While Hestia was still turning things over in her head, Takumi's aura suddenly climbed another notch.
Having inched even closer to the realm beyond Super Demon King, he looked downright refreshed—like he'd just stretched after a perfect nap.
A new system message popped up.
[Ding! Obtained Trait: Mystery (Blue)]
[Mystery (Blue): All of your spell effects are slightly enhanced in power.]
"Mmh—nice. That's a solid trait."
A broad, all-purpose boost like this? In Takumi's book, that was premium stuff.
He took the opportunity to glance at the rest of his panel.
[World Gate Progress: 3569%]
"So while I was asleep… people were talking about me even more, huh? I wake up and I'm already past three thousand."
Satisfied, Takumi started sorting through which trait he wanted to evolve next.
It didn't take long before [2D Doll Technique (Blue)] floated to the top of his choices.
"This one's got the biggest potential right now. Even if the upgrade doesn't end up as busted as I'm hoping… whatever. I'll just grind it up again."
The moment he made the selection, the trait flickered with a purple shimmer.
This time there wasn't any fusion—just a clean, normal upgrade.
[Two-Dimensional Bestowal Technique (Purple): You can grant "life" to two-dimensional creations, and—within limits—endow them with power that matches your design. The duration of bestowal depends on how much energy you spend.]
"Mmm~ heh. Looks like my luck's pretty damn good!"
Takumi's lips curled into a grin. He was already itching to test it.
A ridiculous idea had already formed in his mind.
"[Alchemy technique]!"
He lifted his palm and created an octagonal talisman stamped with a rabbit emblem.
"A… rock?" the girls blurted out, baffled.
Takumi couldn't even argue. The rabbit talisman in his hand was, in the most literal sense, just a rock.
"Takumi-sama, what are you doing?" Haruhime asked, eyes sparkling with curiosity—while she scooped up a spoonful of food and held it to his mouth.
"Ahh—"
Takumi took the bite, then explained in a low voice, "A handy tool I'm about to use~"
Centered on his palms, an intricate magic circle unfolded again.
"[Two-Dimensional Bestowal Technique]!"
A vast surge of magic poured into the rabbit talisman, making it flare with blinding radiance.
A moment later, the light faded.
The talisman was still a "rock"… but now it pulsed with a mysterious, intricate magic.
Takumi weighed it in his hand, then lightly grasped it.
In the next instant, the power of "speed" detonated out of it.
Whoosh!
Takumi's body snapped past supersonic speed. In a blink, he'd already zipped outside, made a full loop around the area, and returned to his seat like nothing happened.
With her divinity sealed, even Hestia—and Meteria too—only caught a streak of afterimage.
They saw him flicker. They were pretty sure he'd gone out. But it was so fast their brains refused to keep up.
"Huh?! What was that?! Is this a magic item?"
Everyone stared at the rabbit talisman in Takumi's hand.
This time, Hestia and Meteria could clearly feel the magic churning inside it.
Hestia leaned in, eyes wide. "It was literally just a rock a second ago—how did you do that?!"
"A new technique I picked up," Takumi said. "I can temporarily give an object 'life,' and then it performs whatever function I design into it. But there's a cap. I designed the rabbit talisman to move faster than light… and its actual ceiling seems to be around three hundred times the speed of sound."
He shrugged.
"If I hand it to someone else, it'll last at most a month before it turns back into a rock. The 'life' doesn't last forever."
"Three hundred times the speed of sound…?" Hestia blinked. "I have no idea how fast that is, but it sounds insane—and what we just saw was already ridiculous! You're casually making magic items this strong. Even Hephaestus can't do that!"
Meteria nodded along, equally stunned.
Haruhime, still adorably clueless about the numbers, simply kept feeding Takumi bite after bite like her life mission depended on it.
Meanwhile, Takumi continued scarfing food and testing his new technique.
"Even if there's a ceiling, the potential depends on how you use it. If I dumped a lot more magic into it—and then stacked my divine power on top… I could probably push that ceiling higher."
He thought about it, then dropped the idea immediately.
"But that's pointless. A rabbit talisman's speed doesn't matter to me. I don't need it to run fast—I can already run that fast."
"Mouse talisman. Ox talisman. Dragon talisman. Snake talisman…"
Takumi started mass-producing the talismans—everything except the tiger and the goat, since those didn't have much practical use for him.
After that, he even tried making the Infinity Stones from the Marvel universe.
No luck.
The Power Stone he created ended up doing basically the same thing as the ox talisman.
And stuff like Time and Reality? The range and ceiling were laughably low—almost useless.
"Those are way too over-spec," Takumi concluded. "Feels like I'd need a gold-tier… maybe even red-tier trait to truly replicate them. And these bestowal products can't be copied through absorption, either."
He'd tested that too.
He created a chunk of Saiyan flesh. It worked—he made it.
But when his body absorbed it, nothing changed.
Because the meat wasn't real Saiyan meat. It was just condensed magic—his magic.
Absorbing it was basically the same as… absorbing his own flesh.
No new buffs.
There went a whole category of deranged infinite growth ideas.
Still, he'd made a pile of fun, weird toys—and he even tossed a few talismans to Haruhime and the others to play with.
Then—a voice came from the doorway, sharp and incredulous.
"So I think I just heard someone say I'm nothing special as a forging goddess?"
Hephaestus pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The moment she saw the heap of bizarre items in Takumi's hands, question marks practically popped over her head.
"…You forged all of these?"
She took one and examined it, quickly realizing what it was.
These were like magic swords—consumable tools.
Except the consumable timer was way longer.
They didn't burn out after one use; they only died once the magic stored inside them completely dissipated—then they'd lose all function and become ordinary objects again.