Even just standing here in the temporary fortress, I can tell that the thing will be quite easy to break apart. I can crack the wall with a single punch, and I will be able to shatter the wall if I channel my mana into the wall. Well, most forts would be in a similar state if I am honest. They are similarly flimsy without formations to strengthen them.
Still, if you were to tell me that this fort was built by the snowwinders, I would be very reluctant to believe it. They are legendary for their ability to build, especially defensive structures like this. After all the forts that they built on their southern border have managed to survive till now. Even right now, the southern borders face the invasion of an alliance of four countries.
Well, the reason for this is that the entire fort in front of me has been built within a few weeks to a month. The commander commissioned the place to be built after I had come here. (Well, it would be more accurate to say somewhere between a week and two months. The commander wanted to give me this task from the start.) Even then, to think that the fort in front of me could be built in a month is a shock. Even in the South, they would need entire armies of masons, carpenters and labourers to get this done.
The place is pretty large as well. It will be able to comfortably house at least four hundred soldiers. The fort is surrounded by a wall (made of a similarly flimsy material as the fort.) that covers the entirety of the fort. At each of the cardinal directions of the fort is a gate. (I honestly do not understand why so many gates are required.)
The base materials of this fort are flimsy, but it still has hope. It has now become my duty to ensure that this place won't fall and I plan to see that through.
The first would be to reinforce the entire fortress. I do not have the resources or the expertise to supervise or attempt such a reinforcement. You would need stone masons, carpenters and architects who are skilled at their jobs. I can safely claim that I am none of those things. Anyways, how am I going to bring them all here? Traveling here is neither cheap nor easy.
Instead, it is for the second method for which I have been sent here. This would be a central formation. Now a central formation is a formation that is the most important formation of a fort.
It will manage all the formations of the fortress. It is supposed to be able to power and control every formation in the place. This includes the defensive formation for the place. I am planning to make a passive defensive formation. Normally, I would have used active defensive formations. These would create barriers around the wall, increasing its durability a lot. A passive formation will be able to increase the durability of every inch of this place.
You can say that it is the beating heart of the fort, and I have come here to build this beating heart. Now, I am a formation mage and not a construction mage so I don't know a lot of such formations. I do know of a few that I might be able to use, but most of these are so subpar that using them would be plain suicide here.
If these formations are inscribed, then the fort will be destroyed. Our enemies don't even need to try too hard to destroy most of the formations I can inscribe. I am certainly not going to be fighting them without strong weapons.
Thankfully, the core of my formation is copper bark. Copper bark is one of the most common materials that one could find among the druids. The reason for that is due to the nature of the material. Copper bark was extensively used by the druids to create environmental formations.
Every druidic village was supposed to have a formation at its center made from copper bark. These formations were supposed to make their villages habitable. They had about the best environmental formations on the continent. I am more than sure that their formations will be able to work even this close to the northern wastelands. At least that is the hope.
Well, that leads to my present problem, which is the fact that just having the formation core is not enough. I also need something to power it. Most formations are built with ways of powering them built into them. Most of them can be powered directly by supplying mana from your mana core. (That is the reason that I need to practice battery magic.)
Druidic formations are different from that. They rely on Elemental nodes to function. To put it in simple terms, an Elemental node is a stream of mana of a specific element that flows in the world.
Most of them tend to be underground and are often coincidental with magical ores. Detecting these nodes is supposed to be nearly impossible. The only two races on the continent that I know that can detect Elemental nodes with any confidence. These are the druids and the dwarves.
I have little to no idea how the druids find Elemental nodes. Maybe my master might know, but the man is not yet trusting me enough to tell me about it. That leaves me with only the dwarf's methods. The dwarves go about looking for elemental nodes by looking for the ore that you would find with them. On this front, no other force on the continent can challenge them.
The dwarves make use of mana echolocation to find ore under the ground. Now, how do I explain this spell to you? It involves the process of releasing waves of mana into the ground. These waves will then be bounced off of mana sources. These reflected waves can be used by the dwarves to find the exact location of the ore.
Now I only know the absolute basics of mana echolocation. I have never managed to release a pulse into the ground and make any sense of it. (That is something that the dawrves will never let anybody learn.) I have used it in the air and the water quite a few times. (It is surprisingly effective as well.) The problem is that it has been a few years since I have used it, so I have gotten quite rusty with it.
