NOVEL NEXT Chapter 6: First challenge
Over the four years, Alyssia's stats had grown a little because of the constant training of her body and mind with the help from her system.
Her talents had improved a great deal but there were always limits on how much they could be improved without gaining real experience or through experimentation.
Leg martial arts had reached 60% mastery thanks to completely absorbing the basic information given to her and through constant practice and repetition but she also required real fighting experience to be able to completely master what she had been given.
The same was true for her Navigation talent which had reached around 50% mastery after reading through the basic knowledge and memorising it.
In order to progress further she needed to test it out and use it in real life in order to properly make the talent and knowledge her own.
In order to further expand her mastery she made plans to learn tracking and hunting skills and apply them towards constructing land maps for the island.
She could then use her knowledge to make use of her knowledge and slowly perfect and use her talents that she had gained until the system notified her that she had reached 100% mastery.
Even learning the basics of her science skill may even prove to be beneficial towards her navigation skill and other things so she did not neglect it and continued to work on it in her free time but she had very few things to use to experiment with so she focussed on relearning what had been changed from her school knowledge in chemistry, biology and physics during her school years to fit the one piece world.
Even devil fruits have an element or rule of some kind even if their abilities seem strange or overpowered if someone has enough knowledge a weakness can be found.
Remaining an idiot like the protagonist and relying on her brute strength and fighting instinct to win fights was not something she would do so she had to overcome various difficulties with a little bit of brainpower too.
There were too many dangers in the world that wasn't just from humans or animals, she could drown at sea, die of poison, choke on a peanut, run out of living supplies or simply trio on a stone and fall from a high place.
She still had to make use of her current free skills for now to increase her survival skills.
The main problem was her main profession which had shown no signs of making progress so she could not purchase any new skills or upgrade anything if they are fully mastered already.
Before long she felt fed up with how things were going with her progress over the years so had no choice but to begin her main professions progression.
In the street outside her home Alyssia's small figure walked towards the house next door and knocked on the door.
An adult mink opened the door and asked. "What are you knocking for?"
He was a little puzzled, the neighbours kid usually kept to herself and rarely socialised with others within Zou so it was a surprise that she had suddenly came to his home for some reason.
Alyssia cleared her throat and declared in a voice that had a small amount of embarrassment in it. "I am here to challenge your daughter to a duel!"
Inside her head she silently beat herself up and felt like suddenly throwing away the system and going into hiding.
As a martial artist she needs to initiate or accept a duel in order to begin her task and if she defeats her opponent she will be able to gain some experience or points which can be used to upgrade her main profession, the skills in her possession or purchase new ones.
The problem is that she has to vocally express her desire to duel and compete against an opponent according to a martial artists way of challenging opponents or dojos within the world so it was a little embarrassing to put it into practice.
While Alyssia was beating herself up inside and completely embarrassed, the mink behind the door looked at her and expressed his understanding that kids will be kids so he replied. "Wait here and I will go get her."
In his mind she was just another kid wishing to make friends with someone their own age but did not know how to express it or they had a quirky personality so he did not mind her request and even if a duel did take place he felt it would not get out of hand because of the minks natural fighting and high regeneration abilities.
If anything it would be a good thing for his daughter to experience a fight early in life so long as there is no big danger so he felt it was best to supervise the duel.
If Alyssia knew of his thoughts she would definitely reply by yelling in a voice filled with rage. "I can't believe you just thought of me as someone with 8th grade syndrome!"
Not like it would matter if he thought so anyways because her bodies age was only four so there was no harm to her reputation but still it was embarrassing for her twenty plus year old soul.
It did not take long before the daughter had arrived at the door a looked at Alyssia a little weirdly.
At the door was a light blue-haired squirrel mink with tan fur, a dark patch on her forehead down to her nose, and a large bushy brown tail with two dark stripes down the center.
Upon seeing the mink up close Alyssia immediately recognised her but also could understand the way she was looking at herself.
Tristan the squirrel mink is sometimes scared by strange people or things which is displayed within the manga when she witnessed the scene of a skeleton talking to a dragon which was Brooke and Momo so Alyssia could understand her caution towards the sudden request and arrival.
Tristan would later be known as an experienced electro user who worked under the goat doctor so it showed that she had potential to be a decent fighter and would be able to learn how to treat various illnesses and wounds.
Instantly a new idea appeared in her mind which helped to reduce her work load and let her focus on other things.
No matter how talented she was or what she had to help her there was a limit to what she could learn and focus on so she required others to assist her.
If Tristan could be befriended then the position of a doctor would be filled.
On the protagonists crew he had recruited a swordsman, navigator, sniper, cook, doctor, archaeologist, shipwright, musician and a helmsmen before even adding the other people who had joined temporarily or had potential to become a crew member like Carrot while he himself held the position as captain and was useless in most other things besides fighting.
Alyssia had picked the talents and knowledge to be able to fulfil the role of a leader or captain and keep it but also had been able to become a navigator and perhaps a temporary cook too if she was to set sail one day so she still needed some others to take up other roles.
Alyssia straightened up her posture and looked as unthreatening as possible in order to not startle her then spoke in a soft voice. "Tristan I challenge you to a duel. Would you accept?"
A few moments passed in silence and there was a little of an awkward atmosphere in the air but finally Tristan replied as she looked towards her father who was pleading towards her direction to accept the request. "Okay, I accept."
All of a sudden a ding sound went off in Alyssia's head and she closed her eyes for a couple of seconds.
Within her mind she was able to read what had popped up on the system screen.