After a quick breakfast, Gray gathered the group outside to show them the massive progress he had made over the last twenty-four hours. He started by leading Maggie, Axel, and Dale through the smooth stone entrance building and down the wide wooden staircase into the earth.
When they stepped onto the first underground floor, the three farmers stood completely frozen in shock. The space was enormous, and the entire ceiling was glowing brightly from the hundreds of Froglights he had installed. Gray gestured to the vast fields of perfectly tilled soil.
"Start planting as much food as you can down here," Gray instructed them. He pointed toward the holes cutting through the dirt. "The water in those holes is completely infinite. You will never need to refill them or haul buckets again."
Next, Gray turned his attention to the livestock team, Big Tiny, Hershel, and the newly resurrected family members, Hershel's stepson Shawn, and his nephew Arnold. Since the family had already been brought up to speed on the apocalypse and Gray's powers, they were ready to work. They already had some ranching experience, but Gray wanted them at peak efficiency. He stepped forward and shook their hands, using his transference to instantly inject Advanced Ranching and Advanced Butchering skills directly into their minds.
Once the new knowledge settled in, Gray showed them the lower two agricultural floors. "I want this space divided into four different zones," Gray explained. "One for cows, one for chickens, one for pigs, and one for sheep. You guys can decide exactly how to split and fence the layout."
Gray only showed the group the first four agricultural floors, keeping the bottom three stone floors closed for his future high-tech infrastructure. He then led the entire remaining workforce back up to the surface courtyard to inspect the five-story structure he had started the night before.
He walked them through the smooth stone shell and explained his vision. "There will be two large apartments per floor, and I plan on raising this building to ten floors total. My job is to build the stone structure. Your job is to go into the ceilings and walls to install all the electricity, water pipes, and drainage systems."
The survivors looked around the massive stone frame, feeling incredibly motivated by the clear purpose Gray was giving them. Without wasting a single minute of daylight, Gray got straight back to work. He spent the next few hours completing the remaining five floors of the first apartment block. Once the ten-story building was fully erected, Gray flew to the very top roof. He placed a small stone reservoir and filled it with his Bottomless Water Bucket, creating an infinite Minecraft water source that would gravity-feed clean water down to every apartment below.
Gray continued working at a fast pace as long as he had sunlight, only stopping whenever his hunger bar started to deplete and he needed to eat. By using his building blocks, he managed to construct two more identical ten-story apartment buildings right next to the first one.
At around 4:00 PM, while the sun was still high and shining brightly in the sky, Gray finally decided to stop working for the day. Gray opened his interface and saw he finally had enough Gold saved up for his next massive upgrade. He didn't waste a single second and clicked buy, spending 1 Trillion Gold.
[New Upgrade]
(1T Gold) 12,211,200,000 Gold/Hour
[New Hourly Rate]
53,731,476,618 (24,423,398,463) Hourly/Rate
Gold: 22,335,343,040
Gray closed the shop and did some quick math in his head. At this new jaw-dropping rate, he would easily have enough Gold to buy the Saiyan Physiology by exactly 4:00 AM the following morning. The meeting with the Governor at the halfway building was now only 20 hours away.
Gray smiled beneath his Nazgûl mask. By the time he walked into that negotiation room, he wouldn't just be an armored marksman anymore, he would possess the biology of a supreme warrior race, with plenty of extra billions left over to buy any other protections he wanted.
After getting some fresh food into his system, Gray stopped working for the day. He decided to let the survivors handle their own tasks. When he started constructing the second apartment complex, he told the group to come get him if they ever ran out of building materials. With the rest of his afternoon free, Gray took a hot shower, sat down, and turned on his anime. He fully intended to just relax and wait until his 4:00 AM alarm rang to finally become a Saiyan.
Surprisingly, the survivors never came to knock on his door for more supplies. They still had a massive amount of planning left to do. Since Gray had built all three apartment blocks exactly the same, the plumbing and electrical teams realized they only needed to map out the blueprint for one building and then replicate the work for the other two.
By the time Gray finished watching season four, his digital alarm started ringing. He felt an intense surge of pure excitement, way more than when he had purchased the Minecrafter Physiology. He stepped out of his bed, he didn't want anyone to hear him scream just in case the transformation was painful. He instantly activated his teleportation and shifted down to the absolute lowest, deepest stone level of his underground space.
Once he was standing in the quiet, empty darkness, he opened his system menu. He scrolled through the shop and finally purchased the Saiyan Physiology. Before any changes could hit his body, a system prompt popped up in his vision.
[Would you like to adopt the spiky hair from the Saiyan Race?]
[Yes] [No]
Gray reached up and touched his long, curly hair, thinking about it silently for a few minutes. He ultimately chose to click No. Before he died and reincarnated into this world, his mother had had the exact same kind of hair. He chose to keep his current style to ensure something from his previous life remained completely intact.
