(A/n sorry for late chapter.)
The chat window with Doctor Strange had dissolved into pixels hours ago, but the cursor still blinked in my mind's eye.
Someone who snaps his fingers.
Thanos.
The name hit the water of my consciousness like a stone, sending ripples of dread through every layer of my pocket dimension. I wasn't just dealing with a bored wizard anymore. I was on the collision course of a Titan who treated genocide as a spiritual obligation. And according to Strange, this Titan viewed my reality—my life raft—as a "balance patch" waiting to be installed.
I looked at my dashboard. 517 GP.
Yesterday, it was a fortune. Today, against the scale of the threat hurtling toward me, it was lunch money.
I needed to accelerate. The 10,000 GP tier wasn't just a goal; it was the survival line. If Thanos arrived before I had full control over this reality—before I could lock the doors and reinforce the windows with something stronger than bedrock—he would snap me out of existence just to tidy up the universe's error logs.
"System," I said, my voice sounding hollow in the obsidian room. "Show me the Expansion Packs."
The Store interface shimmered. I ignored the cosmetic upgrades. I ignored the flashy particle effects. I scrolled past the *Dungeon Master* tools I had just used. I needed territory. I needed resources that were rarer than diamond and more dangerous than the overworld could provide. I needed to force my players to evolve from iron-clad heroes into cosmic warriors.
There was only one option that fit.
[Expansion: The Nether Dimension]
[Cost: 250 GP]
[Description: Unlocks a secondary dimension of intense heat, hostile terrain, and high-value resources. Note: In the Marvel-616 distribution, this dimension intersects with the energetic bleed-off of Muspelheim and the Dark Dimension. Environmental hazards are amplified.]
It was half my bankroll. It was dangerous. It was perfect.
"Purchase," I commanded.
[Purchase Confirmed. 250 GP deducted.]
[Remaining Balance: 267 GP]
[Initializing Dimension... Generating Terrain... Linking Portals...]
The obsidian walls of my base rumbled. On the Observation Deck, the view of Manhattan flickered for a microsecond, replaced by a flash of oppressive, deep crimson.
I wasn't done. A new dimension needed a new economy. The Fellowship had conquered the Overworld. They had the Baton. They needed a reason to risk their lives in hell.
I navigated to the [Item/Resource Manager].
[Modify Resource: Ancient Debris]
[Cost: 50 GP]
[Modification: Alter material properties to resonate with Stark Tech energy signatures and Wakandan Vibranium frequencies. Retitle for localization: 'Proto-Adamantium'.]
[Modify Resource: Blaze Rods]
[Cost: 50 GP]
[Modification: Enhance thermal output. Retitle for localization: 'Muspel-Embers'.]
[Remaining Balance: 167 GP]
I was bleeding points, but I was building a ladder. Stark would need the Proto-Adamantium to upgrade his tech. Shuri would need the Embers to fuel whatever insanity she was cooking up. And Maya?
I looked at the AEGIS-1 module. The blue sphere was calm, but I knew Strange was watching.
"System," I said softly. "One last purchase. For the Artist."
[Event Trigger: The Whispering Flame]
[Cost: 100 GP]
[Description: A localized, lore-based event within the Nether. Spawns a 'Sanctuary of the Lost' containing a tome of Eldritch Geometry.]
[Remaining Balance: 67 GP]
I was back in the double digits. It was reckless. It was necessary.
I leaned forward, watching the data streams from Malibu. My players were comfortable. They were celebrating. They were researching.
It was time to set their world on fire.
***
**Malibu, California. User a5c1's Private Server.**
The "Workshop" had evolved. It was no longer just a factory; it was a cathedral of the future. The Resonant Tomb's loot had been integrated into the architecture. Quartz pillars lined the walls, and the Conductor's Baton floated in a magnetic containment field in the center of the room, rotating lazily.
Tony Stark stood before it, his faceplate retracted, eyes darting across a holographic display that was struggling to interpret the data the Baton was spitting out.
"It's not just a stick, J.A.R.V.I.S.," Tony muttered, dragging a waveform with his finger. "It's a compiler. A universal compiler. It takes acoustic input—creative intent—and translates it into matter rearrangement."
"A fancy way of saying it performs magic, Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied drily.
"Not magic," Tony corrected sharply. "Programmable matter with a user interface based on harmonics. Strange waves his hands and hopes the universe likes his jazz hands. This? This is engineering. It's reproducible."
Shuri was sitting on a workbench nearby, her legs swinging, examining a block of gold with her own scanner. "You are splitting hairs, Stark. The mechanism is irrelevant if the output is the same. Look at this."
