Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

To keep his mind occupied, he opened the system shop and began scrolling through the powers he had been eyeing for a while.

First, he looked up the Arc of Embodiment. As far as he remembered, this was one of the most broken lost magics from Fairy Tail. If he recalled correctly, it was pretty much a super-nerfed reality-warping power; its biggest flaw was that if the user got knocked out, anything created with the magic would instantly vanish. However, Gray had already thought of a perfect combination to bypass that rule. If he paired it with Infinity from The Seven Deadly Sins, wouldn’t his magical constructs last forever?

Looking through the shop layout, he finally found it. But when he saw the price tag, he let out a heavy sigh. He had all the time in the world, of course, so he would eventually accumulate enough gold to buy it. But thinking about the current timeline, he started doing some quick mental math. As far as he remembered, after the USJ attack, it would soon be time for the UA Sports Festival, which was roughly two weeks away. After the festival came the hero internships and the villain attack on Hosu City. So, before Gray had to fight again not that he strictly needed the Arc of Embodiment for it, it would be about three weeks before anything truly required his full attention.

Gray looked back at the interface:

{Arc of Embodiment} (5.8T Gold)

It was incredibly expensive; that was for sure. Now that he was already browsing, he decided to look at the other items on his wishlist. He might as well get a good idea of what he wanted for the next universe. This current world was safer than his first stop, but the power scaling of potential future enemies had jumped by a massive margin, and he wanted to be fully prepared for whatever came next.

He pulled up the section for The Gamer System next and sighed once more.

{The Gamer System} (15T Gold)

To be fair, the price wasn’t terrible for what the system offered. He would get his own instant dungeon creation ability, levels, and, most importantly, some of the most busted passive abilities in fiction: Gamer’s Body and Gamer’s Mind. One practically made him immortal as long as his HP bar wasn’t empty, while the other granted total immunity to mental attacks, which would come in incredibly handy if he ever faced a powerful telepath.

But the feature he was most interested in was skill levels. He wondered if his Super Saiyan transformation counted as a skill under this system. If he could level it up through raw practice, it might mean he could unlock the next stages of the transformation much more easily, without having to wait for someone to enrage him enough to trigger the breakthrough.

Still, he didn’t want to become a complete system slave like so many main characters he had read about. He hated the idea of being forced into compliance by mandatory missions or penalties. Because of that, Gray decided to look at the pricing for the individual components instead of the full package:

{The Gamer System} (15T Gold)

{The Gamer’s Body} (4T Gold)

{The Gamer’s Mind} (3.5T Gold)

{Leveling & Stat Point System} (4.5T Gold)

{Instant Dungeon Creation (Skill)} (1.5T Gold)

{Skill Evolution Panel} (2.8T Gold)

{Inventory / Dimensional Pocket (Passive) } (2T Gold)

”Hmmm,” Gray muttered to himself, floating silently above the clouds. ”I could buy the individual pieces to avoid the whole mission-granting annoyance. But thanks to the Rebirth rules, I only get to bring three permanent powers with me to the next world... decisions, decisions...”

Running the numbers, he realized that buying the individual skills and passives separately would actually end up costing more than the full 15T package. Still, avoiding the system’s control could be worth the extra expense later. For now, though, the one item that completely got his attention was the Skill Evolution Panel. He was highly tempted to buy it just to see if it would let him level up his Super Saiyan form. If it worked, that feature alone would easily be a top contender for one of the permanent slots he kept for future worlds.

Desperate to waste a bit more time, since his mind kept dangerously wandering back to the talk he was scheduled to have with Mirko in just a few hours, he kept his fingers moving, checking out the deeper corners of the store for hidden gems he hadn’t noticed on his list last time.

Gray kept searching for powers that could come in handy. Up until now, he hadn’t tried to actually bring or take anyone from a different universe into another. He was still a bit afraid of what might happen if the transition went wrong, and he refused to risk anyone he genuinely cared about. Instead, he decided that once he had some more free time, he would take a quick trip back to The Walking Dead universe. He could easily grab a couple of cannibals or random killers roaming the wild and use them as test subjects. If it didn’t work, no harm done.

For now, he kept scrolling through the shop layout until he finally stumbled upon the perfect answer he had been looking for.

{Asora / The Mist Dimension (Tsukimichi)} (6.5T Gold)

Seeing that, Gray’s future plans instantly shifted. He remembered from the manga that this pocket dimension would continuously grow larger the stronger the host became. With a power like this, he could eventually place all his friends and trusted people inside the dimension, meaning he wouldn’t have to leave behind anyone he cared for when moving between worlds. That would certainly save him a lot of multiversal travel headaches.

He wasn’t going to buy it since he was still not making enough gold, but he was incredibly glad he had found it. It made him realize he really needed to catch up on a bunch of different anime eventually; there were some incredibly good abilities out there, and he wanted versatile options rather than sticking strictly to raw strength. Having a toolkit of solid quality-of-life powers would undoubtedly come in handy in countless situations.

