Blade-Tusk Beast Trail and the State of Early Education

Their discussion of "elements" had not gone very deeply before, the moment they left the basement, a warrior came looking for them.

"Witch Doctor, they've found the Blade-Tusk Beast. The Old Witch Doctor told the squad I'm in charge of to protect you on the way there."

"Oh, oh, it's Frost Tusk. Wait a moment, I'll go get ready."

After greeting the warrior, Middle Witch Doctor turned back to Blade Tusk and asked, "Want to come along? If I remember right, you've never actually left the tribe, have you?"

Blade Tusk hesitated. Just as Middle Witch Doctor had said, he truly had never left the tribe.

But after thinking it over, he decided it would be better not to create any unnecessary complications. There would be plenty of chances in the future.

"Not this time. I'll find another chance later. Be careful."

"Alright, I'm heading out first. Oh, right—stop fussing with that 'meat preservation' of yours. Get a good day's rest. We've got plenty of time."

"Got it, got it."

Seeing that same perfunctory reply, Middle Witch Doctor laughed and scolded him before turning to leave.

But before he had taken more than a few steps, Blade Tusk called out again.

"Middle Witch Doctor, don't let your guard down. I suspect the Magic Beast's 'elemental protection' isn't weak. Try to deal with it using 'material-state' spells."

Middle Witch Doctor did not stop walking. He merely waved a hand to show that he understood.

Frost Tusk, who had been waiting nearby, also nodded to Blade Tusk and said, "Then, Witch Doctor Blade Tusk, I'll be going too."

"Mm. You all be careful as well."

"Alright."

Once the two Trolls had gone far away, Blade Tusk headed back toward his own house, still mulling over the matter of "food storage."

In the end, he even considered whether he could join forces with the other witch doctors, exhaust themselves several times over, create a large quantity of ice, and store it in the basement to simulate the conditions of a refrigerator.

But beautiful as the idea was, reality was cruel. Leaving aside the time and energy costs the witch doctors would have to spend, and setting aside the issue of ice loss, simply figuring out how to make ice was already a considerable obstacle.

Using the current rough method of classifying Magic Beasts, most of the known Magic Beasts in the Black Forest were of the "fire" and "wind" types.

Of the remainder, most were "earth" and "water" types.

There were also a very small number of "constitution," "psychic," and "wood" types.

"Ice" and "metal" types, meanwhile, existed only in fantasy. None had ever been found.

And the current spell system was built precisely upon imitating the operating mechanisms of "magic cores."

Therefore, without a sample of an "ice-type magic core," witch doctors had no means of creating ice.

As for Blade Tusk's meager knowledge of physics from his previous life, it was not enough to support him in achieving this goal through "compound spellcasting" methods like "wind + water."

Besides, this supposed "wind + water = ice" was only a conjecture he had gotten from watching Naruto in his previous life. It had no theoretical basis whatsoever; whether it even held true was another question.

At the very least, in experiments he had conducted under the baffled yet impressed gazes of the other witch doctors, he had blown wind at water for quite a while—and gotten no ice at all.

Everything in the world seemed to be forever in relative motion. While Blade Tusk buried himself in thought over how to store food, the tribe was also steadily developing.

Little Troll A did not yet have a name of his own. Only after growing into a subadult, joining the hunting team to learn, and successfully hunting independently for the first time would he receive his own exclusive designation.

This day, just as dawn was breaking, Little Troll A woke together with the companions who shared his large communal sleeping platform, roused by the guards' rough shouts.

The resolution to "establish an introductory meditation method" had been passed quite some time ago. The Old Witch Doctor's Geometry Meditation Method had already been successfully simplified and had become a daily compulsory lesson for the little Trolls.

At the crack of dawn, the little Trolls began their new day with group meditation.

First, they had to imagine a point and make that point move within their thoughts, rather than across their eyelids.

Next, they had to turn the point into a line, the line into a plane, and then into a solid. After that, they had to transform "simple solids" into "complex solids." This was undoubtedly a difficult process.

Meditating within one's mind was not as easy as intuition would have one believe. The restless, leaping thought patterns of intelligent life turned this meditation into an ordeal.

Little Troll A was facing just such a predicament now.

The harder he tried to focus on those so-called "points and lines," the more the darkness behind his eyelids—and the flickering, grain-of-sand-like specks of light within it—pulled his thoughts away of their own accord.

No, no, I can't look at my eyelids. I have to ignore everything and imagine this darkness as a space that belongs only to me.

Thinking this, the little Troll once more tried his best to gather back his scattered thoughts, wanting to make that initial "point" move and fix its path of movement in place.

What will breakfast be? I wonder what prey the uncles from the hunting team will bring back today. "Uncles"—that's how you use it, right? These new words all seem to have been created by that youngest witch doctor. Witch doctors... who's stronger, them or warriors?

Ah! Why am I letting my thoughts wander again? Point... where's the point? Warriors still seem cooler, though.

Focus, drift, focus, drift. Amid the same inner struggle shared by the vast majority of little Trolls, the lamp-hour of meditation came to an end.

"Alright. Next, you have half a lamp-hour. Hurry up and eat, use the toilet, then come back here for class."

The one speaking was an adult warrior standing at the front of the little Trolls of all ages.

His name was Night Tusk, and he was one of the first few Trolls to become literate.

After many discussions, the temporary resolution made by the "decision-making group" stipulated that all literate warriors would take turns teaching the little Trolls literacy and common knowledge, while the witch doctors took over subjects such as "mathematics" and "physics."

Basic textbooks for each "subject" had also been compiled some time earlier and were gradually, bit by bit, introduced into the little Trolls' education.

They included four subjects: "Literacy," "Common Sense," "Mathematics," and "Physics."

Of these, "Mathematics" and "Physics" had been forcefully recalled by Blade Tusk from the few impressions he retained. The knowledge points were scattered and unsystematic.

The mathematics portion included positive and negative numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, semicolons, and simple two- and three-variable equations—more or less elementary-school knowledge from his previous life.

Blade Tusk remembered this part quite clearly.

As for simple geometry—the area and volume formulas for squares and cubes, calculating a triangle's side lengths, the concept of angles, and other basic material—there had not been much of a problem either.

But anything more complicated... forgive him, but who knew how many years had passed since he graduated high school? Those formulas and theorems he never used in daily life had long since been tossed off to Java.

And in university, he had studied law. The school had not offered them courses like advanced mathematics at all.

While writing, he had tried to recall what he had learned in middle and high school. The results had been too dreadful to look at!!! It was simply too shameful.

Later, though, he had gone online and looked through the knowledge points again, only to discover that it was not that he had forgotten all the "knowledge"—he had forgotten the fact that "I learned this." When it came to specific content, if he had something like an outline of questions, he could still recall some of it. It was just a little blurry and needed to be memorized again.

He breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that he had finally escaped the ranks of the "illiterate."