Food Wars: The Fishing System

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With that, Jiji took Yuuki's Food Spirit to the location of the gate.

This was also the cooking area for Acacia's Full Course Menu. But the quantity was very small, because these were almost all replicated by Don Slime with his own cells. To replicate ingredients like Acacia's Full Course Menu, and in a state of death—the difficulty increased exponentially.

Don Slime had also spent a lot of effort to replicate them.

But just replicating them was not enough...

They also needed to be cooked. But cooking GOD was incredibly difficult—even if it was just a remnant of its former self, the challenge was still immense. And the process demanded constant human sacrifice, using people as fuel. That was the method for cooking GOD.

Yuuki couldn't argue with that. After all, Don Slime was the one in charge here. The people being used as fuel had all volunteered willingly. You had to admit—Don Slime's leadership was undeniably effective.

Yuuki soon came to the gate of the World of Souls.

"We're here. You can get there by passing through this gate. Don Slime has already greeted the gatekeeper of the World of Souls—the Great King Enma. He won't make things hard for you."

After Jiji finished speaking, he pointed toward the gate. Don Slime had basically rolled out the red carpet for Yuuki. He didn't even need to think twice—he could walk straight into the World of Souls.

Hearing this, Yuuki also said his thanks and then directly entered the World of Souls.

The moment Yuuki stepped inside, he felt something unusual. A strange force was acting on his soul. Fortunately, his soul was quite resilient—being someone with cheat abilities, it had been steadily growing stronger.

So, after entering here, the influence of the World of Souls on him was immediately captured by him. This influence would always exist and would continuously strengthen, so Yuuki couldn't stay here forever.

——————

"I see. So that's the erosion... it's like how a normal human body has a limited lifespan. The same principle applies to a soul in the World of Souls."

"The difference is, a soul can be replenished. As long as you leave this place, the next erosion will start fresh. You just need to restore your soul and come back."

Yuuki quickly grasped the mechanics of the World of Souls. For the next year, he didn't begin his training plan. Instead, he spent the entire year observing, summarizing, and analyzing.

He studied the erosion affecting him and other souls—after all, new souls were constantly arriving. By observing them and combining it with his own situation, he spent a year collecting a massive amount of data, ultimately creating a plan for himself.

Based on his current soul strength and the rate of erosion, he calculated he could stay here for three thousand years before being worn down to the point of losing himself. So he'd need to leave well before that three-thousand-year mark. Of course, these calculations were based on data from other cases—he hadn't accounted for his own potential growth, since that was too unpredictable.

The speed of his growth fluctuated—he couldn't control it himself. He might have a sudden epiphany that led to a huge leap forward. So, after removing his own growth from the equation, he arrived at the conclusion of three thousand years.

This was the most conservative estimate—the safest timeframe he could rely on. He knew he could probably stay longer than three thousand years, especially as he continued to grow stronger.

But Yuuki wasn't taking any chances.

So three thousand years became his hard deadline. Though it seemed like an eternity, after just one year, he'd already started getting used to life in the World of Souls.

You had to hand it to humans—they were truly a remarkable species, with an almost frightening ability to adapt. Yuuki was gradually adjusting to the rhythm of the World of Souls—getting used to the strange sensation of time flowing differently here.

For the first ten years, Yuuki's life had been a bit of a mess. After all, how old was he in total? Even with both lifetimes combined, he was only a few dozen years old.

Ten years was a long time for him.

So, for the first ten years, Yuuki's life wasn't very good. But after ten years of adaptation, he became more accustomed to life in the World of Souls.

After several hundred years—he had completely adapted to the torment brought by the passage of time, just like the Blue Nitro. He had become completely indifferent to time, as if the concept of time had disappeared from his life.

Since only his soul was here—not his physical body—his improvement rate was significantly reduced. But for Yuuki, even this diminished progress was a massive win. After all, time moved differently in the World of Souls compared to the outside world.

So, no matter how small his improvement was here, as long as he was still improving, it was a win for Yuuki.

——————

After more than a thousand years, Yuuki successfully raised his culinary skills to Froese's level. Yuuki estimated that Froese must have also spent a long time in the World of Souls to reach that level.

