Tribal Stability and His Own Bottleneck

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

As the witch doctors had expected, the "vote" turned into a chaotic farce, with supporters of every proposal arguing until they were red in the face.

In the end, even the supposed order became a mirage. Relying on their thick hides and tough flesh, the Trolls broke into one full-blown brawl after another.

Faced with this situation, the witch doctors chose to intervene before matters escalated any further.

The six full-fledged witch doctors joined forces from the high ground and cast a spell with a "shock" effect upon the Voting Plaza.

Only then did the Trolls below, dizzy and disoriented, stop what they were doing.

The Shock Spell's effects did not last long on the Trolls, but it was enough to make them calm down.

Next, the tribe convened a general assembly attended by every Troll above subadult age.

At the meeting, Blade Tusk spoke as the witch doctors' representative, delivering a speech titled "Our Future."

During the speech, he focused on introducing the witch doctors' plans for the tribe's future—things such as the "Rune Assembly," the "House of Commons," the "Chief Executive," "terms of office," "laws," and "rights and obligations."

Taking the earlier farce as an opportunity, he proposed the concept of "a two-hundred-year period of political tutelage centered on the Rune Council."

Afterward, he had all attending Trolls vote by raising their hands on three issues: "establishing the Rune Assembly," "preparing the House of Commons," and "political tutelage by the witch doctors."

They were required to express only one of two positions: "agree" or "disagree." Raise a hand for the former; leave it down for the latter.

And so, amid silence, all three proposals passed without much trouble.

With the endorsement of every Troll above subadult age, the Rune Assembly officially became a formal institution with legal legitimacy from that day onward.

Even if the Trolls did not yet understand what "legal legitimacy" actually was, the witch doctors had already grasped the relevant concept and understood that, to some extent, it granted their rule "justice."

With "justice," the work of the various committees could formally begin with perfect legitimacy.

First, the Election Committee entered the nomination process for the Chief Executive.

After an election process with clearly defined rules, conducted under the guidance of "political tutelage," the current Chieftain successfully transitioned into the first Chief Executive and began nominating the members of the cabinet.

Under the framework of "political tutelage," the cabinet ministers served more as "apprentices" and "undersecretaries." After reviewing and interviewing the nominees, the witch doctors appointed them quite decisively, then placed them—together with the previously selected "House of Commons candidates"—into the various committees.

After that, the tribe's construction plan was also decided through discussion among the council members.

The witch doctors chose a more nature-friendly "treehouse" plan and prepared to develop corresponding "functional trees."

Having preliminarily set the direction for a series of policy matters, Blade Tusk, who had no intention of meddling in the specifics, finally entered a long-awaited "idle period."

But that did not mean he truly became idle. The Old Witch Doctor's impending end, and the bottleneck on the path of witch doctors, were the new challenges before him.

The former was easy to understand. The Old Witch Doctor was simply too old. Having already passed the stable phase of old age, he could die at any moment.

The latter was a problem Blade Tusk had only recently become aware of.

Simply put, the path of a witch doctor was the joint growth of physique and spirit. Yet while the spiritual side continued to advance under the aid of meditation techniques, the physical side had stalled, constrained by natural selection.

"Prime adulthood" was the peak of a Troll's physique in its natural state. No matter how much conventional training came afterward, it could no longer bring significant improvement.

Thus, the "path of the witch doctor," which had originally advanced on two legs, suddenly collapsed as though it had gone lame. His "control precision" was increasing, but there had been no progress whatsoever in his "total mana."

On top of that, qualitative change had yet to arrive. If Blade Tusk did not think of a solution soon, his so-called "path of the witch doctor" would forever have only two ranks: apprentice and full-fledged witch doctor.

Still, it was not as though he had no direction.

The common knowledge from his previous life told him that matter and energy shared a complex, two-sided relationship.

He did not need to understand it too deeply. Based on that simple understanding alone, Blade Tusk could reach a conclusion: since he could not convert more energy from the matter he already possessed, then he needed to find a way to increase the total amount of matter he possessed.

Of course, this "possession" did not mean stuffing himself senseless. The specific method would have to blaze another trail.

For example, didn't his previous life have concepts like atomic nuclei capturing electrons and neutrons?

He did not know much about the specific principles or processes, but he intended to draw upon that "form."

He would regard the body as a whole composed of countless "basic particles." It did not matter whether those "basic particles" were "elements" or something else. He would use them to capture free particles from the outside world, thereby increasing his own "mass."

As for the prerequisite that allowed spells to function in this world, the witch doctors had already reached a relatively unified understanding: so-called "elemental activity."

If that hypothesis held true, then it was equivalent to giving him the external conditions needed for experimentation.

The main problem now was that he did not come from a science background, and his relevant knowledge was severely lacking.

But that could not stump him. In a world where consciousness could, to a certain extent, "directly" affect matter, there was nothing that could not be imagined into being.

He followed the same old steps. First, he constructed a model of a single "element" within his sea of consciousness. Then, through self-hypnosis, he connected it to a certain "point" within his physical body.

Constructing the "element" model was a process of constant trial and error. Since the "element" needed to capture "free particles," it naturally had to be a composite body.

Taking this into account, and combining it with the basic atomic theories of his previous life, Blade Tusk first tried to simulate an "element" structure composed of "a single nucleus plus a single outer particle," then attempted to link it to reality through meditation.

To his surprise, it actually worked. It truly connected to some target. But because that target was far too tiny for the current Blade Tusk, and because he still lacked cell-level "observation," the gap in scale between them left him unable to "see" it.

But that had been inevitable from the start. He would just have to honestly influence it indirectly through meditation.

However—

"One proton plus one electron. Isn't that hydrogen?"

Did that mean the question that had troubled him for so long about the material structure of another world had just been resolved so easily?

Maybe it did. Maybe it did not.

But since this structure truly existed within his body, then no matter what it was, Blade Tusk had a way to put it to use.

After all, the effect of "spiritual power" when applied to oneself was far more intense than when exerted upon the outside world.

Science is so hard. The time it takes to study the material and the efficiency of turning it into writing are just too low.