Akatsuki Headquarters.
Tatsuma walked into the refilled underground dungeon.
The person confined in the first cell was Perseus, the head of the Hero Faction's first branch.
Raising his hand to heal the injuries on the other party, Tatsuma followed the procedure and began questioning.
"Are you willing to join Akatsuki?"
"I am willing."
"Have you committed any crimes?"
"Murder, killing deviants like Devils."
"Anything else?"
"...A few days ago, I argued with Cao Cao and took his takeout food before leaving."
"?"
A question mark slowly rose above Tatsuma's head.
Staring at Perseus with a strange look for a moment, he changed the direction of his questioning.
"What was the reason for arguing with Cao Cao?"
"His training plan was too cruel and didn't align with my philosophy. If it weren't for this incident, I would have likely left the Hero Faction soon and gone our separate ways."
Under the effect of the magic, Perseus, who was already socially dead, answered everything truthfully with a blank expression.
"Alright, you passed."
Tatsuma asked some more questions. After confirming that Perseus had no major issues, he let him off and allowed him to join Akatsuki.
After that, he followed the procedure and went to the other cells one by one to interrogate the remaining Hero Faction members.
It must be said, Cao Cao's judgment was still pretty good.
Apart from having serious hostility towards deviants like Devils and Fallen Angels, most of the Hero Faction members were normal people and didn't run rampant among ordinary people relying on their strength like typical wanted criminals.
However, similarly, these Hero Faction members were very loyal to Cao Cao and unwilling to surrender.
Tatsuma didn't particularly care about this. At worst, he would expand the underground prison and keep these Sacred Gear users, then beat them up again next month. These Sacred Gear users would sooner or later turn over a new leaf and join Akatsuki.
After removing a small number of problematic individuals, he gathered some Hero Faction members who weren't particularly loyal to Cao Cao.
Tatsuma handed over Perseus and the others to Sho to handle, while he himself left the underground prison and returned to his office.
Opening the trait inventory, rows of freshly generated traits appeared before him.
"What a great harvest." Tatsuma showed a smile on his face.
Because all of them were Sacred Gear users, none of the Hero Faction members dropped white traits, they basically started from green traits.
High-level Sacred Gear users like Perseus, who were powerful and held cadre positions within the Hero Faction, would even drop purple traits.
Tatsuma clicked one-click synthesis to view his gains. In total, he gained 2333 blue traits and 18 purple traits.
Counting the blue traits obtained from clearing the warehouse and underground dungeon in the morning, the stock of blue traits reached 3780.
"That's almost enough."
Tatsuma began synthesizing traits.
Besides the commonly counted blue traits, he also had a portion of purple traits piled up in the inventory and a small number of red traits that he didn't need.
Taking out these traits that had been piled up in the inventory and never used, plus the gold trait dropped from Sirzechs earlier, Tatsuma successfully gathered five gold traits.
Without hesitation, Tatsuma took these five newly acquired gold traits to upgrade the Origin Fruit.
[Trait Promotion Successful, Congratulations on obtaining the Rainbow Trait: Origin Fruit.]
[Origin Fruit (Rainbow): Training effect +10000%, all stats greatly igcreased, ignore all curses.]
"Not bad."
Tatsuma's eyes showed a hint of satisfaction.
After upgrading to the Rainbow level, Origin Fruit's training effect greatly increased.
The original effect of increasing vitality and mental strength became an increase in all stats, making it more comprehensive.
In addition, Origin Fruit gained a new effect, allowing Tatsuma to ignore all curses. This ability is not particularly good, nor is it particularly bad, it needs to be used in the right situation.
However, for Tatsuma, who constantly equips Rainbow traits, having more abilities is always a gain.
Equipping Origin Fruit, Tatsuma's aura surged, and his physical quality rapidly improved.
Coupled with skills like Pawn and many others that boost physical stats, his physical stats in his normal state was even starting to approach that of a Transcendent, terrifyingly strong.
Activating a magic formation to return home, Tatsuma trained for several hours in the third basement floor's Time Chamber.
