I always struggle with conjuration spells. These are spells that convert mana into solid physical shapes. These spells are used by many races to create weapons, shields, cities and even formations, though the last thing is an achievement that only the best conjurers are supposed to be able to do. it is a discipline that many formation masters must have a decent level of strength though.

The druids can be considered to be masters of such spells since they do not have any industries for weapons. Most of their weapons tend to be conjured from mana, causing me quite a bit of a problem.

Three spells can be considered to be conjuration spells in the set of spells for this formation, among which I want to complete two this time. This is a set spell known as the crossbow of the druid, with one spell conjuring the string of the bow or one spell conjuring the body of the bow. There is a third spell too, which is going to be conjuring a pretty nasty surprise but that I will leave to the last. Naturally, it means that it is the hardest to do. With this, I will finally be able to make proper use of the water bolts. Water Bolts is a decent spell, with its main strength being its speed.

With the crossbow, I will finally be able to grant the water bolt a decent amount of power and a significant boost in the amount of speed too. With this, I will be able to get rid of most of the ice beasts the next time that they attack too. With this, I will finally be able to focus on the important thing which would be the snowlords. While I can't be sure of their strength, I have to assume that I can damage them. If not well, I have other riskier tricks in my arsenal.

After all, the entire battle has been about them since the beginning. Anyway, the first spell I am conjuring is known as "strength crossbow" and it is considered to be a standard template for the druids. The druids essentially have a set of these spells which they make use of To grant certain aspects to their spells. I know of three such templates which are speed, strength and control. The first allowed for arrows to fly faster, the second allowed arrows to hit with just that bit of strength and the last is kind of similar to formation control, allowing a person to control an arrow shot from this crossbow. It will be kind of like what I did with formation control.

This will be relatively easy to build since I have practice with this kind of spells and by their nature, they are supposed to be easy to build. It is the second spell, called "string of water" that is going to be the problem. By its nature, a water bolt is a bunch of compressed mana. It has no physical shape and my hand would simply pass through it if I were to push my hand through it.

That is why my crossbow needs an enchanted string that will have mana condensed into it to work for my purposes. For that, I have chosen "string of the water" which will also increase the speed of the bolt and give it a certain extra impact when it is going to hit the enemy.

The only problem is conjuring enchanted items is ridiculously hard. It is not a complex formation but it needs all of my skills to even make sure that it is working. A simpler way of putting it would be I have to inscribe a formation inside a formation for this thing to work. A tiny error here and I will have to start the inscription process again. If I pass through this though, it will be smooth sailing.

Well, that is a problem I will not be able to solve if I complain about it. Well, complaining helps soothe the soul at the very least. Other than that, another important thing to have occurred is that Shamon has been able to achieve contact with one of the other temporary forts, which has led to quite a bit of distressing news.

You see Shamon has contracted with the fort that is the closest to this area, a particular friend of his whose name I have already forgotten. Anyway, can you guess how many troops those fuckers have been facing? Well, it would be two. Two fucking troops.

Well, I am sure that I can be considered to be better than most formation masters that the snowwind empire can field at this place, I am sure that the difference is not enough that this fort has to face nearly three times the number of troops that the other side is facing.

That all is assuming that the snowlords know of my identity. They are a tribe so that might cause an issue. That is a whole separate can of worms and I am thinking that there are two major possibilities as to what could be happening at the moment. First is that the snowwinders are the ones that have leaked my position.

Firstly it would be considered punishment for the big explosion (which I am sure that they have not forgotten about yet.) And secondly, it would be reducing the pressure on the forts. I am sure that even the snowlords are not able to field too many troops, especially when there is a general level figure trying to kill them all.

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I am surprised that they have troops left. The latter probability is something that I do not want to think about. It is unlikely to happen. After all this far from the center of the continent, I am sure that I am not known. If it was my master, it could be possible but for me, it is not likely at all. At least that is the hope. Well, if it were this probability I would have been attacked by them already.

Still, I am not one to risk it. We will need reinforcements, something that I will need to discuss with Shamon, though it is better than waiting for him to come down here. The man's situation is almost sad to look at the moment. I might be a formation master with the disadvantage of being the strongest here, but he is even more miserable than me. At the moment he is taking up command of the troops( while no troop leaders have appeared, there have constant inflow of ice beasts attacking the fort.) And taking on a managerial role with them too.