Next, Gray’s mind wandered to a specific powerhouse from this current universe: Star and Stripe, Cathleen Bate. Her quirk, New Order, could pull off some downright absurd feats. Knowing how much his mere presence was already changing the canon timeline, he knew he needed some heavy-duty insurance against an overpowered ability like that. Searching the shop for some defense, he found what he was looking for, or at least the single most definitive countermeasure against that category of enemy.

{Reality-Warping & Conceptual Immunity (Passive)} (40T Gold)

Gray clicked on the detailed description right away to read its full utility.

Utility:Absolute passive armor against reality rewrites, causal paradoxes, conceptual physical alterations, and time-travel deletion.

Reading over the description, Gray let out a low whistle. ”This is overkill, but it could definitely come in handy in case I end up in a place like Marvel or DC eventually...”

But after looking at the staggering price tag, he shook his head. It would take him a long time to accumulate that much gold, so he set it aside and decided to come back to it when he was actively preparing to jump to the next universe.

Finally, Gray looked up one more power that would synergize wonderfully with his planned combination of the Arc of Embodiment and Infinity.

{All-Seeing Eyes of God (Kekkai Sensen)}(2.5T Gold)

With the Arc of Embodiment, he could create anything from his imagination, but with those divine eyes, his capabilities would skyrocket. He could see invisible enemies, perceive the truth of the world, and scan any object’s structure down to the molecular level, allowing him to duplicate it with his magic and make it permanent via Infinity. It was an incredible long-term investment. He knew the eyes weren’t without faults, but the notorious overheating issue shouldn’t pose much of a threat as his physical body continued to grow stronger, right?

Gray wasted hours high up in the lonely sky, completely losing track of time as he browsed through endless lists of powers, items, and traits that could make his life easier than it already was. He was growing significantly stronger with each passing day. His Training Dimension handled his training requirements perfectly, and his home garden covered his daily needs with infinite food. All he really needed now was a way to procure unique assets without relying solely on the shop. Ideally, after he wrapped up his time in the My Hero Academia universe, the system should strictly serve as a passive gold farm and a handy fallback whenever he needed to branch into a completely new type of power.

As the first rays of sun broke over the horizon, Gray finally snapped out of his trance. He closed the interface and flew back down to the ground. He hadn’t slept a wink all night, but it didn’t matter; his body felt energetic enough to pull a few consecutive all-nighters if the situation demanded it.

Stepping back inside his dormitory, he saw that little Eri had just gotten out of bed, rubbing her eyes sleepily. Smiling, Gray walked straight into the kitchen to prepare a hearty, massive breakfast to start their day.

While he and Eri ate breakfast, he checked his gold balance. He had been eyeing it all night, so the moment he saw he had accumulated enough to buy his next upgrade, he didn’t hesitate and bought it. After finalizing the purchase, his system interface updated to look like this:

[Status Info]

Name: Gray Ashwood

Age: 23 years old

Race: Saiyan

Gold: 2,726,242

Gold per hour: 98,396,926 (49,198,463)

Gold Multiplier: 2.00x

Time: 8:29 AM

The rest of the day passed rapidly. The entire campus was incredibly quiet, since the administration had given all the students the day off to recover from the intense events of the day before. Seeing the clock ticking closer to his scheduled meeting, Gray took Eri to the staff quarters to leave her under Aizawa’s supervision.

”This will only take a little while. Once I’m done, I’ll come right back to pick you up, okay?” Gray told her gently.

Eri was clutching a small teddy bear tightly in her arms, but she nodded along. ”I’ll just finish the movie we were watching here then,” she said softly, turning to walk into the room as a tired-looking Aizawa stepped up behind her.

Heading back to his dormitory to wait out the final minutes, Gray sat on the couch, his leg bouncing up and down in sheer anticipation. He was so caught up in his racing thoughts that he forgot to hold back, and the rapid vibrations of his foot actually started making the building shake. Feeling the sudden tremors, he snapped out of it and stopped himself.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he stood up and walked toward the entrance. But before he could even make it out of the building, he came face-to-face with Mirko, dressed casually in her normal civilian clothes.

Seeing Gray step out, Mirko let out a confident smile. ”Shall we get this show on the road then?”

Gray smiled back and nodded. ”Sure. Let’s go somewhere private.”

He extended his arm toward her. Mirko gripped it firmly without hesitation, and he immediately guided her outside before launching straight up into the sky. Wanting privacy where no heroes or government satellites could easily eavesdrop, Gray decided to fly her to his secluded spot in the mountains, the exact place where he had first landed in this universe.

