Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

Now that the Kingdom people had left, Gray turned to the others and started explaining their backstory so everyone was on the same page.

”If anyone asks, we came here with a much larger construction group,” Gray told them. ”We had a huge workforce, and once they finished building this entire infrastructure, they headed back to the main base in Georgia, leaving us behind to run the outpost.”

Glenn, Maggie, and the others nodded, quickly understanding the cover story.

With that settled, Gray spawned dozens of shadow clones. The clones immediately split up and began furnishing all the empty apartments. Tamara watched the process for a few minutes before stepping in. Seeing Gray give every single apartment the exact same generic style of furniture, she started helping him out, picking different layouts and changing things around so the homes felt unique and welcoming.

Once the living spaces were fully customized, Gray walked over to an empty corner of the base to construct the industrial sectors. He, along with his shadow clones, built several large workshops to rise from the ground, specifically spaces for woodworking, metalworking, and a textile mill to process the wool and cotton they produced.

Next, Gray constructed the school building. He kept the classrooms small and focused, designing them to only sit ten students per room. Each desk was equipped with its own computer station. However, these were no normal computers. Every single terminal was powered by SCP-5094, Miss J’s Whiz Kid Schoolhouse. This meant any child or adult sitting at these desks could choose any subject they wanted and master it in a matter of hours. Gray was incredibly tempted to sit down and test it out right then, but he still had too much work left to do, so he chose to leave it for later.

With the school out of the way, Gray and his army of shadow clones continued their relentless pace. They mapped out the farming fields, built sturdy ranch barns, and put together large chicken coops for the livestock, wiring infinite water sources into all of them.

Now, the Virginia base finally looked completely ready for people to join them. Once the physical labor was wrapped up, Gray dismissed his shadow clones. Watching them vanish in clouds of white smoke, Gray smiled. Thanks to the clones, his building speed was on a completely different level. He couldn’t wait to test the technique out inside the training dimension next. He knew from the Naruto lore that all the experience and knowledge a clone gained passed directly back to the user upon dispelling.

If he hired a bunch of different specialized teachers in the future and assigned shadow clones to study under all of them at the same time, he wondered just how much he could improve in a fraction of the time.

Thinking about it for a minute, Gray decided to run a quick test. He created two shadow clones and sent them straight over to the new school building. He ordered the first clone to study survival skills and bushcraft, and instructed the second one to master a completely new language, not really caring which one it was. Gray waited around for a moment to see if the experiment would fail or cause a glitch. When neither clone dispelled or came back, he figured it was a success and they were actively learning from the terminals.

With his afternoon free, Gray finally picked out a sleek loft apartment for himself. Since Tamara had already furnished the whole place and JARVIS had successfully linked all the residential TVs to the media network, he simply lay down on his new couch and started watching a few shows. He still had three full days left on his Training Dimension cooldown before he could jump back into gravity training, so he was content to just pass the time and relax. He didn’t expect the people from the Kingdom to reach a final agreement on moving any time soon anyway, so he decided to wait it out patiently.

By the next morning, Gray suddenly felt the first clone dispel. It had taken a total of 18 hours of continuous learning at the computer terminal, but the moment the clone popped, a massive, dense flood of information rushed directly into Gray’s brain. The mental feedback was so intense that he actually watched a few of his red Minecraft health hearts turn gray on his visual interface, meaning the pure data dump had physically caused him damage.

Thankfully, his Minecrafter regeneration kicked in immediately, and his hearts flashed back to full health. As he sat up and processed the new lessons, he realized the experiment was a complete success. He now had a flawless, expert-level understanding of bushcraft and wilderness survival right at his disposal. Thanks to Miss J’s Whiz Kid Schoolhouse, he wouldn’t ever have to waste his Gold buying raw knowledge packages from the system shop again.

However, looking back at the sudden health drop he just took from the mental strain, Gray realized that sending a massive army of clones to the school at the same time wouldn’t be very wise. It could easily overwhelm or kill him from the feedback. Instead, he adjusted his strategy. From now on, he would only send one clone at a time and wait for it to completely finish its lesson before sending the next one.

Two hours later, Gray felt another dense flood of information hit his head. This time, it was the new language he had sent the second clone to study. He was now completely fluent in Japanese, which wasn’t a bad language to have under his belt since he had been watching a lot of anime lately.

Gray noticed the sun was fully up and realized it was time to get off the couch, having spent almost 24 hours just relaxing. He created another shadow clone and sent it straight back to the school terminal. This time, he ordered the clone to study advanced medical knowledge. Gray already possessed advanced medical skills from his system, but he wanted to see how the anomaly’s teaching would interact with a subject he already knew.

Two hours after the medical clone left for the school, Gray’s walkie-talkie started buzzing with static. He picked it up and heard Ezekiel’s voice crackling on the other line.

”Sir Gray, do you read me?” Ezekiel called out. ”It took a great deal of discussion, but my people have voted and are willing to relocate. We have spent the entire night and morning packing our belongings. Do you happen to have any extra vehicles to help us transport our people?”

”Yeah, we can definitely help,” Gray replied into the radio. ”We’ll be over shortly.”

Gray immediately tracked down Merle. ”Merle, get your gear. We’re moving the Kingdom survivors in today.” Gray pulled out a physical map, circled the Kingdom’s location clearly, and handed it to him.