The exact second his finger hit the button, an absolute wave of blinding pain shot through his entire body. Every single cell in his anatomy was being aggressively torn apart and rebuilt to hold the biology of a supreme warrior race. Gray had never felt a raw agony like that before, but he clenched his teeth hard and endured it. Not even ten seconds into the process, a furry brown monkey tail began painfully sprouting out from the base of his spine, just above his hips. The sheer intensity of the cellular shift forced Gray down onto the stone floor, his body convulsing from the pain.
After one long, grueling minute, the agony suddenly vanished. Gray lay flat on the smooth stone, breathing heavily and sweating buckets. He had thought that possessing the Minecrafter Physiology would make him immune to this kind of pain, but he was clearly wrong.
Slowly standing up, Gray suddenly felt absolutely incredible. His body felt as light as a feather. Just by opening and closing his hands into tight fists, he could instantly tell he possessed enough raw physical strength to kill a man with a single basic punch. To test out his new limits, he opened the shop and purchased a heavy boxing sandbag. He set the stand up on the stone floor and threw a single punch at full power.
BANG!
The heavy bag instantly exploded into shreds, and the metal base was launched flying over twenty feet across the empty underground floor before smashing into the wall.
Gray stared down at his bare fist in complete disbelief. "Whoa," he whispered, a giddy smile spreading beneath his mask as he realized the infinite possibilities now open to him.
But right before he could teleport back to the surface, a terrifying thought hit him, and he froze in his tracks.
"Wait... won't I turn into a massive ape if I ever look at a full moon?" Gray muttered to himself, his excitement turning into a sudden spike of worry. "I won't be able to control the Great Ape transformation, and I might end up destroying the prison and killing everyone..."
Gray began pacing anxiously back and forth across the wide stone floor. He immediately opened up his system shop, frantically scrolling through the listings to see if there was any kind of solution for his new predicament. As he searched, his eyes locked onto a specific option, and his jaw dropped completely.
{Training Dimension} (3T Gold)
Gray clicked on the extra information tab to read the full breakdown of the purchase. The description stated that the dimension could completely alter its internal gravity levels to match whatever choice the owner desired. Even better, it came with a standard 30-to-1 time dilation mechanic, meaning an entire month inside the dimension would only equal a single day in the real world. Within the space, he could create different kinds of harsh terrain for various forms of physical training.
The description also listed an option to buy legendary Teachers and Masters from across the universe to instruct him in different martial arts and energy techniques. He could also purchase specific enemies to spar with so he could safely get used to fighting with his new Saiyan biology. Finally, the screen held a strict warning: once a user exited the dimension at the end of their thirty-day training cycle, the power would go on a mandatory cooldown for 7 days before it could be opened again.
Gray stared at the screen, realizing this was arguably the absolute best thing he could possibly buy for his new body. Being able to be trained by the likes of Master Roshi, Kami, or even the Angel Whis meant he could gain a level of physical strength far beyond anything he had originally expected. And the fact that it came with full gravity manipulation, custom enemies to fight, and a massive time dilation? It wasn't quite as powerful as the standard Dragon Ball Hyperbolic Time Chamber, which boasted a 365-to-1 ratio, but Gray definitely wasn't complaining. This was his ticket to mastering his new power.
Gray decided to stay underground for the rest of the night to avoid any potential problems with the moon. Instead of risking a surface transformation, he opened his system shop and purchased a comfortable queen-sized bed. He set it down directly on the smooth stone floor of the deepest level and lay down. Thanks to his Minecrafter Physiology, the moment his head touched the mattress, he fell asleep instantly.
He woke up the exact second the sun rose over the horizon. Standing up quickly, he prepared to head up, but he stopped to handle a new physical detail. He didn't want the prison survivors asking questions about the brown monkey tail moving around behind him. To hide it, Gray tightly wrapped the tail around his waist, exactly like Vegeta and Nappa did in the anime. With his blackened armor equipped over it, the tail was completely hidden, and no one would ever be able to see it.
With his armor secure, Gray teleported to the surface right next to the three new ten-story apartment buildings. He walked straight into the cell blocks to get himself some breakfast, but he quickly noticed a major change in his biology. His hunger bar was draining at a much faster rate, and the sheer amount of food he had to ingest was massive. If before he was able to eat as much as four grown men, his new physiology now required him to eat enough for twelve people.
He sat at the kitchen table, continuously loading his plate with mountains of eggs, meat, and rice. The other survivors stared at him in complete shock as he kept eating plate after plate of food until he finally felt full and satisfied.
Standing up from the table, Gray walked out to the courtyard and began preparing for his meeting with the Governor. He started weighing his options about who to take with him, or whether to handle the trip entirely by himself. If the meeting turned out to be a trap, he could easily teleport out of danger using his teleportation ability, activate his flight, and kill every single Woodbury soldier present.
On the other hand, if he took his people with him, they could easily get killed. Even though Rick, Shane, and Merle possessed Deadshot's perfect marksmanship, it would only take one lucky bullet from a hidden sniper to put someone down permanently. Since he had already given the entire community a strict warning that he was done bringing people back to life, he wasn't willing to risk their safety for a negotiation.
Gray adjusted his Nazgûl mask, checked the railgun on his hotbar, and made his final choice. He was going to meet the Governor completely alone.