Chapter 553: Black-Iron title: Pirate Captain
Translator: Translation Nation Editor: Translation Nation
Although this widescale recruiting or seducing pirates from other ships would very possibly incur the antipathy of pirates loyal to Chevalle’s fleet, this issue didn’t bother Sheyan much.
He had already pondered over this matter before he arrived at Trihorn Island, and was well versed in marketing tactics from the present world.
Thus, he immediately ordered to mark out an area on the pier, and placed a banner written with the words – Free enjoyment of Golden rum.
To the defeated pirates who craved the comfort of alcohol fervently but were penniless, they had never seen the words written on that banner before. Therefore, it undoubtedly hooked the deep curiosity and gluttony in their bellies.
One must credit the hard work of the gypsies as well. When Sheyan’s crew commandeered the Dingyuan, they discovered supplies within the warehouse storage of the ship’s hold.
Food supplies capable of feeding a thousand mouths for half a year, and several hundred barrels of rum and others. Thus, Sheyan’s recruited party could be credited to the squandering of Queen Jiejie’s hidden goods.
Once the rum barrels were unlid, the heavily scented fragrance of rum wafted into the atmosphere as a splendid announcement.
Whenever a pirate joined this recruiting fare, he would first receive a large mug of ordinary rum. Soon later, he would realize the plentiful opportunity of receiving more drinks on the premise of themselves displaying personal capabilities; be it in terms of close combat or artillery.
Of course, the recruitment of close combat individuals was exceedingly demanding, where one needed to satisfy the harsh standards of Philip and Blacksail.
For any pirate whose demonstrated capability warranted him a qualification, he would then receive a mug of Golden Rum. Following that, if he still held interest, then he would have to compete with others. The eventual candidates would receive a hundred guineas and an invitation to join the crew.
Under such a eliminatory system, Sheyan easily recruited sufficient and excellent gunners. To his surprise, even that Redbeard, who had previously been stripped and hung suspended on the mast, surfaced and successfully passed the evaluation.
His ship had unfortunately been sunk after it became the target of attention due to its precise accuracy when firing cannons. Following that, his subordinates and confidants had been slain. Faced with such hopelessness, he could only thicken his skin and request to join Sheyan’s crew.
Sheyan had personally tested him and realized that Redbeard was truly gifted when it came to artillery gun fire. Moreover, through the data statistics of his probing, Redbeard actually possessed the ‘Grandmaster Gunning Art’ ability, which raised the gunning abilities of all his commanding gunners by one level. Without a doubt, such a group buff ability was immensely rare, and it wasn’t merely in name alone that he could become a pirate captain under Chevalle’s pirate fleet.
After Sheyan comforted Redbeard, he swapped a dark-blue grade cutlass he obtained from his ‘Pirate Captain’ plundering for the ‘Magnetite Ring’ he gifted Philip previously. Then, he bestowed the ring to Redbeard.
Apart from that, Ol’Seadog recommended an extraordinary talent to Sheyan. That person was named Nanuke, a rarely seen Inuit.
He was roughly forty years of age, with well developed arm muscles. His face hosted a deep and irregular scar, and his tattoos on his arm amplified his ruthless appearance; upon careful inspection, it was the tattoo of an enormous blue whale.
Nanuke was an expert in crossing with legendary creatures of the sea. He understood the habits of many legendary creatures, and even had attempted hunting for some before. Although his operation mostly resulted in failure, trying to plot against legendary creatures and live was still an incredibly daunting feat.
In the minds of the pirates, Nanuke had a rather awe-inspiring name known as Myth’s Nightmare!
After considering much, Sheyan realized that Nanuke was second to none when it came to operating the ‘Greenland Lethal weapon’. Under his operation, the effective range of that deadly harpoon even surpassed a kilometer. Without a doubt, it had already neared the effective range of an ordinary cannon.
Estimatedly an hour or so later, Sheyan received notifications.
[ Your reputation amongst the pirates has attained ‘Worshipped’ levels ]
[ You possess a ship with a displacement over 7 kilotons ]
[ Your pirate crew of storyline pirates exceeds 300 members ]
[ Milestone: Pirate Captain (advanced) accomplished ]
[ You receive a Black-Iron title: Pirate Captain! ]
[ Your received title: Pirate Captain – The awe of ordinary pirates towards you is raised by 200%. The awe of ordinary pirates towards officers of your crew is raised by 100%. You can breath underwater for an extended 15 minutes ]
[ When out at sea, you can effectively raise the offense/ defense / movement speed of allies within a kilometre radius by 25%! (Inclusive of ships. This effect cannot be stacked with other pirate captains) ]
[ You receive a passive ability: Letter of Marque – After successfully commandeering/ destroying other enemies or ships, there is a fixed chance of acquiring the special abilities of precious unique components/materials/equipments relevant to the battle. ]
[ Details: Your success rate of discovering plunder authorization is raised by 33%. The grade of discovered objects is raised by 33% ]
[ Details: You can upgrade this ability by contributing wealth to the Queen of Britain, promoting it to ‘British Royal Letter of Marque’. ]
[ Details: After possessing (note, possessing not equipping) this title, your thriving ambitions have now manifested and joining other pirate factions would now be difficult ]
Though the Dingyuan was merely a 5-masted ship, its unique shape and enormous frame already vastly surpassed other 5-masted ships. Therefore, even after meeting the requirements of 300 sailors, it still had space for at least 200 more.
