Chapter 60: Realism is Unnecessary for Jedi

Chapter 60: Realism is Unnecessary for Jedi

Chapter 60 Realism is Unnecessary for Jedi

Rayleigh sat on a pier at the docks of Karate Island's northern port, waiting for the departure of a ship that could take him off this island. Although the money he had was enough for passage on a merchant ship, it wasn't enough for food on the voyage, so he needed to buy some imperishables for the trip.

Rayleigh learned much from speaking with Pirate Players at the Hotel where he taught them Nen, and the biggest thing he learned about this world was that travel was ridiculous. First, there was little to no tourism since everywhere sucked when you were weak and no one had any reason to go anywhere. Because of this, there were no standard means of travel. Next, as the name of the world suggests, Pirates were a large issue here. Two dozen men with single shot pistols and swords would be enough to rob tens of thousands of berries worth of cargo from a merchant ship if the latter didn't have enough manpower to fight back.

Rayleigh wondered why there were no hot air balloons or planes, but apparently, there were strange things in the sky and such modes of travel never caught on among the survivors. Rayleigh guessed if there was such a means of travel, the World Government had monopolized it, preventing anyone else from rising above them.

That left travel by ship as the only means of getting around until Rayleigh figured out how to use Moon Walk for long distances. Oddly enough, Moon Walk didn't work that great with lateral movement. Moving upward was alright and using it to break your fall was fine, but it would never allow you to run forward through the air at an acceptable level. Rayleigh had been working on an alternative that combined Moon Walk, Shave, Force: Augment, Force: Program, and Enhancement Nen, but it was a work in progress and the timing was still off.

If Rayleigh needed to get anywhere in his current region of the South Blue, it wouldn't be too hard since he just needed to find a merchant ship that would head there to stock up or sell supplies and catch a ride. The problem was that his destination was not the South Blue, but the location the other Players were messing around, an area of the sea called the Grand Line. Everything about that place would give travelers a headache.

First, entering the Grand Line had to be done through a dangerous location called Reverse Mountain. Next, once you entered the Grand Line, you could not choose your destination ahead of time without special tools. You could only travel along a specific route, so if you were looking for someone, you had to hope they were on that path too. Next, the weather between islands was unpredictable, so fleet destroying storms weren't uncommon. And finally, you could not leave an island right away once you arrived. The tool that let you find islands along the path on the Grand Line had to charge on the island and wouldn't show you the way to the next one without being charged.

It was this last issue that posed the greatest problem. Rayleigh wanted to encounter the Players in the Grand Line, but since they had started traveling long before he did, he would never catch up to them unless something on an island held their interest long enough for him to arrive before they left.

And yet, all of those were problems that seemed unlikely to even reach in the first place. The very first step of arriving at Reverse Mountain already seemed impossible. The Grand Line was the haven for Pirates, so there were no ships that routinely took others from the South Blue into the Grand Line. The only way to go to the Grand Line would be to wait on the island closest to the Grand Line, wait for a pirate ship to come along, and get on.

There was no way to head to the Grand Line on his own. If the distance between islands was more than a hundred kilometers, he did not think he could use Moon Walk to travel since that skill used a lot of energy. He needed a ship. But a small ship would be torn up in the weather of the Grand Line, so he needed a big ship and a navigator. If the ship was damaged, it would sink in the middle of the ocean, so he needed someone who could fix the ship too. And then he'd need the ship to store all the food for three people.

It wasn't like he could just buy a ship either. The easiest option would be to liberate one from a pirate, but a normal pirate ship might not even survive its first storm in the Grand Line. Then even if he got a ship, he'd have to find some guys crazy enough to sail with him.

All of that was the minimum requirement just to start the first step of this journey. Or, at least, it should have been.

Rayleigh knew all of this before heading out, yet didn't pay a single Mission Point for an identity that could have any of this. Why? He didn't need it.

The situation where you found yourself stranded on an unfamiliar land without resources, without a map, without any connections, and without a clue on how to find what you were looking for was a nightmare for most people, but for a Jedi, this was a Tuesday.

Allowing the Force to guide him, Rayleigh paid for transport on a ship heading for another island. Not one closer to Reverse Mountain, but further away. One would think this would be going backward, but traveling using the Force as a GPS didn't care for logic. As long as a Jedi with a strong enough connection to the Force allowed it to guide him, he could travel to his destination from the opposite end of a planet he'd never been on, through a maze, in the shortest possible time. Even if that meant traveling through the core of a planet.

As long as he traveled while guided by the Force, he would not encounter terrible storms. His ship would not sink. They would not get lost. And they would make great time getting there. All the realistic aspects of travel that the real world possessed were discarded and laughed at by those who traveled using the Force to guide them. If someone who wasn't used to having their journey handed to them on a silver platter traveled with a Force User, they would be disgusted by how easily travel came to them.

