Wisdom, intellect, rationality, thinking.

No matter what name you use to describe the many thinking creatures like humans, these wonderful reactions that exist in the brain cannot fully express everything that this whole complex system encompasses.

Just as every attempt to summarize history and religion simply will always seem too one-sided, the debate about the capacity of the mind has been going on since the written record of mankind. In every era, every country and region, there are many great people who have asked questions about it, people learn and think by observing other animals around them, among which ants are naturally the most important as highly social animals and can be seen everywhere, and people in the civilized world are often surprised to find that these small creatures have such a high degree of similarity with their own social system.

The queen-like queen directs the worker ants in the nest to build and expand her kingdom, and they are also responsible for collecting food and many other tasks, just like the workers and peasants in human society, and the kingdom is bound to conflict with other creatures or other kingdoms, so it needs to defend its soldiers, that is, the existence of soldier ants. Under the influence of pheromones, these small, busy creatures form a lively and well-organized country, which makes the humans who observe them think.

――Do these tiny insects, which can kill hundreds of them with a single slap, have the same thinking ability as us?

The answer is probably no, ants and many other insects have mere instincts, they are like machines that have been programmed to act, they only respond to the current environment according to a few simple basic ways of coping, and play a small role in the vast world, and cannot at least try to change it because they have a mind like humans.

But this extends to the second question - does the existence of such a thing as thought really represent human beings and many other creatures with bigger bodies and more intelligent heads, and are they more perfect and higher species than ants?

This is a question worth pondering.

It is true that because of the ability to think, human beings no longer need to spend millions of years passively starting to evolve in their environment, but can learn to use and even change the environment on their own. Cities and empires were thus built, with ships, carriages, writing, singing and dancing, and increasingly powerful weapons and armies. A series of things that were quite great in the eyes of mankind were created, and the ancestors of the past trembled lions, dragon lizards, and even dinosaur crocodiles were captured by the emperors of the Lamanite Empire and sent them to the gladiatorial arena to fight each other, using the blood and sorrow of these animals as playthings for after-dinner viewing and amusement, and the human territory expanded again and again, and many creatures that stood in the way were using weapons created by thought and invention to flow rivers of blood.

The result of the complex thinking capacity of a human being, purely for a species, can be said to be quite successful. It has gone through more than 10,000 years of time, and has carved out the current human world step by step, without the powerful manufacturing ability of dwarves and gnomes, nor the physique of orcs, nor the longevity of elves and magical talents, the reason why humans can have the largest territory among several major races is also very much related to the ability to learn quickly driven by the urgent idea of the ephemera's death in three days.

But it would not be entirely true to say that thought brings only good—beyond the basic desire for mere filling food and small pieces of territory to reproduce freely, human beings have begun to covet more. The mind, as a White Church cleric would say, is a "fallen original sin" that has whispered and catalyzed many inhumane massacres and divisions in human history.

Although it is ironic that the Holocaust, which ranks first in the history of mankind, is in fact inseparable from religion, it is another proof of the terrible power of thought as a weapon. Because, in the final analysis, religion is just another companion of the human mind.

There is a proverb in the north that "those who do not know are fearless". Because he has the ability to think, he knows life and death, so he hesitates. Purely social animals are just ants that exist as cogs and do not know how to fear, and humans, who are supposed to be of a higher class, no matter how powerful warriors, will always have something that makes them feel deeply afraid.

People eulogize and praise death, like the martial spirit practiced by the northerners, and even the chivalry common on the West Coast, which is regarded as "honor" for dying for the country and the people, but in fact its roots can be traced back to fear.

If you really take death for granted, there is no need to sing it as the supreme glory. Some of the people who have ideas have chosen to use them to enslave others, and how many heinous sins have been committed by those who have been brainwashed by this kind of thinking -- in order not to be killed, so they strike first-wars that have been opened with such absurd reasons have happened many times in history.

Thought is a double-edged sword, bringing a higher level of civilization, but also making cowardice and chaos deeply rooted in the hearts of the major races.

So in the final analysis, there are many, many other intelligent creatures that are supposed to be more advanced by human standards, and are they really much more noble and excellent than these busy, small insects?

......

It was useless to convince myself with any number of words, fear and shock lingered in my heart, and the moment I saw the huge creature, all my confidence was completely shattered.

The largest of the Aya snake dragons, which could reach seven or eight tons, was actually just over twice the length of the swamp dragon lizards - and a large part of it consisted of the slender neck and tail. The creature was also quite tall because of its high weight, its round body and finned limbs that prevented it from standing for long periods of time, let alone running, but even so, when such an Aya snake finally swam to the western shore of Lake Lorenna after many days of waiting, it still caused a great shock to many people who saw this behemoth for the first time, including our Mira.

Life itself is a miraculous existence, colorful from small insects to huge giant beasts, just when swimming pulled out of the water waves up to more than ten meters, standing on the small hillside in the northwest and looking down, the back of the Aya snake dragon covered with sky blue spots and white skin is like a small boat, you can sit directly on several people, the skills that people use to kill each other and all kinds of armor are meaningless in front of this size of giant beasts, you can cut several swords and a dozen swords at it, But it will only take some minor injuries, and even the most expensive armor will deform and twist if stepped on, squeezing your flesh and bones, causing serious injuries.

"Really, hunting such a thing—" said the trembling young mercenary, and no one answered him, and the very few like our Mila did not fully understand the meaning of the sentence - even though she had been learning Lamanite all this time, it was evident that more than twenty days was not quite enough—and the rest did not think that there was any point in answering the question.

