Hunting a Krayt Dragon wasn't actually too difficult on Tatooine. The locals known as Sand People would often give it a shot as a rite of passage and with decent prep, it could be done by a lone individual.
The main reason for this was that there was one plan and it almost always worked. Find a Krayt Dragon's cave. Carefully plant a large amount of explosives near the entrance. Draw out the Krayt Dragon with some bait. When the Krayt Dragon exited the cave and walked over the explosives, set them off to break through the Krayt Dragon's soft underside and wait for it to die.
Not exactly glamorous, but according to HK-47, it was effective. The problem was that this plan only worked well when done at the dragon's den and used a location the dragon must walk over. When the dragon was not in its cave, things were very different.
Rayleigh was confident of course, but that didn't mean he wouldn't ask for free advice.
[Swordsman: Does anyone know anything about fighting Krayt Dragons?]
[Deadshot: Where? Wild ones on Tatooine or did you encounter some wack job's exotic pet?]
[Grey Matter: What are you doing on Tatooine?]
[Blind Prophet: He's obviously there for the sand. It couldn't possibly be for a Krayt Dragon Pearl.]
[Mechanic: Krayt Dragon Pearls can be sold for a hundred thousand credits or ten times that to a prominent collector. I happen to know a few parties that would be interested if you find one.]
[Titan: Wait, there's a planet with Dragons on them? And you can hunt them? And they have treasures worth more than a ******* starship? How would one get to this planet? Asking for a friend.]
[Swordsman: Do Krayt Dragon's always have a Pearl?]
[Deadshot: They do not always have a Pearl. Swordmaster killed one solo and it didn't have a Pearl. If they were so easy to acquire, they would not be worth that much. Hunting them is too costly for normal people and the odds of one having a pearl is one in ten. There is also a chance that a single Dragon may have more than one, but it is incredibly low.]
Rayleigh nodded to himself as the pieces came together. That explained the feeling he had when the job was offered. They said they'd either pay him upfront or he could forgo payment for a cut of the Dragon Pearls. But if there weren't any pearls, then he'd basically be working for free.
[Swordsman: So how did Swordmaster kill the Krayt Dragon?]
[Blind Prophet: He chopped off its head in one slash.]
Rayleigh smirked. He could do that. Sure, his Blue Sword of Babylon had a restriction that would cause the Kyber Crystal to explode if he killed something, but there were many ways around that.
What determined if something was killed was not Rayleigh, but the Force. If Rayleigh used his Sword of Babylon and accidentally stepped on an ant, would the Kyber Crystal explode? No, it would not.
So why didn't it count? Because although the Force valued life, it only truly valued sentient life. Only sentient life could truly interact with the Force and only sentient life added to the Force upon its death.
At least, that's what Rayleigh told himself. So what if it was true or not. If he believed in it strongly enough, the Force would too. Eventually he'd gaslight the Force into letting him do whatever he needed to do. Killing a large angry Krayt Dragon? No different than killing an ant.
This was his way of using the Force. This wasn't the Light Side or the Dark Side. This was His Side.
Of course, this path was only possible thanks to his possession of the Main Character's Cheat, Balance of the Force.
Usually, when someone tainted a part of the Cosmic Force to turn it into personalized Dark Side energy, the remainder of the Cosmic Force would become less attentive. The more Dark Side energy you stole, the less the Cosmic Force would be willing to listen and provide free Psionic Energy. In other words, you simply could not use the full power of the Dark Side and the Light Side at the same time.
This was what Rayleigh learned on Tython. And this was the rule that the Balance of the Force perk broke. It was hard to discover, but to put it simply, the Force was always willing to listen to him, even if he pissed it off. Without the Balance of the Force perk, the only way for the Force to not ignore you after switching to the Dark Side, allowing you to use them both, is to be very, very interesting. From what Rayleigh learned from HK-47, only the droid's creator, Revan, had accomplished this. He was simply so interesting that even after he used the Dark Side, the Light Side didn't ignore him, allowing him to use the full power of both for a time.
