I mean, yes, I had also fallen off three of them, and Biscuit had nearly frozen solid trying to choose between two equally fast routes back to the main platform, and at one point I accidentally communicated something to a group of Endermites that made them carry the sea lanterns away from me before I corrected whatever I’d said. But we had all the materials. Every single one. Rainbow wool, sea lanterns, and amethyst blocks, all crammed into Biscuit’s truly miraculous backpack.
“Forty-two minutes when we started,” Biscuit announced, consulting the little hourglass she’d pulled from her bag, “which means we now have eleven minutes and — oh no.”
“Eleven minutes is great!” I said, only partially believing it.
The Elegance Duel platform was enormous — a flat stretch of endstone as wide as Sproutville’s entire square, glowing faintly purple in the dim End sky. Two building zones were marked out with thin lines of amethyst dust: one on the left, one on the right. The Ender Earl was already in his zone, working in absolute silence. His structure was breathtaking. A symmetrical tower of purpur blocks, each one perfectly aligned, rising in neat identical tiers. Sea lanterns placed at exact intervals. Everything level. Everything square.
It was the most organized thing I had ever seen. I hated it a little bit.
I stepped into my zone, set all the materials in a careful pile, and immediately tripped over the pile.
A rainbow wool block landed on my head. I grabbed it and shoved it onto the endstone just to stop it rolling away. Then I lunged for a sea lantern that was sliding toward the void — caught it, but knocked into a stack of amethyst blocks, which toppled sideways. I grabbed two of them and crammed them onto the structure just to get them off the ground. Then I tripped on my own foot — which, honestly, is my most impressive skill — and grabbed the nearest thing, which was another wool block, which I slapped onto the tower to keep from falling.
“Ollie,” Biscuit said carefully from outside my zone, “what is happening.”
“Building,” I said.
“That is not a word I would use.”
But here’s the thing. When I stepped back for half a second to catch my breath, I actually looked at what I’d made. It was lopsided. It tilted slightly left. One sea lantern was hanging off the corner at an impossible angle. The amethyst blocks were scattered at different heights, which meant they caught the End’s purple light and scattered it in six directions at once. The rainbow wool, rather than forming neat stripes, had ended up in this wild diagonal sweep that somehow looked like a sunrise — or what a sunrise might look like if the sun had tripped too.
It looked alive.
I didn’t have time to think about whether it was good. I had nine minutes. I kept going.
Every time I reached for a block, I fumbled it somewhere unexpected. Every stumble added a new angle. I sneezed once — the Sneeze Shield activated with a cheerful poof and scattered confetti that somehow embedded three amethyst shards into the tower’s upper section at perfect decorative intervals. I thought about the Wool of Wonders in my pocket and decided against it, mostly because last time I’d aimed for “column” and become a hay bale. This tower didn’t need me turning into a hay bale.
Meanwhile, across the platform, I could hear the Ender Earl muttering.
“This block is 0.4 degrees off-center,” he said quietly. He removed it. Replaced it. Removed it again. “Still wrong.” He tilted his head, pulled out his golden clipboard, measured something, made a note, measured again.
Biscuit looked at me. I looked at Biscuit.
“Is he…” I started.
“Tidying,” she confirmed.
The hourglass ran out.
A deep bell rang across the End — low and echoing, the kind of sound that shook your ribs just a little.
“TIME,” announced the judge, who turned out to be a very elderly Enderman in a small bow tie who had apparently been sitting in a stone chair the entire time. I had not noticed him at all. “Building phase is complete. Builders, step back.”
I stepped back. I nearly stepped off the platform, but Biscuit grabbed my sleeve.
The Ender Earl looked up from his clipboard, looked at his tower, looked at the hourglass, and went the color of a blank piece of paper.
“I was tidying,” he said faintly. “I just needed to fix one block.”
“You needed to finish your build,” the judge replied, not unkindly, adjusting his bow tie. He walked — very slowly, with a small stone cane — to my tower first. He walked around it twice. He looked at the diagonal rainbow sweep. He looked at the amethyst shards catching the light. He looked at the sea lantern dangling off the corner, which was somehow still attached and glowing warmly.
“Structurally improbable,” he announced.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I did not mean it as a compliment.” He paused. “And yet.” He walked around it one more time. “It is, without question, the most surprising build this duel has witnessed in three hundred years. Every material is present. Every material is placed with apparent intention.” He peered at me over his glasses. “Was it intentional?”
I thought about every stumble, every lunge, every accidental sneeze. I thought about what Biscuit had helped me understand back in Wither Wanda’s fog maze — that sometimes the plan that works is the one that happened by accident.
“Mostly,” I said honestly. “The good bits were.”
The judge almost smiled. Almost. “The Crown of Cubic Grace is awarded to Ollie Oakstone-Lumberg.”
The Crown of Cubic Grace landed on my head. It was lighter than I expected — smooth and warm, made of something that felt almost like compressed starlight, if starlight were also slightly rectangular.
Then it started to glow.
Not just a little. Three distinct pulses of golden light bloomed outward, one after the other, like the crown was remembering something. Baron Blaze. Wither Wanda. The Ender Earl, standing right there with his clipboard and his perfectly combed purple cape and his expression of total devastation.
Three villains. Three victories. Three pulses.
Biscuit went completely quiet, which for Biscuit is extremely unusual. Then she whispered, “Ollie. The crown. It’s counting.”
I knew she was right. And standing there in the purple glow of the End dimension, with my ridiculous lopsided tower behind me and confetti still drifting around my ankles, I understood something I hadn’t quite understood before. This wasn’t just one adventure. It was one part of something much, much bigger. The crown wasn’t glowing because I’d won a building contest. It was glowing because of everything that had led here — the fountain in Sproutville, the fog maze, Sky Tower, all of it.
Two more victories for the full glow.
I couldn’t wait.
Biscuit pressed the Wobbly Tower Medal into my hands a moment later — she’d apparently been carrying it in her bag since the hourglass ran out, because of course she had. It was small and bronze and shaped like a tower that was leaning at a very concerning angle, and engraved along the bottom it read: For Building Things That Should Not Stand But Do.
I looked at my tower. I looked at the medal. I looked at my best friend, who was already pulling out a fresh list and a snack.
“Right,” Biscuit said cheerfully, handing me half a biscuit — the food kind, which she always had — “I’ve been thinking about what comes next, and I have seventeen ideas.”
“Tell me all of them,” I said.
And I meant it.