"Thank you so much, Kael. I was honestly worried—once you left, I didn't know what I was supposed to do next."
After accepting the seasonings and recipes, Melk the Second spoke again, her gratitude unmistakable.
"No need to thank me. I can't give you the second gift just yet," Kael said. "I'll be heading out into the wilds to hunt for ingredients. When I do, I'll set aside some materials for you. They'll be a huge help for your sharpening."
The second gift was materials. Once he obtained them, he would bring some back. After all, he'd already figured out Melk the Second's situation.
She rarely forged high-grade Melk knives—not because she couldn't, but because she lacked the materials. Yet if she wanted to keep improving her sharpening skills, high-level materials were unavoidable.
Hearing this, Melk the Second fell silent. She really was short on such things. Everything she'd used before had been left behind by her father, and once they were used, they were gone. That was why she'd always been extremely frugal with them.
And yet Kael had seen straight through that—and even promised to bring her enough materials. Naturally, she was deeply moved.
"I won't say thanks again," she said. "Wait here a moment. I have something to give you too."
With that, Melk the Second headed into the basement. Soon after, she returned with a stone box taken from beneath the floor.
"This material was discovered by my father when he was adventuring in the Gourmet World," she explained. "It's a fossil from the hardest part of the teeth of Derous, the Dragon King—one of the Eight Kings. To extract this piece alone, Father spent years."
"At first, I planned to use it to forge you a top-tier Melk knife. But the knife you're carrying now is already the pinnacle, so I never used it."
"Now, this material is yours."
Kael didn't stand on ceremony. This thing was genuinely useful to him.
It wasn't that the Golden Can required Golden Materials to open; rather, ordinary tools simply couldn't handle the hardness of the material.
After all, Golden materials were harvested from the Seven Beasts, whose status on the Area 6 was extremely special.
But compared to that, materials from the Eight Kings—even fossils—were on an entirely different level. If those were forged into a can opener, they'd easily break through Golden materials. Otherwise, the Seven Beasts would reign above the Eight Kings, not the other way around.
The Seven Beasts might look impressive, ruling the Area 6 alongside Whale King Moon, but that was only because Moon was a shut-in who almost never left his territory.
As long as the continent wasn't about to be destroyed—and Earth itself wasn't facing annihilation—Moon wouldn't bother acting. That was the only reason the Seven Beasts could rule the Area 6 at all. Otherwise, it would never have been their turn.
Just Moon's mouth alone—something even light-speed couldn't escape—meant the Seven Beasts had no chance against him.
Moon's species was the Black Hole Whale. His mouth was connected to the World of Souls, its suction comparable to a true black hole. Even light couldn't escape.
In fact, when Another was first born, light-speed didn't even exist yet. It only evolved later because of the Whale King. And yet even light-speed was still swallowed whole by Moon, dragged straight into the World of Souls.
So for Kael, materials from the Eight Kings were more than enough to crack open the Gold Can. He accepted the gift, planning to forge a can opener once he returned. After obtaining Ougai(Ogre Shell), he'd be able to open it right away.
The White Demon awakening didn't really matter to Kael right now. But the Ougai itself was incredibly useful.
In ancient times, the Ougai had nearly eaten every creature in the ocean. The Blue Nitro had no choice but to seal it inside the Gold Can.
Who could've guessed that after being sealed for so long, it would turn into an ingredient—one that stored the flavors of every ingredient from the ancient era?
Once he got the Ougai, Kael's Gourmet Cells would undergo a massive leap.
As for what to do about Komatsu's knife after taking this material—that wasn't a problem at all. Komatsu could use even a high-grade Melk knife just fine.
And with Komatsu's Food Luck, even if something did happen, Kael doubted he'd be without a knife for long. Food Luck would definitely bring him another one.
So Kael accepted the material without hesitation.
After leaving, he returned to Gourmet City first. He still needed Setsuno to help arrange the construction of a forging workshop.
"I really don't know what there is in this world that you can't do," Setsuno said, clicking her tongue. "Even in sharpening, you're terrifying. Half a month, and you're already on par with the First and Second Melk."
"Though that Melk brat was always bad at listening. I told him ages ago his voice was too quiet—he never took it seriously. Look at that, ended up ruining his own daughter."
She wasn't just mocking Kael's talent—she was also roasting the First Melk for being unreliable enough to mess things up this badly.
Kael nodded along. But hearing how Setsuno addressed the First Melk still made him sigh inwardly. Status really mattered. With her seniority, she could call anyone a brat.
