The sun was just starting to dip below the trees when the heavy engine of the INKAS Huron truck roared outside the gates. Oscar checked the perimeter and swung the heavy gate open. The armored vehicle rolled smoothly into the courtyard and parked right in the center of the prison grounds.
Rick and Daryl hopped out of the cab, followed by Morgan and young Duane. As Morgan stepped onto the asphalt, his jaw dropped. He stood completely still, looking around the entire facility in absolute shock.
The first thing he noticed was the walls. They were towering, uniform blocks of thick stone that completely sealed off the outside world. He looked up at the main building and saw that the windows and corridors were completely lit up. They actually had working electrical power. Turning his head toward the fields, he saw massive pastures filled with healthy, adult livestock. It looked like a completely different world.
Rick led Morgan and Duane to the center of the courtyard, where Gray stood by his RV.
"Gray, this is Morgan and his son, Duane," Rick said, introducing his old friend with a proud smile. "Morgan, this is Gray. He runs things around here."
Morgan looked at Gray. "It's nice to meet you," Morgan muttered, still looking around the yard. "I... I don't even know what to say. This place is unbelievable. How do you have walls like this? And the lights? The animals? I have so many questions."
Gray looked at the father and son. He could see the heavy toll the apocalypse had taken on them, and they clearly needed a night of real safety.
"Go rest for the day," Gray said, his voice calm. "We have plenty of empty cells with clean bedding. Tomorrow or later on, Rick can fill you in and answer all of your questions about how this place works."
Morgan felt some weight lift off his shoulders. He looked at Rick, who gave him a reassuring nod. "Thank you," Morgan said quietly.
Rick guided Morgan and Duane inside the lit cell blocks to get them fed and settled into their new home. Gray watched them go, completely satisfied. The community was growing stronger.
Gray sat back down in his high-tech RV and turned My Hero Academia back on. Even though the anime was full of action, he couldn't stay focused. His eyes kept darting back to the digital clock. He was completely impatient for the new god-tier power he was about to get.
Finally, the clock hit 2:00 AM. Gray opened his system interface to check his balance. Thanks to his game-breaking passive income, he now had a staggering 521,880,951,556 Gold available. He walked outside into the quiet, dark prison courtyard, opened the shop, and clicked on Minecrafter Physiology.
As soon as the purchase went through, a system prompt popped up in front of his eyes.
[Would you like to adopt the Minecraft Player Model?]
[Yes] [No]
Gray immediately clicked No. He didn't wanna look all square and weird.
The moment he made his choice, a strange warmth began to spread through his body. It wasn't painful at all. If anything, it felt really nice and comforting. After about a minute, the warm sensation faded away. Gray stood in the dark and blinked. He didn't feel physically different at first, but when he checked his mind, he realized he now had two completely separate inventories. One was his standard system inventory, and the other was a classic Minecraft inventory screen, complete with the 2x2 crafting grid and the official armor slots.
Gray felt a massive surge of excitement. He went to a storage box inside his RV where he kept his Servant's Blackened Armor from Middle-earth: Shadow of War. He mentally dragged the armor pieces into his new Minecraft inventory. They moved in cleanly. Next, he dragged the armor into the designated armor slots.
The moment he let go of the items mentally, the blackened armor instantly appeared on his body. It fit absolutely perfectly without him needing to adjust a single strap or buckle. The only problem was that the headpiece looked empty. Gray grabbed his Nazgûl mask, moved it into his inventory, and dropped it right into the helmet slot. The mask snapped onto his face instantly.
Gray let out a quiet, excited giggle. This upgrade was insane. A new feature also appeared at the bottom of his vision: the classic 9-slot hotbar. Whenever he opened his inventory, he could see the other 27 storage slots waiting to be filled.
To test it further, Gray picked up a Netherite shovel and placed it into his inventory's second slot. He mentally selected the second slot, and the shovel appeared right in his hand. He mentally selected an empty slot, and his hand instantly became free while the shovel vanished back into his digital pocket.
Now, Gray was laughing like an absolute maniac. He selected his Helldivers 2 Railgun and placed it in slot 9, with his ammunition sitting inside one of his storage slots showing 18 available shots. The moment he thought about reloading the weapon, the counter clicked down to 17, and a heavy slug materialized right in his hand, ready to slide into the breach. He put it away and assigned his UAC handgun to slot 8 and his purple Phasesaber to slot 7. He could swap between a sci-fi gun, a plasma sword, and a railgun effortlessly in a fraction of a second.
Looking just above his 9 hotbar slots, he noticed his health bar consisting of 10 red hearts, right next to his hunger bar. Because he was wearing the Nazgûl armor, a full bar of 10 armor icons sat directly above the hearts. Gray realized the bright user interface might get annoying or block his vision during a real fight. He thought about making it go away, and the entire overlay vanished instantly. He thought about bringing it back, and it popped right back into his line of sight.
"Nice!" he muttered, his voice altered by the mask, completely thrilled.
Finally, it was time to test the actual block mechanics. Gray walked over to a grassy patch in the courtyard. He pulled out his Netherite shovel and struck the ground just once. With a soft pop, a miniature, rotating cube of dirt dropped onto the grass, while a perfect 1x1x1 meter hole vanished from the earth. Gray walked over to the floating mini-cube. It flew directly into his chest and appeared neatly inside his inventory stack.