While Merle went to start up his vehicle, Gray opened his system shop. He bought another standard school bus for transport and purchased a few different extra vehicles to leave permanently at the base for general use. To clean out his own inventory, he pulled out his Equus Bass 770 and Dom’s ICE Dodge Charger, parking them neatly in the lot near his loft apartment complex.

Gray climbed into the driver’s seat of the newly bought school bus and drove out toward the Kingdom. When Gray arrived at the compound, he looked out his window and saw Merle standing on the roof of his armored INKAS Sentry, casually shooting down a few wandering walkers in the distance. Gray simply shook his head at the sight.

The Kingdom guards recognized Gray and quickly opened the scrap-metal gates to let the vehicles through. Gray drove the large bus right into the center of the town square, parked, and stepped down to shake hands with Ezekiel.

”You can use the bus however you like,” Gray told him, gesturing to the vehicle. ”Pack the seats with bags or people, whatever fits.”

”Your timing is immaculate, my friend,” Ezekiel thanked him deeply. He then glanced over toward the gate where the armored truck was idling. ”Though thy friend possesses quite a colorful mouth on him.”

Gray let out a soft chuckle. ”Yeah, that’s Merle. He definitely has a mouth on him, but he has a soft spot deep down. You just have to get to know the guy for a bit.”

With the vehicles parked, Gray started helping the residents carry their heavy equipment and supplies. During the loading process, Jerry happened to look over and watched in absolute awe as Gray effortlessly lifted one of the Kingdom’s heavy live pigs up into the back of a transport truck without showing a single hint of struggle.

Jerry walked over, wiping sweat from his forehead, and stared at him. ”Man, you are way stronger than you look!”

Gray nodded, adjusting his gear with a calm expression. ”Yeah, the armor helps hide it. It makes people underestimate me.”

Once everyone had everything they needed, Gray started driving the bus out of the compound. Merle had gone ahead, and surprisingly, he had actively helped people move their stuff and even had three Kingdom residents riding in his truck. The Kingdom also had some trailers for their horses and a few heavy vehicles to pull them along.

They had also used the refrigerated truck Gray gave them, filling it up with all their remaining perishable supplies to keep them from going bad. The convoy had to stop a few times thanks to all the walkers they kept encountering on the road, but with Merle and Gray around, they got rid of them quickly. Merle especially wanted to show off his shooting skills, just in case some lady in the convoy was looking.

Finally, after about 40 minutes of driving, they had made it back to the base. The new residents looked up at the massive stone walls and the modern buildings, immediately smiling and looking excited about their new home. Gray brought the bus to a halt in the courtyard and turned to Ezekiel.

”Go speak to Tamara and JARVIS,” Gray told him. ”They’ll write down where everyone will be living and get you all sorted into your lofts.”

Once Ezekiel went to gather his people, Gray spotted Glenn and walked over to give him a heads-up. ”Hey, I have a clone working inside the school right now, so we need to keep the new arrivals away from that building for now.”

Glenn nodded quickly. ”Got it. I’ll keep an eye out and make sure people stay clear so nobody accidentally sees him.”

Glenn seemed to hesitate for a second, shifting his feet like he wanted to ask something else. Gray saw it right away and asked him what was wrong.

”Nothing’s wrong,” Glenn said, rubbing the back of his neck. ”I was just wondering... is there going to be a way for us to travel back to Georgia without needing you to teleport us every single time?”

”Yeah, I plan on eventually connecting both places,” Gray explained. ”I’m going to dig out an underground rail system so we can just take a train back and forth between the bases. Why do you ask?”

Glenn looked up, a nervous but incredibly happy smile breaking across his face. ”Maggie is pregnant. I just wanted to be able to have some of the medics and the Jenners back at the Georgia base check on her when the time comes.”

Gray smiled widely at the news. ”Man, congratulations!” He stepped forward and gave Glenn a firm hug, genuinely happy for him. Gray then patted his shoulder. ”The railway system is going to take me a little while to completely build, but don’t worry about that for now. Whenever you and Maggie want to go down to Georgia to get some medical tests done, just come and get me. I can teleport you both back there anytime you need.”

Glenn smiled and thanked Gray for the offer. ”You’re actually the first one to know,” Glenn admitted, leaning in closer so no one else would overhear. ”We just found out last night when she took a test. We had grabbed a few supplies from the mall to stock up our apartment, and we’re both still processing it.”

”Don’t worry, my lips are sealed,” Gray replied with a nod. ”I’ll keep it a secret until you guys are ready to tell everyone else.”

With that conversation wrapped up, Gray turned his attention back to the courtyard, watching the new residents unload their belongings from the convoy. Looking at the crowd, he started mapping out the political future of this outpost. He planned on having Ezekiel and Jerry join the new Virginia Council right away to help Glenn and Maggie manage the population. Once he started absorbing the other nearby settlements into the walls, he would ask each group to elect a trusted representative to join the council too.

He made a mental note that Gregory from the Hilltop would absolutely never get a seat at that table. If anything, Paul Rovia, better known as Jesus, would be the perfect person to represent the Hilltop when the time came.

But those political maneuvers were for later. For now, Gray focused entirely on the task at hand, guiding the Kingdom families toward Tamara and JARVIS to help them officially move into their new homes.