Extended Vanilla Endgame (EVE)

[EVE] Extended Vanilla Endgame aims to keep Minecraft close to vanilla. It adds features to keep you ocupated in the endgame. Once you reach the endgame you can upgrade every netherite tool and armor piece +1 → +10 (each level roughly doubling in cost), fuse your chestplate with an elytra for armored flight, turn a sponge into a lava-drinking Absorbing Sponge, and craft an Upgraded Shulker Box that can store other shulker boxes. All of that using the smithing table.

Upgrade Cores

The Upgrade Core +1 is crafted from one each of diamond, iron, gold and emerald block in the corners, crying obsidian on the edges, and a netherite ingot in the center.

Every higher core is simply two cores of the previous tier combined (shapeless, no extra items). The cost doubles every level — a +10 core is worth 512 +1 cores. That's the grind.

Upgrading

In the smithing table: Upgrade Core +N + your +(N-1) item + a per-level catalyst:

Each level grants (cumulative): +1 attack damage · +1 armor · +0.5 armor toughness · +20% mining speed · +25% durability. Enchantments and damage are preserved.

Upgradable: all netherite tools and armor, the Winged Netherite Chestplate, a plain sponge, and any shulker box (plus netherite spears on 26.x). Item tag eve:upgradable, extendable by datapacks.

The Chestplate Gate

A plain netherite chestplate cannot be upgraded. First craft a Wing Smithing Template (nether star + 4 netherite ingots + 4 phantom membranes), then smith it with your chestplate and an elytra into the Winged Netherite Chestplate: full netherite protection and elytra flight, and the only chestplate that accepts +N upgrades.

The Absorbing Sponge

Upgrade a plain sponge (Core +1 + sponge + iron block) into an Absorbing Sponge — a sponge that drinks lava as well as water, upgradable up to +7.

It behaves like a vanilla sponge, with two twists:

• Reusable. It sits dry until liquid first touches it, absorbs once, and turns wet. Breaking it always drops the dry sponge back — with its tier — so you can place it again and again. To absorb a second time, just break and re-place it.
• Lava and water radii grow on alternating levels (lava always reaches a smaller radius than water): from water 6 / lava 3 at +1 up to water 12 / lava 9 at +7.

The Absorbing Sponge item is fireproof, so it survives a swim in the lava it's meant to drink, and it's mined fastest with a hoe like a vanilla sponge.

The Upgraded Shulker Box

Upgrade any shulker box (Core +1 + shulker box + iron block) into an Upgraded Shulker Box — the one container that can hold other shulker boxes.

It's a real shulker box in every way — animated lid, keeps its contents when broken, previews them in the item tooltip (so shulker-preview mods work on it too), mined with a pickaxe, and dropped by pistons. The differences:

• It stores normal shulker boxes (and anything else). It won't accept another upgraded box, so there's no infinite nesting.
• Comes in all 16 colours plus the default, and is dyeable like a vanilla box (combine with a dye — contents preserved) or washed in a water cauldron to reset the colour.
• A small gold emblem on the lid sets it apart from a normal box, on both the item and the placed block.

Requirements

• Minecraft 26.1.x, 26.2, or 1.21.11, on Fabric (Loader ≥ 0.19.3) with Fabric API
• Java 25 for 26.x, Java 21 for 1.21.11
• Required on both client and server
• JEI optional — adds a "Gear Upgrade" category showing every tier

Known limitations

• Elytra wings don't render on your back while gliding with the winged chestplate — flight itself works fine

Source & full changelog: github.com/MrCloudy2/extended-vanilla-endgame