"Let's begin. I've already taught you all the fundamentals you need. But knocking is a skill that can only be mastered through real combat. The number of beasts here is enormous, and their strength is perfectly suited to you."
"You need to learn how to use knocking under different circumstances, accurately judge your opponent's condition, and adjust your strength accordingly. Some knocking points only give you one chance—miss it, and there won't be a second."
Master Jiro spoke with a serious expression. Kael agreed completely. In Jiro's later battle with Acacia, it was exactly like this—any tiny mistake from either of them would have meant instant defeat.
Kael took the training very seriously. In truth, theory wasn't his strongest suit. Practice was. Back during his faction inheritance, that hardcore practitioner Midora had drilled him countless times.
So once things moved into Kael's comfort zone, he really got going. At first, he was still a bit clumsy. Every creature was different, and the force required varied as well—those details could only be refined through accumulated experience.
Only with enough experience could he instantly judge an opponent's condition and adjust his strength on the fly.
Early mistakes didn't bother Kael at all. He wasn't a perfectionist. He didn't expect flawlessness from the start. People grow step by step.
Kael might be a cheater too, but his cheat didn't hand him everything instantly. He had to learn and master it himself. All the system gave him at the beginning was talent.
Without effort, even the best talent was useless.
Right now, Kael was like a massive sponge, greedily absorbing something called experience. Whenever Master Jiro noticed a problem, he would point it out immediately.
Jiro knew Kael's talent was terrifying. The moment an issue was identified, Kael would adjust on his own. There was no need for long explanations—Jiro only had to show the path.
This was the most suitable way for Kael to grow.
Their teaching method left Yuda completely dumbfounded. He had never seen anything like it.
Normally, even in practical training, the master led from the front. When problems were pointed out, the master would also explain how to fix them, and only after long-term guidance would the student gradually change.
But Kael and Master Jiro? One focused purely on practice, the other only pointed out flaws—without giving solutions. Kael had to figure it out himself.
What was even more outrageous was Kael himself. The moment he heard where the problem was, he could immediately think of a solution and improve at a speed visible to the naked eye.
If an ordinary person's growth was like painstaking handcrafting, slowly building something step by step, then Kael was a precision 3D printer—fast, accurate, and efficient.
The time and effort required were on completely different levels. Yuda had truly seen something new.
Since Kael was still at the beginner stage, he couldn't suppress the beast tide quickly. Soon, a second wave arrived. That was how fast beasts appeared on the Road to the Underworld.
Yuda zoning out like this was partly to recover his mental stamina.
The body could endure long periods without rest, but the mind couldn't. Zoning out was the only way he could let his mind rest, because these beasts didn't care about day or night.
A wave would appear every so often—usually less than an hour apart. For one person to guard this place alone, unless they never slept, it was impossible.
As the number of beasts kept increasing, Yuda returned to work. Kael didn't need that many beasts for knocking practice anyway, so Yuda slaughtered some of them and tossed them into a pot to cook.
After eating, the next wave came.
This had always been Yuda's way of life. Even in battle, he relied on his zoning-out technique. Only in that state could he fight without mental fatigue.
Just like that, Kael and Master Jiro stayed there for a full week.
In just one week, Kael's intermediate knocking technique had reached mastery. The beasts pouring out onto the Road to the Underworld no longer required Yuda's help at all.
But that wasn't what shocked Yuda the most.
What truly stunned him was that Kael had entered the same special trance-like state as him.
Yuda was intimately familiar with that state. And he could tell—Kael wasn't just pretending to zone out. Like Yuda himself, Kael had completely handed everything over to instinct.
The thing was, Yuda had never taught Kael this technique.
Which meant Kael had learned it simply by watching him use it.
That realization left Yuda completely at a loss.
He knew exactly how difficult his technique was. Plenty of people had wanted to learn it over the years. Not a single one succeeded.
Yuda began questioning his entire life.
Was his technique really that easy to learn?
Just by watching once?
If Kael had known what Yuda was thinking, he would have found it hilarious. After all, his learning ability wasn't even the strongest.
The truly outrageous one was Stajun. Thanks to the nature of his Gourmet Demon, he had outright copied Toriko's Ultimate Preemptive Process after seeing it once.
Of course, that was because Stajun had already reached a certain level of strength. Once Kael reached that level, his learning ability might not be any worse.
And Kael was a growth-type.
As his strength increased, his growth rate would only accelerate. That was an advantage others simply couldn't match. Even if he started behind, he would catch up—and then surpass them.
"Looks like he picked up your trick."
Master Jiro chuckled as he looked at the existentially shaken Yuda. He knew Kael's talent well, and he had already noticed something else—Kael's growth rate wasn't constant. It was accelerating.
Kael was learning faster and faster, to the point where even Jiro found him monstrous. His progress was, frankly, absurd.
