Still Have to Try Hard

To keep himself from straying further down a path of injustice, Zul'ra forced himself to study some ranged offensive spells. This was necessary; he had been lucky to win against Mepgira, but heaven knows if he could be lucky every time.

Prevention is better than cure, and one should catch the arrow before it is fired. Zul'ra highly approved of the philosophy of Han Feizi regarding nipping trouble in the bud. For his own safety, he decided to set about developing ranged offensive spells and stopped observing other distracting things.

Zul'ra first checked his various knowledge and spells. The knowledge he was currently learning was mostly in the areas of Voodoo and Druidism. The common ground between these two fields was the applied research on natural plants, so he decided to focus on poisons.

With his professional expertise and some unique insights, Zul'ra's understanding of medicine far exceeded that of other Witch Doctors, so his research progressed rapidly. He soon organized a pile of knowledge on poisons, but he faced another problem: how to apply them?

Poison is a very dangerous substance, and there are many ways to make it act upon an enemy. One could make it into a liquid or powder to scatter at the enemy, or indirectly coat it on weapons to inflict harm. However, these methods were neither safe nor easy to scale, let alone achieve ranged lethality.

After some thought, Zul'ra finally shifted his target, turning his research from finished poisons to microorganisms. Among the Druid knowledge he had learned from Talanji, much of it concerned microorganisms.

The microorganisms studied by Druids are usually plant-based. By familiarizing themselves with the habits of these microbes, they use the power of nature to manipulate them, employing them to cultivate or stimulate the growth of special plants.

Occasionally, Druids also use microorganisms directly in combat. For example, when shapeshifting into a beast, they might coat their claws with certain fungi, which prevents the enemy's wounds from healing and causes lacerating damage.

Borrowing from the knowledge of the Druids, Zul'ra searched for plant microorganisms in the natural world. He observed them, screened for harmless ones, communicated with them using the power of nature, and then placed them into a biological dish to proliferate.

Once the goals of proliferation and manipulation were achieved, Zul'ra searched the Zandalari Trolls' island for social insects like ants and bees. He threw them into the biological dish to undergo microbial modification, accepted his control, and then proceeded to breed them.

Using the Gu arts he had seen on Earth as a blueprint, Zul'ra successfully obtained two Gu mothers: an Ant Queen and a Bee Queen. They could produce a steady stream of ant colonies and bee colonies under his control. The only drawback was that these two types of "Gu" had no real attack power; at most, they could harass others with their numbers, and a bit of thick smoke could drive away a large swarm.

What is lost in the east is gained in the west. Although Zul'ra made little progress in Gu arts, he opened up a new market in microbiology. Since the Ant Gu and Bee Gu were unsuccessful, he went to study other insects with powerful abilities.

To better research Gu arts, Zul'ra took leave from the Rastali guard and went alone to the Nazmir swamp. That swampy area was a paradise for microorganisms, plants, and insects, though it was a bit dangerous.

The Zandalari Trolls' island has three main regions: Zuldazar, Vol'dun, and Nazmir. Beyond these three areas, the Mujaba Mountains stretch across the center of Zuldazar. Atal'Dazar, the tomb where the kings rest, one of the three great pyramids of the Zandalari Trolls, sits atop that mountain peak.

Zuldazar is the capital of the Zandalari Trolls, Vol'dun is a desert left behind after the life force was devoured by the Aqir army, and Nazmir is a vast swampy area—the territory of the Blood Trolls.

The Blood Trolls, like the Forest Trolls and Jungle Trolls, are a branch of the trolls. However, the origin of the Blood Trolls is an exception. They are not an early branch like the Forest Trolls or Jungle Trolls, but appeared after The Sundering ten thousand years ago.

The Night Elves lured the Burning Legion into this world. Although they successfully drove the demons away by using the explosion of the Well of Eternity, the only continental plate, the Ancient Kalimdor Continent, was also shattered. That catastrophe is known as The Sundering.

During the catastrophe of The Sundering, the Zandalari Trolls, under the instruction of the Loa, deployed a massive magical barrier that saved Vol'dun, Nazmir, and Zuldazar from the disaster. And it was after that disaster—or more accurately, after a plague within the disaster—that things changed.

At the time, during the final period of The Sundering, a blood plague triggered a catastrophe that swept across the entire Zandalari Trolls' territory. Thousands of trolls died as a result. To properly dispose of the dead trolls, the Zandalari Trolls implemented large-scale cremation, a custom that is still preserved in Zuldazar and some troll societies to this day.

After The Sundering and the great plague, some trolls became conversely obsessed with those plagues. They derived a type of blood energy from them and developed it into a complete set of blood magic, which is also the origin of their name.

Blood magic can be applied to totems. They drain blood and life force from enemies and inject it into the caster's body in unusual ways. This magic also pollutes surrounding creatures, twisting them into a kind of blood beast.

Because of the evil nature of blood magic, the Zandalari Trolls chose to exile those pale-skinned, blue-tinted, and increasingly cruel distant relatives to Nazmir and attempted to exterminate them. However, this goal failed for various reasons, and the Blood Trolls took root in Nazmir.

While researching biology in Nazmir, Zul'ra quietly observed the Blood Trolls, who decorated themselves with biological bones and were still in a primitive matriarchal society. He discovered that these distant relatives worshipped a Loa named G'huun, whom they called the Blood God, though he did not know what his true form was!

Although he did not know what G'huun's true form was, Zul'ra felt that he was definitely not to be trifled with. Their blood magic was formidable; not only could it seize the life force and blood of others to strengthen the caster, but it could also twist surrounding creatures and beasts, turning them into blood beasts—monstrous in appearance and ferocious in temperament.

Zul'ra quietly hunted some twisted Blood Ticks, attempting to refine them into Gu insects using his biological dish. The result was not what he wanted; not only did he lose contact with the microorganisms that were previously under his control, but he also felt as if his spirit had been accidentally opened to some kind of spiritual perception, leading to what seemed like auditory hallucinations.

Those voices, which felt like hallucinations, drifted by his ears, yet he could not hear them clearly when he tried to listen. Every time this happened, Zul'ra felt an uncontrollable irritability, filled with depression and anger. These mounting distracting thoughts caused his tracks to be exposed during an observation of the Blood Trolls, leading to his discovery by the enemy.

After being discovered, Zul'ra immediately faced a pursuit by the Blood Trolls and had to flee Nazmir in an emergency. However, he was still hit by a blowpipe dart halfway. Fortunately, his luck was good; those "distant relatives" seemed to prefer capturing "kin" like him alive rather than killing them, so the substance smeared on the blowpipe dart was a sedative rather than a poison.