“They took our diplomatic team much more seriously when we first trained and sent a Martial Squire to head the negotiations,” Carl continued. “Our diplomatic team was even able to negotiate with one of their most powerful and influential Martial Squires. However, we had never managed to draw the attention of the shot callers of the G’ak’arkan Tribe. The three Martial Seniors are considered the three leaders of the Tribe. They regarded our Martial Art technique offers with curious intrigue, but never took us too seriously because of the gap between their ranks and ours. We were not able to give those three particular individuals anything they considered worth their time, since they were Martial Seniors.”

“Why didn’t they consider the benefits it would bring to the rest of their tribe? Even if they can’t use it, surely the rest of the Martial Squires would benefit from such a trade.” Rui frowned as he scoured through the transcripts of the negotiations in his mind palace, looking for the relevant files.

“That is a painfully rational and logical reason, and one I completely agree with,” Carl sighed once more. “Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, rationality is, well, lacking in this particular ecosystem. Leadership in this tribe is merely a consequence of being the strongest and is not considered to be a burden or a responsibility. They rejected it because their attachment to their techniques was higher than their desire to strengthen the rest of their clan. Another part of it is paranoia since their Martial Art techniques are their lifeline in not getting overrun by their rivals and enemies. They rejected disclosure of their techniques when we deployed Martial Squire diplomats. Another part is also the fact that our Martial Squires acted out of order when they experienced the disrespect that they were shown despite being the diplomats of the Martial Union. They may have partially succeeded if they kept their cool.”

Rui could easily imagine this happening. While Martial Seniors were stronger than Martial Squires, Martial Squires had their own pride. Furthermore, there was the fact that they were representing the Martial Union. Rui could easily imagine Martial Squires who was used to commanding respect and had no conception of the mindsets of diplomacy losing their temper and spoiling negotiations.

“But things weren’t the same when the Martial Union finally tried sending a Martial Senior to try and get them to take us seriously,” Carl sighed once more. “It is absolutely unprecedented and wild, mind you. That decision. It is one thing for Martial Artists to converse with foreign Martial Artists over highly specific matters. It is absolutely another to send Martial Seniors as an ambassador to alien third parties.”

“I can imagine that this decision sparked a lot of controversy within the Martial Union,” Rui smiled wryly.

“You are quite correct. Martial Sects and factions got embroiled in the controversy, but ultimately, we decided to go forward with sending a Martial Senior.”

“I read the transcripts. The Martial Seniors were definitely taken seriously. The problem was that their pride and competitiveness got in the way. It created an atmosphere where the G’ak’arkan Tribe would effectively be admitting inferiority and defeat if it accepted our deal at the time.”

Both of them sighed.

The problem was how the Martial Senior handled it. It was almost the textbook example of how not to conduct diplomatic negotiations with the G’ak’arkan Tribe to exchange and trade techniques. The Martial Senior deployed had turned into a competition by aggressively touting the techniques of the Martial Union and claiming superiority, thereby triggering immense competitiveness and wounding the pride of the Martial Senior leaders of the G’ak’arkan Tribe. If not for the fact that the diplomatic team accompanying the Martial Senior had managed to cut off the negotiations and had one of the Martial Masters of the Martial Union directly order the Martial Senior to retreat, a fight may have broken out then and there!

It also helped that the Martial Seniors of the G’ak’arkan Tribe did not break out into a fight then and there because their devastating power would have annihilated almost all of their tribe.

Rui wasn’t even surprised that this happened as recalled the identity of the Martial Senior that had been sent as a diplomat.

“Senior Ceeran is a Martial Senior that is highly competent and powerful when it comes to long-range techniques… But unfortunately, his immense pride and passion for long-range techniques drove the negotiations downhill,” Rui chuckled amused.

“Correct,” Carl nodded. “Senior Ceeran was chosen because he is the deputy director of the Long-range Research Department of the Martial Union as well as the fact that he is in the upper echelons of the Longranger Sect. That has worked against the diplomatic mission. But it makes little sense to send Martial Artists from other Martial Sects.”

“I was made an exception because of my personal profile, I imagine,” Rui noted.

“True, but anyways, coming back to the big picture. Let us revisit the things that we have discussed until now. We have discussed the elementary diplomatic theory. Levying other people’s primary and secondary interests to fulfill your own interests. We discussed specific examples n the most common types of such occurrences, such as food and national security, and the maintenance of the technological sectors. Then we recognized that while these interests are almost universal, there are exceptions such as the G’ak’arkan Tribe. We then proceeded to form a profile of them and laid out their most important interests, before proceeding to discuss why our diplomatic endeavors with them have failed up to this point due to this reason and others. Is there any part of this that you have any doubts, questions, or issues with?”

“No, you are a great instructor and have made complicated matters easier to digest,” Rui replied earnestly.

“I believe your remarkable understanding and foundation in the humanities and social sciences despite no formal education in them is what has facilitated our discussion to be smooth,” Carl replied with a smile. “It has taken me weeks and even months to reach this point with some of your predecessors.”