The upgraded Origin Fruit, as well as the King's Soul obtained from Ichigo, both possessed very powerful training boosting effects.
With the help of these two traits, Tatsuma's training efficiency was several times faster than before.
Immersed in training, several hours passed in an instant. It wasn't until the ringing of the alarm clock sounded in his ears that Tatsuma snapped back to reality.
"Is it already this time?"
Stopping his training, Tatsuma took off his headphones and walked out of the room.
Because the training effect was getting better and better, he would now get lost in training and forget the outside world if he wasn't careful. To prevent similar things from happening again, he specifically set an alarm clock.
Walking out of the Time Chamber, it was already dinner time outside.
After finishing dinner with the others, Tatsuma prepared to return to the basement to continue training.
However, just then, Rias suddenly pulled him and quietly asked, "Tatsuma, have you noticed that Grayfia's state isn't quite right?"
Tatsuma was startled. "What's wrong?"
"How should I put it? Since coming home this afternoon, she's been absent-minded, and she kept stealing glances at you while we were eating just now. Did something happen between you two?" Rias described the general situation.
After listening, Tatsuma nodded and understood.
"Grayfia's identity has changed, and she's still getting used to it. She'll be fine in a couple of days."
Rias was confused. "Identity changed?"
"Simply put, she is no longer Sirzechs's Queen. She is now part of my Peerage."
Tatsuma explained the whole story.
After listening, Rias gasped, her expression turning shocked.
"Wait! You said you went to the Underworld today and defeated my brother?"
"Mm."
"Then, in front of my brother, you asked Grayfia to join your Peerage?"
"Mm."
"Did you fall for her looks?"
"Mm."
"..."
You're really not even trying to hide it.
Looking at Tatsuma, who kept saying "Mm" without any hesitation in his replies, Rias's expression became subtle.
She didn't expect Tatsuma to steal someone from her own brother, and succeed at it. But thinking that Grayfia herself had agreed to it, she accepted reality.
Her brother had a head start of several hundred years and still had zero progress, while Tatsuma achieved 90% progress in less than three days of actually meeting her.
With such a huge gap in achievement, she couldn't even help Sirzechs save face even if she wanted to.
Rias asked, "About Grayfia, do you need me to help you comfort her?"
"No need, I'll do it myself."
Tatsuma waved his hand, choosing to resolve it himself.
Separating from Rias, Tatsuma went to Grayfia's room on the second floor and pushed the door open.
"Hmm? Why are you here?"
Inside the room, Grayfia was staring blankly at the night view.
After noticing Tatsuma walking in, a hint of panic subconsciously flashed in her eyes, but she quickly regained her composure.
"Is there another task you need me to do?"
"No task. Rias told me you weren't in a good state, so I came to give you a massage to help you relax."
"I don't need a massage." Grayfia instantly refused.
With the experience from the morning, she knew exactly what Tatsuma's massage was. That wasn't a massage at all, it was a training class for devil-slayers, a one-stop service to increase sensitivity + quickly enter the state.
Unless she was really desperate, she wouldn't accept Tatsuma's massage service.
Seeing this, Tatsuma didn't insist further. Sitting down on Grayfia's bed, he reached out and patted the spot next to him.
"If you don't need a massage, then how about you give me one?"
"...I don't know how to massage."
"It's fine, I can teach you."
Tatsuma chuckled softly and unbuttoned his clothes.
The night passed without a word.
The next day at noon, Tatsuma left the room and found Yahweh playing games in the basement.
"You're ready so quickly?" Yahweh blinked, a little surprised.
Tatsuma shrugged, "Mainly because I had good luck. I didn't expect it to be this fast either."
He had originally planned to spend a week gathering gold traits and upgrade Origin Fruit before taking action.
But Sirzechs's challenge allowed him to obtain an additional gold trait. Coupled with the Hero Faction's Sacred Gear users, whose quality was quite good, he gathered five gold traits within a day and completed the upgrade.
With the Origin Fruit upgrade finished, the next thing to do was upgrade Heaven's system.