Negotiation and skill faults

Perhaps because of being around the Minks for so long and growing up getting used to their honest and friendly disposition she had forgotten a little of the outside world that awaited her.

Suddenly she was reminded about the darker side of the world or the grey areas that could be exploited if she remained as she was.

Knowing that this was the West Blue where the underworld families have control and Gang Bege is causing conflicts among them and earning lots of treasure and money, she was once again reminded of several things as she was faced with many skills that showed up during her journey to the restaurant.

One or two people that passed by her had skills in pickpocketing, slight of hand or misdirection skills and as she continued some were shown to have leadership skills focused in the tyrant category along with a decent understanding of torturing or killing techniques using a knife or other small hand held weapons.

Their mastery of the skills were not high so they must of been small group leaders in charge of a small amount of people.

It was like the system could give her an insight into a persons life and let her read what kind of life they had been living.

There was even a homeless man on the street with the skills for begging and acting pitiful but he also had the skill for swindling and information gathering so she knew that he may part of one of the groups to lure a person in or to point out potential easy targets for looting.

There was also a pitiful looking girl holding a basket of flowers who had small tears in the corner of her eyes as she pleaded for people to buy her flowers but the problem wasn't there.. it was that her skills were showing that she had skills in luring, acting pitiful and telling heartrending stories.

The luring part caught her eye and a chill went down her spine.

Sometimes there will be a child who is suffering with a sick parent or sibling and the eldest child or someone capable of earning money must go out early to provide for the family, then the trend often follows as followed…

The family is ignored and dies or falls into debt with the wrong people… or their so called story is in fact a lie which has been made up so when a person is deceived and wishes to lend a helping hand they are lured into a dark place and robbed.

Although that child may have their own difficult story, Alyssia did not wish to interfere and get involved the the undercurrents of the island.

She was no hero and never seen herself as one… if she decided to save someone then she would have to save another or she would feel obligated to save the next and before she knew it there would be a large line of enemies chasing her out of the Island before she can even complete her task.

Being honest with herself, she was glad that she left the rest of the crew who had zero experience dealing with the outside world on the ship.

They both ordered a fish dish and began to eat when more of her face was revealed, although the merchant frowned upon seeing her true features but he quickly disguised the look on his face.

He was experienced in the world and needed to use this opportunity to get the dead Sea King so he was on his best behaviour. "Are you on a journey as an explorer or something else? Is that your real face or is it some kind of mask or modification if you do not mind me asking?"

He was also aware that there were numerous weird races out there in the world but there was also many different kinds of devil fruits so he tried his best not to judge the person opposite him too early and risk losing the deal.

She knew that he was fishing for information while making the deal so she came up with a story beforehand just in case. "I am travelling with my crew as explorers but we were being chased down by the Sea King and had to take it down. We are Zoan devil fruit users, we just prefer to keep this form."

There are many types of races and variations of devil fruits so she was able to come up with such a story so that she was not identified as a mink along with her crew.

Although it was a poor lie, she was able to deceive those people with lacking knowledge about the mink race as it is not highly spread information within the world except some large underground or slave organisation that knows the information about the minks and their purchase price.

Even if she was recognised for her appearance, her main characteristic that would expose her as a mink is Electro so she held back from exposing it in public.

Enjoying her food, the discussion began and they talked over the price of the remains of the Sea King.

The merchant finally finished the deal after some back and forth. "I can get in touch with some business partners and convince them to help buy the body for 15 million berries but which part do you wish to keep as a trophy?"

The price was settled after considering the difficulty to take down such a large Sea King at sea so the price was settled at around 15 million after removing a part of it and some of its meat previously which was still quite generous of a price.

If it was whole when it arrived at the Island and was sold that way then it may have sold for more even surpassing a bounty of one of the highest bounties in the East Blue that was 20 million belonging to Arlong who was of the Fishmen race.

Alyssia already had some idea of what her crew would keep and what they would do with it so she answered calmly. "The upper half of its skull is enough along with its upper teeth. It's scales, eyes and other parts I do not need."

The merchants eyes shone and immediately got up and shook her hand. "Then it is a deal."

After finishing the meal he spoke again. "I will help you to get settled and if you need any other help during the time that I arrange the Sea King to be dismantled just ask. I will get you the berries as soon as possible."

Thinking about her loss of inventory during the battle, she responded. "I need a place to replace my ships cannonballs but also I need some information about this island and if possible a map of the West Blue. I will also be needing information on any talented individuals that may have some unique skills or usefulness or any local martial arts halls."

To level up her skills any further in a directed that best suited her, she needed more access to people with talent who had worked on their skills but also had a variety of styles or knowledge that could be helpful in perfecting her current skillset.

An example would be her leg and upper body martial arts, so far she had been pushing through the ranks on pure instinct, learning from the minks wild fighting style and the basics that were provided to her but she knew that there was not just one path and she may of strayed away from what she was meant to be a little.

The basics that she learned at first were front, side, back and roundhouse kicks but as she got more skilled she began to adjust them to high, middle and low kicks for various moves.

She then moved onto more advanced kicks like the axe kick, crescent, calf, reverse roundhouse, spinning heel and vertical kicks that she knew of from her previous life's knowledge that the system had tried its best to organise for her but there were also others that required her to master them while in the air like the scissor and flying kick.

Although she had the basic forms built into her body and gained familiarity with them she still needed to experience the collection of many styles of martial arts so that she could perfect her basics further and further refine her style to what was most suited to her rather than blindly pushing forward with each battle because eventually she would hit a wall that she could not cross.

There was also the problem that the mink race were not a race that had highly advanced body building techniques and practices because they were born strong from birth or focussed mainly on their speed and instincts.

There was still a lot that she could learn from the humans of the One Piece world who started out weak but so many of them have such a huge influence over the world and have built themselves into someone strong even if it means visiting various martial halls so that she can make up for her missing parts on her style that needed more balance and flexibility to add to her current strength, agility but also her high endurance to better suit her female body.

A shortcut to that would be to learn the Kuja Pirate Crew's martial arts but as the saying goes… no martial art is perfect and it depends on the individual so rather than walking taking their direct path towards their style she would rather develop one that suited herself more.

Only after perfecting her own leg based martial art style for women could she truly call herself a master.

The merchant thought for a while and then responded. "That kind of information might cost you so I will take it from the promised payment if that is fine?"

During the day she visited many different places ranging from places where scholars or highly intellectual people visited, local blacksmiths, weapon or tool stores and any other places that had strict military presence while buying a large amount of information and skills to patch up the gaps that were missing.

If a skill or knowledge is learned from one person then there will always be faults or missing things that someone else may know so if she finds that person then the fault can be corrected after gathering it after the system identifies the problem.

In the past she only had access to Zou to do this so her options were limited but now she could travel the world and meet many people from different cultures with differing knowledge or skills that could fill in those errors or missing pieces.

Even her science skill could be said to have a couple of errors that need to still be corrected because of some of the missing information on some materials, herbs and other things that she has no direct experience with that are not a part of her previous world.