Even someone like Chairman Ichiryu got casually dubbed "Ichi-chan."
And with Setsuno looking young again, the feeling was even stranger. When she'd been an old woman, it hadn't felt out of place—but now?
Who would ever guess that this youthful-looking woman was actually a several-hundred-year-old granny?
"I'll have someone take care of the workshop for you," Setsuno said. "Just use it when it's done. But why are you heading to the Gourmet Shrine?"
She was a bit surprised. As Kael's teacher, she knew his personality well. He respected her, Master Jiro, and Chairman Ichiryu.
But he didn't care about Acacia at all.
Logically speaking, since Ichiryu and the others were Acacia's disciples, Kael should've respected Acacia too. Yet he respected Ichiryu, respected Setsuno, respected Frohze—and still showed no respect toward Acacia whatsoever.
That was why his plan to visit Acacia's shrine caught her off guard.
After all, aside from sightseeing, the main purpose of the Gourmet Shrine was to worship Acacia, the God of Gourmet.
"I'm going to see if I can borrow some Food Luck from the place," Kael said. "Food Luck is important too."
Hearing this, Setsuno immediately understood. So that was his goal.
Plenty of people went to the Gourmet Shrine hoping to gain Food Luck. Ever since the shrine was built, some people really had returned with noticeably better luck.
So Kael wanting to try his hand at it was perfectly normal.
What Setsuno didn't know was that Kael wasn't just planning to borrow Food Luck.
He was planning to absorb it.
Letting that much Food Luck just sit there was a waste.
All of Acacia's Food Luck seemed to be concentrated in the shrine itself. There was none on Acacia's own body.
Kael had his suspicions.
He didn't like Acacia, but Acacia's actions were beneficial to the universe as a whole. Having Food Luck made sense. But because of NEO, that Food Luck likely couldn't stay with him—and instead gathered in the shrine.
After all, NEO could devour anything. Food Luck included.
If Food Luck attached itself to Acacia, it would just be eaten by NEO. In that case, of course it wouldn't stay with him—it would remain in the Gourmet Shrine.
For Kael, this was fantastic news.
He'd been waiting for this opportunity.
After finishing their conversation, Kael headed straight for the Gourmet Shrine.
The shrine covered an enormous area. It was said that without renting a sheep taxi, getting around would take ages.
Because of its sheer size, even touring the shrine would take at least a month—and you still wouldn't see everything. That was for ordinary people, of course.
For someone like Kael, it was irrelevant.
After arriving, he had no interest in sightseeing. He went straight to the main hall.
There stood Acacia's statue, along with the names of the Eight Ingredients. Just the names.
No one would dare actually place the Eight Ingredients there for worship.
If they did, the Gourmet Shrine would instantly become the largest battlefield in the world. Every major force would do everything possible to seize those ingredients.
The only place that possessed all eight—albeit incomplete—was Blue Grill on the Area 6.
Those ingredients weren't naturally formed. They were replicas painstakingly created by Don Slime over an immense span of time.
Upon entering the main hall, Kael felt the Food Luck around him surging toward his body.
The sheer amount gathered here was staggering.
Crossing the threshold felt like stepping into an entirely different world. The Food Luck was that dense—and now, it was pouring endlessly into Kael.
The disturbance caught the attention of the shrine's priest.
Though his strength wasn't great, and he couldn't directly perceive Food Luck, years of living here—and his special position—allowed him to sense something.
In the original story, he'd noticed the change when Food Luck gathered around Komatsu and Toriko.
Now, he noticed Kael too.
Food Luck was rushing toward Kael at a rate neither Toriko nor Komatsu could compare to.
Kael had no intention of leaving any behind.
Food Luck gathered here continuously. After this wave was absorbed, more would eventually form again.
But to return to its current level? That would take decades—if not centuries.
Kael had no issue with having too much Food Luck. This stuff could literally save his life.
So he absorbed it all.
The priest, despite realizing what was happening, said nothing.
He knew that Food Luck chose its own host.
He had no right to interfere—and certainly couldn't chase someone away just because Food Luck favored them.
The shrine existed not to hoard Food Luck, but to spread happiness.
So he wouldn't interfere with its choices.
If anything, he felt pleased.
For such an enormous amount of Food Luck to attach itself to someone meant only one thing—
This person was truly a good one.
Otherwise, Food Luck wouldn't even bother.