The pirate captain read the contents of the envelop and laughed again. "Boy, you can call me Boss Buckley. What are you called?"
"Red."
"It will take us three months to reach the Lorale Trading Block's area of influence. And that is a straight path which we pirates do not take. Lad, Nordy has only paid for your passage here, but food and staying in my ship isn't free. Looking at what you've done here, haha, you seem to have some skill. Join my crew." Buckley said.
"Alright captain." Red nodded. Years of solitude had turned Red into a man of few words.
It had been a couple of weeks on the pirate ship since Red had joined the crew. He interacted politely with the other mates and while they initially took turns at trying to bully him, they realized he was a fearsome individual. Each time they raided a ship, they saw the precision and methodical nature of his attacks and that had only caused them to look at him with respect. With Red's inclusion, casualties from raiding had reduced many fold and the Buckley would often be seen laughing loudly like a maniac imagining his rising infamy.
Red, for his part on the ship, while not helping raid that is, spent his time learning how to repair the ship from the mechanic. Other times he would read the books that they would find from raiding cargo or he would peruse the galactic network.
One day Buckley called him to the gathering point in the ship. "Good lad, come here. Today we will all have a sparring contest." Saying thus, he gathered everyone around in a ring and the pirate mates began having a friendly sparring. But pirates were pirates and soon sparring would get personal. Red went in a few times and made quick work of his opponents. After all, most of the mates were not martial artists either, but with Red halo sensory ability, he was unbeatable in close combat against anyone who wasn't a martial artist.
Seeing how dominating Red was in his battles, the first mate of the ship, Orange, decided to challenge Red. Orange was a martial artist. While he was only on the fifth stage of the first realm, that was more than any ordinary human could compete with. Orange's strength was marginally higher than Red's which said volumes about Red's base physical strength post transformation, but still Red was weaker. Also his combating was based on innate instinct, unlike trained and designed moves and tactics like Orange which also put him at a disadvantage.
Yet Red had an ability that few could match in terms of perception. Despite being relatively weaker and relatively untrained compared to Orange, with his lightning quick analysis of Orange's muscles, breath, eye movements as well as his body shifts he was able to anticipate Orange's moves before he made them and dodge. In a straight battle, Red would lose but with this ability, he managed to constantly keep side stepping and dodging Orange. Red would rarely strike back and he kept on mainly analyzing Orange's moves, down to the last muscle.
The bizarre scene made the other mates cheer loudly, while Buckley looked on, shocked. HE could clearly make out that Red had no wisp of martial arts or spirit energy flowing through him at all, yet he was able to avoid Orange. Then all of a sudden, Red began retaliating in short bursts with precise and well timed hits at Orange's weak points and flaws while performing an art. This shocked Buckley even more, because he saw something he couldn't believe. Red was replicating Orange's moves back on him and they seemed to be more perfect than Orange's own. Even though Red did not have the energy flow to accompany the form of the art, the art itself was perfect and with Red's latent physical capabilities, each punch and kick hit hard.
In the end though, Orange was still stronger than Red and so both had reached a stalemate. Yet, Orange had a mixture of shock, awe and fear of Red's talent of observation. It appeared that his talent in combat was extremely high, yet it was a mystery why he didn't practice martial arts.
The fight had become a talking point among the mates even after they disbanded that day, but Buckley called Red into his room.
"Lad." He spoke. "With your talent for combat, why don't you practice martial arts?"
"It isn't that I do not wish to. But my body's affinity with spiritual energy is terrible and I was unable to practice any martial arts of the Dwight Kingdom." Red said with a thought.
When Buckley heard that he shook his head disappointingly. "So it is indeed as I thought. I called you here because I heard that your Kingdom was performing an experiment on trying to change talents."
When Red heard this he was surprised. "I have heard about it too. I heard it failed though." He said trying to hide the tremor in his heart.
"Indeed, that is what the rumors say. After that mysterious incident there were a lot of eyes on Dwight Kingdom from other countries and the program was shut down under pressure." Buckley said, looking carefully at Red who remained quiet, wondering why Buckley was tantalizing him with this information now.
"You see lad, this data is valuable. And Roland Kingdom pressured Dwight Kingdom to sell the research data as well as the materials to them. All that data, that could help increase talent and all the research materials are now being shipped on an imperial cruise ship." Buckley said.
Red finally understood where this was going. "I see now."
Hearing that Buckley smiled. "We are capable pirates, but there is no way we can take down an imperial cruiser with our ship. The only way we can take control is from the inside. I called you here to make you a proposition. You help us take that cruiser and you can have your choice of the ship's treasures as pickings."