The Martial Unity

Another problem was the language barrier. Training the Martial Artists of the G’ak’arkan Tribe was going to be a complete pain in the ass for the Martial Union. Rui was truly thankful that his role in the mission was only to serve as an ambassador and get the G’ak’arkan Tribe to cooperate with the Martial Union.

He would rather avoid serving as a trainer if he had the choice to. Though he suspected that he would not be able to avoid it at the moment.

After all, he was currently the only master of the Pathfinder technique. It had been a little over four months that the Martial Union was in possession of the technique, after all. That was probably not long enough for a long-range Martial Artist to have mastered it. Hell, he highly doubted that any Martial Squire had even attempted to master it at the moment. As far as he knew, the only Martial Artist who had attempted to master this technique was Senior Ceeran.

And thus far, it looked like he hadn’t mastered it yet at all, from what Rui could tell. He was relatively certain that Senior Ceeran would inform him, given their relationship, if he did successfully master it.

(‘And he would be insanely powerful if he had successfully mastered it.’)

Not that he wasn’t already insanely powerful, but Rui meant that even by the standards of the Senior Realm, he would have been extraordinarily capable, he would have most likely been able to fight the matriarch and the patriarch of the K’ulnen Tribe from across the island!

(‘I can see why he wants to master it, the synergy between the Pathfinder technique and his techniques is quite incredible,’)

Combining the ODA system with his ability to manipulate trajectories of attacks after they’ve been launched would allow him to accurately hit targets that he wouldn’t be able to hit with just the ODA system alone since it meant that he would be able to make adjustments to the shifts in the trajectories of the already highly accurate attacks, thanks to the ODA system, to ensure that he could correct any mistakes he made over extremely long distances.

(‘Given how much range he already possesses by virtue of being a Martial Senior, it is entirely possible that Senior Ceeran would be able to accurately snipe people from across the entire island!’)

Such a feat was so far beyond what Rui was capable of that it wasn’t even funny. He could only sigh at the power that Senior Ceeran would obtain if he successfully mastered the Pathfinder technique.

However, until he did, Rui was the only Martial Artist that had mastered the Pathfinder technique. Furthermore, Rui already possessed a good foundation in training other Martial Artists, on top of that, he had also become fluent in the Vilun language. He was literally the perfect trainer for the Martial Union to have trained the martial Artists of the G’ak’arkan Tribe.

He sighed, shaking his head. He could think about this matter later, for now, they needed to focus on establishing the intent to cooperate full-fledged for mutual benefit.

A few days passed as the diplomatic team came up with a final negotiation strategy, along with Rui. The reason they were able to hurry up the process was that the diplomatic team had not been sitting on their thumbs doing anything. They had been quite busy as the intelligence team supplied them with intelligence on the G’ak’arkan Tribe.

What that meant was that the foundation for the negotiation approaches for the G’ak’arkan Tribe for various outcomes was already established at its core. They simply needed to refine it.

And soon enough, they had.

It was time for Rui’s second visit to the G’ak’arkan Tribe.

“Ready, Zeyra, Stemple?”

“Yes sir,” The two of them replied confidently.

“Good, then let’s get going.”

They headed out, getting into the prepared motorized carriage that immediately began driving off.

On the way there, Rui wondered whether it was a good idea to leave Senior Ceeran behind. After all, the native indigenous Martial Artists of the island respected power above all else. Senior Ceeran would most certainly obtain far more respect than Rui would.

Still, Rui was sure that the G’ak’arkan Tribe had already figured out that things were working differently for the Martial Union’s settlement. Rui was the interim leader, and that technically included Senior Ceeran as well.

They had already seen Rui act as the diplomat when it turned out that a Martial Senior had been with them the entire time.

At this point, he highly doubted that they would give him the cold shoulder, especially when Rui himself had merit even as a Martial Squire.

It took a while for the carriage to tread up the mountain. It gave the G’ak’arkan Tribe plenty of warning that they were coming so that the G’ak’arkan tribe didn’t feel caught off-guard or disrespected.

Rui could already sense a distant scout maintaining surveillance from a distance as they followed them up the mountain. Rui bet that if he made any threatening actions, they wouldn’t hesitate to launch an attack on them.

Nothing of the sort happened.

Even before Rui and his assistants got off when they arrived, they had already been faced with a rather large crown that had left the boundary of the village to take a good look at the outsider.

At the foremost were Martial Squires that sought to shield the civilian villagers that stared at him with awe and fear.

(‘Looks like my feats are making the rounds in the village,’) Rui smiled pleasantly at all of them even as his high-grade mind mask amplified the sense of power he radiated.

Suddenly, a far greater presence weighed on everybody’s mind as a figure descended down from the sky.

“Outsider.” She said with a mild smile. “Welcome to our village once more. I am K’Mala, one of the leaders of the G’ak’arkan Tribe. What brings you to our village?”

(‘She’s a bit stronger than the Martial Senior I dealt with last time,’) Rui noted as Primordial Instinct gave him an impression of her power.