Riveria stepped out first, wearing a sweet, gentle smile.
"I'm very sorry we followed you in secret. It was our goddess's order—we were worried Ais might end up in danger. After all, we just finished dealing with the Dark Faction… please forgive us."
Her attitude was perfect, and the warmth in her voice made it hard to stay annoyed.
Takumi helped Ais to her feet and returned the smile.
"I get it, Miss Riveria—and the little lady hiding behind you too. If you wanted to watch, you could've just told me. I'm happy to teach what I know, as long as you're willing to learn."
Lefiya immediately looked offended.
"Riveria-senpai is a world-famous archmage! If anything, she should be the one teaching you. And also—what you just did to Ais-senpai was—mmgh…!"
The moment she got to that part, Lefiya's pointed elf ears turned a cute, rosy red.
Takumi glanced at those twitching ears and, for a split second, had the extremely inappropriate urge to lean in and nibble one—just to see what her reaction would be.
Lefiya, embarrased, completely lost the ability to speak.
Takumi only answered mildly, "That was high-intensity training. Some things are unavoidable."
"I still feel like you did it on purpose…" Lefiya muttered under her breath.
She wanted to argue, but Ais herself clearly didn't mind, so Lefiya could already tell it wouldn't accomplish anything.
Deflating on the spot, she slumped with a huff and glared at Takumi, still fuming.
The annoying part was… she missed that heart-thump feeling from their first meeting on the battlefield.
And now that she saw him again, he turned out to be this kind of shameless horny wolf.
It was infuriating.
But even as she simmered, Lefiya didn't realize something important—she didn't actually hate Takumi for it.
Takumi had no interest in bickering with her either. He handed the exhausted Ais over to Riveria and strode off as if nothing in the world could bother him.
Riveria watched his back disappear, quietly chewing on what he'd said.
She was already Level 6, and she'd been stuck there for years.
If Takumi's teaching could really show her a path to becoming stronger… she wasn't too proud to ask.
"Also… that weapon he created just now—wasn't that basically a kind of magic?" Riveria murmured, eyes shining. "And the healing magic he showed earlier… he's like an all-purpose hero."
Awe and admiration flickered in her gaze, and the flutter in her chest refused to calm down.
But when she looked down at Ais—limp in her arms—Riveria pushed those thoughts aside and focused on checking her condition first.
…
After leaving them behind, Takumi headed alone toward the Dungeon.
He had no interest in clearing it seriously right now. He just wanted to farm a quick pile of valis.
"Perfect timing. Let's test out the handy tool I made."
He raised his palm, and like Doraemon pulling something out of nowhere, he produced a red, demon-faced mask.
"Shadow Mask: Tara!"
The moment he activated the power sealed inside it, the shadow beneath his feet squirmed like it had come alive.
In the next instant, grotesque black figures began crawling out of his own shadow—one after another.
Their numbers instantly broke a hundred… then kept multiplying at an absurd pace.
And each shadow soldier possessed a certain level of awareness.
The swarm stood there on the ground, all turning their heads in perfect unison to stare at Takumi.
The scene was nightmare fuel.
Takumi, on the other hand, looked delighted.
"So it works. Using this tool as a medium, summoning magical creatures is actually viable." He narrowed his eyes, thinking. "Still draws on my mana, though… and I've got a feeling I can replicate the mechanism myself."
As he explored the idea, a concept surfaced in his mind… Ten Shadows Technique.
He'd had it for a while, yet never properly used it. But the theory behind shadow-based techniques had plenty of ways to branch and evolve.
Takumi ran silent simulations in his head—reverse-engineering how these shadow soldiers were made—then issued a simple command.
In an instant, over a thousand shadow soldiers surged out.
They scattered like a tide, transforming into a thousand streaming shadows as they poured into the Dungeon from every direction.
Since each soldier counted as his summon, once Takumi granted them a sliver of access to his Spacetime Realm, they could toss magic stones and materials directly inside.
Takumi didn't even need to move. He just sat there sipping tea, watching piles of magic stones and monster materials appear in his Spacetime Realm like deliveries.
With spare time to breathe, he finally turned his attention to the UFO sitting inside that realm.
"Alright… let me see what this Cybertronian tech can do."
"Cloaking device. Anti-gravity system. Tractor beam. Curvature drive. Controlled nuclear fusion power…"
With a single thought, the entire ship disassembled, piece by piece, then reassembled in his mind as pure information.
The divinity in his head worked like a quantum computer, analyzing and extrapolating every system to its logical end.
This wasn't a Cybertronian warship, so it wasn't loaded with weapons.
But there was no denying it—this pile of black technology was a full generation ahead of Earth's tech.
And after fully decoding it, hand-building a ship like this wouldn't be difficult for Takumi at all.
"Man… my Spacetime Realm's population is still way too small." He tapped the armrest, eyes drifting toward the progress of his World-Crossing Gate. "If I had a real nation with infrastructure, I could build an entire space fleet off this foundation."
Once he wrapped up the loose ends in the DanMachi world, he'd move on to the next world.
And this time, he needed to collect more people. His core group couldn't just be Freya and the others forever.
With that thought, Takumi began rebuilding the Ten Shadows Technique in his mind.
The original Ten Shadows was honestly… pathetic.
It felt like something the author only pulled out so Sukuna could have an excuse to slice Gojo into two-and-a-half Gojo.
Compared to the shadow soldiers Takumi had created, the original technique's shikigami were a complete joke—outclassed in both strength and utility.
"Two shikigami at most? That problem has to go. Absolute garbage." Takumi's tone sharpened. "And once one gets totally destroyed, it can never manifest again? What kind of trash no respawn rule is that? That has to go too."
He continued, thinking faster as he spoke.
"If a dead shikigami's power can be inherited by another, then it should be able to directly fuse as well. Quantity and strength should depend more on the user's ability."
He stared at the Tara mask, feeling the mana churning inside it.
"The hardest part is copying every trait of my shadow soldiers and integrating them perfectly into Ten Shadows."
Under the influence of his Two-Dimensional Bestowal Technique, his mana had entered an odd, profound state.
Right now, he was basically doing something like stepping on his own foot to kick himself forward—using imitation of himself to refine the technique.
Time passed quickly.
By the time the Dungeon's first twenty floors were nearly cleaned out, a brand-new Ten Shadows Technique had taken shape in Takumi's mind.
"…Damn it. The taming side effect is still there. I can't remove it."
Takumi's face twisted. He honestly couldn't believe it—this "taming" was basically hard-coded into the technique's core.
If he touched it even slightly, the entire technique collapsed.
"The Zenin clan's ancestor really was a freak-genius…" Takumi muttered, equal parts admiration and frustration. "To create something like this…"