Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

With the whole Lucille cancer situation completely handled, Gray simply took it easy for the rest of the day. Since he hadn’t slept at all during his long flight and highway-clearing run, he spent his afternoon catching up on his shows before heading to bed as soon as darkness fell.

He woke up refreshed just as the sun started rising over the horizon. Without wasting any time, Gray used his Jumper ability to teleport back to Virginia. He launched himself straight into the air and flew directly toward the iconic quarry from the show. Looking down at his system map, he had noticed the massive stone pit was already starting to fill up with walkers, and he wanted to clear them out before they could ever become a threat.

Arriving at the quarry, Gray looked down and saw about 150 walkers already trapped at the bottom. To make sure things didn’t escalate like they did in the original timeline, Gray decided to improve the containment. Instead of relying on the flimsy semi-trucks that were blocking the exit paths in the show, he pulled out his Minecrafter blocks and completely sealed the gaps with solid stone. Now, even if the horde grew to thousands in the future, the dead would never be able to push their way out.

Standing high on his newly constructed wall, Gray decided to test out his fine Ki control. He focused the energy into the palm of his right hand and formed a Spirit Ball, Yamcha’s signature technique. Because he could mentally control the sphere’s flight path through the air, Gray launched the glowing ball of Ki straight down into the quarry and guided it like a remote-controlled missile. He zipped the ball back and forth through the pit, destroying every single walker inside with just that single Ki move.

Seeing the piles of broken bodies below, Gray used Merlin’s magic to levitate and gather all the remains into one dense pile. He raised his hand and fired a concentrated Exterminate Ray, vaporizing the entire mass into absolutely nothing.

Nodding to himself in satisfaction at his quick work, Gray took off into the skies again. He flew across the Virginia landscape for about 30 minutes until his map flagged a perfect spot for his new secondary base. The terrain was already decently level, but Gray figured he would end up flattening the entire grid anyway using his Minecraft tools.

Landing in the center of the clearing, Gray began placing down automated plots of land from his max-level Home Garden. Once the farming plots materialized, he willed the massive, 10-meter-tall stone walls to rise up and enclose the entire perimeter. Thanks to his Home Garden being fully maxed out, he still had millions of farming plots available in his system. This time, he didn’t need a huge territory like the 5-mile fortress back in Atlanta... instead, he made this new Virginia enclosure a compact 2 miles each way.

Once the massive stone perimeter was entirely secure, Gray pulled his Netherite shovel from his inventory and spent the next three hours physically leveling the remaining uneven terrain. When he finished, he was left with a massive, perfectly flat open space ready for construction. He opened the system shop and began browsing for a utility power that would make building a city completely effortless.

His eyes landed on the perfect option from the Naruto universe. Gray purchased the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique. To ensure that a lack of chakra wouldn’t limit his output, he also bought a massive chakra pool equivalent to the Nine-Tails in volume, alongside Sakura Haruno’s flawless chakra control to prevent any wasted energy.

He decided to test it out immediately. He channeled his new energy and formed a hand sign, aiming to spawn 10 clones. With a loud poof of thick white smoke, 10 identical versions of Gray were suddenly standing in front of him.

”Try using all the abilities we have from the system,” Gray ordered them. ”And check if you can open the main interface menu.”

The clones immediately began testing their limits. They generated Ki, flared their energy, and manifested various magical properties. Gray observed that while the clones all shared access to his 20-slot spatial inventory and the Minecraft inventory, they were completely locked out of interacting with the main system shop and interface. However, having full access to all of Gray’s active physical, magical, and Ki abilities made them the ultimate workforce.

Nodding in approval, Gray told them all to get to work. He used his Jumper ability to blink back to his house at the prison fortress, grabbed every heavy-duty jackhammer and automated construction tool he had stored away, and dropped them into his inventory. The moment the items hit the spatial slots, the clones in Virginia pulled them out and divided the labor.

Gray spawned dozens more clones to accelerate the process. The scene turned into an absolute blur of supernatural construction. One massive group of clones began digging deep into the stone earth to excavate the server rooms for the new local AI core. Another squad began harvesting the surrounding trees, while a separate group used the gathered wood to craft rows of storage chests. The clones digging underground never had to stop or clear their inventory... a parallel team of clones stood at the surface, constantly draining the raw stone from the shared spatial bag and stacking it neatly into the wooden chests.

All in all, it took Gray and his army of clones just a few hours to build a completely functioning, high-tech small town from scratch. He constructed a massive warehouse at the edge of the new base. Using Merlin’s temperature-altering magic, he locked the main floor of the facility at a crisp 68 degrees, while setting up separate, heavily insulated zones for commercial walk-in refrigerators and freezers.

Underneath the town, the clones ran a heavy-duty underground power grid. Instead of wasting time setting up vulnerable solar panels or wind turbines, Gray spent a bit of his fortune to buy a large-scale Marvel Arc Reactor to cleanly power the entire grid forever. He still ordered the clones to install solar panels on top of every building roof, but strictly as a secondary backup system.