So if Rayleigh wanted to, he could hoard a vast reservoir of Dark Side energy and use it along with the Psionic energy granted to him by the Cosmic Force to become unstoppable. But even if Rayleigh could overcome the mental derangement that came with a brain saturated with necrotic energy, Rayleigh had instinctively felt that this path had limits.
Thankfully, the Balance of the Force perk didn't just let Rayleigh use both the Light and Dark Sides together. It allowed him to use everything together. This would be Rayleigh's path. Not one extreme direction or another, but all of them together. The entire weight of the Force. Rayleigh was confident that reaching either extreme of the Light and the Dark or even both together would not grant even a fraction of the Force's true power. This was the difference between being a Priest of Cthulhu or directly controlling Azathoth.
Since this path encompassed everything, that meant he was fully able to use the Dark Side as well. In fact, he was incredibly proficient at it and used it for training all the time.
The Dark Side skill Dark Transfer required Dark Side energy. The mechanism it used was very similar to the DnD spells, False Life and Revivify. False Life added temporary Hit Points and Revivify could bring the recently deceased back to life. Both were technically healing spells, but were classified under Necromancy and required Necrotic energy to cast.
The usefulness of this skill alone was enough for Rayleigh to practice his Dark Side skills, but that was not the only reason.
A child raised in a sterile bubble from birth would grow up with an incredibly weak immune system. So growing up while getting sick and injured allows for stronger adults. In the same way, the Dark Side causes harm, but that harm can be beneficial in the long run. Rayleigh believed that this was the purpose of the Dark Side. It weakened and harmed the universe so that the universe could grow stronger by overcoming it. Rayleigh used this philosophy in his training.
When Rayleigh trained, he often used the Dark Side's necrotic energy to harm and weaken his body. After the training was over, he cleansed the Dark Side energy from his taint, giving up direct control over it and allowing it to return to the Cosmic Force. By using small bouts of necrotic energy induced weakness followed by proper sessions of recovery, Rayleigh used the Dark Side to strengthen himself and the effects were outstanding.
At least to Rayleigh, this was the best way to use the Dark Side. Not use it for stolen power and try to overcome the inherent weakness, but embrace the weakness and overcome it to gain personal power.
If any proper Sith were to see what Rayleigh were doing, they'd kill him on the spot. Either for insulting everything they worked their entire lives for with his very existence or for discovering a viable method to actually use the Dark Side to gain strength that they had never considered and were too embarrassed to admit.
Even without the Balance of the Force perk, this method could be used by the Sith to strengthen and adapt their bodies to the Dark Side, but none would ever do it. Without the Balance of the Force perk, a Sith undergoing this training would lack easy access to the Living Force and would need to avoid hoarding large amounts of Dark Side energy and would even have to give up their reserves repeatedly. This training process was even slower than that of the Jedi and would not show its value without long decades of extensive physical training.
[Pacifist: If you're hunting a Krayt Dragon Pearl to use as a Lightsaber Crystal, there's no need to do so. Tatooine has a local specialty called Durindfire crystals. They aren't cheap, but they work as Force Foci for Lightsabers if you don't have access to Kyber Crystal Mines.]
[Swordsman: I'm not hunting for a pearl specifically.]
[Gambler has signed in.]
[Gambler: Hey. Apparently Lord of Madness's spaceship just exploded and he's requesting a rescue from the General Chat.]
[Blind Prophet: Of course he exploded. Thanks for letting me know.]
[Blind Prophet has signed out.]
[Fire Queen: Is he alive?]
[Deadshot: As long as you use Aura's Ren or Armament Haki when your ship explodes in space, you'll probably survive. As long as no one is looking at you or actively scanning your area, you can go from the vacuum of space directly to the Tavern and from there go to another world like the MCU. From there, go to the General Chat. There are always some lurkers there and they can sign out of the General Chat and sign into the Jedi Chat Room to let us know.]