Using it inside the ground is a separate difficulty. There are just so many things on the ground. Only masters can sort through the complicated information that they get. Only they can tell if a reflected wave means that there is a piece of rock there or a magnificent mithril ore. I was originally planning to try it even if it had a low chance of success. Turns out, I have a better method.
I will be making use of the dwarves that have already visited this place to complete my work. The surroundings of this place have many abandoned mines of the dwarves. Most of these mines are going to be empty, completely run dry by the dwarves and their mining.
I would have to assume that means that the Elemental node would also run dry with its ore. (Don't judge me, I haven't studied elemental nodes in a while.) That is what happens in most cases like this. There is a small chance, though, that the mana node is not completely dry, and that is my goal at this moment. If I cannot locate a mana node at one mine, then I will have to visit another.
It is all a game of probability. If one location that I visit doesn't have a node, then I will just keep visiting these mines until I find what I require. Just a fifty-kilometer range around me has about a hundred mines. (That is a stupidly large number of mines.)
I refuse to believe that I won't be able to find a node (or three) in all of these mines. The only reason that I am not in those mines right now is that I am waiting for information. The snowwinders have detailed information on all these mines.
It is supposed to be provided to me by the present head of this fortress, who is going to be my deputy. He is an interesting man who goes by the name of Shamon. His mana is roughly at my level. The reason he is supposed to be so interesting is the fact that this man has managed to survive here for decades.
Speaking of the man. It doesn't take long for him to appear in the corner of my vision. It takes a few moments more before the man appears in the room. He is a middle-aged man with no particularly distinguishing features. The only thing that is different about the man is the aura that he gives. The man gives me the aura of a soldier. A soldier at the pinnacle of discipline, someone who won't panic even in the worst scenario. I will admit that it is a comfort to have such a second in command. The commander doesn't want me dead at the very least.
"Captain, why have you summoned me here?" the man says.
"Well, firstly, I want a report on every soldier that you have under you.", I begin.
"We have about a hundred soldiers under us. Five among them, including me, are capable of cultivating. None of us has completed the first circle, though. Each person here is an Empire-trained soldier." He continues. "They will not break ranks even if they are being cut in half by a snowlord."
"Well, have you ever met a snowlord, soldier Shamon?" I ask him.
"Well, I am quite lucky in the fact that I have not, Captain. I would be dead if that were the case.", he replies. Regardless, a snow lord's appearance means that you are very unlucky. They do not like to be anywhere where they can be found by the commander. Still, I am confident that my soldiers will not be nervous in front of a snowlord."
"Well, have you bought up what I have requested?" I ask him, distracting him from the topic of his soldier's discipline. The man looks ready to argue about it for the next couple of hours.
"Yes, Captain. A map of every mine in the region with a particular emphasis on the ore found at the location.", Shamon replies.
"Good, that is what I need.", I reply. "Well, you seem to be a local of this area, Shamon. I am certain you must have an idea of the many threats that we must face in this region. What do you think is the most immediate threat? "
"Well, we have three main threats in this region. The first is the snowlords themselves. Regardless of how much you strengthen this fort, though, fighting them is impossible. The only thing we can do when we find out that a snowlord is coming is to run. We can just hope that the commander reaches us before the snowlord," replies the soldier. "Thankfully, they rarely appear this far south. Their minions, though, are a separate thing. Once the winter properly gets going, we shall be facing entire troops of ice beasts attacking us. By then, you will have to complete the formations, Captain. Without a strong fort, the damn beasts won't even need to do much to get rid of us. This is their territory after all."
"What is the third thing then?"I ask him.
"That would be the very winds, captain. Winters here have the worst snowstorms. At its worst, these storms feel like the strike of a snowlord. I would say that the fort would buckle like a house of cards if it were to face a storm at this moment.", he replies.
"And how long does it take for these storms to go bad?" I ask him.
"We could face a storm like that tomorrow, Captain. We might face it even in the next hour. There is simply no way of telling this far north.", the soldier replies. "That is why I would suggest that you begin the work on the central formation as quickly as possible, Captain."
"I know, soldier Shamon. The maps that I have requested are related to this very task. I am sure that I will be able to get started on the formation in under a week, too. Until then, all we can do is hope that no particularly deadly Storm kills us all, " I reply. "Now that I have gotten that out of the way, it is time for us to discuss the troops...