Speculations on Mental Power (Major Revision, Still a Text Bug)

In short, the Phonetic Annotation Method did seem to reduce the difficulty of learning the new Troll Script.

In the days that followed, Blade Tusk and the three witch doctors began focusing together on several interconnected matters.

Learning the tribe's inheritance;

Converting the inherited knowledge into written form and inscribing it onto clay tablets;

Enriching Troll Language grammar based on linguistic habits.

As mentioned before, Troll Language lacked grammar for complex sentences. They spoke as though spitting out individual words, and many terms had not yet taken proper shape. Taking this opportunity, the witch doctors, having recognized the shortcomings in their expressive abilities, began trying to enrich their grammatical system.

There were results. The witch doctors' conversations did gradually become smoother, significantly expanding their ability to express themselves.

But that was not enough. This was clearly going to be a gradual reform that would continue for a very long time, perhaps never ending.

During this time, Blade Tusk did not deliberately slip in much of anything. He merely unconsciously used simple structures resembling subject-verb-object patterns when speaking from time to time, which the witch doctors quickly picked up.

Time passed little by little. By the time Blade Tusk had grown nearly as tall as a Prime Period Troll's backside, the activities of "creating characters" and "creating grammar" had finally begun to show results.

Blade Tusk also used this opportunity to escape the enormous labor of organizing the inheritance alone, distributing it among all the witch doctors.

The clay tablets now piled up across several "storehouses," along with the witch doctors' somewhat more complete spoken abilities, were the marks of his achievements over this period.

And once these matters had come to a temporary end, Blade Tusk could finally begin pursuing what interested him: research into Magic Crystals, for example, and research into "witch doctors."

Of course, that was not to say he had done nothing related to those matters during this time. His energy had simply been too severely divided before, resulting in little progress.

Still, his ability to distinguish between different Magic Crystals during lessons had steadily matured, and he believed it would be helpful going forward.

In a small hut assigned to Blade Tusk within the witch doctors' compound, he sat at a crude desk and chair pieced together from animal bones and meridians, sorting through the "results" of recent days.

"Casting spells with Magic Crystals is still a black-box operation. If there is no way to understand the internal structure of Magic Crystals, then researching magic is nothing but wishful thinking."

"Yet even the senior witch doctors who have already mastered the ability to cast spells seem unable to directly observe the internal structure of Magic Crystals."

"What is known is that witch doctors can sense the energy within their bodies, and by channeling that energy into a Magic Crystal, they can create magic."

"And after this energy is expended, the feedback to the body is a loss of vitality."

"So here comes the question. So-called vitality should be a kind of energy shared by all living things, a necessity for carrying out life activities. Taking Trolls alone as an example, warriors are clearly strong and robust, yet they cannot draw upon this energy. Witch doctors, who are no stronger than warriors and may even be physically inferior, can do so."

"Could one therefore hypothesize that the key does not lie in vitality itself, but in the means to sense and even control vitality?"

"Since sensing and control are required, there must be some medium involved. Though using fantasy novels from my previous life as a reference feels somewhat unreliable, introducing the concept of Mental Power here seems quite fitting."

"Based on their ancestors' experience, witch doctors do not place importance on physical qualities when assessing aptitude for witch doctors. Instead, they examine memory. That also seems to serve as evidence."

After this series of thoughts, Blade Tusk decided to first assume the existence of a medium called Mental Power and regard it as the key that might open the door to magic. It was somewhat arbitrary, but there was no helping it. Rather than letting his thoughts scatter aimlessly, it was better to establish a possible direction and focus his thinking.

"Then the next task is to devise a way to artificially accelerate the growth of Mental Power. The current witch doctors merely wait for it to happen. That is far too passive."

"Let me think. How should I begin researching this?"

After some simple consideration, Blade Tusk decided to first construct a logically consistent theoretical system to quantify Mental Power values at every stage, making later work more convenient—even if that entire system was based on his own imagination.

"The Old Witch Doctor told me that after testing his aptitude as a witch doctor, he waited another two Prime Cycles before the day of his Awakening arrived. That means..."

"Mental Power can grow, and its growth does not stop once physical development ends."

"But ordinary Trolls also experience an extremely long span of time from their Prime Period to their Decline Period, yet they still never undergo Awakening."

"There are many possible reasons for the difference between the two."

"1. Only those with witch doctor aptitude possess Mental Power capable of growth; ordinary Trolls have fixed Mental Power values."

"2. Mental Power aptitude affects the Mental Power growth curve. Those with witch doctor aptitude grow quickly, ordinary Trolls grow slowly, and the difference between their rates is large enough."

"3. Both sides grow at the same rate, but the initial baseline determines who reaches the Awakening point first."

"Wait..."

"There is no need to concern myself with ordinary Trolls' Mental Power growth for now. The script of The Troll's Rise Through Transmigration has not yet reached the point where it needs to be performed. Ordinary Trolls can temporarily serve as the average. Let me first assume a range of 1 to 10."

"Set the average for newborns at 1, and the Awakening point at 10."

"Assume the average racial peak is... um, Troll warriors are generally rather dim-witted, so let it be 2 to 4."

"As for the range for those with aptitude, let it be 5 to 9 depending on the quality of their aptitude."

"My aptitude should be relatively good. To be modest, I'll set it at 8. That leaves only 2 points of growth before the Awakening point."

"But the Awakening point is not my goal. Even after witch doctors undergo Awakening, they still cannot understand what lies inside Magic Crystals."

"After Awakening, I will at least need to rise another rank before I can succeed... um, assuming there truly is another rank to rise."

(Note 1: A Prime Cycle was a method of recording time that Blade Tusk devised with the Old Witch Doctors after introducing concepts such as numbers and age. Troll bodies reached their peak during the Prime Period, and that peak lasted for a long time until, one day, they entered the Decline Period. Thus, they divided a Troll's life into three stages: the Growth Period, the Prime Period, and the Decline Period. One Prime Cycle was equivalent to the entire time a Troll infant needed to grow into a warrior. In addition, they improved upon growth markers such as "shin-high" and "thigh-high." Drawing on the growth cycles of dragons in novels from his previous life, Blade Tusk divided the Troll Growth Period into five stages: the Childhood Period, "shin-high"; the Adolescent Period, "thigh-high"; the Adolescent Period, "lower-belly-high"; the Youth Period, "chest-high"; and the Adulthood Period, "shoulder-high.")