He is leading them to war while making sure that the soldiers are fed, their weapons sharpened and that each soldier is healed with the limited amount of resources that we have. All of this while making sure to keep contact with the other forts, who have been quite uncooperative from what I have managed to gather.

In his place, I would have been quite miserable. Well, in my present situation, I am a close second to that man. Why in the hell did I even pick this particular set of formations I don't even know. It is a surprise that I have even managed to complete this far. Something a bit easier and certainly without conjuration formations would have made my work so much easier.

Well, it was not arrogance when I decided to go with a nurturing formation. I had just underestimated the intensity of our conflict. It has certainly been eye-opening, especially the chill. Well, I guess that I should be getting back to work, after all without the crossbow, the situation is still pretty crappy. I will begin logging in again whenever Shamon manages to make his way down here.

(After almost a day)

Well, I have both good news and bad news. I have managed to succeed in half of my goals this time. The crossbow I have managed to build. The problem is that I have almost managed to ruin the string of water. It would have led to quite a disaster if I had not eradicated the formation. To those that do not know, a formation is essentially a structure of mana, if you apply a lot of mana in the correct, surgical way you can destroy the mana structure, essentially destroying the formation. It is one of the basics of a spell like formation decomposition.

I'm hindsight I should not have tried to build two conjuration formations back to back. Luckily, I have not lost that formation spot too or it would have thrown a serious wrench in my plans.

Regardless the reason for me starting this blog is looking at me, wondering what I am doing without speaking to him.

"Well, I have called you down here to enquire you what is our present situation with the reinforcements", I begin, catching Shamon off guard.

"Well, captain as I have mentioned to you before there are five temporary forts other than ours and our request for reinforcements is presently being entertained by only two forts," Shamon replies promptly. "One is the fort closest to us, being led by a relatively reasonable leader known as laicon. He is ready to provide us with a tenth of his troops in case of an attack. The other is a friend of mine, though his position is pretty far away from us so he has only been ready to provide us with five soldiers."

"Well, let's just take what we get. Just how useful are these soldiers gonna be.", I ask.

"Well, used correctly they would be pretty useful. The only problem is that we will be getting youngsters mostly if they do send reinforcements. They will not be very well trained so troop coordination will be taking quite a hit." Shamon speaks. "But that should be something that I will be able to handle."

"Good, good" I speak "I would give you suggestions but this type of combat is not something that I am used to. The best I can do is to stay out of your way."

"Well, I am not expecting too much help anyway, captain. I would like to enquire about the progress of the formation. With the way that we are being attacked I would not be surprised that snowlords will be after us once the hunt ends.", Shamon asks. Well, it has been a surprise that he didn't do so before.

"Well, it is going good. I have managed to inscribe five formations, all of which are the important ones. the ironskin formation is the most important one and it has been active for some time at the very least. The remaining is just meant to give us a method of attacking the enemy, which I will be able to complete with the next formation.", I speak "So long as the snowlords do not appear in the next week we shall be fine."

"That is pushing it a bit close. The commander is already returning to the frozen peaks based on the communication we have with the base. That means that the snowlord could be coming any day now.", Shamon speaks. "We can hope that the snowlords to appear anytime between next week and the week after."

"Well, is there any way to get a more concrete timeline.", I ask "Just that is a bit too vague don't you think."

"Well, I can give you only one warning, captain." Shamon speaks, his voice taking quite the morbid tone "Look to the mana, a snowlord moving at full speed will make his mana signature quite obvious. Look for any strong fluctuations of mana and it will be a snowlord nine Times out of ten."

"At the very least, can you give me an idea about their strength? You should have some idea right."

"Well, I would like to say I do captain" Shamon speaks, his voice taking a very morbid tone "but the fluctuations that I have spoken of, we are trained to run away when it appears on the field. So I assume that a snowlord is so strong that they can destroy us the instant they come in our presence. It could be in a single sword strike or maybe even ten or it could be even that they just need to look at us to kill us. All I know is that this will be the first time that we are facing a snowlord in this way."