Blade stood in the middle of the workshop looking like someone had just told him his favorite weapon had been discontinued.
"I'm heading out of town."
That caught Mario off guard. He looked up from where he'd been examining the workshop's electrical systems. "What? Why? Something happen?"
"Most of the bloodsuckers in New York have disappeared. Haven't picked up a decent lead in days. I want to scout other cities, set up forward positions for our little hunter network."
Mario nodded slowly. He'd noticed the same thing, even with his mini-map and Vampire Awareness working overtime, finding targets had become frustratingly difficult. Logically, New York should still be crawling with vampires. But if Blade was saying they'd fled...
"Makes sense. Go check out the other cities first. Call me anytime and I'll bring backup. You want to take Pearl with you? Guy's got real experience dealing with vampires now."
"Nah, I work better solo anyway."
Mario didn't push it. They spent a few minutes discussing strategy for the scouting missions before Ivan approached.
"We're gonna need some equipment."
"No problem. Tonight we'll go shopping." Mario's smile was perfectly innocent.
Ivan blinked, glancing at his father who was examining the workshop's structural supports. "We also need some rare materials."
"No problem. Tonight we'll go shopping." The same smile, the same tone.
"Shopping?" Ivan had only been in Mario's orbit for about ten hours. The full scope of what Mario meant by "shopping" hadn't quite sunk in yet.
But he'd gotten definitive answers, so he didn't press the issue. He turned back to continue his discussion with his father about reactor design specifications.
"You guys want in on tonight's procurement mission as backup?" Mario asked the three gang members.
Kerry's face lit up. "Hell yes. It's been too long since we did any real B&E work."
"Just don't call it breaking and entering," Gore said. "We're conducting unsolicited property inspections with aggressive negotiation tactics."
Mario just smiled, then glanced around the workshop space, taking in the bare concrete and exposed steel beams. It would work for a lab, but as a place to actually live? The location was isolated as hell, and creature comforts were nonexistent.
Time to try something ambitious.
In Minecraft, the Nether served as a fast-travel network. One block of movement in the Nether equaled eight blocks in the Overworld. Combined with Nether portals, it allowed for rapid transit between distant locations.
The question was whether it would work in reality.
"I'm gonna set up some infrastructure," Mario announced to the group. "Blade, Natasha, if you've got other business, go handle it."
He pulled a diamond pickaxe from his inventory and headed toward the corner of the workshop.
Blade nodded and headed for the exit. "I'll go talk to Whistler about which city to hit first."
Natasha's response was more direct. "Following you is my mission."
"We'll keep an eye on things up here as well," Garcia volunteered, gesturing toward the Vankos.
Mario shrugged and started attacking the concrete floor. Under the amazed stares of the Vankos, he disappeared into the earth like a human-shaped drill.
Ivan suddenly felt like reactor research had lost some of its appeal. He exchanged glances with his father, then followed Natasha toward the corner of the workshop, with Garcia, Kerry, and Gore trailing behind.
A perfect square hole, one meter across, now punctured the floor. A torch flickered at the bottom, illuminating the space below. By the time they reached the edge, he had already excavated more than ten meters down and was expanding outward.
"Damn," Kerry said. "How fast can this guy dig?"
"Faster than a whole construction crew," Gore observed. "And he doesn't need permits or environmental impact studies."
Natasha peered into the tunnel. This was exactly the kind of opportunity she'd been waiting for, a chance to understand Mario's abilities up close.
"Can I come down and take a look?"
The digging sounds stopped. Mario's head appeared at the bottom of the shaft.
Seeing the faces clustered around the opening, he felt a bit exasperated. "Hold on!"
He pulled wood from his inventory, crafted a workbench, and assembled several ladders, placing them along the tunnel walls to create a proper access route.
After climbing back to surface level, he looked at the crowd gathered around his excavation. "What's so fascinating about watching a guy dig a hole?"
He turned to the Vankos. "You finish the reactor design yet?"
Anton met Mario's eyes with an awkward smile. "Well... we can't proceed much further without the proper equipment."
"Fair enough. You want to see what I'm building, come on down."
