After Setsuna finished dealing with the frog group and returned, he saw Jiro standing beside Toriko. His face timely showed a mix of surprise and delight: "Are you the Knocking Master, Jiro-senpai?"
"Correct, that's me." Jiro nodded.
"I wish to ask you, Senpai, to accept me as your disciple." Setsuna decisively knelt down and performed a formal bow.
"Oh? Why do you want to become my disciple?" Jiro didn't refuse outright but squinted his eyes and asked.
Setsuna raised his head and spoke earnestly: "First, I want to become stronger. Second, I heard you have a Knocking Technique that can seal 99% of one's own energy. I wish to learn this Knocking Skill."
Jiro was somewhat surprised: "Why do you want to learn that?"
This Knocking Skill was something he created to seal his own wild nature. He was raised by one of the Eight Kings of the Gourmet World, the Wolf King Guinness, and his personality contained an almost brutal beastiality.
Over five hundred years ago, his title wasn't the Knocking Master Jiro, but the Rampaging Beast Jiro, the Second Wolf.
If left unchecked, he might accidentally destroy the Earth during a fight.
To prevent himself from accidentally destroying the world while drunk, he uniquely created this technique to seal his power through Knocking.
"Titan." Setsuna didn't answer Jiro's question directly but instead called out Titan's name loudly.
Hearing Setsuna's call, a hundred-meter-long giant snake charged over from the distance, crushing everything in its path like breaking dead branches and rotting wood.
Whether it was forests or creatures, anything blocking Titan's path was directly crushed and destroyed.
Titan charged wildly all the way, saw Setsuna, and excitedly roared, pouncing on Setsuna like a puppy, instantly sending Setsuna flying.
Fortunately, Setsuna's strength was sufficient. He stopped himself with a backflip.
Seeing that Titan still wanted to continue showing affection, Setsuna quickly stopped it: "Titan, wait over there. Don't come closer."
"Whimper." Titan let out a few sad cries like an abandoned puppy, feeling disliked.
Toriko, watching from the side, was stunned and dumbfounded, exclaiming in shock: "So amazing."
Setsuna thought thoughtfully, 'It seemed that Sani, one of the current Four Heavenly Kings, probably hadn't tamed the other Mother Snake yet.'
Also a descendant of the Mother Snake, the one Sani tamed could be considered an adolescent.
Setsuna looked at Jiro, spread his hands, and said: "Titan's size is too massive, and it's still only in its infant stage. When it grows up, its size will be countless times larger. It would be very inconvenient for it to follow me in and out of the Human World. That's why I want to learn that Knocking Technique from you, to see if Titan can maintain a smaller size normally."
Although this skill seemed very unscientific, compared to Jiro's ability to even stop time with Knocking, merely reducing size was already quite scientific.
Sure enough, Jiro didn't seem very surprised after hearing this. Instead, he nodded in agreement: "An excessively large size can indeed be troublesome."
After a moment of silence, Jiro asked again: "How did you obtain this Mother Snake?"
Setsuna told him truthfully: "This is the recognition from the Snake King, one of the Eight Kings of the Gourmet World. She allowed Titan to become my partner."
"To gain the recognition of the Snake King, you are indeed quite remarkable." Jiro nodded slightly, his gaze towards Setsuna growing more appreciative.
He himself was raised by the Wolf King, one of the Eight Kings, so he felt a sense of identity with Setsuna for gaining the Snake King's recognition.
Moreover, he truly wanted to take a disciple to pass on his Knocking Skills.
His grandson, Teppei, would have been a suitable candidate, but unfortunately, Teppei leaned more towards becoming a Regeneration Provider, and the Knocking Skills he learned were only for the sake of better regeneration.
After thinking for a moment, Jiro said solemnly: "Attack with all your strength, without hesitation. Let me see your limits."
"Yes!" Setsuna was very excited. The lack of refusal meant there was a chance.
"Hyah!" Setsuna directly burst his aura, raising his power and speed to the limit, attacking rapidly without holding back at all.
"So fast!" Toriko watched with rapt attention. With his strength, he actually had some trouble keeping up with Setsuna's speed.
What shocked him even more was Jiro. Jiro wobbled as if drunk, his movements seemingly very slow, yet Setsuna's extremely fast attacks couldn't even touch the hem of his clothes.
Setsuna was equally shocked internally. The current Jiro hadn't lifted any of his restrictions yet, and one could say he wasn't even using a thousandth or a ten-thousandth of his power.
Logically, his speed shouldn't be faster than Setsuna's, yet no matter how Setsuna attacked, he couldn't touch him.
'It shouldn't be. No matter how powerful one's realm is, it should be built upon physical foundations. Without power and speed, realm is just a castle in the air. So why can't I touch him?' Setsuna widened his eyes. The other party was indeed a powerhouse beyond his imagination.
Under Setsuna's puzzled gaze, Jiro suddenly stopped moving.
Setsuna didn't stop because of this. He was well aware of the gap between himself and Jiro, and his power couldn't possibly harm the other.
"Eight Trigrams Two Palms, Four Palms..."
After Setsuna finished the sixty-four palms, Jiro suddenly tapped him lightly on the left shoulder.
"Destruction Knocking."
"Ugh." Setsuna grunted in pain, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, and several pressure points shot out black arrows of blood.
"Is this... the damage from my earlier Knocking Strikes, being reflected back?" Setsuna endured the pain and asked in shock.
"Correct. I sealed the damage you caused inside my body, then reflected it back to you through Knocking." Jiro smiled and took a sip of his liquor. "Moreover, I took the opportunity to release the accumulated hidden injuries within your body."
Setsuna was astonished internally, 'Wasn't this the ability of the Paw-Paw Fruit to repel damage? Could Knocking also achieve such a thing?'
Sure enough, after those black arrows of blood shot out, his body felt relieved, as if carrying a lighter load.
"Thank you, Master." Setsuna bowed solemnly in thanks.
"Rise." Jiro smiled, very satisfied with Setsuna.
"Haha, according to the relationship you mentioned earlier, Master Jiro, that means Setsuna and I can be considered fellow disciples," Toriko laughed heartily, happy for Setsuna.
"Then you better hurry up and improve. Setsuna doesn't even have Gourmet Cells yet," Jiro smiled and prodded.
Setsuna wasn't surprised at all that Jiro could see this.
"Huh? Setsuna doesn't have Gourmet Cells?" Toriko was shocked once again, 'Could someone without Gourmet Cells really be this powerful?'
"Heh, so I'll take him to Healing Town first to transplant Gourmet Cells." Jiro smiled and shook his liquor bottle, then beckoned to Titan, "Little one, come here."
Titan slithered over, then Jiro gave it a light pat.
As if hit by a shrink ray, Titan's massive body shrunk in the blink of an eye to less than the width of a finger.
Titan, discovering that Setsuna had become a giant, was very happy and wrapped itself around Setsuna's arm.
Jiro reminded him: "Although its body has shrunk, its essence hasn't changed. If you feed it according to the appetite of a small snake, you'll starve it to death."
"I understand."