Chapter 140: Phones

I had an intense night; riddled with nightmares. Waking with a sweaty back and clammy hands while the images of my dreams fade away. They weren’t the worst, but I do hate recalling that blood bath. Humans are not meant to experience such situations.

It took me a moment to shake off the discomfort caused by the phantoms. Speaking off phantoms, it brings to mind the actual mob. Do they still spawn when someone doesn’t sleep for a long time? Or do they have other spawn conditions?

I always sleep, both out of habit and the fact exhaustion exists. I get tired, for better or for worse. As a vampire, you don’t need to sleep. You don’t get tired or exhausted. During the day, however, you do suffer the compulsion to fall into sleep. It may as well be pseudo-exhaustion, even if you could hypothetically stay awake forever. Also, sleeping is enjoyable.

Now that time is no object, I feel far happier sacrificing 33% of my day to slumber. Admittedly, I will die one day all the same, but until that point, I am functionally immortal. So I will sleep whenever the hell I want to.

Death is a rather terrifying prospect. No matter if heaven exists or doesn’t. Inevitability means we will all fall into non-existence at some point; that is terrifying.

“Am I trying to terrify myself? I should stop thinking about such horrid things.” Getting out of bed and heading to my kitchen. I prepare myself a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and buttered toast.

I am very proud of my fried eggs, being cooked sunny side up to perfection. If you cook them between 70 to 74 celsius, only the egg white cooks. You don’t get that horrible stuff at the bottom, just perfect fried eggs with a liquid yolk. Egg yolks cook at 75 celsius, whereas white, 70. This is the scientific fact that lets this whole precise cooking thing work.

I wonder if you could make a perfect boiled egg by cooking it in a souve machine at 73 celsius? I imagine it would take ages given the shells insulative properties, but you never know.

After finishing my meal, I ponder on what to do today. The trip to the capital is tomorrow. I am half considering flying there and teleporting Jengal. It is far better than going by carriage or other slow transports. Even with all the time in the world, I am still acting like life is a time trial. Honestly, a time-consuming activity like that may very well be what I need.

Okay, what mod should I play with today? How about chickens & roost? As much as It would be fun, breeding chickens is a little trickier than the game.

Pausing for a moment, I had a terrible idea. “Felix, got any mods you want me to play with?”

“Silence.”

“Felix?”

“Wait a minute! I am thinking!” he snaps back.

“Sorry,” I say back to him.

“I got it, the eyephone mod. Distribute the phones to the general populace.”

“Okay, can do.”

I forgot about that mod.

“I improved it.” He says mysteriously.

“Well, wish me luck.”

Checking the recipe, I find it is relatively cheap. It is just compounded circuits, so Redstone and iron. You create Redstone and iron wires, combine them together, and those bundles together a few times. Add some sapphire glass, a bit of gold, and a dash of quartz, and you have a phone.

Piping the materials into a chest, then moving those items into a long chain of auto-crafters. A bit of fiddling, and I have an eyephone production line. No workers needed, although I did need to make a sapphire crop. While I was at it, I got diamond hoes automated, so I didn’t need to refill them once a week.

Watching as stacks upon stacks of eyephones are quickly produced, I rub my hands with a smile. Social media will be here soon.

Removing one of them, I activate it. As it boots up, a prompt appears. “First unit initializing detected. Would you like to activate master control? Yes! No!”

Quickly quacking yes, of course, I want master control. It then boots up normally, revealing a familiar screen of apps. Opening the app store, I can see a lot of free apps like Facebook, youtube, the standard.

Downloading youtube, I see a distinct lack of videos. Looking at the top, I see a wifi signal. “Felix you sly dog, global wifi! I love it!”

Opening the camera, I set it facing me. Activating the camera, I begin a verbal tutorial.

Peering at the camera, my island as the backdrop. “Hello, I am Aeternum; welcome to your new eyephone. You may be confused; that is okay. These have been created to connect the world. With social media apps allow you to connect to other eyephone users. Simply add them to your friend's list and experiment. The app you are using to view this tutorial allows for free video sharing. You can upload a video recorded with your eyephone and let other people view it. I would love it if people could upload tutorials on how to do different things. Information sharing is how this world will move forward. You can use gold to buy apps from the app store. You can even earn gold, but that will be spoken about in future tutorials. This is just an introduction; click that subscribe button to find me for future tutorials. Thank you for watching, and enjoy your new phones.”

Next, I prepare some solar chargers to be given out with the phones. Simply glass, lapis, Redstone, and iron; easy stuff.

With that done, I think it is time I start to distribute them.