Despite so, Sheyan wasn’t planning on maximizing the 500 crew quota. Instead, he placed a restriction on recruiting only 50 more. Nevertheless, these 50 must be talents or warriors of different functions. For example, there was an old pirate who was completely blind but could rely on his nose to accurately pinpoint the existence of legendary creatures like mermaids a few nautical miles away.
One pirate had a beastly build, with bristles of hair covering his face. He was adept in utilizing needles….oh, please do not misunderstand, his needles pertained to his expertise in sewing and mending sails. Not only were his weaving skills rapid, the end product would be seemingly identical to its former state.
Yet another pirate was extremely skinny and frail, that even the breeze could blow him down. Instead, he was an expert in fishing and rearing fishes. With his rearing livestock on the ship, meticulously planning his fishing and replenishing of food supplies, he raised the period of long distance voyage by at least 30%.
Excluding the gunners Sheyan recruited, he also placed heavy emphasis on recruiting strong and long armed paddlers. These paddlers could not only increase the velocity of the ship, they could hurl out spears or short hatches in the face of an imminent naval boarding.
Sheyan’s hypothesis was that towards the undying crew of the Black Pearl, even if they shattered their skeletons, those undying pirates could still swiftly recover and continue engaging in battle.
To battle with such monsters, one would naturally have to prevent crossing swords with them; even stabbing them ten times would be futile, and only leads to a loss in willpower to do battle.
Hence, the primary concern had shifted from fleeing, to retaliating in long range skirmishes.
Fortunately, quite a handful of elites of Chevalle’s pirate fleet had fled to Trihorn Island! Moreover, Sheyan was selecting the quintessence of the elites. One could only imagine the quality of his pirate crew.
After his crew was adequately expanded, Sheyan then ordered to sail off a couple dozen miles into the sea. Then, he summoned all his pirates on deck, before commanding his subordinates to finally retrieve the corpses of those gypsy guardians they had massacred.
Under the watchful gazes of the audience, he started to engage in plundering!
At this point, Sheyan’s new ‘Letter of Marque’ ability granted him a substantial boost in the quality of his plunders. Even the outer demeanor of his actions had added flare. Pressing his hand onto the corpse, the original prowess of the corpse was distinctly seen being drawn out with flourishing glows, before congregating into a particular equipment; an act of transforming something rotten into something magical.
Viewing such a scene, older pirates lifted their brows in delight. They understood that though following this Seaman Yan of the east was dangerous and treacherous, his commendations and punishments were impartial. Furthermore, it seemed like guineas were constantly clinking around.
Their eyes beheld the scene of strength bestowal once again. Names were individually called up, as they each stood forward to receive a bestowal of might from Sheyan. Some were incredibly elated as they couldn’t refrain from chuckling jovially.
When the new pirates spectated this scene, hopes naturally confounded within them. They were exceedingly clear about the nature of those older pirates following Sheyan.
As such, they couldn’t help but ponder – "The meagre capabilities of those scallywags be sufficient to receive such bountiful booty, wouldn’t me strivins’ receive more?"
Thus, they became hell-bent on serving him.
As Sheyan distributed the plundered equipments to reward the old-timers for their merit in those bitter fights, he was firstly attempting to mediate the disparity between them and the newly recruited pirates. Secondly, it was naturally to aggregate their emotions, allowing the new pirates to perceive the benefits of striving in death raids.
Furthermore, the Dingyuan was formerly Jiejie’s flagship. It stored numerous excellent equipments within. Thus, the old-timers all received a huge boost in their prowess after equipping, and most could now be comparable to those gypsy guardians of before.
At this period, Reef was deliberating over the tacky possibility of Ammand coming here to recruit manpower as well, which would spiral into a massive battle. Instead, Sheyan rejected that possibility, because the subordinates of Ammand were all arabian pirates of religious belief.
Although they were undoubtedly united and cohesive in battles, the purity of their faith would definitely disallow them from fighting alongside other apostates. Moreover, Ammand couldn’t effectively exploit the vikings previously as well. Therefore, everything had their pros and cons. This fact severed the possibility of Ammand recruiting pirates of other faith to his crew.