"Hey, Mr. Zenith, are you alright? You don't look so good. Is this some unknown ability of Death Thirteen?"
Avdol patted Zenith's shoulder. The latter finally snapped back to reality, the light in his eyes slowly fading. "How bizarre. For a split second, I felt like I could do absolutely anything."
Zenith looked at his hands. "Too bad it was just a dream. For a moment there, I almost thought I unlocked Gamemode 1."
"What's Gamemode 1?"
"Nothing." Zenith shook his head. That was, of course, Minecraft's Creative Mode—the true creator, possessing boundless power, but also coming with a price.
Zenith wasn't sure exactly what that price was, but judging from what he felt in that brief moment, he could guess. Divinity would replace his humanity, turning him into a god devoid of human emotion.
That was definitely not what Zenith wanted.
The green sky trembled violently as the earth collapsed, the Death Stand flickering in and out of existence. The infant Stand user began to panic. In an instant, his mental energy was nearly drained dry, and what little remained was no longer enough to sustain the dream world.
This was only possible because of his near-conceptual Stand ability. In any other power system, bearing the momentary descent of a divine soul would have drained him dry and killed him from the backlash long ago.
"It's already daytime?"
Joseph clutched his head. Only a few minutes had passed in the dream, yet the sun was already up in the real world.
"This is my Overworld, after all. I laid down and slept, so of course it's daytime. Come on, let's go! My stables are full of max-speed horses. We need to hurry to Egypt. I've still got plans for after we beat Dio."
His plan, of course, was the Stand User Prison Project. Thanks to Zenith, this baby didn't end up carelessly eating Kakyoin's infamous "baby food." However, the price was that he became the very first test subject for the Rokakaka fruit. And it had to be said, the results were outstanding.
The Stand Death Thirteen was completely gone. Now, this baby was just an ordinary infant with physical strength far exceeding his peers—he was no longer a Stand user.
The baby and the vegetative Steely Dan were temporarily handed over to the Speedwagon Foundation for safekeeping. The group picked out their horses and prepared to cross the desert.
Although Minecraft horses looked bizarrely blocky, their speed was quite impressive. This was especially true thanks to the horse breeding mechanics, which made the sprinting speed of max-speed horses absolutely absurd.
As everyone knows, horse breeding in Minecraft is all about genetics. Hidden stats like speed, health, and jump strength are locked in the moment a foal is born, with each attribute randomly inherited from its parents.
As long as you put in the time for selective breeding, you could obtain a top-tier vanilla horse with max jump strength and max speed. Building on that foundation, if you threw a Splash Potion of Swiftness at them right at the moment of breeding, the magically enhanced stats would be passed down to the next generation.
With extreme stats stacking and passing down generation after generation, breeding a horse that could run a thousand miles a day was no longer just a dream!
"They run even faster than a jeep in the desert!"
Crossing Saudi Arabia and traversing the Red Sea would allow them to land on the African continent and march toward Cairo. This was the route the main cast took in the original storyline.
Standing on the shores of the Red Sea, the group discussed how to cross it. Joseph was the first to suggest taking a submarine via an underwater route, which was immediately and mercilessly vetoed by a unanimous vote.
"Let's just fly over. The Red Sea's maximum width is only about three hundred kilometers. It'll take roughly eight Flight Amulets per person, which should be enough."
It cost less than a stack of Nether Stars. It was expensive, but barely acceptable. The only issue was that his inventory of them was running low, so he'd have to find time to farm some more later.
The biggest advantage of flying without a vehicle was that it completely bypassed Joseph's passive talent as the vehicle destroyer. And the very last enemy Stand user bearing a Tarot card motif was High Priestess, who lacked both flight and long-range attack capabilities.
Dealing with her would be a piece of cake.
The nearly six-hour flight was dull and tedious. There might have been some novelty to long-distance flying at first, but by the end, it was just pure numbness.
A speed of fifty kilometers per hour couldn't even outpace a bird, completely lacking the thrill of high-altitude flight. Against the vast scale of the sky and the ocean, it felt more like a stroll through the air.
"Look, it's High Priestess."
A stone giant over a dozen meters tall hurled a massive boulder into the air, giving off the helpless vibe of an ant trying to shake a tree.
"It seems Dio's underlings are at their wits' end. Since ancient times, the sky has been something humanity yearned to conquer. Even Stand users appear utterly powerless against creatures that can fly freely."
The old man spoke from the heart, but Zenith just wanted to point out that he clearly hadn't seen the monster Stands from the later parts. Time, space, causality, weather manipulation—each one was more broken than the last. Forget the sky, they could even attain Heaven!
High Priestess's user was a gorgeous woman with a very powerful Stand ability, capable of transforming into various minerals and inorganic matter at will. It had a long operational range, a massive size, and astonishing strength. It was just a pity that the user herself was a hopelessly infatuated simp who had lost her mind over Dio.
Dealing with an opponent who had a strong Stand but a weak physical body was way too easy. Zenith switched to his Elytra and dive-bombed, dodging the incoming boulders along the way before tossing an Ender Pearl to teleport directly to her side.
"Ta-da! A massive giveaway of mysterious fruits! Buy one, get one free, and it even comes with a ten-year trial voucher for the great underground prison, Impel Down! First come, first served, and you even get to pick your own floor and room!"
Flashing right in front of High Priestess's user, Midler, Zenith forcefully shoved a Rokakaka fruit into her mouth. As an anti-Stand user special weapon, aside from the fact that he didn't have many of them right now, it was simply too damn effective!
The massive stone giant instantly crumbled. Midler frantically tried to summon her Stand in a panic, but that formidable mental energy would never answer her call again.
"If you make a mistake, admit it. If you get beaten, take it like a champ. Even though I don't usually hit women, you're still going to obediently pass out and take a trip to Impel Down."
With a quick and simple karate chop, Midler collapsed to the ground. Thinking back to when he knocked out Kakyoin, he had used a solid gold block. Sure enough, people really were superficial creatures driven by looks.
That's right, Zenith had already picked out a name for his planned Stand user prison: Impel Down. However, instead of a great underwater prison, this one would be a great underground prison. The Marines from the One Piece world couldn't sue him for copyright infringement here.
"We've finally arrived in Egypt. I heard you're planning to have the Speedwagon Foundation bring Iggy over? With all due respect, Mr. Joestar, I don't think he'll be of much help at this point."
Avdol looked at Joseph, who waved his hand dismissively. "It's fine. Even though I don't know where Zenith got his information, he also agreed with this decision. Plus, he apparently has some method to rapidly increase a dog's affection."
"Eh? Is that so? If it's Mr. Zenith, then there shouldn't be any problems. His Stand ability is practically as omnipotent as the implication of The World tarot card itself."
Iggy, possessing the body of a dog and a noble soul, was the Stand user bearing the motif of The Fool tarot card, with the ability to control sand.
Long before Joseph came to Japan to meet up with Jotaro, he and Avdol had discovered this king among stray dogs in New York.
The little Boston Terrier had seen through the stupidity of humans and preferred to wander the streets, but he was ultimately moved by Joseph and the Speedwagon Foundation, deciding to tag along.
Companions with Stands. Just like every other Stand user, possessing an ability that ordinary people couldn't see inevitably led to loneliness. Iggy yearned for companions too.
Just like any newly pulled gacha character, Iggy's initial affection level toward the main cast was at zero. But when it came to raising a dog's affection, Zenith declared that he was an absolute expert.
For a Minecraft player, this required zero effort. If everyone just fed him a stack of bones, it was guaranteed that the whole team would max out Iggy's affection meter!
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