Mario didn't really mind the audience. He descended back into the tunnel, with Natasha close behind and the gang members bringing up the rear.
"You guys don't all need to come down," Mario called up. "This isn't a tourist attraction."
"Speak for yourself," Kerry called back. "This is the most interesting thing that's happened all day."
"Plus somebody should keep an eye on you," Garcia added as he started down the ladder. "Make sure you don't dig into a gas line or something."
Mario positioned himself at the bottom, watching as Natasha navigated the ladder in high heels. A ten-meter fall wouldn't kill someone with her enhanced physiology, but it sure as hell wouldn't feel good.
When she reached the bottom safely, his expression soured slightly.
Of course she's wearing pants under that skirt.
He turned away and resumed his excavation, rapidly expanding the underground space. Within minutes, he'd carved out a chamber over a hundred square meters in area beneath the factory floor.
"Holy shit," Gore breathed, looking around the cavernous space. "You could fit a whole house down here."
"That's probably the point," Kerry said. "Right, hermano? Underground safe house?"
"Something like that," Mario replied.
He surveyed the rough cavern he'd created. "This size should work... but it needs some finishing touches."
The walls were still rough dirt and stone, uneven and crude. As a Minecraft player, there was no way he could tolerate that level of shoddy craftsmanship. From his inventory, he pulled out nether bricks he'd collected during previous expeditions and began replacing the walls.
"Step back, stand on the finished sections."
The gang members immediately complied. Natasha took a moment longer, but eventually moved to where Mario had indicated.
Garcia ran his hand along one of the completed walls. "Hard and warm..."
Mario gave him a dismissive glance as he continued working, then filled in the remaining rough patches.
Ivan, who had eventually climbed down to see what all the fuss was about, reached out to touch the surface. He couldn't identify the material.
"What is this stuff?"
"Nether bricks. I mined them from deep within... Hell itself."
"If we have time later, I can take you to see Hell's landscape for yourself."
He wasn't lying. Whether they believed him was their problem.
Kerry and Gore exchanged glances. They'd learned not to doubt Mario's more outrageous claims.
"Hell's real?" Kerry asked.
"Depends on your definition," Mario replied. "But the place I got these bricks from? Yeah, that's definitely hell. Fire, lava, flying monsters..."
Rather than building a Nether portal immediately, he decided to gather more information first. He asked Natasha to investigate Cybertek and acquire some basic equipment so Ivan could start work on the first-generation reactor.
The gang members were assigned to perimeter security, making sure nobody got curious about the construction work.
Once everyone had been dispatched on various errands, he sealed the tunnel entrance. Then, in a corner of the underground chamber, he excavated a separate room, constructed a new Nether portal, and activated it.
Staring at the swirling purple particles, he stepped through.
The familiar wave of disorientation hit him, and when his vision cleared, he found himself in the familiar hellscape of the Nether. But something was wrong. The landscape looked too familiar, his old platform was still visible in the distance.
"What the hell?"
This portal had opened very close to the one near his underground base in Central Park.
"Could it be that the real-world ratio isn't 1-to-8? More like 1-to-100?"
AHHHHH...
A ghast's shriek interrupted his thoughts. It had spotted him and was already spitting a fireball in his direction.
Before his conscious mind had even processed the threat, his hands had drawn an enchanted diamond sword and assumed a baseball swing stance.
CRACK!
The reflected fireball shot back along its original trajectory, missing the ghast by inches.
Once he fully regained his senses, he immediately pulled out a sniper rifle, aimed ath the ghast, and pulled the trigger.
The ghast's body flared red, and more than half of its health bar instantly vanished, leaving only a sliver.
Just as it was about to counterattack, another bullet from the sniper rifle struck. This time, its body collapsed midair, dissolving into smoke and disappearing. Unfortunately, no loot dropped, not even the most basic experience orb.
After dealing with the ghast, he surveyed the wandering zombified piglins and regular piglins scattered across the hellish landscape.
"Building transport on the surface is too dangerous. This has to be underground."
"Perfect opportunity to mine some ancient debris while I'm at it. Time for a gear upgrade."