The ship Rayleigh paid for passage on didn't stand out in any way from any other ship. Like any merchant ship, it docked at a port, sold its cargo, then used that money to buy something else it could then take elsewhere and sell for more than what was spent to purchase it.

Karate Island was not a crafting or production island, but it was a place filled with strong men and had a lot of warehouses. Even without manufacturing anything, businessmen of the island could simply purchase things they didn't need from merchant ships, store them, and then sell them to other merchant ships. It was like a bank. Banks did not give others money, but the presence of a bank made it easier to make money. And in this world, banks were a luxury of the strong.

The ship Rayleigh was boarding had just sold off hundreds of rolls of cheap fabric. The company that bought it would then sell it later to clothing manufacturing companies. The reason this ship did not sell to such companies directly was that the distance was too far and the danger too high. A smaller, but reliable profit was better than a higher but unsustainable profit, at least to an intelligent merchant. Right now, this ship was being loaded with coal. The same cargo hold that kept the cheap cloth dry on the journey was also ideal to do the same with coal. What Rayleigh paid would let him stay on the ship for the three day voyage to another island where this ship would sell all the coal and buy something else.

Rayleigh shook his head. It wasn't the Marines, Pirates, or World Government that truly ruled this world. It was Capitalism.

After using the remaining berries in his possession to buy a sack and stuff it with food, he boarded the ship which lowered its sails, and left the dock. Rayleigh half-expected some goons to find him on the pier so he could punch them to the horizon, but he wasn't this world's protagonist, so that kind of thing wouldn't happen every time he left the port.

The merchant ship's crew had a dozen laborers, two cooks, a helmsman, a navigator, and five others like himself that paid for passage to another island. Some of the laborers had knives and looked bulky, but other than the captain's pistol and sword, the rest of the merchant ship's crew looked unarmed.

Rayleigh pondered on which clich he'd encounter. Pirates? Sea Monster? Alien Invasion? He doubted the Force would have directed him to take this ship if things were so simple.

Then again, he was pretty sure the reason he was here had nothing to do with the ship or the cargo. One of the five others who bought passage on this ship smelled of fear and nervousness. The only thing that stood out more was the well hidden killing intent of the guy staring at him.

The nervous guy looked skinny and feeble. Probably about mid-twenties with messy brown hair that hid a large forehead, square frame glasses, and a dusty grey traveler's cloak.

The one who seemed to think the wimp ate his last doughnut or something was bulky, with broad shoulders, bulging arms, oddly skinny legs, and long hair tied back in a ponytail. He wore an open blue vest with bandages covering his exposed midsection, as if he'd been in a fight somewhat recently. Or at least that's how he tried to make it look. The bandages just barely hid a bulge that looked like a pistol the guy had wrapped up at his side.

The possible wannabe assassin wasn't exactly subtle, and the wimp wasn't exactly defenseless. At his side were two others, both swordsmen, who kept an eye on the guy. Well, one kept an eye on him, while the other, the swordsman with partially graying hair, actually kept Rayleigh at the corner of his eye.

All three, the bulky brute and both bodyguards were stronger than the average martial artist on Karate Island, and their standard was quite high, so none of them could be considered weak in the South Blue. From his senses though, both guards were stronger than the brute, so there shouldn't be a reason for him to interfere.

Rayleigh was curious about the identity of the wimpy fellow, but he doubted the bodyguards would appreciate him walking up and having a chat.

Times like this, he could only open the General Chat Room and chat about random nonsense. He couldn't enter the Pirate Chat Room since that would give away his presence here, and he wanted that to remain a surprise.

The sun fell past the horizon and bathed the space between the sea and sky in a myriad of colors. The last time he was on a ship, he disembarked before the sunset, so he wasn't able to enjoy this view. The rest on the ship stared at him oddly. They'd been spoiled with such scenes for so long, they'd lost appreciation for them. A pity, really.

Rayleigh stayed on the ship's bow, overlooking the sea as the sun's last lights danced over the horizon and the sky transformed into an immeasurable jewel. Again, he received looks. Appreciating a sunset was one thing, but appreciating the night sky was just weird. He didn't care about the looks. This was the first time in any life he'd seen a sky with so many stars. On Tython, the Ashla and Bogan outshined the stars and were somewhat tidally locked in the sense that it was rare to see a sky without one or both of them. When such skies did appear, they were usually covered with clouds. The sky of the Hunter World did not have stars that shined correctly. Rayleigh guessed it was a side effect of being in a fishbowl, or that the Hunter World's atmosphere was too dense, affecting or diminishing the starlight that reached the surface. And of course, every night he'd spent in the MCU was surrounded by circus lights or on the road, so there was never a sky without light pollution.