They had been preparing for so long, and had been in this ghost place for more than a week, just to accomplish this mission, how could they retreat now.

No one wants to stay here anymore, after all, despite the preparations, the primeval forests of the South have never been a place of wandering light born for humans. When you first arrive, there may be a mixture of tension and novelty, which can make you not disgusted with this kind of life, but as time passes and this feeling gradually disappears, everything in the daily life will make you feel extremely disgusted and irritable, and deeply miss the beauty of the town and realize that you are out of place in the wilderness.

The lack of hygiene was the first to blame, although the group also brought several extra buckets of water with horns to use as tools for scooping water, and then pulled up a small area of excess canvas with ropes and branches to serve as showers and toilets, and also carried a small amount of soap made from animal fat and plant ash. But in places full of poisonous insects and wild beasts roaming around, it is a luxury to wash your body boldly and with confidence.

In addition, the simple tent made of impermeable waterproof canvas, the cotton and linen bedding that begins to smell after sleeping for a while in the humid and stuffy weather, the smell of sweat on the other people who have to camp close to each other for safety, etc., etc., are often eaten by small creatures such as rats at night, and these filthy little things will be eaten and defecated on them, which is very disgusting. Or even more terrifying, one morning you grab the leftover barbecue from last night, and when you look at it, it's all densely packed with wriggling maggots.

We have spoken countless times of how who would want to travel for a long time in the wilderness instead of living in a well-equipped and hygienic town, and all of this, as the young mercenaries of the wealthy southern Son, have a very clear understanding at this moment, and the daily life that has lost its freshness and begins to become disgusting after staying there, coupled with the cowardice and imminent escape brought about by their personal thoughts, if it drags on any longer, the situation will become worse and worse.

Squad Leader Jerónimo frowned and looked at Juan, the hunting expert, and the squinting old mercenary nodded in agreement. They had been here for a week before they saw such a snake dragon wandering near the lake on the west side, it was no longer time to hesitate, and it would only be more difficult to delay the task any longer, so Gironimo decisively began to gesture for the group to go and make preparations.

The young female was clearly in line with their target selection tendencies, and had actually been spotted hanging on the water nearby a day earlier - a testament to the fact that she possessed the usual level of intelligence of a snake dragon, but only to get closer after a day again proved that the snake was still young and inexperienced.

As an omnivore, the snake dragon's sense of smell is not as rich as that of carnivores, but it is also almost the same as that of humans, so although the camp was originally built at a downwind, in order to avoid all possible failure factors, the old mercenaries also resolutely buried it.

The young mercenary named Euphimio was the smartest or most clever of the recruits, and because it was quite difficult for him to bury the household garbage and food with a shovel, he took a torch from the campfire in the distance, and he was clever enough to burn it directly.

All this naturally made the old Juan and the other orange mercenaries frightened, the animals that lived in the forest were quite sensitive to the presence of fire, and the snake dragon was no exception, and the campfire of their group was stored in the back part of the camp so as not to be seen by the animals on the other side of the lake, and the place where the household garbage was disposed of was near the lake in front of it for the convenience of getting water - if a fire was lit here, the situation would be irreparable.

The task was important, and Euphemio was not scolded too much, and this perhaps contributed more to his complex mixture of self-pretentious cleverness and cowardice—so the question of whether or not to do this was naturally raised by the young man.

The mercenary group is unruly, and as the lowest-level mercenary, he and the other young people are all errand runners, so Euphemio's ideas have not attracted much attention. The members of the team began to run to their respective posts according to the instructions of Jeronimo, and Henry, who had nothing to do, and his group of escort mercenaries retreated to a distant place - there is a specialization in the art industry, and in this case, the saying that there is strength in numbers is not completely universal, and people like them who have no professional skills will only add to the chaos.

'Hold off!' Juan raised his hand and gestured diligently. The snake dragon was slowly swimming, and the mercenaries had to wait until it had given birth to a significant drain before they could hunt. This is not only to increase the success rate, but also to hunt the female snake after it has given birth to offspring, which can also ensure the continuation of the species, and every veteran hunting mercenary will not kill indiscriminately, even Heronimo who intends to join forces with the Bhatti merchant group to hack this batch of dragon skins, they deeply understand the importance of natural cycles, and it is precisely because of their deep contact with the natural world that they are more cautious.

The so-called more developed capital, the richer the people, the higher the depth of thought, is the same reason, if the same situation is carried to the west coast, I am afraid that the mercenaries there will think that "they can't kill so many anyway", so they start to hunt on a large scale.

However, the thoughts of the older Orange mercenaries were unfortunately not conveyed to the junior mercenaries.

Cowardice, nervousness, plus part of self-pretending cleverness and self-righteousness. The young female snake dragon climbed up the mud flat and began to dig into the moist and soft earth to build a nest, and at this moment, Eufemio suddenly rushed down from his post and ran towards the snake dragon with a shouting and screaming before Juan or Jerónimo could give the order.

"Haa

"Aaya--" The female basiosaurus, who was about to give birth, raised her body again and roared towards him, and then opened her mouth to bite, and Opiumio sat down on the ground in fright, and when she got up again, the crotch of her khaki linen pants had turned brown.

"Idiot!" Juan was so angry that his eyes opened his white beard one by one, but he still gave the order decisively.

"Let's get moving!"

Although the hunting expert who was not tall in stature but full of voice gave an order, the mercenaries immediately reacted and began to operate the tools in their hands. (To be continued.) )