Gray opened his system screen to check on his gold. He was currently sitting on a massive balance of 236,407,644,500 Gold. Deciding it was time to clear out his inventory, he purchased 4 more One-Time Resurrection Syringes from the system shop for a total of 20 billion Gold.
He walked over to Hershel and handed him three of the glowing syringes. Then, Gray walked over to Big Tiny and helped him carefully exhume the remains of his deceased mother. With all four preserved bodies laid out safely in the courtyard, the liquid from the syringes was injected into their veins.
The effects were instant. Hershel's wife, Annette, gasped as her eyes fluttered open, and Hershel immediately pulled her into a fierce, tearful hug. Right next to them, Beth and Maggie threw their arms around their resurrected stepbrother, Shawn, and cousin Arnold, weeping with joy. On the other side of the place, Big Tiny was openly crying, squeezing his mother tightly as she woke up completely healthy and disoriented.
As the entire place filled with emotional gasps, Gray stepped forward. He needed to set boundaries before the group began viewing death as a minor inconvenience. He raised his voice.
"Listen up, everyone!" Gray yelled out. "This will be the last time I bring anyone back to life. From now on, you guys better be careful. Do not think that just because I have the power to do this, you can go out there, act reckless, and get yourselves killed. Keep that in mind."
He turned his eyes toward the emotional families. "Bring them up to speed on what happened to the world."
Leaving them to process the shock, Gray walked back out to the big hole he had dug. He noticed that his 10 standard furnaces had finally finished smelting. He teleported directly next to them, emptied all the newly made smooth stone blocks into his inventory, and immediately refilled the slots with fresh cobblestone. In total, he now had 10 full stacks, giving him 640 blocks of smooth stone. It was a good start, but nowhere near enough for the massive subterranean layout he had planned.
Wanting to get a feel for the structure, Gray teleported straight down to his 50-meter-deep pit. He pulled out the smooth stone and began placing the blocks across the floor. The blocks snapped into place perfectly. By the time he laid down the very last piece, the furnaces up top had already finished their next batch.
Gray realized that relying on coal and basic furnaces was a waste of time and resources. He opened the system shop and looked for a permanent, high-tech upgrade. He purchased 10 Quantum Solar Panels for 2 million Gold each. Next, he bought 2 Adjustable SU battery boxes from Tech Reborn for 3 million Gold each. These advanced battery boxes were absolute powerhouses, capable of storing 100 million energy units each, and they featured built-in charging slots for tools.
After spending the 26 million Gold, Gray materialized the machinery next to his pit. He wired the Quantum Solar Panels directly into the Adjustable SU battery boxes. He opened the interface and dropped two of his dead Industrial Jackhammers into the slots, watching their energy bars instantly start rapidly filling up. To complete the automated assembly line, he bought 10 Electrical Furnaces for 100,000 Gold each, wired them into the power grid, and stuffed a full stack of cobblestone into every single one. The electric furnaces began smelting at a blazing speed without needing a single piece of coal.
With the new and improved factory running, Gray got straight back to building. He teleported back down to the pit's dark bottom and continued placing his smooth stone blocks. He completely finished sealing the bottom layer into a flat, uniform floor.
Standing on the new foundation, Gray looked up at the towering walls. He counted up exactly 9 blocks, and he flew straight up into the air. Hovering in place, he began laying down the stone outline for the next level. He worked quickly, pacing back and forth until he had completed two full floors. Each floor spanned a massive 100x100 meters, with a spacious 9-meter clearance from floor to ceiling.
Gray planned to reserve the bottom floor for his most critical infrastructure, like the future AI supercomputers, power plants, and secure vaults. However, looking at the first two open floors, he realized he could optimize the space much better.
Instead of using smooth stone for the ceilings of the first two floors, Gray switched over to his massive stockpile of dirt blocks. These floors were specifically designated to house the agricultural fields and livestock pastures. If he left the ceilings at a towering 9 meters high, he would waste an immense amount of vertical space that could otherwise be used for food production.
Gray finished the next roof completely out of dirt blocks as well. He divided the two massive 9-meter-high sections right down the middle. He turned the first two floors into 4 separate, highly efficient levels, with each level having a clean 4-meter ceiling clearance. It was the perfect height for crops to grow and livestock to roam, effectively doubling his available farmland. He now had a massive, multi-tiered underground agricultural facility completely hidden from the surface world.
It took Gray exactly 8 hours of nonstop work to finish all the floors. The layout was perfect. He now had 4 farming floors, each 4 meters high. They had dirt grounds ready for crops and animals. Under those, he had 3 stone floors, each 9 meters high. They were completely empty and ready for whatever he would need later on. If he ran out of space later, he could just dig sideways into the earth.
With the underground building done, Gray teleported straight up into the prison courtyard. It was around 6:00 PM, so the sun was setting behind the trees.
Gray had two choices right in front of him.
His first option was to wait and save up for the next upgrade. It cost 1 Trillion Gold. Buying it would double his hourly income.
His second option was something he had been looking at for the longest time. It was a power he had always wanted... The Saiyan Physiology.
