Netherite beacon hunt

The netherite beacon hunt event was a game organized by Sasori\_mk and the Bruh Market in the summer of 2021. It would find itself in the spotlight quickly, due to the $492 value the beacon had at the moment of the games. The event would get further fame by appearing on Apersu's youtube channel, with a video that held further information and hidden clues about the going on's of the games.

## Origins

Player Sasori\_mk joined in middle December 2020, though rather new, he was well liked for his calm nature. Close to a month later, the player would set himself a goal of creating a full, four layer netherite beacon. This project would soon prove it's challenge though, as netherite had become the main form of currency during the 1.16 update, replacing obsidian and shulkers shells. The resource would become so desired, a price tag of actual money was put upon it, which fluctuated over time. After the new year, the price had become mostly stable, but nonetheless on the expensive side. Hence, Sasori would mainly resort to mining for the precious ingot. Aside from this, he would start the bruh-market with close friends ShellFX & Yoavik70, where he would be able to further aid his goal. In a process taking up over half a year, he would achieve what first looked to be impossible: 1476 netherite ingots, piled up in a pyramid with a beacon, as the cherry on top. In the end he would conclude that 80% of the beacon was mined, while a mere 20% was down to the market trades. His friends ShellFX, Stelios\_100, Yoavik70, Yonzi123 and 33rik88 would help him not only materially, but also being the cause for him to keep going. With the pyramid complete, it was time for going public.

Within a couple days Sasori got in contact with current youtube sensation Apersu. The two would quickly got along and as Apersu was being briefed, he got overjoyed with the event. He would make the official announcement video, bringing it to the attention of the wider community. The plan was to have 4 books, leading to the location of the eventual trophy, scattered across purity's three dimensions. Only by having all 4 books would you be able to discover the location of the treasure. To give the players some extra help with finding these on the vast wasteland that is Purity, Apersu would give hints and hidden messages in his video to help the playerbase along. Despite almost becoming a face of the event, he sees himself as just the spokesperson and wouldn't want to gain any credit. On the 29th of July, the final step was made in creating a discord server for the event. It was of such notice that the discord server was even allowed to be linked in the #minor-news-feed channel of Purity's official server. All pieces were in place, the game was about to begin.

## The event

On July 31th 2021, at 12 pm EST Apersu's video released and with it, the first clue's as to the location of the books. The first book: "one for all", was dropped all over spawn and was meant to kickstart the entire event off. Giving the players a starting location through a formula, people could already journey to 78903, -1234567. the rest of the clues would be better hidden however, as the other books would be found at.

* Book 2 "+222222222222": x=222, y=222, z=222,222 overworld
* Book 3 "World Corner": x=128,000, y=, z=128,000 end dimension (hidden message in the video description)
* Book 4 "x=z y=256 z=x": x=-116,000, y=255, z=-116,000 overworld (hidden message at different points in the video, linking to: https://youtu.be/sFqz0-xIx6M)

It wouldn't take long for the first book to be found, or so it seemed. Player wefhy had sent a screenshot of him finding a barrel at 2222, 222, 22222, only 45 minutes after the release of the video. claiming he had lucked out by going to the right spot. Quickly, others lost heart at noticing how quick one was already found and manically started searching the remaining two. They would eventually learn, it was actually a dud however. Wefhy had purposely tricked the community by placing his own barrel at the location he went to after finding nothing, hoping to get a head start over the rest, but also just being happy to troll the other contestants.

Not much later it was Atromis' turn. Being in the end dimension by chance, where he had figured out the 3rd book was hidden, he was happily surprised to find a barrel with the contents on his first flight to one of the world corners. Within a matter of hours from the start of the event he would post a screenshot of himself holding the book, making clear to everyone he owned the copy. While he was shortly scared that others might have found a different copy of the same book, he got reassured there was only one of each book, prompting him to make his intentions clear. Claiming to have no interest in the beacon itself, he was open for a trade for the recent anniversary cakes created by penguin for purity's second birthday. Atromis seems to have had luck on his side, as not only had he flown to the right corner straight away, but shortly after this another player claimed he had journeyed there 20 minutes before Atromis had started, but ran out of rockets before arriving at the location. With only one box being left to the public, the server still had everything to play for.

The next morning, wefhy had already given up on finding the actual location and instead told his friend, Melwin22, that the screenshot he'd sent was a fake and that the real book was still out there. Knowing this, Melwin set out to find the real copy, having little competition now others had stopped looking for it. after arriving at several possible coordinates, he ended up finding the barrel and its contents: book 2. Unlike Atromis, Melwin kept this info for himself for the time being, hoping it would help his bargaining position in the long run. Though the server didn't know he was the one who owned it, most still believed it was gone, but under different ownership.

