Fantasy Starting from the Stone Age - Chapter 28



Only Noblemtl

Episode 28. What Geniuses Don’t Know 2

A sophisticated teacher teaches the senior students how to use spirits beyond just using them as tools, but what they are.

“Well. What is a spirit? What is the difference between a human spirit, an ancestral spirit, and an animal spirit? Even in Datang, the first spirit-based nation, there was a lot of thought put into this topic, but for a long time, there was no answer.”

The teacher goes on and on about the actual constituents of nature as explained in physics and chemistry, namely, the elements, particles, and substances that make up all things.

“(Strategy) As you know, even if you completely heal a damaged body, the dead person will not return. On the contrary, a doll that has a human spirit in it moves. The body is just a vessel, and what is important is the will. The soul, or spirit. And what connects the body and the spirit is ‘life force.’ The body creates life force, the life force settles the spirit, and the spirit moves the body.”

And finally, the story about spirits comes up.

“The Celestial Beings emit powerful life force along with magic. The only place in the world where spirits naturally arise is Bogor, the holy land of Daton, because it is closest to the Celestial Beings. In other words, spirits are life forces that exist without a physical body and have settled in nature. Spiritual water is a form that is a synthesis of nature, animal bodies, and then spirits.”

That’s right. The explanation of the spirits was finished in 10 seconds. That’s the original scientific principle. It takes a lifetime, a generation, an era to figure it out, but once you organize the principle, it can be summarized in 10 seconds for high school students.

The Datons discovered spirits by chance 20,000 years ago and began using them without even knowing the principles. They did so in the form of contracts.

18,000 years ago, a pioneer who loved snails challenged the principle. The principle that no one knew about.

But then this thought occurs to me. Didn’t she already lay the groundwork for evolution and systematics at that time? So how much has biology discovered in this distant future?

Let’s check it out for ourselves now.

“Ah! That’s nonsense! The world was created by God, the great creator and master of all things. Are we relatives of monkeys?”

“No, it’s just that we share a common ancestor with apes······.”

“Are you insulting the greatness of the Creator? And yet you are a scholar! Who gave you your doctorate?”

“No, after looking into it, I found out that in Datang, it’s been around since a very long time ago······.”

“Oh my god. What the hell is Datang? If you’re going to talk like that, get out of here, Dator! Oh my god!”

“Aren’t those Daturn guys just monkeys who cling to their own mothers?”

“Hey, Doctors. Why are you being racist? Do you know that I have a Darton ancestor?”

“If you knew and did it, what can you do? You monkey descendant!”

“what?!”

“No, guys, I have scientific evidence······.”

Oh well. Since technology doesn’t develop linearly, it doesn’t go in an upward direction either.

Let’s go back to prehistoric times again.

Laurent wondered what spirits were, but couldn’t quite figure it out. They were creatures that clearly existed in the world, but didn’t exist at all in her concept of museum science.

Actually, I’m not even sure if it’s a living thing.

Prehistoric times. In the world of geniuses, the foreign substance that interfered with the world where the principles of evolution that he thought of were in effect was the spirit.

Eventually, she turned her attention to a field that was rich in knowledge and research value. Now that plants were finished, it was time for animals.

But there was always a spirit in his head.

“It’s not like there weren’t people who discovered spirits in the Holy Land or Mainilun over the years. However, the spirits they discovered were all swallowed up by the existing spirits. The spirit of the wind, the spirit of the swamp, the spirit of the plains, the spirit of the forest, the spirit of fire… In other words, the spirits are classified according to their attributes, their nature. The reason you can’t find other spirits is because there are only such natural objects in the Holy Land.”

“And it’s not like there weren’t people who brought animals to the Holy Land. However, most of them couldn’t withstand the magical pressure of the Holy Land and died. Only a very rare few creatures can withstand the pressure of the Holy Land. And even if they endured and became spirit beasts, they were ‘sucked away’ by spirit beasts of the same attribute.”

“But not all creatures can become spirits. There are only a very limited number of creatures that can become spirits. Hyenas and wolves. Those who brought ‘Soft and Fluffy’ couldn’t even merge spirits into it.”

I think some of you might have guessed what Malrangmalrang is. That’s right.

You know, the strange, soft creatures that occasionally cling to bushes or trees in the Daton grasslands on the broadcast screen? Those are them. They have nothing to do with the ecology of the Daton tribe, so I’m only talking about them now.

Anyway, in other words, there were people who brought about ‘innovation’, and people who ‘reformed’ or ‘improved’. I roughly figured out what a spirit is and what a spirit beast is. Everyone was very interested in spirits.

But no one has ever started a revolution. No one has ever truly created a new spirit. Everyone thought that if they could just succeed, it would definitely become a minefield.

She knew it, she knew how difficult it was, but she thought logically.

“Are there animals that can and cannot become spirits?”

She focused on animals, not spirits or methodology. She actually investigated animals that were brought to the Holy Land and became spirits.

And I came to a conclusion.

“Only large creatures can become spirit beasts. And even those that are slightly large are not enough. Even the spotted horse is too small. They have to be at least as large as a scaly hippopotamus, scaly rhinoceros, horned ox, knee ox, knee giraffe, or scaly elephant. If they don’t weigh at least 40 times as much as Daton, they can’t even be spirit beasts.”