Gray already had Batman's peak physique, Deadshot's perfect aim, and Hawk's flight, and not even 24 hours ago, he had bought the minecrafter physiology. Changing his body into a true Saiyan would break all his physical limits forever. He would get zenkai boosts, limitless strength gains, and a massive energy pool.
Gray thought about the choices for a moment. He decided to dismiss the Saiyan physiology for now. He still had a lot of work to do on the prison. He figured it would be smarter to get the new Physiology right after buying the next upgrade.
He closed his system interface and went to take a hot shower. Right after, he prepared himself a massive feast because his hunger bar was about to deplete again. While eating, he remembered the upcoming meeting with the Governor. It was still about 48 hours away, giving him plenty of time to prepare. He checked his current Gold balance and saw he had 431,265,337,444 Gold available. Pulling up his calculator, or calc for short, he saw that he only needed to wait 22 more hours to hit the 1-trillion mark for the next upgrade.
Closing the laptop, Gray walked back out to his underground project. It was time to set up the infrastructure. He started digging out blocks every so often in the dirt floors to hold the water. After digging the holes across the first two farming floors, he pulled out his Bottomless Water Bucket and filled them all to the brim.
Next, he needed a way to light up the underground space so the crops could grow. He searched his system shop and found Minecraft Froglights for 5,000 Gold each. He started placing the glowing blocks all over the dirt ceilings. He ended up buying exactly 578 Froglights to fully light up the first two crop floors. For the next two levels meant for the livestock, they required less light, so he only had to buy 162 Froglights for those two floors. In total, he spent 3.7 Million Gold on lighting, which was basically nothing to him now.
With the lighting completely done, Gray grabbed a Netherite Hoe and started tilling the soil on the first two floors. The task was massive, and he ended up using up 10 Netherite Hoes during the process. It took him about two and a half hours of constant work to finish it. When he stopped, he had two massive, glowing underground floors completely tilled and ready for crops.
Looking around the giant facility, Gray realized it would be way too hard for normal people to get down here without his teleportation power. He walked over to the side of the pit and started digging out a massive diagonal tunnel. He crafted a long set of wooden steps and dug out a proper staircase for people to use. Coming all the way up to the surface courtyard, Gray used his smooth stone blocks to build a neat, secure entrance building over the stairwell. Finally, he crafted two wooden doors and placed them at the front.
Now, people like Maggie, Dale, and Axel could easily walk straight down into the underground farming floors with no issues at all.
Gray gathered the tree saplings he had collected from cutting down the forest earlier. He walked around and planted them into the grass, spacing them out perfectly. This would give the prison its own wood supply.
With the trees taken care of, Gray walked back over to his massive underground project. He stood right on top of the dirt roof that covered the farming floors, looking out over the leveled ground. He planned to build an apartment complex directly atop this underground area to save space. To start, he used his stored smooth stone to lay down a solid foundation. He decided to do a smaller section first, making a perfect 20x20 block slab.
Gray bought a small compass. He planned to make the apartment windows face directly north and south. The east and west sides of the building would be built of solid stone.
Gray made the ceiling three blocks high. He did this on purpose so there would be more space. This would allow the group to go in later to do all the electrical wiring, plumbing, and insulation work.
Gray could have built the whole thing by himself, but he chose to build only the outer stone shells. He wanted the rest of the survivors to finish the interior work themselves. Gray knew that if he handed everything to the group, they would expect everything to be done for them. By giving them hard work and a way to help, they would feel included. They would care about the place and actually help improve it, instead of just waiting for handouts.
Gray continued working on the apartment building shell. He placed block after block of smooth stone, raising the walls and creating clear rooms. At the end of the long corridor, he carefully added a wide set of stone stairs. He used these stairs to move up and start building more and more floors on top of each other.
By the time he finished building the fifth floor, he stopped and looked out. It was already super dark outside. He activated his Wraith Sight and did a quick visual sweep of the entire area. His vision pierced through the darkness and the trees for two miles, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Everything was quiet.
Before heading in, Gray wanted to test out something. He teleported from the top of his newly built five-story building straight into the prison courtyard. He walked over to his RV, stepped inside, and lay down flat on his bed.
The moment his head hit the pillow, his vision instantly started going darker and darker. He fell into a deep sleep and woke up the exact second the sun came up over the horizon. He stood up fast, alert, and checked his surroundings. He looked around his vision for any kind of system prompt, but there was no text saying his spawn point had been updated.
Gray frowned slightly. This meant if he died, he truly wouldn't be able to respawn like a video game character. Death was still permanent. Even so, he wasn't too worried. He could now equip and unequip his armor at any time with a single thought. Wearing the blackened armor all day didn't feel like a burden at all, and it gave him insane protection. He realized he didn't really need any immortality or instant-healing powers anyway. In fact, since he planned to buy the Saiyan Physiology next, he wanted to utilize the biology's Zenkai boosts. Having a separate healing or immortality power might actually interfere with his body getting stronger after a brutal fight.
Since he had successfully skipped the night and checked that test off his list, Gray walked out of the RV into the fresh morning air. He noticed his hunger bar was sitting at halfway, so he decided to head inside the main cell blocks for some breakfast. It was finally time to show the group exactly how the project was going.