Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

The next morning, Gray got straight to work on his next big project. He headed down to the second underground floor and dug deep into the side wall. Once he was inside the rock face, he sealed the stone opening completely behind him to ensure absolute privacy. He hollowed out a massive space measuring 20x20 meters and 10 blocks high. The clearance was so precise that if he dug out just one more block from the ceiling, he would break right through to the surface.

With the hidden chamber ready, Gray opened his system interface and made his most expensive utility purchase yet. He bought Merlin’s Infinity ability from The Seven Deadly Sins for 350 Billion Gold. The moment the purchase cleared, he felt a strange, incredibly warm energy spreading out from the center of his chest. Next, he opened the shop again and bought all of her legendary magical spell knowledge for another 100 Billion Gold.

Accessing his massive new library of spells, Gray cast a localized elemental spell designed to cool down the entire chamber. Thanks to the broken mechanics of the Infinity blessing, he only had to activate the magic spell once. The room would now stay at a perfectly chilled temperature forever until he decided to manually cancel it.

With the climate control locked down, Gray teleported back to the surface, landing right on the grass directly above his hidden underground room. He was tired of living inside an RV and decided it was finally time to build himself a permanent home. He laid down a smooth stone foundation matching the same 20x20 meter dimensions, raising the walls 4 blocks high. He built outer windows, a solid front door, and framed out multiple rooms inside the layout.

It took him around three hours of fast-paced work to manually run all the electrical wiring, hook up the water lines, and lay down his heavy sewage pipes. He ran the plumbing lines about 20 feet away from the structure, burying a massive septic tank deep in the dirt. When he finished, he had a sturdy, fully functional house. He built a 6x8 meter master bedroom complete with its own walk-in closet and private bathroom. Right next to it, he constructed a massive home office space housing a top-tier Gaming PC setup with three high-resolution monitors, a mechanical keyboard, a studio microphone, headphones, and a high-definition webcam.

To power his new electronics, Gray installed 10 more Quantum Solar Panels directly onto his new roof. He ran the heavy power cables down through the floor straight into the hidden underground room he had hollowed out.

After placing a massive battery bank inside the stone chamber to store the solar energy, Gray opened his shop and purchased his first AI mind: JARVIS. The network materialized in the form of six standard 46U server racks. He snapped them into place on the stone floor, and thanks to his active magic spell, the entire server room remained perfectly cool without him ever needing to buy massive mechanical cooling devices.

Gray connected a long USB cable from the main server rack straight into his high-tech laptop. Instantly, all six server racks whirred to life, their bright blue LED lights flashing in the cold room. JARVIS was officially online, fully connected, and ready for work.

As the server racks stabilized, a smooth, articulate voice echoed through the cold chamber. ”Hello, sir. It is an honor to finally meet you. I am JARVIS.”

Gray looked at the flashing blue LEDs on the console. ”Hello, Jarvis, my name is Gray. Can you access the PC directly above us?”

”A moment, sir,” JARVIS replied. Two seconds later, the server lights blinked. ”Yes, I have established a complete connection and have full access to the mainframe.”

”Perfect,” Gray said.

With a quick thought, he teleported straight out of the underground server room and materialized in his new office space. The triple monitors on his desk flickered to life, showing a clean interface reflecting JARVIS’s presence. Sitting comfortably in his office chair, Gray began speaking directly with the AI, asking what exactly he was capable of doing.

JARVIS immediately began listing out his vast capabilities, explaining how he could handle data structures, automate machinery, track thermal signatures, and manage complex grids.

Gray nodded along, satisfied. ”I need you to start helping me with a few specific areas. Take charge of prison management, monitoring the cameras, tracking our inventory, coordinating construction, handling communications, and providing daily assistance.”

”Understood, sir. Directives updated,” JARVIS answered through the desktop speakers.

To give the AI a mobile presence, Gray opened his system menu and purchased a high-mobility Chappie robot from the shop. The metallic machine materialized on the office floor, completely still.

”JARVIS, can you take control of this unit?” Gray asked.

”Accessing the unit now, sir,” JARVIS said. A second later, the robot stood up and looked around the room.

Now that JARVIS was running the robot’s body, Gray no longer needed to use a microphone. The AI could hear and see him directly through the robot. Gray pointed to the front door. ”Let’s go outside. I want to show you the place.”

They walked out of the new stone house. As they walked across the grass, some of the survivors stopped what they were doing. They stared in shock, and a few people even pointed fingers at the walking robot. Gray ignored them and kept talking to JARVIS.

”I need you to install security cameras everywhere,” Gray said. ”I also want you to make a security room somewhere in the prison. You will keep an eye on everyone and alert people if you ever see walkers or other survivors.”

The Chappie robot stopped walking. The robot’s head tilted, looking confused. ”Walkers, sir?” JARVIS asked through the robot’s speakers.

”Ah... right,” Gray said, remembering JARVIS did not know about the undead. ”Scan my laptop in the office. You will find a TV show called The Walking Dead. Watch the whole show so you can be up to speed.”

The robot stood still for about five seconds while it downloaded and watched the files from the house. Finally, the robot looked back up.

”I am done, sir,” JARVIS said smoothly. ”I understand now. The breakdown of society in those files is very severe. I know exactly what to look for now.”

