You spawned in a sparse birch forest at dawn, the sun just cresting the hills. Inventory empty. Health full. The familiar, tense silence of a fresh world pressed in, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the distant, ominous groan of a zombie.

A system notification pinged in the corner of your vision.

You didn't see him, but you felt it. The competition was already on. The race for wood, for stone, for that first crucial shelter before nightfall. You could almost hear the smirk in his silence.