Clay Tablet Records and a New Direction

When it came to innovations in knowledge carriers, paper was naturally the first thing that came to mind.

Yet after thinking it over carefully, he realized that aside from vaguely remembering that reeds and scraps of cloth were needed, he knew nothing else. He did not even know where to obtain reeds or cloth scraps.

With that, papermaking was the first option to be discarded.

Next, he thought of carving wooden boards.

However, leaving aside problems such as insect damage, wooden boards might not even last longer than bark. More importantly, without suitable metal tools, obtaining wooden boards would also be a major problem. The tribe's ability to process wood was limited. Their current methods could hardly be called "processing"; they merely used materials according to their original size and shape.

Third, he thought of bamboo slips.

His background from his previous life gave him a fondness for such traditional things, so he had naturally considered recreating them. However, there were no traces of similar plants anywhere within the tribe's explored territory, so the bamboo-slip plan was declared dead.

Finally, he remembered the Clay Tablet Records of Ancient Babylon or somewhere similar, and realized that this seemed like a viable path.

That proved to be the case. In the end, he succeeded.

But the setbacks he encountered along the way could not be ignored. After all, he had been a humanities student in his previous life, studying law from university onward. What did he know about making clay tablets? He had to guess his way through everything.

In Blade Tusk's imagination, the process should have been: 1. Dig up soil; 2. Add water; 3. Shape it while soft; 4. Carve the contents; 5. Let it dry.

So simple. Didn't that mean anyone with hands could do it? Yet reality immediately slapped him twice across the face.

It turned out that choosing the soil alone was a field of study.

If it was not sticky enough, it would fall apart as soon as it dried. If it was too sticky, adding even a little water turned it into paste, making it impossible to carve anything. There were countless other problems besides.

The opportunity for success came from the witch doctors.

When he had first started doing this, the witch doctors had said nothing. A young Troll being lively was fine, as long as it did not interfere with his studies. But repeated failures eventually affected Blade Tusk's learning efficiency. By then, the witch doctors were already somewhat angry. Finally, after he seriously lost focus during one "lesson," the Old Witch Doctor responsible for teaching silently raised his cane.

Not wanting his backside to blossom, Blade Tusk immediately surrendered and explained what he had been considering.

The Old Witch Doctor was delighted to hear his idea. Leaving aside whether clay tablets were actually superior, Blade Tusk's intention alone was enough to gratify the witch doctors. So, regardless of whether it ultimately succeeded, they decided to lend him a hand. At the very least, they could not discourage the little fellow's desire to improve the inheritance of knowledge.

The moment the Old Witch Doctor stepped in, things immediately became different. As three of the most learned people in the tribe, they knew many things, including the differences in soil across various regions of the Black Forest. Based on Blade Tusk's requirements, the witch doctors roughly screened out soil types that might be suitable and identified their locations. The remaining work was entrusted to the warriors.

Thus, after several days and nights, Blade Tusk received several soil samples. While sighing that having an elder at home was like possessing a treasure, he began a new round of experiments.

After a stretch of tireless research, he produced a clay tablet that dried quickly, had moderate stickiness, and could be partially revised after a few drops of water were applied.

Blade Tusk did not know much about the Clay Tablet Records from his previous life. But the kind he had made now was undoubtedly a relatively excellent medium. It was even better than he had expected.

For instance, one of its properties had been completely beyond his expectations. Once it had generally dried and set, all it took was water on the surface to soften it again for writing and carving. This completely overturned his assumptions about the order of the process, making large-scale pre-production possible and eliminating the troublesome situation of having to make each tablet only when it was needed.

After conducting on-the-spot tests with the newly made clay tablets, the witch doctors were equally excited. Clearly, this was a better carrier for passing down knowledge than bark. Although it had disadvantages such as weight, its merits far outweighed its flaws.

Once the feasibility of the Clay Tablet Records was confirmed, the Old Witch Doctors immediately displayed their decisive side.

A strategy was quickly formulated. Transporting the soil was entrusted to the warriors. They did not need to bring much back; whenever they headed in the direction where such soil could be found, they only needed to collect some along the way. Making the clay tablets was left to the half-grown children. After all, playing with mud was one of their favorite games.

Before long, batches of clay tablets began arriving. Though full of accomplishment, Blade Tusk soon realized that in the short term, this was not entirely a good thing—at least not for him.

That was because nearly all the drawing work had been handed over to him. It was not that the other witch doctors wanted to be lazy; practical considerations were behind it.

All three witch doctors had long passed the stage where they needed repeated memorization. Having already undergone Awakening, they could practically write out the entire inheritance from memory.

Moreover, while witch doctors possessed "power," they also bore enormous risks and could perish at any time. Blade Tusk, who had not undergone Awakening, would be kept under strict protection within the tribe and be responsible for passing knowledge down in an orderly manner.

Therefore, the faster he learned, the better. Studying while carving would also be an effective learning process for Blade Tusk. Naturally, this work was assigned to him.

Without question, this decision brought a tremendous change to Blade Tusk's pace of life.

Renovating the bark books was more troublesome in terms of total workload, but at least the work was spread out over a long timeline and would not take up too much of his time in the short term. Clay Tablet Records were different. No matter how easy later maintenance might be, once the most troublesome part—writing and carving—was concentrated together, it became an irritating task.

The large amount of time spent writing and carving each day left Blade Tusk deeply unwilling. He had more things he wanted to do, such as Magic Crystals and power. Everything related to magic and the growth of witch doctors fascinated him.

There were too many ideas he wanted to test: the costly price, the essence of Magic Crystals, and so on. Yet the massive amount of tedious work in reality left him with little attention or time to spare.

This situation made him anxious.

The witch doctors quickly noticed the change in his mood and generously gave Blade Tusk two days and nights off.

Back in his own hut, Blade Tusk sat on the ground with his back against the wall and looked up at the roof woven from branches and leaves.

The Black Forest's already scarce sunlight became even dimmer after passing through another layer of cover. Yet that dimness, together with the surrounding silence, made this Troll body feel comfortable. Even the anxiety of the past few days eased somewhat.

This can't go on. Since I don't have the ability to handle so many kinds of work at once, I should first settle down and do what's in front of me properly.

But I can't do nothing either. I need to think of a way to make things simpler.

Having determined his direction, Blade Tusk closed his eyes and began to think. Of all the aspects of studying and carving books over these past few days, which had been the most annoying?

As he thought, all kinds of scenes flooded into his mind. The inexplicable Growth Chronology, the missing concept of numbers, and difficult-to-understand analogies were already bad enough. But when all of that was combined with Pictorial Recordkeeping, everything became ten or even a hundred times worse.

I see. I know what I need to do. But first, I'll properly relax for two days.

My internal submission was rejected today, and it really hurt my confidence. But after looking online, some people said that "books already published are not accepted for internal submissions." Now I'm all worked up and have no idea whether the editor rejected it because my writing is truly not very good, or because it had already been published. Sigh.