Knowledge Is Power

In fact, it was not only the young masters and young ladies of the Charlotte Family; even the ordinary citizens of Totto Land had no need to care about food expiration dates.

This was because, after the environment within Totto Land had been altered by the Charlotte Family's many food-type Devil Fruit ability users, food could be found everywhere.

More importantly, under the influence of Charlotte Linlin's Soul-Soul Fruit ability, all lower life forms within several hundred kilometers behaved themselves, so all food would never spoil. Otherwise, the juice and cream in the rivers in the original story should have gone rancid long ago!

And even before Totto Land had been established, Charlotte Linlin and Streusen, those two key figures, had already been by their side. Thus, Katakuri and the others had actually lived in this kind of environment ever since childhood.

Food only needed to taste good. If it expired, they could just throw it away and make more without worrying about waste. There was absolutely no need to consider shelf life, so naturally, they had never seen that kind of "brick-like" mochi.

Fortunately, just like when Cracker had freshly made compressed biscuits earlier, even if he had never seen it before, as long as he knew the method, Katakuri could immediately create it with his Devil Fruit ability.

Devil Fruit abilities truly were miraculous. With only the two keywords "finely ground rice flour" and "wintering," Katakuri quickly produced a test batch of large mochi blocks even harder than those in Mousse's memories.

The latter punched one of them. The mochi's surface did not dent in the slightest, while his own little fist immediately turned red.

"This is probably about it. Even if I improve it further, the gains won't be too great." After repeated experiments, Katakuri realized that he could no longer make a harder mochi base material. He then used his Devil Fruit ability to further harden the Hard Mochi he had created, easily surpassing the hardness of steel by more than tenfold (Note 1). It was also tough and unafraid of water.

After testing it himself, Katakuri felt deeply satisfied:

"Now I won't only be able to stick opponents and fear water. Once they sink into it, I can harden it to trap their bodies. Its power when directly smashing people has also increased greatly, and its defensive capabilities have improved considerably as well. Combined with Armament Haki, there should be no problem taking attacks head-on without dodging—unless I run into monsters like Whitebeard or Garp."

With joy written all over his face, Katakuri walked over to Mousse, crouched down, and patted his head in praise:

"Mousse, when you said 'knowledge is power' before, I actually didn't think much of it. Who would have thought that with just a few words of guidance today, you could increase Cracker's and my strength so much? Not only did our Devil Fruit abilities develop further, even our Armament Haki improved quite a bit. It seems knowledge really is a powerful force!"

"Huh? Brother Katakuri, you said Armament Haki? Making mochi harder can strengthen that too?" Mousse was greatly surprised upon hearing this.

Mousse could understand how making mochi harder would increase Katakuri's attack power and defense, but this was clearly only a Devil Fruit ability. How could it also improve Armament Haki?

Since most of the younger brothers and sisters traveling with them happened to be here, Katakuri treated it as an impromptu lesson.

Katakuri patiently explained to Mousse, as well as to the other younger brothers and sisters:

"Although Haki is a power on the spiritual level, it must still be founded on one's own abilities. For example, the stronger someone's own attack power and defense are, the easier it is for them to awaken and improve their Armament Haki. The reason Mother was able to awaken Armament Haki on her own before she was even six, without anyone guiding her, was precisely this. Although making mochi harder is the development of my Devil Fruit ability, my strength—specifically my hard power in attack and defense—has increased as a result, so my Armament Haki has become stronger as well. Of course, the increase definitely isn't that great, and I'll still need arduous training before I can fully consolidate the results."

Mousse was immediately inspired, his eyes lighting up. "Then by that logic, wouldn't switching to a powerful weapon also improve Armament Haki?"

"That won't work. Weapons are external objects. Changes in their strength have no effect whatsoever on the awakening or improvement of Armament Haki. Improving swordsmanship, on the other hand, does benefit Armament Haki, because that counts as one's own ability. But compared to Body Techniques—here specifically referring to fist and kicking techniques—it is still a bit inferior, unless you can train until your blade is like a part of your body."

Katakuri immediately crushed Mousse's wishful thinking.

Even though Mousse was still young, Katakuri sternly lectured him a few times to prevent this younger brother, in whom he had placed the highest expectations, from making the mistakes of taking shortcuts and seeking quick success, which would affect his future development. "Mousse, remember this: the body is the foundation of everything. With your current strength, where you can't even defeat a Chess Soldier, it is far too early for you to train Haki!"

Mousse took Katakuri's valuable advice to heart. From then on, he no longer rushed to think about Armament Haki. Indeed, at his current age and level of strength, exercising his body and laying a solid foundation were what mattered most.

After all, it would not be too late to train Haki after reaching adulthood. But if he waited until then to train his body, the results would be twice the effort for half the result—no, it would be ten times the effort for one-tenth the result.

Compared to the body and Haki, Devil Fruit development was actually what needed the least urgency. It could even continue improving into old age. There was supposedly even an insurmountable limit, so developing it early would not necessarily grant any advantage.

But perhaps because they had seen how immediate Mousse's earlier guidance to Katakuri and Cracker had been, the other Devil Fruit ability users on the ship all came over to seek Mousse's advice.

Mousse already somewhat enjoyed teaching others, and since none of them were outsiders, he naturally held nothing back.

But honestly speaking, perhaps because most of the fruits themselves were not particularly strong, the Charlotte Family's Devil Fruit development had already been among the best of all major forces in the manga.

Take the greatest "undercover agent" of the Whole Cake Island arc, Charlotte Brulee. Not only had she developed powerful reflection and mirror-image abilities, she had also constructed the incredible Mirror World.

Even Mousse, as a transmigrator, could only offer a few detailed suggestions based on certain issues exposed during the Whole Cake Island arc in the original story.

"It's good that no one can enter or leave without Sister Brulee's permission, but Sister Brulee, your own Combat Power isn't strong, and you aren't a Logia type capable of elementalization. If a powerful enemy were to take you hostage, the Mirror World could instead be exploited by the enemy."

At this, Brulee immediately bristled like an angry cat, shouting that she would rather die than submit to an enemy~

Yeah right. You surrender faster than anyone, Mousse silently mocked in his heart, but when the words reached his lips, he changed them into something else. "Sister Brulee, don't say that. None of us want you to die, so we must have a way to deal with such a situation."

"It is necessary to prepare for danger before it arrives. Mousse is right." At some point, Katakuri had also arrived here. He understood Brulee better than anyone, so he naturally knew that Mousse's concerns were not unfounded.

However, Katakuri was also very curious about what countermeasure Mousse could come up with. After all, Brulee's lack of personal combat ability was limited by her talent and difficult to change!

Note 1: The hardness in this book refers to absolute values. For example, diamond is 150 times harder than corundum, 1,000 times harder than quartz, and several thousand times harder than ordinary steel.

Some readers often say that after Iron Cutting comes cutting diamond, but in reality, the two are worlds apart. Therefore, it was only natural that the diamond atop the war could block Hawk Eyes' sword energy.