By the time the sun was high, the town featured a massive, fully stocked indoor shopping mall. The shelves were loaded with goods ranging from toilet paper and industrial detergents to fresh fruits and vegetables. The cold storage sections were packed with premium tree meat and fresh dairy products transported directly from his automated livestock ranches in his farming dimension. He had thousands of gallons of fresh milk, crates of eggs, blocks of butter, and rows of refined seed oils.

Gray’s strategy was now fully set. He planned to keep the Atlanta prison base focused strictly on high-yield agriculture, massive livestock ranching, and advanced medical research. This new Virginia base, however, would be developed to focus heavily on manufacturing, metal trades, and fuel production. Once he began moving the local survivor factions into the stone walls, the two outposts would be able to safely trade high-tier resources through his planned underground tunnels, ensuring everyone had access to absolute luxury without ever risking a single life on the surface highways.

With the main buildings and warehouses fully constructed, the clones shifted their focus to the town’s utility infrastructure. Underneath the newly paved streets, they laid a massive network of pipes, routing the sewage system to drain directly into various automated water treatment plants from Fallout Shelter. These high-tech recycling systems processed all the waste instantly, turning it back into perfectly pure, clean drinking water for the entire base.

To handle the digital infrastructure, Gray opened his system shop and bought an extended network reach for both JARVIS and VEGA, allowing them to link their main servers in Atlanta all the way to this new Virginia fortress. Gray also purchased around 40 more T-800 units for VEGA to deploy as a local security force on top of the massive 10-meter stone walls. As for JARVIS, Gray gave him a physical body to use in the real world, a highly realistic human-style Synth from Fallout 4. With this body, JARVIS could easily pose as the human leader of the new base whenever survivors arrived.

Gray also installed high-tech sensors, biometric scanners, and security cameras inside every single building. All of this security feedback fed directly into a private monitoring room hidden deep underground. For the town’s perimeter, Gray designed exactly two main entryways, one facing north and the other facing south. He used his Minecraft tools to mine out the massive stone walls, creating openings and fitting them with heavy, reinforced gates that could withstand explosions. Using the stone blocks he had gathered from all his underground mining, he constructed smooth, durable roads extending out from the gates to cleanly connect the base to the already existing public highways.

Within a matter of hours, the Virginia base was completely self-sustaining, perfectly automated, and entirely hidden from the rest of the broken world.

Gray stood in the center of the pristine, empty town square, dismissing his shadow clones with a wave of his hand, since they didn’t really get tired. Gray dismissed only around 5 at a time to avoid any information overload. They vanished in a massive wave of white smoke, sending their collective physical memories and experience rushing directly into Gray’s mind. He took a slow breath, absorbing the data, and looked around at his brand-new creation. Everything was perfectly set up and waiting for people to move in.

Gray walked deep underground into the new server room and handed JARVIS a bunch of different TV boxes along with a hard drive containing all the media files. ”Set this up as a central server so people can access it all from their homes,” Gray instructed. ”And make sure you delete everything related to The Walking Dead series.”

JARVIS noted that he would need quite a few extra networking parts to pull this off, so Gray casually bought everything required straight from the system shop and handed it over. With the equipment in hand, JARVIS immediately got to work configuring the server grid. Gray simply used the shadow clone jutsu and made 5 clones to help JARVIS out.

Gray then walked back up to the surface to explore the new base that had taken him less than a day to completely build. He inspected the newly finished apartment complexes. This time, he didn’t construct them with just two standard apartments per floor. Instead, he designed them as sleek, loft-style apartments. On the lower level of each unit, he mapped out a modern kitchen, a full bathroom, and enough floor space for a dining table and a comfortable living room. On the upper loft level, he built a master bedroom featuring a walk-in closet and its own private full bathroom. These units were perfect for single survivors or couples. He also built several larger, multi-room apartments to accommodate families. With the current residential layout finished, the town had more than enough space to comfortably house 500 people right now.

He planned on expanding the housing sectors much further later on, and he intended to let his shadow clones do all the heavy lifting. Once the clones had the physical layouts placed, Gray would simply buy the necessary interior appliances and furniture from the shop to finalize the work. He started wondering why he hadn’t bought the shadow clone ability sooner, but he simply shook his head. What mattered most was that he possessed the power now, and it made building so much easier.

Now, Gray started brainstorming the best way to convince the local Virginia factions to actually move into his new fortress. He figured he could use a strategy similar to what worked with Negan. He could get a large box van equipped with a commercial refrigerator unit, pack it to the brim with supplies, and drive straight to the nearby settlements.

He would start by telling them he was just a traveling merchant looking to establish a regular trade route. Once he gained their genuine trust, he could slowly convince them to pack up and move to this high-tech paradise. This slow-burn approach would also give his clones plenty of time to expand the base even further. He envisioned building soccer, baseball, and football fields so the community could relax and exercise. He also planned to construct a proper school building and deploy SCP-5094 to handle the education system.

Making up his mind, Gray opened the system shop, purchased a heavy-duty box van truck with an attached refrigerator box, and left it in his inventory. He checked the time interface and saw it was only 2:00 PM. He still had plenty of daylight left to make first contact with a settlement.