Rui spent time going through the reports that the Martial Union had provided him with, gaining a more nuanced understanding of the G'ak'arkan Tribe's techniques. He understood that while the techniques of the G'ak'arkan Tribe were truly spectacular in some regards, they were truly lacking in other regards.
"They have shitty range limits," Rui sighed.
They were unable to target extremely distant techniques, at least, nowhere near as far as the Martial Artists of the Kandrian Empire could. Rui understood what Martial commissioner Derun meant when she said that they had their own shortcomings and their own unique strengths.
"Their potency is also lacking, relatively speaking," Rui realized as he went through the techniques that were of special interest to the Martial Union.
The G'ak'arkan Tribe possessed a diverse set of techniques that, while strong in some ways were much less than optimal when it came to range and potency.
"But this is an area that the Martial Union's techniques thrive in," Rui nodded. "While the Martial Union's techniques less gimmicky, they possess greater superiority in some of the more fundamental aspects of long-range offense."
Part of this has to do with the fact that the Martial Union dumped a fortune for the budget allocation of long-range techniques research every year. Not all of this funding went into creating new techniques, a lot of it also went into optimizing existing techniques.
Considering that this had happened for nearly four centuries, it had snowballed tremendously over time, leading to much stronger long-range foundations as far techniques went. The G'ak'arkan Tribe did not possess such an advantage, and thus their techniques were less solid in many ways compared to that of the Martial Union.
Part of the superiority of the techniques of the Martial Union came from the fact that the Squire evolution breakthrough process of the Martial Union was much superior to the much more primitive version that the G'ak'arkan tribe seemed to have.
The Martial Union was able to grant Martial bodies that had high affinities for long-range targeting to long-range Martial Artists. Once these Martial Artists developed techniques that were highly synergistic with that of their body and their Martial Path, then they were able to exhibit power greater than what the technique by itself was able to merit at times.
This was an advantage that the Martial Artists of the G'ak'arkan Tribe were unable to match. It was one of the reasons that the Martial Artits of the G'ak'arkan Tribe were unable to match the Martial Artists of the Martial Union.
Rui studied the reports surrounding their techniques extensively until he was finally satisfied.
('There is definitely plenty of merit to befriending these tribal folks,') Rui concurred by the time he was done.
It wasn't just the techniques that they had already developed and refined thus far, but also the advancements they would make in the future. These people had many Martial Artists every generation, considering how much progress they had made in centuries, Rui could not imagine how much further they would go in the future. New techniques and improvements to existing technique were almost a guarantee. It was a waste to try and kill them, or dominate them. The Martial Union would benefit the most by keeping them alive and growing stronger, which in turn would make the Martial Union stronger.
('I can also see why the Martial Union is relying on a diplomatic strategy instead of an espionage strategy to try and steal those techniques.') Rui nodded.
The Martial Tribes possessed remarkable senses, they had grown so familiar with their forest and island that encroaching upon it had considerably higher risk of detection. And reaching close enough to try and spy on them was even worse.
Meaning, any stealth and sensory oriented Martial Artist would not be able to get particularly valuable information because the tribal folks were highly cautious of their techniques being stolen due to the presence of multiple Martial Tribes. When training, they took measures to obscure any secrets surrounding their techniques. Esoteric natural resources found on the island that dampened matter and energy flux through them were quite effective in hampering sensory although they could only be used in a small isolated area.
In order to avoid detection of all the Martial Artists including the Martial Seniors, while also gaining deep sensory insight into the training methodologies and techniques of the G'ak'arkan Tribe could probably not be accomplished by shadow-class Martial Seniors.
Rui suspected that it would probably take Martial Masters to accomplish such a feat.
('The problem is that Martial Masters are scarce and highy strategic resources that need to be employed on matters that truly warranted their power.') Rui sighed.
The G'ak'arkan Tribe was significant, but it did not weight down on priorities of far greater importance such as the deadlock between the Martial Union and the Royal Family. Or the power struggle between the Kandrian Empire and the other super-nations such as the Britannian Empire, The Republic of Gorteau and the Sekigahara Confederation.
Maintaining surveillance of the most powerful assets of their adversaries was a near full-time job and required these powerful Martial Artists to invest conisderable time and energy on them.
These matters were of existential importance and were far more needy of the most powerful Martial Artists of the Martial Union than the curious and interesting, but ultimately harmless G'ak'arkan Tribe.
That was why Martial commissioner Derun had approached him, outside of the upper echelons of the Martial Union who possessed the power to extract the techniques of the G'ak'arkan Tribe, simply because such a mission wasn't worth the time of Martial Artists who possess far more important matters to attend to.
The more Rui read, the more he comprehended why she decided to entrust this mission to him. He also gained a deeper understanding of how he would likely go about it. Of course, he abstained from making any specific plans. He was still quite far away from that stage and there were plenty of things that he needed to before he was ready to serve as a diplomat.