He had spent considerable time gathering enough diamonds for a full diamond equipment set. Now he had the chance to push his gear to the next level, netherite, the ultimate material.
He walled off the Nether portal with nether bricks to prevent ghasts from spotting him, placed torches for light, and began digging straight down.
At layer 12, he checked his mini-map for orientation and started excavating a 3×3 tunnel in the direction of his Central Park base.
The work went fast, too fast. With Efficiency IV, netherrack crumbled like wet cardboard under his pickaxe. But the rapid mining came at a cost. Even with Mending, the tool's durability dropped faster than it could be repaired.
Looking at his nearly broken pickaxe, he sighed. "High efficiency, high maintenance... I need to find some quartz to repair this thing before it breaks completely."
Quartz was Nether-exclusive and relatively useless for crafting, but it granted massive XP gains, perfect for quick enchantment repairs.
After spending time restoring his pickaxe, he continued the tunnel toward home. Along the way, he occasionally struck veins of ancient debris, though the material was frustratingly rare.
Thirty minutes later, consulting his mini-map coordinates, he muttered, "Almost there."
He angled upward at forty-five degrees and soon emerged in a warped forest not far from the portal leading back to his base.
He did quick mental math. What used to be over an hour's drive through Manhattan traffic could now be traversed in just a few minutes via Nether transport.
"This is ridiculously convenient. Nether highways are definitely the way to go."
Passing through the portal back to Central Park, Mario's face carried a satisfied grin. He fed all seventeen pieces of ancient debris he'd collected into the furnace.
Each netherite ingot required four ancient debris scraps plus four gold ingots. He had already made his decision, upgrade all equipment to netherite immediately. The boost to durability and combat effectiveness would be worth the investment.
Fortunately, he'd already acquired a full set of netherite upgrade smithing templates from his last expedition, without them, this step would have been impossible.
After a series of metallic sounds at the smithing table, he had successfully upgraded his entire diamond loadout to netherite gear.
He disabled the equipment display hiding and admired his reflection. The netherite armor had a faint violet glow that gave him the appearance of a heavily armored warrior from some apocalyptic future.
"Now this is what I'm talking about."
He was extremely satisfied with his new appearance.
---
Back at the factory, Mario had constructed several rooms within the underground chamber, dormitories and offices for Ivan and his father to use during their extended stay.
Sitting on a couch in the temporary office space, he looked at the two Russians.
"You both know what I need from you. I want you to help me build a reactor. But I don't just need some glorified power source for household appliances. I need you to build me a suit of battle armor. Powered by reactor energy, a combat suit that can fly through the skies and dive to the ocean floor. With the right materials and equipment, this shouldn't be beyond your capabilities."
Ivan, sitting across from him, nodded slowly. Challenging, certainly, but not impossible. He'd already been developing ideas about reactor applications, though not specifically in the direction of powered armor.
"That can be done."
He grabbed some of the food Mario had laid out on the table and bit into it, revealing a set of metal teeth as he chewed. Beside him, Anton appeared more composed, seated on the couch like Mario, holding a cigarette and quietly exhaling smoke. Since arriving in America, he had gradually stepped back from decision-making, passing authority to his son.
Mario was pleased by Ivan's straightforward agreement. "I know you two don't completely trust me yet. But I can guarantee you won't find a better employer anywhere in the world."
He paused, then added with a grin, "Oh, and Ivan, besides the battle suit, I'm also putting you in charge of the household electrical systems."
Ivan's expression didn't change, but Mario could practically hear the internal screaming.
Don't think you can boss me around just because you're the boss. If you mention home appliances one more time, I might actually lose it.
But those were just internal thoughts. Mario's first impression had been too overwhelming, and ultimately, Mario was his father's savior. He wouldn't start a fight over something so trivial.
After finishing his briefing, Mario pulled out a detailed dossier on Cybertek from his inventory and began reading carefully. Before long, a smile spread across his face.
He looked up at Ivan. "Tonight, you're coming with me. We're going shopping for equipment and materials."
Ivan didn't question why their shopping trip needed to happen at night. He agreed readily, already thinking ahead to how he would construct the battle armor Mario had described once they had all the necessary supplies.