As the ship sailed, Roseus sat on the deck trying his best to ignore the incredible pain that encompassed the entirety of his back.

Right now, he couldn’t prioritise himself. He had to focus on his crew.

There was a lot wrong with them after their skirmish.

Lucas One-Hand... As reported by Pip, he had sacrificed himself to kill the healer defending the coal room.

Roseus remembered when he first met the young orphan, who had so desperately wanted to become somebody. He said that the seas were where he wanted to accomplish this.

You have become somebody, Lucas. You were one of the first ten members of the Redflower Pirates.

...

Unfortunately, Lucas was not the only person missing. It seemed Lyna had somehow been dragged from their ship and captured with rope.

That left her sister, Lavender the religious woman, depressed. In her mind, her sister was already dead. The reality of the Eight Oceans had begun to settle in.

This enraged Roseus deeply. Lyna was an ex-government nurse, which meant that her bounty would be higher due to abandoning the Empire. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He wanted to go back for her, but he knew he couldn’t. As captain, he had to be wise.

Lucas had sacrificed his life for them to escape, and he could not waste that opportunity.

...

Other than the two who were now missing, the rest of the crew were suffering from various wounds of their own. There wasn’t one among them who wasn’t covered in a few scratches, some much worse than others.

Jackson had been shot in the arm.

Kruger had been shot in the shoulder.

Dawn had a large gash on her right thigh.

And Roseus had the worst wound of all. His back had been torn open.

Still, as they sailed, he forced himself to stand up and look over the railing toward their rear.

The navy was still pursuing them, but it was nothing like before. Without their steam, they were struggling to keep up, having to rely only on their sails. An inconvenience for their heavier ship.

After noticing this, Captain Roseus turned to the rest of his crew, who were still recovering their energy and counting their wounds.

"Check your skills," he ordered in a clear voice.

There was one thing that this battle had proved to him, and it was the importance of skills.

The standard navy sailor and pirate of the First Ocean were very close to regular humans. Most had not spent enough time out at sea to earn any substantial amount of treasures, nor had they developed many skills due to the fact that they tried to avoid combat.

However, when facing Aeros, his brother, he had seen the potential of the systems.

His brother had shown that he could force light rain to stop momentarily and also move twice the speed of Roseus, even whilst Roseus was benefiting from the slight boost granted by his father’s cutlass.

And these were only the skills that the man had used. Who knew what else he had in his arsenal?

The crew members each focused on their systems, and Roseus did the same.

As he did, he noticed a few changes.

First, he had ranked up in an area of his Sailor System and earned himself two new skills. This was most likely due to the extensive amount of combat he had been involved in during the battle.

The area he had ranked up in was Deck Agility, earning him the skill:

- Goldrush (Lv.1) → The more treasures you have equipped, the faster you become. Each treasure grants a slight increase. The further you travel from your deck, the weaker the effect becomes.

...

This skill alone almost blew Roseus’s mind.

It almost felt too convenient.

Could I have earned this because at some point during the fight, I was simultaneously wearing three pieces of treasure, which is considered a large amount?

Or could this be related to my pact with Nammon?

He was leaning more toward the latter option, as the other area he had ranked up in happened to be Treasure Sense.

It was now at Rank II, and with it came another skill.

- Hunting Diver (Lv.1) → When underwater, creatures carrying low-tier treasures have a slight chance of being drawn towards you.

"..."

I can’t help but think that my system is drawing me closer toward a path of danger. They say that without risks, there are no rewards...

Hunting Diver was another powerful skill. As soon as he read its description, Captain Roseus started figuring out ideas that could earn him much more strength.

If he managed to secure his father’s hat to his head, he could wear it whilst diving underwater. Paired with the activation of Hunting Diver, all creatures that were drawn toward him due to the hat would have a higher chance of carrying treasures.

Fighting against them underwater would, of course, be incredibly difficult. However, if he also equipped his father’s cutlass, he would gain its speed boost. On top of that, with the hat already equipped, he could also wear the Ring Of Unfavourability to grant him the additional speed boost provided by his skill, Goldrush.

With this combination of skills, there would be many risks, but the reward would be a build that allowed him to travel incredibly fast underwater whilst also increasing his chances of finding treasures.

He also did not have to worry that Hunting Diver only attracted creatures with low-tier treasures, as his pact with Nammon would add a trait onto the treasure regardless of its rank.

Finally, he found that his Rookie rank progression had increased to 25%, whilst his Pact Progression remained at 10/100, which he believed would only increase the more he fulfilled Nammon’s will.

As for Rookie rank progression, he assumed that it was an accumulation of feats that contributed toward it. Perhaps his reputation at sea or combat experience played a part in it. Of course, he had also been benefitting from earning an extra soul for every kill performed with his father’s cutlass.

Satisfied with the changes in his own system, Captain Roseus looked around at his disheartened crew.

He understood the sadness that they felt, but it was important not to let such events affect them too much, otherwise things would only get worse.

First, he asked Dawn about her new system and went through each of their changes one by one.