The Martial Unity

"Not the best strategy?" Rui raised an eyebrow. "Why do you say that?"

Rui was sure that the strategy, although infuriating, would definitely appeal to their pride. He wasn't able to think of a singular better way to do so than to give their techniques greater esteem.

"Although it does leverage their pride well, it does so at the cost of the perceived value of our techniques," Carl explained. "If they perceive our techniques to be much less valuable than their own, then their trade will inevitably become far too skewed in their favor. What we desire from the G'ak'arkan Tribe is an equal and fair trade, not a scam."

"That definitely makes sense," Rui nodded.

"Besides, Senior Ceeran will never tolerate the downplaying of the long-range techniques of the Martial Union and, by extension, all of the techniques of the Longranger Sect. As one of the upper echelons of the Longranger Sect, he would rather declare war against the G'ak'arkan Tribe than tolerate the techniques of his sect being diminished. If he hears you go in that direction during the negotiations, he may even pick a fight then and there."

"You make it sound like he will be part of the diplomatic team that will be deployed to the G'ak'arkan Tribe," Rui raised an eyebrow.

"You need an expert on long-range techniques with you. You are far from sufficient; you have only mastered three long-range techniques in your career as a Martial Artist. If the negotiations proceed favorably, then we need someone who can demonstrate the techniques that we will be trading." Carl explained patiently.

"Is it wise to send the previous diplomat who failed spectacularly?" Rui sighed.

"The wisdom of the choice of the Martial Artist chosen for this role is up in the air. However, Martial commissioner Derun was the one who made the decision. I was told that you and Senior Ceeran have a good relationship, which probably factored into her decision. The diplomatic mission is hard enough already, we cannot afford disunity in our diplomatic team."

Rui sighed. He suspected as much himself, it couldn't be a coincidence that Senior Ceeran was the one appointed as the long-range expert and consultant. Martial commissioner Derun was probably aware of the submission of the Pathfinder technique that Rui had given to the Longranger Sect.

"How much diplomatic training did Senior Ceeran undergo when he was chosen as a diplomat?" Rui asked.

"He tried going through all of it, to his credit." Carl sighed. "However, by the time the negotiations took place..."

"He may as well have not gone through any training or briefing," Rui chuckled, saying what Carl was reluctant to say out loud. "Well, putting that aside. I guess we should place just enough weight on their techniques to tickle their pride but not to the point we stand to make a loss," Rui noted.

"Right, there other things you can that will incentivize their cooperation with us," Carl said, before continuing. "For example, and this is risky if misapplied, if you make it so that their pride compels them to master our techniques, you could make a fruitful exchange likelier."

"True, but that won't be easy to accomplish," Rui sighed.

"Don't worry, you'll undergo some training on how to address their pride in their Martial prowess in my training program," Carl assured.

"Also, I noticed something when I was going through the reports I was given on their techniques," Rui noted. "They have a lot of remarkable techniques that allow them to accomplish impressive feats given the Realm of the Martial Artist performing them, but at the same time, what we would consider being fundamentals, they're actually quite lacking from our perspective. I think rather than bombarding them with our most powerful techniques to impress them, they would likely be more receptive to techniques that may not be the ones we're most proud of, but would actually address some of their shortcomings. Senior Ceeran should have definitely been aware of their shortcomings, but I don't know why he didn't think of this tactic."

"Senior Ceeran is not the most rational person when it comes to long-range anything, let's just say," Carl sighed. "Your tactic sounds quite useful. You should flesh it out more when you go through my training program. Which should be significantly shortened by the fact that you have already memorized all the files surrounding this case."

Rui nodded as he gathered his thoughts.

Appealing to the pride of their techniques, appealing to their pride in their ability to learn difficult techniques, and offering techniques that would specifically shore up all of their strengths and weaknesses.

These were three mini-objectives that Rui had come up with in order to make the negotiations with the G'al'arkan Tribe go smoothly.

Of course, this wasn't everything, but it was a start. He had plenty of time to flesh out the strategy once he began his training. Furthermore, his strategy would get naturally refined as time passes due to the communication training that he would receive from the training program. Verbal and non-verbal expression were avenues that any diplomat needed to master, and with the high cognitive parameters that Rui had demonstrated, he would probably be judged to be able to handle much more rigorous training than his predecessors.

They spoke for quite some more time until the conversation finally winded to a halt.

"This has been the fruitful of discussions, Squire Quarrier." Carl smiled, getting up. "This discussion was meant to gauge the depth of your understanding and capability in several areas to judge where I would have to begin and to finetune the training and briefing program to suit your needs. But you have made my job considerably easier, you cannot imagine how difficult it was to train your predecessors to a bare minimum acceptable degree, and ultimately, I failed, clearly. But I am quite optimistic about you, I look forward to seeing the outcome."

Rui smiled, getting up himself. "I appreciate your confidence in me, and I will strive to do my best."