and steal items stealthily, but this was a huge amount of resources invested to delete everyone.

But this isn't something that I could look into now, especially when the Piliger invasion is so close.

I need to be on the lookout for the best opportunity to infiltrate the outpost once again.

I can't get myself into another hot mess.

So after I caught my breath, and drank some water I went back to mining the new room I was working on.

Two days have passed since then, moving all the items took a lot longer than I expected, even with my amazing friend.

But after two days of hard work, everything was safely stored in my base which made me quite happy.

Especially since my Nether-themed storage room was lacking in items.

Not only that, but I also finished digging Violet's room, which was way bigger than what I made at the Witches Clan.

Now that the hard part was done, I could focus on the fun part.

Decorating the room.

Violet seemed very tired from all the work she'd been doing in the past two days, so she sat in a corner to get some rest.

I can't wait to see her reaction when I'm done.

Since this was her testing room, that meant that I didn't have to over-decorate since there wouldn't be any point in doing that, instead it needed to be simple and easy to understand.

First I planned on placing some obsidian on the wall, not all of it, but 5 blocks wide should be more than enough.

Those would be placed in the middle of all the walls, not only that, but it would also have a part of the floor made with obsidian that would connect.

As for the rest, I was thinking of splitting the floor into four parts, and each is colored themed with concrete.

I decided to use green, yellow, light blue, and purple.

In the purple corner, I also put purple wool to imitate a bed and placed a few pillows with some blankets on the side for her to sleep on.

It was uncomfortable for me to see how she sleeps, so I decided to help her with that.

The walls were made of white concrete and the ceiling was a mix of glowstone and obsidian.

After that was done, a few hours passed, but I wasn't finished yet.

I took a few chests, hoppers, and dispensers to use for a storage system that she can use.

It was pretty simple overall, she already made one for herself, I'm just going to optimize it.

There would be a chest labeled with an item frame, and two hoppers would be connected to that chest, one would put items in, and the other would take them out.

The hopper that would take items out, would be connected to a dispenser since I needed the extra experience, even if it was annoying to craft so many bows.

And a lever that would be placed beside the dispenser which would make it very convenient for an Enderwoman to use, especially since she doesn't have access to an inventory like me or the others.

I made a few more, each holding a different Redstone material until I was finally done.

I looked over the finished room with pride in my eyes.

It looked similar to a large warehouse with some colors splashed here and there, but I think Violet would love it like this.

To put my theory to the test, I walked out of the room and stopped in front of a sleepy Enderwoman who was as tall as me even when she was sitting down.

"Pss, Violet, wake up."

I bearly got a reaction from her, so I moved her leg a little to get her attention, slowly her eyes opened, and looked at me annoyed.

"Come with me, I want to show you something."

With a little more grunting she finally got up and followed me to the Redstone room.

"So what do you think about this room?"

She looked over the room, moving her head from side to side, showing that she was interested, but not enough to forgive from being awakened.

"Well, this whole room is yours now!"

She suddenly froze the slowly turned toward me with a shocked expression.

"I know you want to test some of your new ideas and since we would be staying here for a while, and you don't have the same space anymore, I decided to make you this room as a thank you."

Next, I was the one taken by surprise at what happened next.

She teleported right in front of me, picked me up, and gave me a tight hug where I thought I was going to die.

Then as quickly as she appeared, she disappeared playing with the storage system that I made for her, leaving me in shock at what just happened.

"Yeah, I think I broke a rib there, have fun, I'll go get some rest as well!"

She only waved her hand at me without looking so I emptied my inventory and went to the surface where I laid down on my white bed and fell asleep instantly.

-----

Two months passed since I made Violet her own Redstone room, and she bearly got out of it, going crazy with her Redstone experiments making me a little worried that I made a mistake by overestimating her with this gift.

With this, I also found out that Endermans don't need to eat, which kind of makes sense since their still a monster but was taken by surprise with the new information.

I also kept in touch with Bobby on how the Piligers attack was doing.

They started two weeks ago, which was later then we expected, but the attack was way more powerful than we anticipated.

They killed the soldiers controlling the golem, and baited the golem to get out of the village while they destroyed and capture as many viligers as possible.

On the Sandstone kingdom side they directly attacked a town with 5 Ravagers and 5 invisible evokers that devasted the guards before raiding the town.

Not all of their attacks were successful, some others were defended successfully, but usually the battles lost were the most painful ones, especially for the Sandstone Kingome who recently finished their dispute of who is the new ruler.

I don't envy the princess position with all the pressure she has on her shoulders now, but I wish her the best of luck for what it's about to come, since everyone would need it.

On my side, I made a lot of progress and I was finally able to craft diamond items on my own, but there was a predicament that I found myself in.

________________________________________

SKILLS

_Crafting lvl 7

3.267/100.000.000

_Enchanting lvl 6

3.450.130/10.000.000

_Brewing lvl 4

20.500/100.000

_Trading lvl 4

51.500/100.000

________________________________________

"Why isn't my Crafting Skill maxed?"