Had another close call tonight, an ultimate example of risk vs reward stemming from something that I thought would be pretty insignificant.

I had gotten bored (spent most of the day digging a massive hole), so I decided to use my raid farm for some easy emeralds before heading to bed. I use a bell to track the raid through the ceiling to see if they all make their way into the trap I built or if I have to hunt them down. One of the times I hit the bell I noticed a witch outline close to one of the walls of the room. I figured there was a cave there, so after I finished the raid I dug towards where I had seen the witch. I didn't have to go very far....

I ended up not finding a cave, but a mineshaft. I ran back to my storage area, stocked up on torches and began exploring. Almost right away I was rewarded. The second minecart chest I found looked something like this...

But then I ran into the close call. We all know that mineshafts mean one thing. Cave spiders. I had found a couple spawners here and there, but as I neared the center of the mineshaft I was overrun by a swarm of them. It was a struggle, but I managed to fight them off. I could see that there were two spawners close to each other. I decided to save them for later to build a string farm. But even after I lit them up and killed off the spiders I could find, I could still hear more spawning. A couple right turns down some corridors discovered a third spawner. Since it was still spawning spiders as I cleared the first two, I knew it had to be in range of them as well. A little digging and this was the end result of almost being wiped out....

What started as "huh, there must be a cave there" turned into a near death, a notch apple, and a future op string/wool farm. Not bad for digging 15 blocks.

Nothing like a little rare bug to get the blood flowing first thing after logging in...

Went to go clear my inventory of the spoils from the mineshaft, when all my chests suddenly vanished. The hitboxes were still there, I could open them, but I couldn't see them. I ran around my base and discovered that anywhere I had chests, I now had blank space. Went so far as to have @otakuinalaska come tp to me to make sure they were still there. I even tp-ed back to Shaded Tree Grotto, and sure enough, they were invisible too. Relogging didn't help either, ended up having to completely restart the client.

What I should have seen at the grotto:

What I actually saw:

Does this mean even mojang is getting mad I haven't died yet? :P

Then you'd hate the base I'm working on now, haven't built a proper storage area yet so everything is just kind of everywhere lol

Nope, don't have it installed, last time I did was 1.13. I think I just got lucky

In the immortal words of Monty Python, And now for something completely different.

*Best David Attenborough impression*

Here we see the majestic @DonCake, soaring through the sky, peforming his happy firework dance!

Thank you sir! Im sure there will be plenty more where that came from :P

Sooooo....a thing happened....

My name changed color...again....

I guess this means @Naidae is off the hook....again...

What a crazy day this has been! I don't even have any screenshots, I spent most of the day trying to keep up with everything going on! My staff application was approved, I tortured @GibsonAxe while he tried to teach me all my new responsibilities (I think he's gonna call me Roynub from now on), I toured a base, I gave a tour of my bases, and had a rousing chat with admins in discord. Had a couple surprising and deep conversations today as well, and I thank both of you for having them. (I'm sure you guys know who you are.) Oh, and I did my first cleaning duty, of course. I don't even know what my ticks are at. Right now I don't care, I'm just gonna ride this train to bed.

I do have a bit of a conundrum I need to figure out and I'm going to leave it to you guys to decide what to do. While I'm cleaning spawn I have access to effects that basically let me cheat ticks during the challenge, as it makes me near to impossible to kill. I figure I can do one of three things:

1. Just ignore the fact that it's cheating and use the effects while I clean.

2. Stay true to the challenge and not use the effects while I clean.

3. Use the effects while I clean, but add another 5 Million ticks to the challenge to compensate.

Let me know what you all think I should do, and whichever option gets the most nods is what I'll stick with until the end of the challenge!

Congrats on getting mod Roylne1!!!

@Pwnanite Screenshot your Ticks before & after your "Work"
Subtract the total and you have your challenge ticks.

So basically #3, but with extra math involved?

@Shamstor Congrats on getting mod Roylne1!!!

Thank you very much!

Don't mind me, I'm just gonna leave this here...

Seems I didn't get much feedback on the cleaning question, so by executive decision I'm just gonna add the 5 million ticks. (I promise I'm not blowing off your suggestion @Pwnanite, was just hoping for more people to chime in for a consensus <3 lol)

It makes it more flashy that way...kinda like this guy! :P

Bases still on the line, now all the way to 25 Million.

Well, it's been a few days since I posted, unfortunately I had some health issues that got in the way and made it near impossible to play. But, I was able to rally and do some catching up tonight!

I had a feeling I was closing in on 15 million, so tonight I decided to do something a little different to get there, something that involved a decent amount of risk if I wasn't careful.

I decided to get over my fear of flying on the server. And not just by doing a little flying. I went big and decided I would fly all the way to the world border. Then once I got there I went one step further and flew to the corner of the world border. The whole trip took me 2 elytras. 4 stacks of rockets, and about 3 1/2 hours of real time. Most of the time my computer couldn't load chunks, so this is what I saw...
(And yeah, i flipped the view for this one, most of the time i was staring at my butt)

I did take a couple pitstops along the way, either from fear of not seeing where i was going, or to stock up on rockets. I managed to find a couple goodies along the way, like my 3rd notch apple...

The first Bamboo Forest I've ever found, complete with the first pandas I've seen in-game...

I almost decided to stop after a couple hours, but then it finally came into view...

And after another 15 minutes or so, I finally made it! There were a couple signs posted already, so I took the screenie, left my mark as well, and teleported home!

I never did resort to the safety net of the slowfall potion either. First thing on my list next time I log in, fix my elytras.

Oh! I almost forgot!

Happy 5000th day 1.14 map lol