[Gambler: Yeah. We've tested this a few times. Blindy just went to the General Chat and will find out where he exploded and get a rescue ship near his ship's debris field. When she's in place, that crazy idiot will pop back into the void of space and Blindy will direct him to a cargo hold that he can pass through.]
[Invisible Man: Even if they are looking directly at me, I can still physically go to the Tavern.]
[Pacifist: If you don't have confidence in surviving in space when aboard a ship likely to explode, make sure to wear a space suit. When you enter the Tavern, the spacesuit will stay in place and if we find it, we can position it inside a ship's cargo bay. As long as it wasn't moved much, you'll reappear inside the spacesuit when you return.]
[Deadshot: Don't listen to him. The suit absolutely will move too far which makes popping back inside impossible so it's better to turn a spacesuit into an inventory item. That way you'll always have an option to take it out and survive in space and it will remain on you when you return from the Tavern.]
Rayleigh read the comments with interest. Turning a spacesuit into an inventory item was already something recommended to him by Vash and Mechanic, but he had declined. He'd never tried it before but he was pretty sure that he could survive the vacuum of space. How'd he know that? Because by the end of his training on the Calm Belt before Mihawk picked him up, he'd spent hours at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by sea kings.
Rayleigh's desired maximum speed required more oxygen than his lungs were capable of taking in, so he had prioritized training that reduced his body's need for oxygen, replacing it with aura and delicate uses of the Force. He had to create entirely new Force skills to do so, but these would become his foundation for when he'd one day be able to move like the Flash.
Thanks to this training, Rayleigh was not worried about dying in the vacuum of space. The skills he used to reduce his need for air and his tutaminis to prevent himself from exploding or freezing due to the pressure were more than enough to survive days of non-combat or a few hours of intense combat and usage of Hatsus in a vacuum.
[Titan: Don't let that crazy idiot die. We're ten deaths ahead of the other guys and it should stay that way.]
[Pacifist: I suppose there are worse reasons to protect each other.]
[Grey Matter: You're score's out of date. A Wizard Player blew himself up last week doing some kind of magic experiment. We're up eleven deaths.]
[Titan: Nice.]
Rayleigh rolled his eyes. Somehow, the Pirates, Jedi, and Hunters lived in worlds that were far, far more dangerous than the worlds of the Warriors, Wizards, and Ninjas, yet the Players keeping track of deaths found that the survival rate of the Players in the more dangerous worlds was higher.
The popular theory was that the Hunter, Jedi, and Pirate Classes all gave Danger Sense and Danger Warning skills, allowing them to survive their world's dangers, but Rayleigh believed it was just that the Players in the 'safer' worlds were overconfident and let their guards down too easily.
In the Warrior World, the Warrior MC was the strongest and wasn't hunting anyone down. The Wizard World's strongest Magic Users were usually politicians and had no reason to hunt Players unless you gave them one. And the Ninja World did have a war, but after the war they were at peace and the Ninja MC was the strongest.
As long as no one did something stupid, no one would get killed in those worlds.
The Pirate World on the other hand still had the Immortal Elders and that Imu guy. The Hunter World had the Dark Continent. And the Jedi Galaxy had more hazards than every other world combined, not counting the MCU as they didn't know enough about it yet. While training in these worlds, there was less security so Players were less likely to screw up and explode.
After spending the night reading through the Chat and enjoying the thrill of riding close to the sound barrier under the light of the planet's three moons, Rayleigh returned to the ship the following morning to update Tails on the Krayt Dragon mission.
"Well, I do want a lightsaber and I heard that if you make a Lightsaber with one, its blade will roar like a dragon when swung." Tails was pleased with the idea, even if getting the pearl wasn't too likely.
Since the Force literally pointed the quest out for Rayleigh, he had a little more hope than his padawan did in getting something out of this.
On the day of the hunt, Rayleigh took the controls and flew the ship near the village, parking within sight of the Bantha herd at the village's edge. Tails was not a combatant so she was instructed to stay on the ship and follow him if needed.