Book 4 was undoubtedly the hardest of them all. Though the clues were visible to the naked eye, it took some hard work finding them all. The messages: "watch?v=sF", "qz0-x" and "lx6M" were all hidden in the décor of the video and typing them all in with a youtube link, they would send you to an unlisted youtube video, promptly showing you the text: "search between -100k and -120k". On it's own, this would be worthless, but with the clue: x=z z=x, this would seriously narrow down the search. Eventually Soosh would become the lucky contender, finding the 4th book. However, it was not just him finding the book. In reality Soosh had looked to team himself with a group, as many players on the server had. Unlike most however, he kept his partnership quiet and with good reasons. after trying to find someone in Invicta, he was saddened to see no one interested. At the start of the event however, he was approached by his basemate GoldenCookie420, who offered him a place in his team. Having recently started playing on a separate server with several members of the Chadlets, he ended up teaming with Glaceonguy, Micolash & Tarqshark for this event as well. Both sides seemed to be skeptical however, as the overall Invicta-Chadlets relation had not fully healed from past event. Cookie luckily managed to convince both sides it was a good idea however and thus allowed Soosh, their eventual spokesperson, in. Once the group had cracked the code, it would be Soosh who conducted the negotiations, as he was the most trustworthy and likeable of the bunch to the wider server. The Chadlets still held their reputation on the server and were hence kept hidden to the wider public.

## Negotiations

Before the hunt ended, many had already been preparing for the free for all, that would happen on August 30th. Should there have been no deal struck or one of the books still being lost, coords would be released to the entire server and it would just be a race. Purity being purity, a big portion of the playerbase were sure the location would never be found within a month, as any owner of the books would do anything to backstab, rob, fool or just anger the others. These hopes were quickly squashed however, as the book owners were announced in the night of the 1st of August. It had taken Atromis, Melwin and the Invicta-Chads alliance a little over a day to find all 3 books, but they were all in possession of just one piece of the puzzle. The three owners were all known to be fair players however, able to hold their heads cool. It wouldn't take long for them to start talking and negotiating. As time went on, the three seemed to grow fond of each other, at one point even planning to mine the beacon and sell the books on separately, as a clever ruse. They would quickly discard this idea however and instead return to the negotiating table.

Atromis had made it clear from the start he had his eyes on the anniversary cake, but had upped his demand to three cakes for the book after some convincing from friends. meanwhile, Melwin had a different request. For his part of the puzzle, he wanted Minecraft's most exotic mob delivered to his doorstep: a living shulker. while such extractions had been completed before, they had never been easy or particularly enjoyable to perform. Lastly, instead of putting a price on his book, Soosh took a different approach. He would get Atromis' cakes and Melwin's shulker, becoming the new owner of the beacon in the process. This was easier said than done though, as only a specific amount of anniversary cakes had been dropped by penguin during the celebrations, so getting three of them was no small feat. Here the partnership shone through as Glaceon and Jimothy were quick to add a cake to the pile to seal the deal.

Melwin's shulker seemed to be most difficult part, as the only step between them and the beacon. Soosh came prepared for this moment, knowing a living shulker only 5k from endspawn, but was hindered when he was ambushed once going through the portal. Only several hours later would he try again and arrive in one piece. Now it was their turn to camp the platform, as cookie defended the island, while Glaceon and Soosh retrieved the shulker in the mean time. Melwin's whole reason for wanting the shulker was to perform the "how did we get here" advancement, which prompted Soosh to offer to perform it with the three of them, to finish the deal. Melwin however refused, being busy and instead taking the shulker to a base. Atromis was nowhere to be found meanwhile, but had already given Soosh his book. Melwin's choice would end up costing him, as before he was able to get the advancement, shulker decided to kill himself.

## Finding the beacon

Having all three books, all the group had to do now was cracking the code, which ended up being just a math calculation, being:

* x= (200 + 69 \* 13 - 80000) + (36 \* 20000 / 5 + 4000) + (100 + 30 \* 14 - 90000) + (900 \* 69 + 7 \* 169)
* y= 69, according to the clue in book 2 (nice indeed)
* z= -1234567 + 654321 + 420123 + 139240

Having basic math knowledge or using google would therefor bring you to 42900, 69, -20883, with the dimension being the nether according to book 4. Wasting no time, Soosh journeyed out, set to complete the last step and secure the beacon before anyone else could. On the 6th of August, the quest was finished, as Sasori officially announced the unlikely alliance between Invicta and the Chads as winners of the competition. All that was left was splitting the price. Jimothy would end up receiving 8 blocks for aiding the group by giving them a cake, which left the remaining 156 blocks to be split equally between the 5. Despite this, the group didn't seem fully done, as they had one last trick up their sleeve.

While they ended up not selling the books after using them as a group, the player Moosh had been hoping to deceive the group. He had already asked Melwin for the coords in his books, paying him 40 netherite for the luxury. Afterwards Soosh too sold him his book, this time upping it to 75 netherite, which seemed like a great deal to Moosh, who was now close to making 20 times that amount. He would however be less happy upon receiving the notification that the beacon had already been found and that his book was worth little more than scraps. Claiming he had been scammed, Soosh was quick to bounce back, showing everyone the contract Moosh had signed for book 4

Following this, Moosh conceded, but would end up receiving his 40 netherite back from Melwin, who mainly did it as a joke. With this the event event was over. The Chadlets and Invicta were looking towards a new horizon on purity, Melwin was still looking for a shulker, Atromis now owned three past expiration-date food products and Sasori ended up starting his own faction.