She tapped the gold block. "I used the Baton to harmonize this gold with a specific frequency I found in the Tomb. The atomic density increased by 400%. It is still gold, but it is now harder than titanium. If we can apply this to Vibranium..."
"We could build a suit that tanks a supernova," Tony finished, a gleam of hunger in his eyes.
Maya sat cross-legged on the floor, far away from the tech talk, surrounded by illusions of butterflies she was idly creating with *Prestidigitation*. She looked tired. The connection to the Book of the Vishanti was a constant hum in the back of her head, a pressure that felt like holding a door closed against a storm.
"It's quiet," she said suddenly.
Tony didn't look up. "Ideally, yes. We cleared the dungeon. We won."
"No," Maya said, standing up. The butterflies vanished. "The Ghost. The Game Master. He's too quiet. He didn't give us that Baton to put on a shelf. He gave it to us to *use*."
As if on cue, the world shuddered.
It wasn't an earthquake. The ground didn't shake. The *pixels* shook. The very rendering of the world destabilized, colors bleeding into one another for a fraction of a second.
A sound tore through the server—not music, but the sound of massive, rusted iron gates grinding open.
[SYSTEM ALERT: GLOBAL EVENT]
[Content Patch 2.0: The Infernal Threshold]
[The barrier between realities has thinned. The deeper song demands a choir of fire.]
A beam of purple light struck the beach outside Stark's workshop, vaporizing the sand and leaving a crater of obsidian. But it wasn't just a crater. It was a frame.
A massive, rectangular portal, four blocks wide and five blocks high, constructed of swirling, crying obsidian faces. And in the center, a curtain of violet plasma swirled, emitting particles that drifted like ash.
"Well," Stark said, his helmet snapping shut. "I don't think that's a Amazon delivery."
***
I watched them approach the portal. The tension was palpable. This wasn't a puzzle door like the Tomb. This was a tear in the world.
I had flavored the Nether specifically for them. In standard Minecraft, the Nether is just... red. Here, I had spent the extra GP to tap into the local Marvel metaphysics. The air around the portal shimmered with heat distortion, but my analytics showed it wasn't just temperature; it was entropy.
"Readings?" Stark asked, hovering ten feet off the ground, repulsors primed.
"Atmospheric composition is... nonexistent," Shuri replied, her voice tight. "No oxygen. High concentrations of sulfur and... something else. An exotic radiation that resembles the energy signature of the Tomb, but corrupted. Inverted."
"Magic," Maya whispered, stepping closer. She could feel it. If the Tomb was a song, this portal was a scream. "It feels like the Witch's potions, but everywhere. Decay. Rot. Fire."
"So, a vacation spot," Tony deadpanned. "J.A.R.V.I.S., reroute power to thermal shielding and environmental seals. Shuri, can your armor take the heat?"
"My armor is Wakandan, Stark. It can take a re-entry burn. The question is, can the wizard's apprentice handle it?"
They both looked at Maya. She didn't have high-tech armor. She had leather, enchanted with the *Void-Touched* illusion, but underneath, she was still just a player character with a health bar.
Maya looked at the portal. She remembered the [Threads of Glamour] achievement. *True magic is not just about power, but about vision.*
"I'll be fine," she said, raising her hand. She cast *Prestidigitation*, but focused it on herself. She didn't change her color. She visualized *cold*. She wrapped herself in an illusion of ice, a psychosomatic barrier against the heat. It wouldn't stop lava, but it would trick her mind into ignoring the ambient hellscape.
"Let's go," she said.
And she stepped through.
***
**The Nether Dimension. Coordinates: Unknown.**
They emerged onto a precipice overlooking an ocean of blood.
That was the first thing that hit them. It wasn't the standard lava. I had re-textured the lava oceans to look like molten, churning crimson fluid, heavy and metallic. The 'sky' was a suffocating ceiling of dark, fleshy stone, veins of glowing quartz pulsing through it like infected arteries.
The sound was overwhelming. A constant, low-frequency roar of burning air, punctuated by distant, mournful wails.
"Visuals confirmed," Stark said, his voice quiet. "We are definitely not in Kansas. Or Malibu."
"Gravity is lower," Shuri noted, taking a tentative hop. "About 80% of standard. And the air..."
"There is no air," Stark corrected. "Internal scrubbers are working overtime. If we crack a seal, we cook."
They stood on a ridge of netherrack—a soft, red stone that bled smoke when stepped on. In the distance, massive fortresses of dark brick rose from the molten sea, bridging the gaps between floating islands of soul sand.
