I woke up to a feeling of emptiness in my bed. Had Rias woken up while I went back to sleep and left?
That feels a little... disappointing. For some reason.
I tuned in my mana sense and I noticed a presence in my kitchen that did not fit any of my maids, I grabbed my clothes out of my inventory before putting a casual set on and walking down the stairs toward the kitchen. I was actually rather hungry.
In the kitchen I saw a sight I did not expect to see, Rias was there, cooking breakfast in my kitchen wearing only an apron and her panties. When she noticed me come in and perked up.
"Oh! You're already up Takumi? I was trying to finish up before you woke up but don't worry breakfast will be ready soon, just sit down for a minute or so all right?" Hearing her words I absentmindedly nodded sitting down.
Like a dumb animal, I rested my chin on my chin just watching Rias hum to herself while cooked us breakfast. My gaze just stuck to her form while my vision blurred.
It reminded me of something. Of a simpler time.
It reminded me of a childhood I could have had.
I shook my head, using thought partitioning to remove those memories from my current thought process and locking them deep down into the burrows of my mind.
A bit later Rias set down breakfast for us to enjoy. It was relatively simple, eggs, sausages, greens, and even some chicken and rice. It tasted really good, but I think that was simply because I got to enjoy it together with her.
Dear god(ouch) I really am turning into a sap, aren't I?
Regardless, today Rias looked way more relaxed and content. Makes sense since I just took care of her issues and blew out her back in the same hour last night.
After we finished our meal and left them for the maids to take care of Rias got dressed and was about to head before she turned to me.
"Hey, Takumi, I know you are busy but when you have some time can you come around to the Occult Research Club? I actually wanted you to meet someone, also I don't think I can hold Akeno back forever so you better talk with her before she jumps you." Rias winked at me, this girl was very comfortable with the thought of her queen riding my bones but I guess it made sense.
Rias never had an issue with harems in cannon, she had an issue with Issei refusing to acknowledge her interest in him while so many other women were vying for him, making her insecure.
Speaking of Issei, I wonder what he is doing nowadays.
"Don't worry, I will make sure to make some time to visit you." Rias smiled and pulled me in for a kiss on the cheek.
"Alright! It's a promise. I'm going to school now I have to rub my victory in Sona's face. Love you bye!" Rias took her bag and left for school while I stood in the doorway.
"Love you too."
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After Rias left for school I got down to my basement to get started on a new plan that would open up my time. I have many projects to attend to and so little time to attend to them. So, why not really make some time?
See, I decided to start on a new project.
I need to start ramping things up, because DxD is DxD and the villains take a sharp turn from rich scion asshole to megalomaniac gods really fucking quick. And shit keeps escalating from there until you go from fighting Stray Devils to defending your universe from outer gods within 2 years.
But I could only do so many things at once and still enjoy my life, and I really liked enjoying my life. So...
I had an idea, like always.
My genius speaks for itself, and it really loves speaking.
Homunculi bodies.
No, not normal Homunculi I already have Arc producing those. No, I am talking about substitute bodies for myself.
Discount cloning.
Mind Magic was truly busted and gave me ideas. You see, I can use telepathy by establishing a bridge between minds and thus linking them allowing for two-way communication.
Conversely, that was also how mind control worked, but instead of two-way communication, it was one-way domination of the target's mind with your own.
Notice the control part? So, what if, instead of controlling people what if I just...
Took control of an empty Homunculi and operated it like a second body?
Not only that with thought partitioning I would barely need to operate them consciously, after all my partitions are both separate and at same time my mind.
I would be able to grind multiple skills at once while I was doing more important things like exploring the game and manga catalogue of this world.
But I think I should first run this idea by the homunculi master himself to see what he thinks of it, so I entered the Lab to find...
Busty white-haired homunculi girls who are sharply dressed in sleek black silk pants, wearing white button-up shirts with black vests over them, they all had colour-coded ties, some green, some blue. To top it all off, they all had black silk gloves with transmutation circles and wore polished expensive leather shoes. And they all had featureless masks.
There were at least 4 lined up against the wall in order, bowing to me wordlessly the moment I went in.
"Did I stumble onto heaven or something?" I knew they were homunculi at a glance thanks to the tattoo's on their necks but seeing my hypothetical designs come to life without my input was a pleasant surprise, to say the least.
"Ah, My Lord. Welcome to my lab, it seems like the new line of homunculi are to your liking, which is great. Now, how may I help you?" Arc turned to me, dropping the half-formed homunculi body back on the operating table.
"I must say, I am impressed Arc, you work way faster than I thought you would," I say glancing at the homunculi girls, I only gave him a vague guideline to what I wanted yet he managed to produce this, as expected of my first proper creation. "So, what are the specs on these girls?"
"Well, the tie colours and serial numbers signify the occupation of the Homunculi. The blue ones are more geared toward administrating and managing tasks as they use Mk. 4 Advanced Logic Cores and have a higher level of thought than the other types since they need to handle more complex tasks and other homunculi. I use them to assist me in managing my lab." Wow, those seem rather useful, don't they? Maybe I should nab one to run my shop when I get those.
"The red ones are more meant to be along the lines of bodyguards and combatants. They have Mk. 2 Basic Logic Cores but they have Blue Diamond Mana Cores as well as Hybrid Hydra Muscles and Dark Steel Bonded skeletons making them exceptional combatants. They are equipped with Intermediate Celcius and Ampere Catalysts in each hand."
I nodded, I needed some bodyguards around here, of course, I was better than any bodyguard could be but if I got out for a business trip I wanted someone holding down my fort while I was gone to protect the weak ones like Asia and the fallen.