“But there are exceptions. The wind ostrich… The wind ostrich isn’t that heavy. Why is that? Why was the wind ostrich able to become a spirit beast even though it’s so light? The only guess I can make is that the ostrich is a ‘bird.’”

“Birds don’t drink milk. They have feathers. And they have six limbs. Two pairs of wings. Two legs. All birds do. All birds have two pairs of wings and two legs. Sometimes there are birds with only one pair of wings or no legs, but······. Anyway, they have six.”

You’re talking about something new. That’s what it looks like on TV screens all the time. It’s normal in this world. Unlike Earth.

“But there are also creatures with six limbs. Lizards, crocodiles, turtles… Even crabs have six limbs. When I think about it, it’s strange. Did birds and lizards evolve from the same root?”

I think this is just a hypothesis, but it comes to mind.

“Ostriches have a stone inside them that has magical powers. All six-legged creatures also have some kind of magical stone inside their stomachs.”

“It’s a feature that four-limbed, suckling animals don’t have… I’m sure of it. According to my theory, hexapods and tetrapods have different ancestors. Or maybe they diverged a long time ago.”

“Huh? Then maybe that stone?”

Laurent asked for an old ostrich to be killed without using any spirits.

It was an extremely difficult request for Daton, and impossible to fulfill without brutally killing them, so he went north to meet the Bark half-breed hunters and had them slaughtered and deboned cleanly.

“Here. Ostrich gallstones.”

“thank you.”

Laurent simply infused the ostrich’s gallstone with his own power. He didn’t use any elemental magic, he just literally poured it into it.

“?”

I wonder what the people who watched Laurent were doing. It must be just inedible waste like excrement or bones. What on earth······

······The moment you do that, the spirit is suddenly sucked into it. Not all of it, but only half of it.

“Ah. Okay.”

“???”

“There’s a Bark Hunter there. Are there any spirits?”

“None. I can’t even sign a contract because I’m mixed-blood.”

“Good. Take it and tell me.”

“what?”

“Reca.”

The hunter shouted in half-belief, for he knew what the spell meant.

“Reka!”

Then suddenly the stone burst into flames and burned brilliantly.

“Ouch! Wait a minute, what is that?”

It was definitely not the kind of firepower that could be produced with flint. It was spirit magic.

The Bark Hunter was astonished and his jaw dropped, her disciples, who had become accustomed to their master’s antics of doing things without even explaining them, were stunned beyond belief, and the wise man from the northern village, who had been watching out of boredom, was at a loss as to how to explain this.

“What, what did you do?”

“Ah. I made a contract with Orotbe and the gallstones. It worked out as expected.”

“With gallstones?!”

Laurent explains the obvious story.

“Ostriches and other hexapods, that is, those with six wings and legs, have stones inside their bodies. Looking at them, it seems like they have some magical power and vitality. So, since ostriches have such huge stones, they can make contracts like other large creatures······.”

Laurent has discovered the spirit stone! It is a stone that contains the power of spirits, allowing even those without spirits to use spirit magic. No one has thought of putting fire in an ostrich gallstone for thousands of years, so it has never been discovered.

The hunter says in surprise.

“Then, if I bring a bigger stone, can I tame a stronger spirit?”

“Is there a bird bigger than an ostrich in the North?”

“No, there’s a winged lizard.”

“?”

“huh?”

“What is that?”

“Two front legs. Two hind legs. A lizard, but with a thick body like a cow’s. Wings on its back. Six wings, six limbs, and wings in total. It breathes fire from its mouth. It has incredibly hard scales, teeth, horns, and bones. Delicious meat. And it has incredibly hard rocks inside. Dator doesn’t have them? I’m more surprised.”

“······.”

Laurent wondered why the creature wasn’t in Dator, but then he had something to ask.

“Do any of them have feathers on their wings?”

“Huh······? Are you talking about a serpent? Or a horse-man? A creature with the lower body of a lion, the beak of an eagle, and wings, or a creature with the lower body of a horse but an upper body that looks like a human from the neck up, with feathers. Come to think of it, they all have rocks inside them.”

“Ah. I see. They’re all relatives.”

“???”

He had found yet another basis for the science of evolution. But Laurent was no longer interested in spirit stones.

Of course, Mainilun was shocked when he received the report. With one more Revolutionary Medal added, Laurent became the only person to have received two Revolutionary Medals. And that was before he turned 100.

The spirit stones soon became something that allowed ordinary people to use spirit magic, in other words, a trade item that could be proudly displayed in Daton. All kinds of races came to Dator and sold them in huge quantities.

Various tools and objects made using spirit stones have changed the culture and customs themselves. I can’t even imagine how far this could develop.

“This is really great technology!”

“That’s right! If you study this for your entire life, you could receive dozens of medals!”

“If the Bark tribe brought the gallstones of the winged lizard, it would be different. What great things they could make.”

All of Darton was really excited. They were shouting that this was the ultimate achievement, that nothing could be greater than this, that this was what we didn’t know we needed but was exactly what we wanted.

And yet, Laurent has not yet become a main runner.

When someone asked her, she simply replied:

“I knew my discovery would have this kind of impact.”

Because I know, I can achieve, and because I know, I cannot achieve.

While All Chaun lamented and hurled curses at the world, and the other Datons mourned, she simply leisurely watched the snails mate.