Otherwise, as a human, it would've been impossible. Even someone with cheat abilities like Yuuki had needed this much time. If he'd been training in the outside world, the improvement would've been faster—but it still would've taken well over a hundred years.

For Froese, it would only take longer. But neither Acacia nor Froese were very old.

Acacia would also age, so Froese's age at that time was no more than a hundred years old.

So, Froese must have improved her culinary skills in this place. And after his culinary skills reached a new realm, Yuuki discovered that his skills had not reached their peak.

Beyond the realm of a God Chef—there was a road with no visible end. After stepping into the realm of a God Chef, Yuuki also discovered a difference. The biggest difference between a God Chef and an average chef was that a God Chef had already entered a conceptual stage.

That's right, a God Chef could cook concepts.

But depending on the strength of their own culinary skills—the concepts they could cook were also completely different—

—Put simply, by cooking concepts, Yuuki could directly transform the cold in someone's body into heat—literally changing the fundamental concept itself.

Sure, you could achieve the same result through things like sitting by a fire or exercising, but directly altering reality at the conceptual level?

That was genuinely terrifying.

The transformation of the concept of cold and heat was only the simplest. The further he walked down this road—the stronger the concepts he could cook. Yuuki might even reach a certain level where he could directly cook the concept of death.

And the cooked concept could be eaten by himself. Once he ate the cooked concept—it was equivalent to directly mastering this concept. It had to be said, the realm after a God Chef was truly terrifying.

After Froese reached this level, she'd clearly made the same discovery. The so-called Divine Culinary Arts were born from stepping into this realm.

And Yuuki also figured out the root cause of Froese's problem.

In the original story, Acacia brought Froese back after the Gourmet Solar Eclipse. At that point, Froese was in a very strange condition. She had consumed all the ingredients by then, and her Gourmet Cells had reached one hundred percent activation.

In this situation, her lifespan was endless, and she wasn't injured. From the fact that Joie had revived using Froese's body in the end, it could be seen that Froese's body was not injured at all.

The reason for her half-dead state was entirely because she had reached this realm.

And as she went deeper into this realm, her soul became stronger and stronger, to the point where her body could no longer bear it.

The soul and the body were like water and a cup.

When any life was just born, the soul would fit its body. In other words, this cup was filled with water.

The development of Gourmet Cells was equivalent to continuously expanding the capacity of this cup. During this period, the amount of water in the cup was also increasing.

But often, the improvement of the soul could hardly keep up with the improvement of the body. After all, the improvement of the body after fusing with Gourmet Cells was equivalent to cheating, constantly digging out the power of the fused Appetite Demon.

In this situation, the speed at which the cup expanded was completely incomparable to the speed at which the water increased.

But when the cells reached one hundred percent Gourmet Cells, it was equivalent to having completely developed the power of the Appetite Demon.

To improve beyond that point, you could only rely on gradual self-development. Once the Appetite Demon was gone, it meant the cheat code was essentially turned off. In that situation, the growth rate of both body and soul would return to normal levels.

But the existence of the World of Souls allowed the soul to continuously improve here. Although the increase was small—as long as you could hold on—you could improve indefinitely.

This led to the growth rate of the water exceeding the growth rate of the cup.

——————

After figuring this out—Yuuki compared his own soul situation with his body situation.

For others, improving in the World of Souls couldn't be for too long, and it could only be done once. Because the improvement of the soul and body was synchronized. Without an Appetite Demon, their strength could only be slowly honed by themselves.

But Yuuki was different.

His Gourmet Cells were Growth-type. He didn't have any Appetite Demon—which meant that as long as there was good food—Yuuki could infinitely expand his cup.

He could ensure that the expansion speed of the cup was definitely far greater than the growth speed of the water.

So, after the cup reached a certain level, Yuuki could enter the World of Souls again to improve his soul, using this method to quickly improve.

You could say that someone with cheat abilities like Yuuki, achieving this kind of improvement rate, was absolutely unique in the Toriko world. No one else could pull off what he was doing.

After confirming this, Yuuki's previous three-thousand-year timeframe was once again reduced to less than two thousand years. Because according to the current situation—if he continued to stay here for more than two thousand years, his soul would exceed the capacity of his cup.

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