Around the village were sporadic growths of reed-like grasses that the large bison-like Banthas used as a food source. The Sand people sometimes used them to make a rock-hard bread whose only redeeming quality was the shelf-life. Almost nothing else grew in the sun and most farms grew mushrooms by relying on devices to gather the necessary moisture from the air, while other farms set themselves on moisture plateaus and made a living just harvesting moisture itself to sell to others.
All eyes were on Rayleigh as he arrived. Unsurprisingly, he was not the only human. Even in the outer rim, humans were everywhere. He also looked the most well off of those gathered. The four other 'hunters' looked more like scrappers and part-time raiders than proper hunters or mercenaries.
The Ithorian who'd given the job spoke slowly, "You have come. Did you wish to take a payment or collect it from the remains?"
Rayleigh answered, "I don't need a payment."
The other 'hunters' gave him a dangerous look and two of them reflexively reached for a blaster at their side.
Rayleigh then added, "And I will only take to balance what I contribute. If I'm not needed, then I won't be owed any share."
Another Rodian wearing what looked like a torn and patched up old flight suit replied back, "I've already spent 5,000 peggat on the best explosive mines. Anyone who wants a share of the dragon must pay me their share of the mines."
The only human commented in fluent Huttese, "Unless you brought your own explosives and plan to place them separately. Then we'd have to plan for who can place their mines where." This younger human seemed to care little for the outcome of the negotiations and simply wanted to see some drama.
Rayleigh shook his head. "I won't be using any explosives and I won't make a move unless I'm needed." He certainly wasn't going to give them any money. After doing some mental calculations and conversions in his head, he found that the Rodian either massively overpaid for those bombs or was purposefully overstating the price to get back more from those who 'chipped in.' This was a rather easy scheme against those who didn't know how much a good mine was worth and didn't bother with basic math.
The hunters didn't believe Rayleigh's claim at all but decided not to argue for the moment.
According to the locals, the Krayt Dragon usually came when the Bantha were grazing a certain area that different farmers cycled through on a monthly basis. The first two times, they didn't even see it coming, they just heard noises and later discovered one of their Bantha was missing. The second time it happened a month later, someone saw the dragon dragging another Bantha away. Last month they put up guards and tried to drive the creature away, but it killed two villagers and took another Bantha.
That area was used by many local farmers and they all pooled together some funds to pay for some hunters. The gathered funds were to get the attention of the Hunters and to pay them if the dragon had no pearl. This was the initial deal with the Hunters and Rayleigh wasn't apart of it which was why he was treated differently and invited as a backup.
The problem with this whole mess was that they couldn't find the dragon's den. Krayt Dragons usually came in two varieties. Canyon Krayts were the size of a plane dug into rocks and used them as dens. Leviathan Krayt Dragons were five to ten times bigger and swam through the sand. Thankfully, the target was a Canyon Krayt.
Without a den, they'd have to use their brains to figure out how to trick the dragon into walking over the mines. And they couldn't spread them out either. A single mine would wound a Canyon Krayt Dragon, not kill it.
Rayleigh spent more time talking with the locals than he did participating in the planning. Training the heart required connecting to people and seeing things from their perspective and understanding their difficulties. This was far more valuable to him than a Krayt Dragon Pearl because these people had a problem that was not easy to solve. The money used to hire the hunters meant that they had less for repairs and maintenance so unless they got very lucky and nothing broke for the next year, they were practically near the point of having to sell themselves into slavery. One poor farmer that needed to pitch in couldn't even afford his share and needed to borrow money. This planet was basically run by a Cartel, so there were no safe ways to borrow money meaning that he was pretty much screwed no matter what happened.
Rayleigh heard their stories and problems and thought to himself what he would do in such situations. This was the reality of living in a real world on an unsafe planet.
