A Simple Understanding of the "World"

Days passed, and the little troll gradually grew.

Among trolls, the bonds of a small family seemed rather fragile. Ever since he could remember—though he was not quite sure how much time had passed—it had undoubtedly been quite a while. The little troll had never once seen his so-called "father," while his mother's initial meticulous care had gradually turned into impatience. Not long after he was weaned, she vanished from his life entirely.

After his initial confusion, the little troll quickly realized that everyone was the same. So after remarking, This actually works? he happily accepted the arrangement. After all, he did not particularly want to be someone else's son again. Having the pair of parents from his previous life was enough.

Of course, he still had to remember the kindness of his birth mother in this life. No matter what, she had suppressed her instincts and raised him until he was naturally weaned. He would have to remember to repay that kindness someday. As for his biological father, he could remain a stranger—ah, no, a strange troll. They did not know each other in the first place.

Returning to troll society, the trolls' care for their children naturally did not mean leaving them to fate after weaning. No matter how tough little trolls were, they could not withstand that.

The children here were raised collectively by the tribe after weaning.

As for food alone, whenever the tribe's warriors returned from hunting, they specifically set aside part of the harvest. The witch doctors distributed it among children of different ages until they grew as tall as an adult troll's chest. During that time, the witch doctors taught the children knowledge. The lessons were not particularly complicated, ranging from language to common sense, all taught in a haphazard, crammed-down fashion—rough and inefficient.

Besides, there was always enough food. Sometimes, even when the harvest was poor, the children's meals were prioritized after the adult warriors' rations were secured. Thus, the little trolls, stuffing themselves with meat, were brimming with energy. With practically no learning tasks, they had plenty of time every day to fight, play, and fool around. It was an excellent childhood.

Through that rough education, the little troll came to understand many things and discovered many problems.

First, the place where everyone lived was called the Black Forest. It was vast, and there was no precedent of the tribe's ancestors ever having left it. Of course, perhaps some had gone out and simply failed to return. There were many possibilities, but the Black Forest was indeed enormous.

Second, his own tribe called itself the Tusk Tribe, believing its tusks to be sharper and more beautiful than those of other troll tribes. Whether that was true remained uncertain. Trolls generally regarded tusks as one of the most important measures of beauty, so it was hardly surprising that they boasted about themselves in that regard.

Third, there were many troll tribes throughout the vast Black Forest. There was no such thing as stable diplomacy between them; it could even be said that they had no concept of diplomacy at all. A tribe that was as close as brothers today might turn hostile tomorrow. Furthermore, among the many tribes, the Tusk Tribe was said to be relatively powerful. Its warlike chiefs often held duels between tribes to display their valor. Of course, the little troll found this meaningless. Everyone survived through gathering and hunting. They could not abduct people to strengthen themselves because they could not afford to feed them, nor was there any grain worth plundering. What was the point of winning a pile of junk that could only be used to decorate tusks?

Of course, perhaps the tribe had its own reasons for doing so. It was just that the little troll, having grown up in modern society, did not understand them.

Fourth, the tribe's development was relatively primitive.

This primitiveness showed itself in several ways: first, they lived in simple wooden huts and used weapons made of wood, bone, and stone; second, their stone-working methods were crude, and even grinding a spearhead or a small axe was considered a major project; third, they lived by gathering and hunting, with no concept of animal husbandry or farming; fourth, their use of metal remained at the stage of "processing" naturally occurring soft metals—meaning they simply kneaded them into different shapes with brute force—and these were mainly used as ornaments; fifth, they had no means of making fire and ate raw food.

Speaking of raw food, especially raw meat, the little troll found it particularly hard to accept. It was not a physiological issue; the facts proved that trolls could eat raw meat without any problem. It was a psychological barrier. The values formed over nearly thirty years in his previous life were especially stubborn in this regard.

He had considered ways to solve the problem, such as rubbing sticks together to make fire. Apart from modern methods of starting fires, that was the only fire-making method he had ever heard of.

However, he nearly drilled through the wood without producing even the slightest spark... Helpless, he gave up and could only do his best to adjust himself to the environment.

Sixth, the troll tribes—or at least the nearby tribes—had no systematic writing.

When teaching them, the witch doctors generally used physical objects for instruction. Even when something resembling teaching materials occasionally appeared, it was because the actual object was inconvenient to obtain, so it could only be drawn as a picture for easier instruction.

He had carefully observed the witch doctors' "teaching materials," and special symbols did indeed appear from time to time.

At first, he thought they were writing. But after asking in detail, he discovered that they were merely simple symbols created by the makers to help themselves remember things. They were not universal and had no communicative function.

The little troll quietly noted this and decided that once he was a little older, he would try to create a writing system. As for why he did not bring it up now, there was no particularly complicated reason. He simply felt that if he raised the matter now, it would likely slip beyond his control and develop into something completely unfamiliar and primitive, which would be troublesome to learn.

He was still hoping to recreate a set of Chinese characters. As for how to combine Chinese characters with Troll Language, he had not figured that out yet. If they truly could not be made compatible, then forcing together a phonetic writing system with the Latin alphabet would not be impossible.

In any case, he would wait until he was a little older.

Seventh, the troll tribes had no complete concept of a calendar, and their understanding of seasons and time was extremely crude. Major seasonal periods depended on the witch doctors' experience, while shorter spans of time were divided according to habit.

The major periods were divided into "great hunt" and "small hunt" based on how easy it was to obtain prey. However, there were no consistent rules that could be followed, and the terms were also mixed with directional concepts, so they were not used exclusively to indicate seasons.

For example, before a hunt, the witch doctors would perform a series of inexplicable rituals: smelling the soil, tasting the wind, observing the patterns of leaves, and so on. After another round of mysterious discussion, they would conclude that a certain direction was a "great hunt." The tribe's warriors would then hunt according to that conclusion.

They did have the concept of a "day." One cycle of light and darkness was one day, called a "day-night." However, the tribe lived deep in dense forest and was not very sensitive to sunrise and sunset. Nor did they have any need for precision.

Thus, their concept of the day-night cycle was also quite broad. They simply went by feel.

As for concepts such as "year, season, month, hour, minute, and second," they were blank. They basically made do with broad and inconsistent "units" such as "a very, very long time ago," "a while," "a little while," "a bit longer," and "the time it takes to walk from here to there."

Without a calendar, there was naturally no concept of age.

The growth of little trolls was described through measures such as "shin-high, thigh-high, lower-belly-high, chest-high, shoulder-high," and so on.

Shin-high trolls were weaned and began being raised together; thigh-high trolls began learning combat skills or witch doctor knowledge; lower-belly-high trolls could begin intense physical training; chest-high trolls followed hunting parties to learn how to hunt; shoulder-high trolls could barely be considered official warriors.

The person used as the standard was usually the current chief—the strongest warrior in the tribe at that time.

Furthermore, a female troll's pregnancy lasted roughly as long as it took a newborn little troll to grow shin-high.

In short,

Amid this series of problems, the little troll overcame many difficulties, from eating raw food to his increasingly blurred sense of passing days. Relying on the natural toughness of his species, he finally grew to thigh-height and faced the tribe's assessment for witch doctor aptitude.

It was said that little trolls who passed the assessment would have a completely different way of growing up.

Although the witch doctors were mysterious and rather incomprehensible, their social status did not seem lower than the chief's, and their numbers were extremely small. No matter what, the little troll decided to give it his all. Yet without knowing how the test would be conducted, he seemed to have no clear direction in which to work. He could only wait.