"Nice, this looks just like normal Minecraft stuff," Gray whispered.
He dug up one more block so he had two dirt blocks in his inventory. He dragged the stack into his hotbar, making a dirt block appear in his hand. He looked at the ground and placed one block down, then placed the second block right on top of it. Looking at the two cubes sitting in the real-world prison yard felt completely surreal.
Now came the ultimate test. Gray aimed his shovel at the bottom dirt block and smashed it. The bottom block instantly broke and popped into his inventory.
The top dirt block didn't move. It remained completely suspended in mid-air, floating in place and entirely defying all known laws of physics. Gray walked up to it and tried to push it with his hands, but the floating block stayed completely solid, refusing to budge even an inch.
Gray was absolutely ecstatic. This meant he could build a literal floating sky fortress if he wanted to. With the physics-defying logic of his new body, he could build any kind of structure, bridge, or subterranean bunker without ever having to worry about columns, structural engineering, or things collapsing on his head.
Feeling super excited, Gray started testing out everything else his new physiology could do. He opened his system shop and bought a Netherite pickaxe and a Netherite axe. He put the pickaxe into slot 3 and the axe into slot 4. He left the very first slot on his hotbar completely empty so he could keep his hands free whenever he needed to.
For the next thing he needed to test, he was going to need a second pair of eyes. Gray walked across the dark courtyard and loudly knocked on the door of Merle's RV.
After a moment, Merle walked up and swung the door open. He was scratching his eye and feeling incredibly groggy from being woken up in the middle of the night. But the second he saw Gray standing there in full blackened armor and a terrifying Nazgûl mask, he woke up fast. His eyes went wide, he grabbed his rifle, and he looked around the dark yard in a panic.
"What happened?!" Merle asked, his voice tense. "Did we get attacked?!"
Gray looked at him through the mask. "No, nothing happened. I just need someone to test something out for me."
Merle lowered his rifle slightly, letting out a heavy breath. He looked at Gray up and down. "Don't tell me you got some other voodoo magic shit happening?"
Gray laughed. "Come find out."
They walked side by side across the prison grass. As they reached the spot, Merle suddenly stopped tracking his steps. He stared straight ahead, his jaw dropping as he stumbled across the floating dirt block hanging in mid-air.
"What the fuck is this?" Merle whispered, rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn't dreaming.
Gray just looked at the block. "It's what's gonna help us build the best base around."
Merle cautiously walked up to the floating cube. He reached out his hand and poked it a few times. It felt as solid as a concrete wall.
"Try and move it," Gray told him.
Merle gripped the edges of the dirt block and pulled with all his strength. He leaned back, grunting, but the block didn't budge even a millimeter.
"Get on top of it," Gray said next.
Merle climbed up onto the one-meter cube, balancing himself in the air. He stood up straight and jumped up and down a few times. The block remained perfectly anchored in the empty air, defying gravity completely.
"Well, I'll be damned," Merle said, shaking his head in absolute disbelief. He looked down at Gray from the top of the block. "I didn't think you'd get any weirder, kid, but here you are."
Gray just laughed through his mask. "And this is not even the weirdest part you'll see. Just give it time."
Merle scoffed, a grin finally breaking across his face. "Heh, at this point, kid, nothing will surprise me after this," he said as he jumped back down to the ground.
Gray smiled under his mask and asked, "Wanna bet?"
Merle laughed. "I'm not in the business of losing bets, kid. I don't want you taking advantage of me."
"You're no fun, come. Follow along," Gray told him.
They opened the front gate and stepped outside the prison walls. Gray mentally selected slot 4 of his hotbar, making the dark Netherite axe appear in his hand. He walked up to a nearby tree, one of the thinner, smaller ones. He swung at the lowest part of the trunk. It took less than a second to destroy the block.
But to his and Merle's surprise, the rest of the tree remained standing perfectly in the air, even though the trunk underneath was completely gone.
Merle whispered, "What the hell?"
Gray frowned behind his mask. He thought to himself that clearing out entire forests was going to be a huge pain in the ass if he had to cut every single block by hand. Just then, a new system prompt appeared right in front of his eyes.
[Would you like to install FallingTree Mod for 100B Gold?]
[Yes] [No] [Later]
Gray felt a surge of excitement. This meant he could actually install overpowered Minecraft mods to make his life way easier. But 100 billion Gold was a bit too expensive right now. He would have to wait about four hours to get that much back, and he was too impatient to wait right now. Plus, he didn't know if he could install more mods later on, so he decided to save his money for now. He clicked on [Later], and the prompt went away.
Gray grabbed a few dirt blocks from his hotbar and placed them on the ground to build a small tower. He climbed up and chopped down all the remaining wood logs. Once he was done, he dug up his dirt tower blocks to clear the area. He stood still and waited patiently, hoping the floating leaves would decay on their own and drop some saplings.
Not even a minute after he cut the last log, the leaves started disappearing into thin air. After two minutes, all the leaves were completely gone. Gray looked at the grass and noticed a tiny, floating tree sapling rotating on the ground. He walked over and it popped right into his chest inventory.
Merle looked at everything that just happened and finally spoke. "See? This is why I will never take any bets with you, kid. This is some bullshit."