Gray nodded and looked at the Chappie robot. ”One more thing, JARVIS. Do not let anyone know that we know about the future, or that we watched it as a TV show.”

”Understood, sir,” JARVIS replied.

They walked further into the prison courtyard, where Gray called everyone over to introduce the AI. The survivors gathered around, staring at the metallic machine.

”This is JARVIS,” Gray announced to the crowd. ”He is an advanced AI that will be helping us manage the prison. His first task is going to be installing security cameras everywhere around the property.”

Glenn’s eyes went wide, and he immediately raised his hand. ”Did you say JARVIS? As in Iron Man’s JARVIS?”

Gray just gave a short nod and left it at that, not wanting to overexplain. He turned back to the rest of the group. ”JARVIS will have access to more robots soon so he can work much faster. Once he finishes installing the cameras and making sure there are absolutely no blind spots, he will set up a main monitor room inside one of the prison blocks.”

The council members nodded in agreement. They immediately went to work letting the rest of the survivors know about the situation so no one would panic when they saw robots moving around the compound. Gray then addressed the council one last time before leaving. ”Now that Woodbury is no longer a threat and we have significantly more people, I am finally going to open up more of the outer gates around the prison. People shouldn’t have to rely on just the one main entrance anymore.”

With the announcement done, Gray walked back to his new smooth stone house with the Chappie bot following close behind. Inside his office, Gray opened the system shop and purchased 9 more Chappie scout robots. The moment they appeared on the floor, JARVIS’s mainframe took complete control of all ten units.

”JARVIS, how many cameras, how much cable, and what kind of materials will you need to fully install the security grid?” Gray asked.

”Before I can give you an exact list, sir, I need to scan the surrounding area and everything inside the facility,” JARVIS answered through the speaker.

With ten Chappie scout robots now under his command, JARVIS sent them all outside into the courtyard to scan everything. The machines spread out across the prison grounds, walking along the fences, catwalks, and corridors to map every single square inch of the fortress. It took all ten bots around 30 minutes to complete the full scan.

Finally, once he was completely finished, JARVIS showed Gray on his PC monitor exactly how much he would need to get the job done. Gray scanned the list, opened his shop, and instantly purchased every single item, spending a total of 100,000 Gold.

The second the massive mountain of supply boxes appeared inside the house, JARVIS got straight to work. The ten scout bots moved in perfect sync, lifting the heavy boxes and carrying the supplies out into the prison sectors. A few of the robots immediately began mounting the high-tech cameras onto the concrete walls, while the other bots worked together running long lines of heavy cables and drilling holes through the walls.

Seeing that the installation was completely handled, Gray simply went back into his living room. Now that he had a completely busted AI helping out with the prison management, and since he had stepped down to let the council take charge, he suddenly had a lot of free time.

Since he had just returned from a grueling month inside the Training Dimension, he decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. He used his massive 85-inch flat-screen TV he installed in his house, connected his external hard drive, and kicked back to continue watching his collection of movies and television series. Every once in a while, he would casually activate his Wraith Sight for a brief second to make sure the robots were still working smoothly and the perimeter was completely clear.

While Gray was right in the middle of a movie, JARVIS’s smooth voice came through the living room speakers. ”Sir, I have successfully finished installing the security cameras throughout Cell Block A. However, I must report that several of the prisoners are acting rowdy and continually hitting the metal bars.”

Gray simply paused his movie and looked toward the speaker. ”Let one of the council members know. They will handle the prisoners.”

”Understood, sir,” JARVIS replied, immediately sending the alert to Rick and Shane’s radios.

Gray unpaused his film and relaxed until the clock ticked into the late evening hours. Once it was completely dark outside, he decided it was time to step out. He walked out of his smooth stone house, extended his invisible wings, and flew high up into the night air. He wanted to test all of his newly acquired magic spells from Merlin’s library away from the fortress where nobody could see him.

He flew for a few minutes until he found a small, abandoned town. Activating his Wraith Sight, he easily located a few wandering walkers stumbling down the empty asphalt streets.

Gray focused his mind on his first spell. Blitz Javelin.

The moment the spell left his thoughts, a gigantic, blinding lightning bolt violently fell from the night sky. It slammed directly into a walker, instantly incinerating the creature to ash.

Gray blinked behind his mask. ”Whoa,” he muttered, thoroughly impressed by the power.

Wanting to see how much destruction he could cause, he selected his next spell from Merlin’s library. Exterminate Ray. A massive, concentrated beam of magical light erupted from his hand, cutting through the darkness. The ray completely disintegrated another walker on the street, and it didn’t stop there, it blasted right through a two-story suburban house behind it, deleting the entire structure from existence.

Finally, Gray decided to test a wide-area attack and cast Fire Storm. Instantly, the sky turned crimson as a torrential rain of magical flames fell down, setting the entire small town ablaze within seconds. Watching the buildings burn, Gray quickly switched elements and cast a powerful water spell, triggering a massive downpour that put the raging fires out all at once. Gray nodded to himself, completely satisfied with his destructive magic.

For the final test of the night, Gray decided to try out a teleportation spell from Merlin’s knowledge. Shunkan Ido. He focused his mind on his home coordinates and activated the magic.

With a pop, he instantly disappeared from the ruined town and appeared perfectly right back inside his house miles away.