It does not take me long to reach the formation room. On entering the room, I do not find the soldiers that I have sent here. The only person here is trevor. Before I can ask him about it though.

“Well, you have left the scholars unguarded, captain. If they were injured it would certainly not reflect well on you.“, speaks trevor.

Well, I had completely forgotten about the scholars. They are after all the ultimate purpose of our mission after all. I am supposed to be escorting them to the snowwind empire.

“Fuck, I had forgotten about them. Are they safe?“, I ask.

“Yeah, the two soldiers should be there guarding them. Anyway, you seem to have gotten rid of the existing enemies.“, he replies. “They are about as safe as they can be. Their main threat now would be the two ships that are behind us.“

Trevor is not strong enough to actually run the sensory formation, but the man has enough of a mana sense to be able to vaguely sense the enemies position.

“Well, those fuckers are still following us.“, I reply, feeling the annoyance grow in my tone. “What exactly do they think we are transporting that they are following us. We are not even a trade ship.“

“Well, I have my thoughts regarding that. I shall not distract you by telling them now. Just focus on getting away from the two ships.“, he replies. “I shall be on hook duty. Can't have anymore boarders.“

“Well, getting away from the pirates is easy, trevor.“, I speak, a bit smugly. “It is keeping the ship together that is the challenge.“

“Well, then focus on that. It's not like we have the option of changing our ship anyways.“, Trevor replies. “Before you start crying, this is the result of accepting what the head office has offered. You will do well to remember this in the future. Those bastards will do anything to save a couple of mana stones. Regardless, before I leave I have to remind you. Introduce yourself and the mission before the head office chews my head.“

“Yeah yeah, leave already.“, I replied to the man, snapping a bit. He knows how to get on my nerves.

Trevor doesn't reply as I return to focus on the formations. I guess that I should check up on the propulsion formation but to do so in the middle of a flight will only cause my heart to fail. It is already on the verge of burning out. Instead, I return my focus to the sensory formations or what is left of them.

A familiar sense of pain returns to me as I look at the two ships behind me. Well, they are nothing more than blurry spots behind me, depending more on my mana sense than anything else. They seem to be going at a steady rate for now so that is good news at the very least.

Right, my work is actually pretty simple. I have to accelerate the ship to match the speed of the ships behind me. Too slow and the ships behind will be getting a very easy opportunity to attack us. Too fast and the propulsion formation might just end up failing. Then not even the ships behind us will be able to tow us to safety. It is about the most embarrassing way for this ship to go. To fail before the enemy ships even manage to get a hook into us.

Well, as my master likes to say. Do not think of things too much, especially about stuff beyond your control. It is the easiest way to get a headache.

Well, that leaves me with the issue of my introduction. Even before my issues with the thought logger, I dreaded introducing myself. The problem with that is due to the sensitive nature of my identity.

Well, I can certainly introduce myself. My name is Antonio Sevenstars, of the black mountain (based in the hex mountain, to those that didn't get it.). My master is the grand wolf of the formation corps. beyond that, I don't think that I have to describe myself.

Just this bit of information might end up leaking some things that I certainly don't want the people I am about to meet to know about any time soon. After all, the reputation of my master is everywhere in the continent. I guess I will be talking about these secrets soon enough if things go badly.

For now, let me focus on the people who I am supposed to escort. That would be the scholars. To speak of the scholars is to speak about the black mountain. The black mountain is not the strongest force on the continent, but it is considered to be the most knowledgeable. We have knowledge on nearly anything, be it magic or the dirty little secret using which a village chief can be threatened to do what you want.

To put it simply, the scholars work to collect information for the black mountain and by information I mean everything from the history of a place to the more uncomfortable bits that I am better off not putting on my record.

Let's just say that everything that the black mountain knows (which is a pretty significant amount.) comes from the scholars in some capacity. They are even trained for it in their weird ways. They say that if you were to leave a scholar without supervision in a city for a day, he shall figure out the methods of invading it in that period. More importantly, the scholars are supposed to be the source of all the legendary magic that is used by the black mountain. Magic capable of crushing mountains, diverting rivers and building forts in a single day. All of these are supposed to be created or discovered by the scholars.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Rumors like this are why the scholars need an escort of dedicated guards in the first place. Right now, we are escorting three scholars. I don't know much about them, only that they enjoy their privacy. I don't even know their names.