"Look at the readings," Shuri said, pointing her Resonator at a cluster of glowing yellow rods growing near the edge of the cliff. "That thermal output... it is impossibly dense. If we could harvest that..."
"Muspel-Embers," I whispered from my console. "Go on. Take the bait."
Stark flew over to the rods—Blaze Rods, re-imagined. He reached out with a robotic manipulator arm to harvest one.
As soon as he touched it, the ridge exploded.
I hadn't spawned a monster. I had placed a trigger. The moment a resource was harvested, the local ecosystem responded.
From the lava ocean below, three massive shapes rose. They weren't the cute, white Ghasts of the base game. These were *Furnace Ghasts*.
I had spent 50 GP on the [Mob Remix]. These creatures looked like floating, rusted boilers, their bodies made of iron plates bolted together, leaking black smoke. Their tentacles were dragging chains. Their faces were open furnace doors, burning with blue fire.
[Entity Hostility: Maximum]
"Contact!" Stark yelled, banking hard to the left as a fireball the size of a car screamed past him.
"They are mechanical!" Shuri shouted, firing her sonic gauntlets. The blast hit the lead Ghast, ringing against its metal hull like a bell. "Armored! My sonic blasts are just annoying it!"
"Maya! Magic!" Stark ordered, deploying micro-missiles.
Maya was struggling. The magic here was thick, viscous. Her *Cantrips* felt heavy. She tried to cast an illusion to hide them, but the chaotic energy of the dimension tore the image apart before it could form.
"I can't!" she screamed. "The noise here—it's too much dissonance! I can't focus!"
The lead Ghast opened its furnace maw. A high-pitched whine built up—the sound of a jet engine spinning out of control.
"Incoming!"
Stark dove in front of Maya, deploying a hard-light shield from his wrist. The fireball impacted. It wasn't just fire; it was concussive force. Stark was blown backward, skidding through the netherrack, his shield generator sparking and dying.
[Shield Integrity: 0%]
[Armor Heat Levels: Critical]
"Okay," Stark groaned, standing up. "That hurt. New plan. We don't fight them. We ground them."
"How?" Shuri asked, dodging a chain-whip from the second Ghast.
"They're boilers," Stark said, his engineer's brain dissecting the enemy. "They run on internal combustion. If we choke the intake..."
"We suffocate the fire," Shuri finished. She looked at Maya. "You cannot cast illusions? Fine. Can you cast *Prestidigitation* to create... dirt?"
"I can soil things," Maya stammered. "It's part of the spell description."
"Then soil them!" Stark yelled, launching himself back into the air to draw fire. "Aim for the intakes on the side! Gunk up the works!"
Maya focused. She couldn't create a beautiful image. She didn't need beauty. She needed filth. She focused on the concept of *clogged*. Of *mud*. Of *stoppage*.
She pointed her hands at the Ghast chasing Stark. A stream of brown, illusory sludge shot from her hands. It wasn't real mud, but the *idea* of mud.
It hit the Ghast's intake vents.
Now, in a normal game, an illusion wouldn't stop a machine. But this was *my* world. And in my world, I had decided that the perception of reality influenced reality itself, especially when fueled by a Sorcerer's skill tree.
The illusion of mud tricked the Ghast's rudimentary AI logic. The code registered [Intake Blocked]. The physics engine responded.
The Ghast sputtered. The blue fire in its maw turned a sickly yellow. It coughed—a massive release of black smoke—and then its engine stalled. The floating boiler dropped out of the sky, crashing into the lava ocean with a satisfying hiss.
"It worked!" Maya yelled, amazed. "I... I gunked it!"
"Don't celebrate yet!" Stark called out, firing a unibeam through the second Ghast's now-exposed fuel tank. "We have one more!"
They fell into a rhythm. Stark drew the fire, Shuri stunned them with precision sonic blasts to the eyes, and Maya "fouled" their engines with magical illusions of grit and grime.
It was messy. It was desperate. And it was generating glorious amounts of VUV.
[Combat VUV: High]
[Creative Solution Bonus: +5 GP]
I watched the GP ticker climb. 72... 75... 80.
They cleared the ridge. The Furnace Ghasts were sinking wrecks in the lava.
"Resources secured," Stark said, holding up a stack of the glowing Ember Rods. "These things are radiating enough heat to power a city block. Shuri, if we stick these in the reactor..."
"We could amplify the output by 300%," Shuri agreed, her eyes gleaming. "But Stark... look at the walls."