If Rayleigh had simply woken up in this galaxy without any supernatural powers or the ability to leave, he would likely have tried to migrate to an Agri-World. They were technically the safest but also the most boring. Still, safe was relative. During times of war, some civilizations were willing to burn down entire Agri-Worlds if it meant denying the enemy a food supply.
The hunters had a very basic plan. Take only a single Bantha out to the field, tie it to a rock, and plant all the mines near the Bantha in the direction they last saw the Krayt Dragon come from.
Rayleigh wasn't confident in their planning, but it was far from a suicide mission so even if they failed, they weren't likely to die.
The lone Bantha was led away toward the staging ground while the others were led to a safer feeding ground. The only reason that the farmers hadn't just abandoned this area was that there was a high chance that the dragon would simply find their Bantha in other regions. The fact that this Krayt Dragon wasn't following the rules made the farmers extremely nervous, forcing them to deal with it rather than ignore it.
Rayleigh walked with the herder while the Hunters used some speeders to ride ahead and plant the mines. An hour's walk later and they arrived at the rocky outcropping. These rocks had hundreds of cracks in them which naturally gathered moisture and the reeds grew like bamboo from them.
A quick scan of the area with En and Observation Haki didn't reveal any Krayt dragon which meant it wasn't here yet or could hide from Rayleigh's senses. He doubted it was the latter. If an overgrown sand gecko could evade his senses, he had bigger concerns than the strength of his heart.
The Bantha was tied to a rock and the waiting game began. The hunters didn't even notice Rayleigh's ship arriving nearby, but that was probably because Tails was trying out the silent engines.
When one of the planet's twin stars dipped below the horizon, Rayleigh's senses noticed the new arrival. About a hundred and fifty feet long, older than a juvenile but still young from what he heard. The old ones were much larger. He'd seen plenty of skeletons more than 500 feet long in the desert. The beast' profile was that of a komodo dragon with scales thicker than a tank's armor and backward facing horns protruding from the head. Even without the Pearl, the Dragon's head was worth a lot as a show piece and the gangsters that ruled this world would pay well for one.
Unsurprisingly, the dragon was not coming in the direction of the mines. The Bantha was tied near a group of rocks that had a single opening, so they believed that the dragon would attack from that direction. The problem? From what Rayleigh observed of the creature's features, this thing was built to scale cliffs, so putting rocks in the way did not cause the beast to decide to go around.
Rayleigh didn't consider himself a savior, but he wasn't a complete asshole either. He at least did his due diligence and whistled to get the hunter's attention and pointed in the direction the dragon was marching from.
Seeing that it wasn't going to step over the mines, three of the hunters pulled out blasters and started shooting at it, trying to drive it toward the mines. The last one, the human, bailed immediately, ran to his speeder bike, and sped away.
The blaster shots did nothing to the incoming beast. The rodian shouted to move the mines, but the Krayt Dragon was surprisingly fast, giving them no time to grab all the mines and toss them into the beast's path.
The hunters screamed and ran off. If the Krayt Dragon didn't already have the Bantha as a target, it would have easily caught up to them and eaten them.
Rayleigh had conjured his Blue Sword of Babylon some time ago and had used In to make it invisible. His overly complex Hatsu had no restriction that prevented him from making his sword invisible, but he rarely had a reason to do so other than dramatic flair.
The moment the Krayt Dragon climbed up the rock, Rayleigh visualized it as an insignificant ant, a single celled bacterium, just another minor creature in the great circle of life. His blade swung. A line of light flew from his sword's edge. If it were possible to inspect this line, one would see that it was composed of dozens of strands of sword aura infused with Haki and each was the width of a line of silk.
As the Krayt Dragon reached over the rock to bite down on the panicking Bantha, its head fell off.
The Bantha broke free of its rope and started running. Thankfully, the mines were remotely activated, not proximity sensors, so the Bantha didn't explode.
Sword drawn, Rayleigh calmly walked over to the headless beast. The screaming hunters that hadn't run away started composing themselves and walking back.