Landing back in the man-made cave he had carved out, Mirko immediately started looking around. Gray had left a few of his home garden plots here; he could easily have teleported them straight to the spot, but he desperately needed the extra time to figure out exactly how to explain his situation, so he chose to fly instead.

Mirko walked around the space, reaching out to touch the meat tree and the actual fish growing straight from the ground, until she finally took a seat at the far end of the cave. ”So?” she asked, looking back at him. ”This all seems like a bit much, don’t you think?”

”Well...” Gray sat down opposite her. ”After I’m done telling you about myself, I hope you can keep that same open mentality.” He let out another long sigh, rubbing his hands over his face before finally diving in. ”I guess I should start by telling you about my race.”

”What do you mean ’race’?” she asked, looking confused. ”You have a monkey tail, sure, but that’s just because of your mutant Quirk, isn’t it?”

”Not really,” Gray said, shaking his head. ”To be honest, I don’t think I’m even human anymore.” ’At least the system doesn’t label me as Human/Saiyan anymore; it just says straight-up Saiyan now...’ he thought to himself before continuing aloud. ”My race is called Saiyan.” He stood up, turning slightly to show Mirko his tail. ”It’s an alien warrior race. We are biologically strong enough to completely destroy entire worlds or galaxies, depending on the individual, of course.”

Seeing that Mirko was about to interrupt him again, Gray quickly held up a hand. ”Let me finish, please. I promise I will answer all of your questions right after.”

”Fine,” Mirko said, ”Go on.”

Gray pressed on, explaining the Saiyans’ deeper mechanics. He told her they had unlimited potential, grew exponentially stronger with every battle, and that surviving a near-death experience triggered a massive power spike once they fully healed. The more he explained, the more bewildered Mirko looked. Finally, when Gray reached the part about Saiyan biology naturally wiring them to be instinctively attracted to fiercely strong women, she couldn’t hold back anymore.

”Wait... so what happened yesterday at the USJ was because you like me?” she asked.

”Something like that. My body just started feeling incredibly weird, and before I even realized what was happening, I already had you in my arms,” Gray said, sitting back down across from her.

”So, let me get this straight,” Mirko continued, leaning forward to process it all. ”You’re an alien warrior capable of casually destroying the world if you wanted to? And now you’re telling me that your entire race is biologically attracted to strong women, which is why you took a sudden liking to me?”

Gray nodded firmly. ”Pretty much, yeah.”

”Hmm.” Mirko paused, a sudden realization hitting her. ”Wait, but I’ve actually landed a few really good kicks on you whenever we’ve sparred!”

”Ah, that.” Gray stood up once again to demonstrate. ”I can actively force my body to hold back a massive amount of its raw power just so I can enjoy a good battle. Because if I went at it at full strength... well, I highly doubt anyone in this world could survive a single punch.”

To prove his point, Gray intentionally started raising his Ki. The cavern instantly began to violently shake, dust and loose pebbles raining down from the ceiling; some pebbles even started floating. ”See? If I keep powering up like this, I would eventually turn into that golden-haired form you saw on the news. And let’s just say that specific transformation makes me, for now, fifty times stronger than what you’re feeling right here.” He instantly suppressed his energy, bringing the tremors to an abrupt halt. ”I know it’s a ridiculous amount of information to take in at once. But you said you wanted to talk, right? Well, now you know everything.” Gray sat back down, keeping his eyes locked onto hers.

”Yeah, I get that, but why me?” Mirko asked, her usual cocky exterior showing a rare hint of doubt. ”I’m not exactly what people around here would call feminine. There are plenty of other women out there who are way better looking than me.”

”I highly doubt that,” Gray replied almost instantly, his voice serious. ”But let me ask you this instead: would any of those other women actually be able to beat you in a fight?” Gray kept his gaze steady. ”I told you, my race favors strength far above conventional beauty. And if a woman happens to have both... well, you get the idea.”

He noticed Mirko was uncharacteristically quiet, quietly absorbing his words. ”Listen, all I know is that my biology chose for me, but I know for a fact that I would genuinely like to try and court you if you’re willing to give me the chance. I only know of one other woman in this world who is technically stronger than you, but she is completely and totally not my type.”

”Hah?!” Mirko instantly snapped out of her daze, jumping to her feet as her competitive spirit flared. ”Who the hell is stronger than me?!”

”Star and Stripe,” Gray said with a smirk, fluidly tilting his head to dodge a sudden, lightning-fast kick aimed straight at his face. ”Are you telling me you can take her on?”

Mirko let out a loud tch sound, reluctantly pulling her leg back and sitting back down on the rock. ”Her Quirk is bullshit, okay?”

”Agreed,” Gray laughed softly. After a few seconds of comfortable silence settled between them, he finally spoke up again, bringing the conversation back to the main point. ”So? How about it? Are you willing to give me a shot, or should I just fly you back to campus and we can pretend this whole conversation never happened?”