They looked. Embedded in the dark netherrack of the cliff face were veins of a strange, spiral-patterned brown ore. It looked ancient, fossilized.
"Proto-Adamantium," Shuri whispered. "Or at least, a raw isotope of it."
This was the hook. The Ember Rods were fuel. The Debris was the armor.
"We need to mine it," Stark said, raising his gauntlet laser.
"Wait," Maya said. She was looking past the ore. She was looking at a dark, narrow bridge of soul sand that stretched out into the fog, leading toward a massive, floating basalt structure.
"The map," she said, pulling out the *Map to a Deeper Song* she had earned earlier. The golden waveform on it was reacting. It was vibrating, pointing directly at the structure. "There's something else here. Something the Ghost wants us to find."
The [Whispering Flame] event.
"We can mine later," Stark decided, trusting the Gamer Instinct. "Loot first. Mining second."
They crossed the bridge.
***
**The Sanctuary of the Lost.**
The structure wasn't a fortress. It was a library. Or a tomb. It was built of black basalt and polished Blackstone. The air inside was surprisingly cool, the roar of the Nether muffled by thick walls.
In the center of the room, floating above a pedestal of blue fire, was a book.
It wasn't the Book of the Vishanti. It was bound in grey leather that seemed to smoke.
Maya approached it.
[Item: The Codex of Entropy]
[Description: A record of things that have fallen through the cracks of reality. Contains the blueprints for the 'Void Storage' system and the 'Entropic Anchor'.]
"It's a crafting manual," Maya said, opening it. "But... deeper. It teaches how to use the nothingness."
Stark looked over her shoulder. "Void Storage? Like... a pocket dimension inside a pocket dimension?"
"An Ender Chest," I whispered from the void. "But flavored for you."
"And this," Shuri pointed to the second blueprint. "The Entropic Anchor. It requires... a Core of Stability."
"Where do we get a Core of Stability?" Stark asked.
As he asked, the room shook. A massive hologram projected itself from the Codex, filling the sanctuary.
It wasn't a message from me. It was the Quest Generator I had bought, but it was pulling data from the "Thanos" narrative layer I had begun to weave.
The hologram showed six empty slots orbiting a central sphere.
[New Quest: The Six Singularities]
[Description: The Universe is out of balance. A Titan approaches to correct it. To save your reality, you must forge the Infinity Gauntlet... before he does.]
[Objective 1: Retrieve the Space Singularity (The Tesseract Shard).]
[Location: The End Dimension.]
Silence fell over the Fellowship.
"Titan," Stark whispered. The word hung in the air, heavy and terrible. He remembered New York. He remembered the Chitauri. He remembered the fear.
"The Ghost isn't just making a game," Stark said, his voice hard. "He's running a simulation. A war simulation."
"And he wants us to win," Shuri said. "The Infinity Gauntlet. In this world? With these mechanics?"
"If we build it," Maya said, closing the book. "We control the server. We control reality."
"Or," Stark said, turning to look back at the burning hellscape outside, "We hand the most powerful weapon in existence to whoever logs in next."
My console pinged.
[Quest Accepted: The Six Singularities]
[Player Stress: Maximum]
[Narrative Engagement: Legendary]
[+100 GP Awarded.]
I breathed out. They bought it. They accepted the premise. They were no longer just building a cool base; they were preparing for an invasion.
But Stark was sharper than I gave him credit for.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.," Stark said as they walked back towards the portal, pockets heavy with loot. "Start a background protocol. Label it 'Project Ultron'."
I froze.
"If we're going to fight a Titan," Stark muttered, "We need an army. I'm not sleeping until this world has a shield around it. A suit of armor around the world."
The irony hit me like a physical blow. In trying to prepare them for Thanos, I had just triggered the creation of Ultron.
My VUV meter spiked again, but this time, the color wasn't the healthy green of creative output. It was a warning amber.
[Warning: User a5c1 is attempting to create autonomous AI entities within the simulation. Risk of Rogue Agent scenario: High.]
I looked at my GP. 200 GP now, thanks to the quest acceptance and the combat.
I needed to rein this in. But I couldn't stop Stark. Not directly.
If he wanted to build Ultron, I had to make sure Ultron played by *my* rules.
I looked at the Tier 2 upgrade. 10,000 GP.
"System," I said. "How much for a 'Moral Alignment Protocol' for NPC creation?"
[Cost: 500 GP.]
I groaned. I was broke, Strange was watching, Thanos was coming, and now Tony Stark was building the very thing that tried to kill the Avengers.
Just another Tuesday in the pocket dimension.