"What's their estimated combat power?" I asked Arc who responded almost instantly. "Middle-high. High-low if they burn their cores. If I had better materials and spent more time on them I could likely get their power to Middle-pinnacle or High-Low." Well, that was good, they were individually stronger than most of Riser's peerage.
"Then there are the green ones which as you might suspect are the Alchemists. They are direct upgrades to the original model, they should be capable of producing up to Intermediate V potions of relative complexity. The ones that are capable of performing alchemy are actually considerably more difficult to produce due to reasons of specs needed to actually operate the Alchemy skill being dare I say absurd."
I nodded, that made sense, my Alchemy was complex, to say the least. But I still had more questions.
"I see, what about their intelligence and uhh, breedability." I definitely could have chosen better words for the last part. But Arc seemed to not mind them, of course he didn't I made him.
"They are all of equal or above average human intelligence, but their sentience is to a lesser degree than mine, you can think of them as more like NPC's, or with my previous analogy like Ants given the same level of intelligence as a human." He paused. "As for their 'Breedability', as I expected you would want I gave them all the sexual organs as expected without the ability to actually reproduce but everything else is functionally the same."
Nice.
What's the point of having sharply dressed homunculi girls if you don't even get to lewd them? After the explanation was done Arc dismissed them all to their own workstations as I got to actually asking Arc what I wanted to ask him.
I presented my plan for Homunculi Sub-Bodies and upon hearing the whole explanation Arc's ocular receptors widened as he scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"I must admit, that idea is rather revolutionary and completely insane for anyone other than you my lord. Without your Heavenly Comprehension and Iter Melius to manage the information overload their mind would collapse, without true wielder it would be nigh impossible to operate an entirely alien body with any sort of precision. Trying to do so would give a splitting headache at best and voluntary ego suicide at worst."
I nodded, I knew I was awesome and was absolutely abusing Iter Melius beyond the absolute max but hearing it from the mouth of another tickled my ego in just the right way.
"So, what I'm hearing is it's possible for me?"
Because that was more than enough for me.
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It actually was trivially easy.
With both Arc and I working together in unison with access to the rest of our resources we were able to rather easily create a homunculi body that best suited my needs.
The physical stats were unimportant but I still made sure that all the physical stats bordered around at least 100. But the most important parts were the Energy Core and the Mental Core of this homunculi.
The mental core was an improved Kyrite Mental Core Mk. 5, it was made out of a Kyrite crystal base, the same material used in more complex devil machinery enchanted with mind magic. I had to pay Azazel a shitton to get material to get this since it wasn't easy for him to get either, I should work on my devil connections and expand into the underworld. It should be able to handle the strain of at least 20x thought acceleration and even 30x in short bursts.
And then there was the magic core. A new one created custom by me enchanting rare gems alongside Blue Gold from my experiments before, suffusing mana into gold over time which resulted in an excellent mana containing metal. I called this the Jewel Mana Core, it could store an equivalent of 1000 mana stat inside of itself and automatically drew in mana from ambience like a living being.
In terms of appearance, it looked similar to Arc more than me, I did not want it to look like me since I did not want it to be associated with me. Besides, these bodies were specifically only for remote grinding operations.
Now, it was time to test, I used my mind magic to connect to the empty mind core of the drone, and in moments I felt my mind fill the empty space inside the drone, I could feel my principle of domination helping me seamlessly operate the drone since I was technically dominating it.
It felt weird as fuck seeing my own body from two perspectives, and it gave me some kind of body dysmorphia being in a featureless body but that was fixed when I compartmentalized my mind, now instead of using both bodies at once I was more like puppeting the second body perfectly. Almost like controlling and ordering a troop in Warcraft III but that was fine it was even better.
I could literally idle while my drone ground for me and it wouldn't be much worse than me because of how Iter Melius worked, technically it was still me with the same skill level so the level of product wouldn't diminish. I was a genius truly.
So, what would this drone work on? I know, I should put it to work on alchemy for now and have it produce high quality to increase my Alchemy skill and give me more product to sell when I expand.
Hahahaha! I just need more drones to grind more skills! Who the hell says jack of all trades master of none? At this rate, I will be the ace of all skills!
But... to do that I need more money and resources because right now? I was approaching DEAD BROKE. Homunculi are expensive, and the trade deals I make with Azazel are strictly personal, if I want actual operating money out of it I need to make an actual contract with the entirety of the Grigori and sell them mass-produced stuff which my sub-body and new alchemist have gotten to work on.
I should also expand into the underworld, I have very good ideas to milk the underworld out of everything it's got.
While I was going through my living room to reach my enchanting room when suddenly a magic circle lit up in my living room. A rather familiar one.
"Yahoo~☆! Maou Serafall Leviathan here☆! Takumi-kun I am back for you~!"
Out of the magic circle, a wild magical girl satan popped out.
Speak of the devil and she shall come bursting into your house I suppose.
A/N: Rias wants Takumi to meet someone, it definitely can't be a certain time-stopping trap vampire right? Nah, definitely not. Also unexpectedly Idle has been added to the genre list of this game Takumi is playing.
The Alchemical Homunculi Empire's expansion hits the unexpected roadblock of being broke. Thankfully for Takumi, he is a businessman with a business plan. It's time to start expanding outward and move from obscurity to the main stage.
What did you guys think about the chapter and the homunculi? I would love to hear your thoughts about the developments in this chapter so be sure to share them, comments help motivate me to write faster and more.