After I lit the furnaces and topped them up on ore, I traveled to the archery range to watch my friends do their final exams in archery. When we found the stronghold, the founders of the realm decided that all members should take an extensive course on the techniques and skills needed to fight the dragon. I was in charge of training them in archery.

When I arrived, the trainees were already getting their favored bows out of the chest and filling their quivers with arrows. When they were done, I told them what they had to do to pass the final exam. "When I say so, you will have to run out into the woods, and, in the designated area, fight each other with only bows. If you get hit with an arrow, you are out. I don't want any of you killing one another, after all we are in hardcore mode. Once there is only one person left, I will come in and they will fight me. When all players are out, I will rate you depending on how many kills you made and how long you survived. Any questions?"

A player named GameOfFarts24/7-Silas, I thought, raised his hand. "Yes?" I asked,  "You said when all the players are out. What happens if the last person beats you?" He asked. "Well, then they earn my utmost respect." I replied. He subsided, clearly not satisfied with my answer but obviously itching to start the exam. "Alright, if that is all, then begin!" They all sprinted into the fenced off taiga biome, and I shut the gate behind them, climbed up the ladder to my observation pod twenty blocks above the battle, grabbed a bowl of rabbit stew, and watched the carnage unfold below me.

The first ones in quickly found good hiding spots from which to pick off their adversaries. The stragglers who had yet to get out of sight were quickly picked off. Then all of a sudden, someone burst out of the ferns covering the forest floor. Despite heavy fire from their opponents, she was able to scramble up a tree, from which she used her flame bow to set fire to a small swathe of forest. As hidden players rushed to escape the blaze, she fired her weapon like a quick charge crossbow, knocking out five people before someone ran along a branch in a nearby tree, springboarded off the end, and fired their bow while in the air, taking her out as they hit the tree trunk, sliding gracefully down into the blaze.

Silas.

He was always a show-off, but he's the best non-founder sniper in the realm, and I needed a new protege after BLACKstar51 (Jeremy) got himself killed at the battle of Bastion Gauntlet (we needed ender pearls to light the end portal so we went to the warped forest to get some but there was an unfortunate incident with a bow-wielding piglin, a clumsy zoglin, and a block of TNT.) Anyway, after a large scuffle with some other players amidst the burning trees, Silas emerged victorious. He appeared very excited that he was about to face the most skilled archer in the realm, and I did not intend to keep him waiting. I walked down out of my observation pod, pulled out my bow, The Phantom Slayer, coolly drew one of my special black-fletched arrows out of my quiver, stepped onto the battlefield...

And promptly shot the arrow straight at Silas, standing seventy blocks away, splitting his still-knocked arrow just to scare him.

See, there's something you should know about me. As you just saw, I'm a decent archer. My friends call me an amazing archer, but people tend to do that when you can jump up from behind a wall, see a flying egg at max bow range inside a thick forest, pull an arrow, knock it, pull it back, and shoot, pinning the egg to a target block behind it, all before you go back behind the wall. So, of course, I'm terrifying in combat. As Silas rapid-fired at me with his remaining arrows, I jumped into the blazing forest. Because his view of me was now obscured, his shots got less and less accurate, while I calmly loosed an arrow seemingly at random into the fire. There was a yelp of pain, and Silas came out of his hiding place, an arrow sticking out of his chest.

"That's why I said when all players are out. You really put up a fight, but you still need a few years more practice." I remarked.

"How did you get so good!?" Silas exclaimed.

"I never really had to 'get good.' I've always had an uncanny ability to predict exactly where an arrow will go and exactly how it will go there and I also know exactly how my target will react, where they'll dodge, and how fast they'll move away from the arrow, and then I shoot the arrow at the spot they'll arrive at."

"Well, it can't be just that, you have to have honed that skill for years on end!" He said.

"Well, sort of. I did practice for hours on end, having my cousin throw eggs into the distance and I would shoot arrows through them, pinning them to the center of a target block." I admitted.

"Cool! By the way, can we go inside? The sun's setting and the mobs will be out soon." Silas asked.

"Okay. Don't wait for me. I'm going to do some mob hunting." I said.

"See you tomorrow then." he said, then turned and started walking back to the base in the gathering dusk.                     

hey! I'm really sorry it took so long to get this chapter done. 965 words! it just felt like my mind was stuck in the mud. I feel like I'm getting back into this though! the next chapter will probably arrive in about a week, maybe less. also, the world in this story is not made up, the base is not made up, (you will see the base in the next chapter)