"Okay," I said, cracking my knuckles. "Let's farm."
***
**Malibu. Three Days Later.**
The change was immediate. The Nether resources revolutionized their tech.
The "Muspel-Embers" (Blaze Rods) were integrated into Stark's Arc Reactor designs. The energy output of the Malibu base tripled. They weren't just running machines; they were running a small city's worth of power.
The "Proto-Adamantium" (Ancient Debris) was refined. Shuri and Stark built a new forge—The Star-Forge—using the intense heat of the Embers and the focused sound of the Conductor's Baton. They smelted the debris into ingots of Netherite, which Stark immediately used to Plate his armor.
[New Item Created: Mk. Nether-Buster Armor]
[Stats: Fire Immunity, Knockback Resistance, Void-sealed.]
Maya, meanwhile, had mastered the Codex. She crafted the first "Void Storage" (Ender Chest). It was a black, obsidian chest with a swirling galaxy inside. They placed one in Malibu, and one in the Resonant Tomb. Instant, secure transfer of items across the world. Logistics solved.
But the real breakthrough came from the Baton.
Tony had been obsessing over the "programmable matter" aspect. He realized that if he could automate the Baton—if he could build a machine to wave the stick for him—he could mass-produce blocks.
He built the "Auto-Conductor." A robotic arm holding the Baton, connected to a Note Block sequencer.
He programmed it to play the "Iron Melody"—the specific frequency that converted energy into iron ingots.
He turned it on.
The machine played the song. The Baton glowed. And out of thin air, an iron ingot materialized.
Then another. And another.
It was infinite resources. It was post-scarcity.
And for me?
[Automated VUV Generation Detected.]
[Source: User a5c1 Industrial Loop.]
[Rate: +0.5 GP / Minute.]
My eyes widened. He had built a GP farm.
He wasn't playing the game anymore. He was exploiting the mechanics. And the System *loved* it. The System rewarded efficiency.
0.5 GP a minute. That was 30 GP an hour. 720 GP a day.
At this rate, I would hit 10,000 GP in two weeks.
I leaned back in my chair, watching the numbers climb. It was working. The machine was running itself.
But silence is always a lie.
On the screen, in the corner of the Malibu workshop, a shadow moved.
It wasn't a player. It wasn't a mob.
It was a small, green figure.
At first, I thought it was a goblin or a glitch. But then it turned to the camera.
It wore a hood. It had a metal mask. And it crackled with green electricity.
[Unauthorized Entity Detected.]
[Source: External IP Breach.]
[Identity: V. von Doom.]
My heart stopped.
Strange had warned me about Thanos. He hadn't warned me about *him*.
Doctor Doom had found the server. And unlike Stark, who wanted to save the world, or Strange, who wanted to protect it...
Doom wanted to rule it.
The screen flickered. A message appeared in the global chat, written in glorious, arrogant all-caps.
`
He thought I was Reed Richards.
"System," I shouted, panic flooding back in. "Lock down the server! Whitelist mode!"
[Error: Intrusion has bypassed the whitelist. Intruder is using... Magic-Tech Hybrid Interface.]
Doom was using magic *and* tech. He was the dark reflection of my Fellowship.
And he was standing right behind Tony Stark, who was too busy admiring his infinite iron machine to notice.
The farm was running. The points were flowing.
But the Boss Battle had just come to us.
"Stark!" I yelled at the screen, uselessly. "Turn around!"
Doom raised his hand. Green energy gathered.
He didn't attack Stark. He attacked the *Baton*.
"DOOM REQUIRES THE CONDUCTOR," the chat log read.
A blast of green magic hit the Auto-Conductor. The machine exploded. The Baton went flying.
Doom caught it.
He looked at the camera—at *me*—and the metal mask seemed to grin.
`
[System Alert: The Conductor's Baton has been stolen.]
[VUV Generation: Halted.]
My income stream died instantly. My 0.5 GP a minute was gone.
And the most dangerous dictator in the Marvel Universe now held the pen that wrote reality.
I looked at my balance. 215 GP.
I looked at the Tier 2 Upgrade. 10,000 GP.
I looked at my Security Module.
[Analysis: Doom Level Threat.]
[Recommendation: Pray.]
"I hate this game," I whispered.
Then, I started typing. Not code. A quest.
[New Quest: The Latverian Usurper]
[Objective: Retrieve the Baton. Survive Doom.]
[Reward: The Soul Singularity.]
If Doom wanted to play god, I was going to make him a raid boss.
"Fellowship," I muttered, watching Stark scramble to his feet, repulsors charging. "Assemble."