Using the Ender storage mod, I create a pair of linked chests. Connecting the eyephone output to one, I take the other with me. Heading to town and walking towards the Mayor's office. Idly musing how much trust I place in this man for generally allowing me to do crazy stuff. Walking through the market, straight to the real estate building, and towards the Mayor's office.

Knocking, I hear a “come in.” To which, I enter the room.

Seeing the man behind a small stack of paperwork as usual.

“What do you need?” He asks me.

“I need your help.”

He audibly sighs, “how much.”

“Just need you to distribute some items to as many people as you can,”

“Show me what it is.”

Handing him one of the spare eyephones. I instruct him to download youtube, which took a very long time. Having to guide him at every step. He watches the video, then looks at me.

“Why do you go through so much effort for things like this?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does; why?”

Sighing, “I am given tasks from a God on occasion. He told me to give as many people these items as I can.”

He narrows his eyes, ”I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but why?”

“Okay, imagine you are immortal, and you have lived for uncountable years. You would be pretty bored, yes?”

“I can see that, yes.”

“So, he made a world. He got bored of said world after a few millennia, so he added a wildcard. Me, I am that wildcard. Anyway, long story short. He gives me tasks to do stuff. I, of course, have some ability to do my own thing. But if he says jump, I jump.”

“I don’t know; that is very far-fetched. For now, I will get these given out.”

I place down the linked chest. “Inside that lies an almost unlimited supply of phones.”

He looks inside, jaw-dropping as he sees the stacks upon stacks of phones. “You shouldn’t have any issues with supplies. Don’t charge people for now; just give them out.”

“Those wire things are chargers. They maintain the phone. Give one out with each phone.”

“Sometimes you do the craziest of things.” He says. Shaking his head. “I will start the distribution; you owe me one.”

Returning home, I begin playing with my new phone. Making sure to download all social media apps and any apps I remember. A few dating apps caught my eye, probably a nightmare in this world too.

When I was on earth, I tried them. Deleted them pretty quickly; women abuse men on those apps. After the 5th time in a row being stud up, I just said screw it.

It didn’t really affect me too much, but I did die alone. For the best, given I died. Looking through my apps, one stands out to me. “Admin,” clicking it, I enter into a very complex window. Taps with: “Users, remote access, Logs, Admin panel, and a few other more obscure tech terms.”

Opening Users, I see my name, Averages, and 2 other users. Average must have given some to his staff, given I don’t know their names.

I watch in bemusement as the user page slowly expands. 5 users, 10, 20, 100.

Returning to youtube, I create a basic tutorial on how to use the cameras and post said videos. Knowing how much difficulty the Average had, I made sure every step was carefully demonstrated.

I noticed when a phone is loaded up, it automatically assigns its self to your name. When Average turned it on, it said, “Welcome Average.”

Not having to teach setting up accounts with speed this process up immensely.

“What simple things do I take for granted?” Having to think through my exact process for everything. And then, it hit me. “The keyboard!” How will they know how to use it? I just told Average where to click. It auto translates to your known written language, but still. Maybe I should get Jengal to do phone demos in the town.

I create a youtube video describing how the keyboard works. How to switch to caps, use symbols, emojis, and anything I could think of. I also detail word documents for writing in for those who need them.

The final youtube video I made today is for emails. How to send them, how to attach documents, how to change fonts, make things bold, italic, and how I write the emails.

Now, all I can do is hope they actually find the videos. I teleport over to Jengal's house. “Knock, knock.”

His mother's voice quickly shouts, “coming, coming, coming, coming.” As I hear a soldier's march of footprints approach the door.

She swings it open, “You didn’t have to rush you know.” I say to her with a chuckle. “It sounds like a group of 5 people walking with how fast you run.”

She just laughs ushering me in. “Take it, you want Jengal?”

“You too if you want; I have gifts.”

“I love gifts; got any bathing products?”

“No, but maybe next time.”

She winks jokingly towards me. “Jengal will be back soon; he is just getting me some milk.”

“Okay, I can wait. While I wait, do you want your gift first?”

“Sure.” She says, rushing over and sitting next to me on the sofa.

Removing a phone, I hand it to her. “That is an eyephone. It is one of the greatest things in this world. For now, turn it on with that button.”

She turns it on, awing at the white rectangle. “Next, go to the store right there.”

“This one.”

“Yes.”

“You see that big red button, click it. That holds videos that will help you use it.”

A short while later, we are watching my videos together. She is asking me tons of questions. I try not to think bad of her, they haven't even heard of phones, much less used ones.

“This is wonderful. Jengal can never claim he got lost again.” After looking at the map app.

“He gets lost a lot?”

“Of course not, he just says it to get out of coming home before dark,”

“I see.” Chuckling at his antics.

The door swings open, Jengal encumbered by a large barrel of milk. “Hey, Jengal.” Waving it to him.