While he drank in the sights, another passenger appeared on deck. The wimp and his bodyguards were below deck as they had paid extra for a room while the others had to huddle together in the storage shed. Rayleigh decided just to remain on deck throughout the voyage, so he wouldn't bother going down to check the bed-less area he paid to stay in. The man who came up was none other than the brutish fellow from before. He stepped onto the deck and looked around suspiciously for a bit before unwrapping the cloth at his waist.

Once it was loose enough, Mr. Definitely Skips Leg Day pulled out a pistol looking gun from beneath the wrappings. A glance from the side though confirmed it was not actually a pistol. Said man pointed it skyward and pulled the trigger. He wasn't aiming for the ship's sail or mast, but the open sky. The fired projectile became blindingly bright and soared high into the air where it stayed for a while, shining bright enough to be seen for tens of kilometers.

"Hey! It's a Pirate! We've been marked! Take him down!"

Three of the patrolling laborers shouted as loudly as they could, waking the rest of the crew. The sea wasn't a place most could sleep deeply, so it didn't take long for everyone to get up. The laborers got out their weapons and surrounded the brute. Rayleigh would bet on the latter in a fight, but he didn't resist, allowing himself to be tied up with a vicious smile.

Soon, the captain came out and directly asked the bound man, "Who are you working for? What do you want?"

The crew made a much larger circle around Rayleigh and their captain. The pirates Rayleigh had taken out were dragged out of the encirclement so they wouldn't be in the way.

The captain raised his gold gilded gauntlets and started scraping them together to make sparks while the pirates around them looked on with sinister glee.

Rayleigh rolled his eyes and did a half step and bend to dodge the fire of the pistol that another pirate had aimed at his back. The man was not directly behind him so the shot didn't hit the captain, but it did hit another pirate near the captain to the dumbfounded looks of the rest of the pirates who wondered if Rayleigh had eyes in the back of his head.

The captain distracting the target with his claws in a 'duel' while someone shot the man in the back was a time honored classic way of killing strong fighters, and just about every bounty hunter had fallen for it. Sure, they claimed that the captain defeated the guys in honorable fights with great skills, but they all knew the truth. Not that they cared. They were pirates after all, that's how they were supposed to fight.

Rayleigh decided not to play their game any longer and went back to cutting down pirates with his aura bladed finger. The captain and crew were stunned that Rayleigh hadn't even bothered to fight their captain and went back to attacking them. None of them saw or appreciated the irony of the situation.

Still, the captain was the captain, he charged forward and tried to slice through Rayleigh's spine. Rayleigh ducked and dodged while spraying the blood of the man's crew all over the ship. Some tried to fight but Rayleigh moved like the wind and seemed impossible to hit, so one by one, each pirate either fell to Rayleigh's invisible blade or ran below deck.

All except the captain, who had practically lost his marbles at this point. "Stop moving around and fight me you simpering bastard!"

Rayleigh tilted his head, ducked, turned to the side, did a light jump, and then did a front flip over the captain, making the captain's furious flurry of blows look like a child's game.

It was then that the captain's grimace changed into a victorious sneer. "You think you're hot stuff huh? Well, your end is near."

Rayleigh figured the man was referring to the fellow that had just emerged onto the deck. His wrists and ankles were ivory white while he had a tan, implying that he had likely been chained up until this point.

The captain shouted, "Gordan! Kill this man and I'll let you kill as many as you want on our next island!"

Gordon was abnormally tall, nearing seven feet in height even slouched over. He looked over at Rayleigh with manic eyes and made a fist. That fist then bulged out and shaped itself into something resembling the head of a sledgehammer before he brought it down on Rayleigh.

Rayleigh dodged and slashed out with an aura blade, but the invisible attack only caused sparks off the man's chest.

The pirate captain laughed and shouted, "You idiot! Gordan here has eaten the Hammer Hammer Fruit, making him a Hammer Man! His body is like forged iron and nothing can stop him but the sight of blood! He'll crush you to pieces!"

Rayleigh turned away from the newcomer and gave the captain of the Six Claw Pirates his flattest deadpan stare.

Without even looking at the incoming attack, Rayleigh swatted the man with his hand while using telekinesis to toss the man overboard and into the sea.

For obvious reasons, this caused the captain to freeze up. Sweat dripped heavily from his brow. He then lightly asked, "Were you still willing to negotiate our surrender?"