"I never expected this either. I didn't teach him anything. He just watched and learned my zoning-out technique. That's terrifying. No wonder Granny Setsuno took him as a disciple."
Yuda shook his head helplessly. There was nothing he could say. Kael learning his technique just by watching wasn't Kael's fault. Could talent itself be a crime?
If there was anyone to blame, it was his own technique being too simple.
And more importantly, Master Jiro was standing right there—and Kael's teacher was Granny Setsuno. Even if Yuda had ten times the guts, he wouldn't dare cause trouble with those two around.
All he could do was smile bitterly.
As for Kael, he had no idea how conflicted Yuda felt. Right now, he was refining the technique.
Yuda's method was genuinely good, with tremendous potential. After all, bodily instinct was incredibly powerful.
The problem was that for true top-tier experts, consciousness had already surpassed instinct. Relying purely on instinct in battle would have gotten them killed countless times over.
But Kael felt this technique wasn't at its limit.
There might be a way to push it further—combine it with Food Honor, with Enbu. Who knew what kind of new technique might be born?
In any case, Kael planned to study it properly in the future. For now, he returned his focus to knocking.
He had basically mastered intermediate knocking. That meant the second stage was essentially complete.
The third stage, however, was out of reach. His strength simply wasn't enough.
Even though he could handle these beasts that had slipped over from the Gourmet World, they were only the lowest tier of existence there.
The Gourmet World and the Human World were worlds apart.
The Gourmet World was completely different.
There were no regional divisions. In a single area, you might encounter creatures under capture level 100—or monsters like the Eight Kings, with capture levels exceeding 6,000.
Nothing was predictable.
Entering the Gourmet World was no simple matter. Toriko had survived purely on Food Luck until Master Jiro arrived to save them.
Kael had no intention of gambling like that.
"All right. You've more or less mastered intermediate knocking. The next stage will have to wait until you're stronger. Right now, you're not qualified to enter the Gourmet World."
Three days later, Master Jiro halted Kael's training. In his view, Kael had learned everything he could at this level.
From here on, Kael could research and refine things on his own.
Still, Jiro explained some aspects of advanced knocking. He had done the same when teaching Teppei—guiding them, then letting them figure it out themselves.
As for those advanced techniques, Kael's current physique could barely handle any of them.
Moves like Million Knocking and Eternal Knocking required absurd physical strength. Even Master Jiro found them taxing when using his unsealed body.
After finishing his training with Master Jiro, Kael planned his next destination: the Old First Biotope.
As for other places, only Melk Mountain was worth visiting.
Not to forge kitchenware, but to adapt to gravity.
In the Snake Den where the first-generation Melk resided, the environment simulated some of the Gourmet World's gravity conditions.
To enter the Gourmet World, one had to adapt to all kinds of extreme environments in advance—unless you had someone protecting you.
Kael didn't.
So he had to learn it himself.
Gravity adaptation was essential. Otherwise, in super-gravity environments, Toriko was the perfect example—his full strength dropped to half, or even less, and he was pushed around by beasts whose cell levels were far below his own.
Of course, before that, Kael planned to strengthen himself further.
At his current level, he could already enter the Old First Biotope. As for the Inferno Dragon Wolf, he had no plans to touch it yet.
First, even against a freshly unsealed Inferno Dragon Wolf, Kael probably couldn't win.
Second, eating it could cause problems.
Girim was the textbook example. His Gourmet Demon was even replaced by the Inferno Dragon Wolf.
Kael didn't believe the Inferno Dragon Wolf could replace his Gourmet Demon—but it was definitely problematic. For now, he had no intention of provoking it.
His true target lay elsewhere in the Old First Biotope.
The most important one was the Corona Sunflower.
So after returning to Setsuno's Dining Hall with Master Jiro, Kael explained his plans.
"The Old First Biotope? That place is indeed a good fit for you. There are plenty of excellent ingredients there. In that case, I'll go with you. It's been a long time since I last saw Ayame—I might as well visit her."
Granny Setsuno decided to come along, since her old friend Ayame was there.
Kael naturally had no objections.
Honestly, Kael felt that Girim had truly played himself.
Girim had joined Gourmet Corp for Acacia's hidden menu ingredient.
The key to that ingredient was the Hell Bee—because the Hell Bee would lead them to it.
What they didn't know was that the information about that place already existed within the IGO.
The Old First Biotope was also known as Acacia's Kitchen. As Acacia's eldest disciple, Ichiryu knew everything about it.
If Girim hadn't abandoned Granny Ayame, he could have obtained that ingredient at any time.
Instead, abandoning her forced him to spend ages in Gourmet Corp before finally getting a chance.
Worse still, the Inferno Dragon Wolf he ate was a flawed ingredient.
In the end, he was crippled by Toriko himself—reduced from a fearsome Gourmet Hunter to a hunched old man who could only walk with a cane.