As for the where, I am supposed to leave the group of scholars at an old draconion ruin, that they call as documented ruin number 32. Just the fact that they have a name for it means that this is not a magical ruin that is being visited for the first time. Other than that there is little that I know about the ruin. Well, I might not even get to visit the place. There are treaties to follow and contracts to be fulfilled. I also have to stock up on a lot of materials if this ship has to make its way back to the hex mountain. I might even need to replace the entire thing. Now how much work that will take, I do not even dare to imagine.

This place is one of the rare locations from which the hexmountain is not visible in the continent. Elsewhere in the continent, the hex mountain would stand there like a part of the horizon. Maybe not so imposing as being closer to it would be but it is true that the hex mountain is always there in your sight. Well, I guess that is what happens when you make the largest mountain in the continent your base.

Focusing back, I am going to be quite busy soon enough. Until then, this ship is going to be keeping me very busy. The ships behind me seem to have slowed down finally. I am sure that they will soon disappear even beyond the range of my enhanced mana sense. Not that this range is much after almost crashing into a burning ship.

Normally, with most pirates this would have been enough for me to breathe a sigh of relief. Here, the pirates are of a different variety. They seem to be oddly persistent in their chasing us. Maybe it is simply desperation, (it is the beginning of winter) though Trevor does imagine it to be something worse.

I will leave him and his theories later. Now that things seem to be cooling down a bit, I can finally shut down this log. Before that though I will have to record something else. It is a brief rundown of the reason that we have ended up in our present situation and the seven temples incident.

Firstly, I will have to discuss the snow wind empire and our relations with them. The empire is one of the closest locations to the frozen wastelands. Being this close to a mana desert (especially this mana desert.), the place is quite inhospitable for most people. The snow wind empire is the only empire that has managed to claim this piece of land as their own from all of their neighbors.

They actually managed to carve their territory in a pretty bloody war. My master says that the people here have earned every inch of their land with enough blood to flood that inch of land. In short, I have blabbered so much about them to explain that they are supposed to be hard people hostile to everybody.

Now, since we are so far away from their lands, the black mountain actually has a pretty uneasy alliance with them. We might just be the closest thing they have to an ally. Now that would not be much of a problem in normal cases. While I am sure that the snowwinders might not be friendly with us, they would at the very least be neutral.

That all has now changed with the seven temples incident. Well, if you want detailed information on that disaster of a mission you will have to access the corresponding logs. For now, I will explain it to you in brief. The snow wind empire has another draconian ruin under their control known as the temple of the seven stars or the seven temples for short.

Much like the ruin we are going to, the seven temples were a place that our scholars could access and study. Not going into too much detail, the seven temples have many formations which are quite ancient and incomplete. Activating them without caution will have very dangerous side effects.

Let's just say that one of our scholars got very impatient and managed to blow up the seven temples. That would still not be much of a problem, if it were not for the fact that the scholar in question was under the influence of one of the scholar's herbs. Do not waste your time by asking me what the herb is, only that it boosts the functioning of your mind and that it has the side effect of making you look drunk.

The scholars are supposed to be masters of creating different kinds of potions and herbs, all of which can produce some amazing effects. That is their secret though, one that they rarely share to even the other factions of the black mountain.

Naturally you can imagine what a drunk scholar messing with formations he shouldn't have will look like to the snow winders. It is a wonder that they have allowed their scholars to this ruin too. I am sure that there is a lot of politics behind the scenes which I don't understand, but the snow winders need us at this moment. It is clear to even a outsider like me that has only studied these people from the records of the head office.

I won't bore you with the politics I do understand, save to tell you that the place we are going to, the frozen peak, has a lot of requirements for formation mages. That is why I have been sent. I am sure that I have been sent here to aid the snowwinders while the scholars do their work at the ruin. They are about to enter into a state of war and having a formation mage like me to help them out will certainly be helpful for them.

Well, I am also about to be something of a hostage, I assure you. While I will be at the frozen peak, doing what is pretty important work for them they will kill me the instant that anything occurs at the ruin. That will lead to a lot of chaos though and a certain fraying of diplomatic bonds. So there is that as a consolation.

Still, who can tell what will happen in a moment of emotion. These ruins also seem to hold a historic importance to these people. Well, overthinking about this is not going to lead to anything productive. The ships behind me finally have left the range of my detection.

I am sure that these pieces of junk are unlikely to follow us. Still, I won't be making the mistake of making that assumption again. It is going to be a pain to make this ship work once it has been shut down. I shudder to imagine the damage that I will be dealing with this time.