Three minutes later, Rayleigh jumped back onto the merchant ship and said, "I've taken care of everything. We'll sail to the Marine Outpost first and I'll turn in the bounties. Have a nice day."

One of the bodyguards tried to call out for Rayleigh as he jumped back to the pirate ship, but Rayleigh didn't feel the time was right, so he ignored the request. On the Six Claw Pirate's ship, there were enough pirates remaining to sail the ship. This ship was much faster than the merchant ship, so it would make it to the island by the end of the day. The ship's wounded would not recover without medical aid and Rayleigh wouldn't let them return to their hideout, so they had no choice but to go to the Marine Base, turn themselves in, and receive care or end up crippled.

Rayleigh may have lied to them and said he knew the route like the back of his hand, so if they tried to go elsewhere, he'd kill them all.

This decision did have the unfortunate effect of requiring Rayleigh to stay on the stinky ship for a day, but it was worth it since they made it to the marine base before sunset.

It was funny too, the Marines spotted them on the way and sent a ship to intercept, only to board and find that the entire crew had been taken out by a swordsman without a sword.

The Lieutenant in charge, a well fed man with manicured fingers and styled hair, asked, "How did you take all these pirates out yourself?"

Rayleigh answered confidently, "I'm very good."

Seeing the pirates flinch in pain when they saw him implied that Rayleigh was not simply joking. Depending on the circumstances, an ambitious Lieutenant might claim the bounty for himself, but Rayleigh's feat was too extraordinary and the well fed marine was not foolish enough to blind himself to the possibility that Rayleigh was in fact that good. These past few years, youngsters like Rayleigh had been sprouting up like weeds, and if this marine wanted to remain well fed and in charge, he knew there were certain lines that he could not cross.

The Lieutenant nodded and said, "Very well. We shall have the bounties for these pirates gathered by tomorrow. It will not be one berry less than its full value since you not only hand delivered them all, but you delivered them alive." Their base did not have that much liquid funds, but the Marine HQ was very good at the speedy delivery of bounty monies to encourage bounty hunting.

Rayleigh thought back to Hammer boy and wondered if the Marines didn't know about him. That might have been the case. A pirate crew with a devil fruit user was a lot more noticeable and may have been targeted by the Marines. That meant any prior witnesses of hammer boy were probably dead.

As for the fact that Rayleigh killed him, the Force didn't care. Why? Because Rayleigh didn't care. Rayleigh's connection to the Force over these last few years had strengthened greatly. Previously, if he did something the Force didn't like, the Force would retreat from him, weakening his connection to it. As for now, it was a bit more variable. Hammer boy was someone even pirates locked up, he was not an ordinary killer, but closer to a monster. Rayleigh didn't feel anything about ending someone like that, so neither did the Force.

Eventually, all of the restrictions the Force placed on him would be removed and he'd be able to use the full power of the Force on whatever he felt like.

Rayleigh asked, "Would you know of a good Inn with an acceptable bath on the island? As you can tell, I'd rather wash myself of the stench of this ship."

The corpulent Lieutenant nodded and looked around the captured ship with a sneer at the foul odor. It was reasons like this that he did not consider pirates to be human. How could civilized humans live in such filth? They were obviously beasts.

"Of course. In fact, for such a grand display as this, you may spend the night in our base." Although he wouldn't get anything from the bounty, if he could display enough friendliness to get Rayleigh to turn in a few more bounties at his base, he'd be able to claim it was thanks to him and get some merit from that.

Rayleigh accepted the offer and spent the night. The Lieutenant even offered his own bathroom, but Rayleigh declined since that would just be too weird.

The following day, Rayleigh's money arrived via seabird delivery. It wasn't a large sack of gold coins, but a wad of large denomination bills that the World Government used when paying high value bounties. These weren't stored in weaker Marine Outposts since that invited greed.

After collecting the bounty, Rayleigh headed off, but upon exiting the Marine base, he saw a familiar face. It was the wimpy guy from earlier and his two bodyguards. Said wimpy guy had stars in his eyes when he saw Rayleigh and walked up to him like he was meeting a famous super star. He said, "You were amazing sir! Please, I must ask. Would you be willing to be my bodyguard? You see, my father is sending me to the Grand Line for some important business, and you've proven that no pirate can stand up to you. Please? I'll pay whatever it takes."

Rayleigh smiled. Yeah, Force Guided GPS was way overpowered.

*Author's Note*

If Qui Gon can pilot a submarine he's never used before from one end of the planet he's never been on, through the monster infested core, to the other end of the planet, without getting lost or running out of fuel, then you can obviously tell how overpowered Force Guidance is. It also shows how compatible the Force is for stories in worlds like One Piece, so I hope this chapter inspires some Star Wars One Piece Crossovers.