With Dice-Fortress currently being uncompletable for the moment, the best option was to move on to another course.
There are three available right now, and two of them can be completed without needing anything else, so I did a mental coin toss and chose
Course 2: Skyward Slopes.

The first star is another test of my wall jumping skills: To The Top of the Tower.
To even reach the tower, I need to climb some steep slopes, which I used to think required triple jumps back in the day.
Now I know that holding the jump button while pressing kick lets Mario climb steep slopes without any trouble.

Before heading up, I check the nearby sign which simply says 32.
No explanation, no hint, just the number. I have no idea why, but I’m sure it means something.

After wall jumping up the tower and grabbing the star, it was time for 8 Dangerous Red Coins.
This is where I lost my first life of the run after misjudging a jump.
Most of the coins are either floating in the air or placed dangerously close to edges, so one mistake is all it takes.

The red coins themselves weren’t the real problem though.
The real trouble came while going for the 100-coin star.
As I got closer to the total, I realised I was running out of coins to collect and had a brief moment where I wasn’t sure if I had missed some.
Then I remembered the tower had coins, so after a few more wall jumps I was able to grab enough to collect both the red coin star and the 100-coin star.

Next was The Outer Wall, which surprisingly didn’t give me much trouble at all.
I know this is still early in the hack, so I’m sure things will get harder later,
but past me definitely struggled with these courses more than current me is.

After that came No Time To Waste.
Seeing a purple switch usually means timed blocks, which normally means multiple attempts,
but somehow I managed to get this one first try, which I’m fairly sure would impress past me.

I could have collected Flotation Technology Box during the 100-coin run,
since the blue coins in this course lead straight to it,
but I decided to grab it separately, and it turned out to be another easy star.

The final star was Master of Jumping,
which is actually a bit misleading because the star itself doesn’t involve anything too difficult,
at least not for current me.
Past me might disagree.

With that star collected, Skyward Slopes is complete.
That also means I now have enough stars to open the first star door of the hack,
since that only requires ten.

So by finishing one course,
I’ve just unlocked another one to worry about.