Though he had reached a compromise with the Witch Doctors of Jintha'Alor, Zul'ra still hadn't let his guard down around them. After all, these fellows wielded considerable influence in Jintha'Alor. They might seem to share his views now, but that was only because he was in a position of strength and they were weak. If the situation changed, they might well turn on him.
To guard against that, Zul'ra didn't dare let the Witch Doctors teach the Vilebranch Trolls directly. Instead, he had them begin by instructing his still-illiterate followers and the other soldiers. Among the three hundred followers he'd brought with him were literate craftsmen and farmers, but they were all skilled laborers now and couldn't be spared.
While the Witch Doctors held classes for his followers and soldiers, Zul'ra kept busy too. He personally guided the political atmosphere and got the Vilebranch Trolls and soldiers to help with production. During their breaks, he taught them history, spread new ideas, and helped them develop a sound worldview.
Besides keeping an eye on politics and production, Zul'ra also made time for his own projects. For instance, he got the craftsmen to try making paper. Paper was a powerful tool for spreading knowledge, and there was good reason it was hailed as one of the Four Great Inventions.
Azeroth had some paper, but most of it was parchment. Parchment was rarely used for records in Troll society. For one thing, most Trolls were illiterate; for another, they believed animal hide would decay easily and couldn't withstand the passage of time. They usually carved important things into stone tablets instead.
Zul'ra wanted to make paper to help spread knowledge more quickly, but papermaking wasn't easy, and he had no detailed knowledge of the process. He knew that paper was made by beating plants into pulp, since pulp was made from plant fibers, but he had no clear idea what steps were involved, how to beat the pulp, or how to form the sheets. He would have to experiment little by little.
So, aside from trying to make paper, Zul'ra had to find other things to occupy himself. While rummaging around, he came across several stone tablets left behind by Hex. Written in Zandali, they contained information about Hakkar the Soulflayer, as well as instructions for worshipping him.
Zul'ra studied the tablets carefully. He had no interest in worshipping Hakkar, but he was quite interested in some of the magical knowledge they contained. Besides being called the Soulflayer and the destroyer and protector of the Gurubashi Empire, Hakkar was also known as the Blood God.
That's right: the Loa who had once enslaved the Jungle Trolls of the Gurubashi Empire shared a title with the Old God imprisoned beneath Zandalar. And the two not only shared a title; their priests also had similar abilities. Both wielded blood as a source of magical power.
In Nazmir, Zul'ra had seen the Blood Trolls' magic with his own eyes. They poured their power into totem poles, which absorbed their enemies' blood and life force, then somehow sent them straight back into the bodies of the casters.
The Blood Trolls' blood magic resembled Hex's magic, but there were differences. That day, Hex had drawn blood directly from her wounded guard and turned it into energy, pouring it into her last remaining guard. The Vilebranch Troll's strength had surged in an instant, and Zul'ra had paid dearly for it.
After encountering blood magic twice, Zul'ra couldn't help becoming interested. He carefully studied the tablets Hex had left behind and analyzed the knowledge within them. Whether it was the Old God's blood magic used by the Blood Trolls or Hakkar's blood magic used by Hex, both involved manipulating blood through an intermediary like a Loa and turning it into energy.
Though Zul'ra was fascinated by blood magic, he didn't want to deal with those evil Loa. So he explored ways to do without an intermediary and use his own magic to control blood. But blood wasn't easy to manipulate directly.
Blood was a physical liquid, unlike energies such as shadow and hexes. It flowed through living bodies, and Zul'ra could sense that his magic couldn't affect it. However, he discovered that the blood in his own body had a mysterious connection to his life force.
Magic couldn't do anything to the blood inside him, but Zul'ra knew that he could control his life force through breathing and the power of his mind. So he slowly tried to use his life force to control the blood in his body. Blood and life force were mysteriously connected.
Gradually, Zul'ra began to feel that the blood and life force inside him were like fuel and an engine. Whenever his life force grew strong, he felt the temperature of his blood rise. And whenever his life force flowed gently through his body, his blood likewise moved quietly through his veins, nourishing his organs.
But unlike fuel and an engine, which depended on each other, blood and life force each existed independently. They flowed through the body separately, serving it and merely influencing each other. From his old memories, Zul'ra recalled a more fitting way to describe their relationship: qi and blood.
Qi, blood, and bodily fluids formed the material basis of traditional Chinese medicine's understanding of the human body. Qi referred to the body's life force, while blood meant actual blood. Bodily fluids, meanwhile, referred to the various secretions within the body. Much of traditional Chinese medicine's approach to health involved regulating these substances to nourish the internal organs.
Zul'ra had once been a code slave and had skimmed a few theories of traditional Chinese medicine. As time passed, those memories had faded, but he could still dig them out from the depths of his mind through meditation.
Drawing on the traditional Chinese medicine theories of qi and blood and of yin and yang, Zul'ra worked out a method: by regulating the life force and blood in his body, he could gain the ability to control blood and, in turn, strengthen his body.
Blood was a basic substance that made up the human body and sustained its vital functions. It flowed throughout the body, providing nourishment and moisturizing the organs, skin, muscles, tendons, and bones. Blood also contained red and white blood cells, which held human DNA.
He remembered an American blockbuster in which scientists extracted blood from mosquitoes that had sucked the blood of prehistoric dinosaurs, then used it to isolate the dinosaurs' genetic sequences and clone various species back to life. If he could control blood, would that mean he could control genes and bloodlines?
If he could control genes, he could strengthen his body however he wanted. If he thought his strength was too low, he could add ant genes. Trolls had about the same lifting ability as humans, and could lift at most twice their body weight. Zul'ra had never exceeded that limit either. But if he got ant genes, he could lift objects weighing twenty times his own body weight.
From the bits and pieces of scientific knowledge he'd gathered, Zul'ra glimpsed an incredibly promising future. He began cautiously testing his theories, using breath and intention to control the qi in his body—that was, to make his life force grow stronger and more vigorous.
Life force and blood influenced each other. When his life force grew stronger, his blood naturally grew hotter and began to boil. The two were like water and fire, yin and yang, affecting each other.
The feeling of his blood boiling inside him was unpleasant. It felt as if he were immersed in scalding water, while his muscles, bones, and organs seemed to be burning. Every time he raised his life force, it took only a few minutes before he could hardly stand it, and had to lower his body's "temperature."
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