Rayleigh placed a hand on the creature and used Psychometry. The odds were not in his favor as there was no Krayt Dragon Pearl, but he did figure out why this thing kept hunting Bantha.
Rayleigh asked the hunters, "Did you want to discuss..." He then tapped on the rock the dragon had fallen from. It fell apart from where it was sliced along with the dragon's neck and he continued, "Your cut?"
The Rodian shook his head, "No, no, no. I didn't do anything. My mines are still here, so I'll just collect them and leave, yes?"
Rayleigh motioned for him to leave and the other hunters took their own speeder bikes and left. Once they were gone, Rayleigh walked up to the Ithorian and said, "This one doesn't have a pearl and I'm not interested in trophies. You can have the corpse. Have a good day."
Considering how slowly Ithorians spoke, it would have taken all day for the alien to express his gratitude, so Rayleigh didn't bother to wait and just walked over to the space Tails had parked the ship. The money from selling the Krayt Dragon's head as a trophy and the rest for meat and leather would help the farmers a little.
Tails opened up the cargo hatch and asked, "Are we taking the corpse?"
Rayleigh shook his head. "Not this one."
Understanding the implication, Tails asked, "There's another one?"
"Yeah. This one is male and the other one is female. Not sure why, but this one has been giving the other one Bantha corpses. Courtship thing I guess."
Psychometry showed Rayleigh the Krayt Dragon's life and where it lived. No wonder no one found it.
In the desert, there were massive underground plant-like creatures called Sarlaccs. The dragon that the dead one was courting killed a sarlacc and used the hole it lived in as a den rather than a canyon cave. Finding the den meant looking for a hole in the ground which was far more difficult than looking for a canyon cliff or wall.
Tails asked, "Oh! Can I kill this one?"
Rayleigh shrugged, "Fine with me. I'll draw it out."
They flew the ship to where Rayleigh's psychometry told him the hole was and parked a few hundred feet away before Rayleigh got out and walked over to the hole.
Although Rayleigh's mastery over using the Earth as a sword was lacking, he could still use a few tricks. Rayleigh plunged his sword into the ground and flicked the edge with his finger. The sword seemed to merge with the earth and amplify the sound, causing the ground to vibrate, announcing their presence.
A roar was heard from the hole. The Krayt Dragon that jumped out was very small compared to the other one. It was also very red. Its horns jutted up rather than to the back. When it landed on the ground, it leaned back and stood on only its back legs for a moment. Rayleigh had never heard of a red one of these from the locals. Since it was smaller and cooler looking, he might have been willing to take this one as a trophy.
Then its head exploded followed by the sound of the Vulpine Hunter's cannon firing. Tails saying she wanted to kill it meant using the ship's weapon since she had little combat ability herself.
After confirming that it was dead, Tails came out of the ship and asked, "Why is it red?"
Rayleigh slowly turned to his apprentice and said, "Since it's your kill, the prize is also yours. It's not too big, so it shouldn't take you too long to see if it has a pearl."
"Wait. You want me to.. Oh no. No no no no no. Have HK-47 do it."
"You can ask him if you want to."
"But he's your droid! You can make him do it!"
"And you're my padawan. Technically, he's your senior."
Tails looked contemplative for a bit before returning to the ship and bargaining with HK-47. Rayleigh wasn't sure what she promised him, but HK did eventually come out with some tools and pulled a shiny crimson pearl from the dragon's corpse.
Tails almost squealed, "It's crimson red! Doesn't that mean that my lightsaber will be red? I love it! Now we just need to make a lightsaber."
Ironically, Rayleigh's Lightsaber Customization Kit was not useful in this situation. It had unlimited extra parts and pieces, but if used on anything but his own lightsaber, the used pieces vanished when he put the kit back into his inventory. So they had to go somewhere that had the pieces and parts needed so that Tails could make her own.
Just when he was planning on what to do next, he noticed something in the chat room.
[Swordmaster: Hey Swordsman. I challenge you to a duel.]