Pirates are in no way easy enemies to fight. What they lack in individual might they make up with pure quantity. Firstly, the weapons that they wield are nearly useless. An enemy boarder could strike me with his full strength and I will not notice it. Too many of those strikes and I will still end up wounded though.

Many powerful mages have fallen to a troop of enemy soldiers, just because the mage had underestimated the enemy troop and was overwhelmed by it. It is such a common problem that every young mage is made to look at all the historic examples of these idiots. Still the list of idiots grows every year and I have no desire to be a part of that list.

Thankfully there are just so many people that can fit on a ship. There shall be no pack tactics here at least. I am sure that every inch of the enemy ship was packed to its brim, but still the enemy would struggle to fit more than fifty soldiers in the ship. After all, you could easily fit in a hundred soldiers in the ship if you were to squish everybody, but where exactly will you be storing the food that is needed for a hundred soldiers? You can't really cheat with that.

Still, with thirty or forty enemy soldiers it would be wise not to underestimate them. Fighting them will also be easier in these cramped quarters where their swords will get stuck more easily and their shields will block their movements. That is if they have shields. Shields tend to be costly.

Right now, I am making my way to the other people in my troop. They are presently in one of the storage rooms at the back of the ship. They are a couple of soldiers known as Andrew and Jacob. Both of them are at the moment boarding up a door, most likely to hold back the very people that I need to fight.

It is a risk for them if the enemy were to breach the door, they would be left in a very vulnerable position. They would be outnumbered two to one. That is unlikely though, as the enemy seems to be battering the door, quite unsuccessfully. Pirates usually tend to have specialized tools for this, which these ones are lacking. Seriously, why exactly are these pirates so desperate to attack us? This early in their career as pirates, cowardice is the only thing that is saving their lives.

“Andrew, retreat to the formation room.“, I speak to Andrew, directing the duo to the room I had just left. “You shall find Trevor nearby. The three of you make sure that the formation room is secure. Can't have the ship messed up due to an idiot wrecking the wrong room.“

“Yes, captain.“, replies Andrew.

Speaking to them makes me feel very weird, though the reason for it is long and complicated. Well, I could talk about it but it would not be wise to talk of them and their history. It would be quite detrimental in the place that we are going to. Not that I know of anybody in the place that can spy on a thought log. It is always safer to assume that somebody is.

Within a few moments I am alone in the room, preparing my Armor. Well, calling it an Armor would be wrong as it is closer to a frame of vines covering my vitals. It will do well to stop an enemy strike or two but it won't be able to do much beyond that.

Well, this Armor of mine is not meant to be used defensively. It was meant to be a hidden ace. The fact that I am using it so openly is due to the fact that I have nothing else. Honestly, what problem my master has with me I will never find out. He always manages to figure out a way of screwing me over.

Still, to speak of my armor's ability. It has only one, called as thorn growth which allows me to manifest thorns from anywhere in the armor. It might make my armor sound quite useless, but it just depends on how you make use of it.

For example, I can use it to protrude a bunch of sharp thorns all over my body. It makes my body resemble a porcupine but the effect is almost immediate. Through the door I can hear muffled screams as the protruded vines enter into the body of my enemies. It consumes quite a bit of mana though for the results that it has given. Looks like I will have to tinker with the formations a whole lot more. This efficiency is not good at all.

It did not really cause a lot of heavy injuries but it was not meant to anyway. If anything it causes the men to push on the door even more. I certainly seem to have provoked them as they finally use something to batter the door open. I would have assumed that they would have run away on encountering a true mage. Looks like the men this north are made up of sterner stuff. They are at the very least more desperate. Maybe they do not have the experience to know when to run from a mage. Who can tell?

It does not take them long too, as I manifest a couple of thorns in either hand. It isn't particularly durable, but that is how it is meant to be. After all, I can summon quite a few of these thorns. I can certainly imagine a formation like this causing a lot of damage if used the correct way. Now, if I can just get the efficiency of the damn thing right.

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The door breaks open with a snap as the enemy raiders swarm into my room. They are using an old bookshelf to break open the door (this ship has a lot of junk stored in it. The people maintaining this ship never expected the ship to fly ever again.). At the very least these guys seem to have been trained, if not particularly well. I would say that they were part of a militia. There are seven of them in the room, with the others standing just beyond it. They know at the very least that overcrowding a room is about the quickest way for them to get killed.

Well, all it ends up doing is making my work a bit longer.

I strike out with my thorns. The left strikes a raider right in his head. The strike is hard enough to break the thorn in my enemies head. He won't be living more than a few moments. The thorn is much like a stick with a very pointy end. The right catches a raider right in his sword arm, disabling him though also leaving my thorns stuck in his arm.

This gives the other five in the room an opportunity to strike. they certainly do take it. I am struck with three sets of clubs and two sets of swords in various spots on my body. All that results in is a dull ache and a little blood. Oh, how my friends would laugh at me if they were to witness this. Well, calling them friends is wrong. Better to call them hyenas. Even better to call them bastards, I say.

I can't let it carry on though. Injuries like this have a tendency of accumulating. I also cannot let my looks be affected much, for we are about to enter into a wolf's abode. We certainly can't have me looking like easy prey. Otherwise, my Armor has enough holes in it. I certainly don't want another to be added to it, especially in the back.

So I charge. In an instant, two new thorns replace the old ones and rather than strike an enemy I throw it. I need to see if the thorns will have the same integrity once separated from its source.

Turns out it does and thus I keep on fighting. I have no desire to record every single blow of this pretty lackluster fight. The only reason that I have recorded up till now is due to the fact that the Armor needs to have a proper combat trial recorded somewhere.

(After about five minutes.)

The logic of this record is one of experimentation. How much mana I need to supply to the Armor to keep it working. The amount of durability and strength of a thorn that I will get for each unit of mana that I provide. What is the maximum length of each thorn? How many can be summoned in a single burst. I answer each question that pops in my mind related to the Armor. Well, I have to admit that this is not the ideal way to be testing a formation but as I said, this formation wasn't meant to be in use at all right now.

I have to admit that by the end of the fight, I had begun to play with the enemy boarders. My master would certainly frown on me for this type of thing. The man is a strong believer in the sanctity of life. I will have to make sure to ensure a cleaner end to my enemies the next time around. If my master were to even doubt that I was playing with my foes. It is a terrible thing to see him angry. I don't even know why I am recording this.

To come back to the topic, most of my testing is related to the basic stuff, something that I can experiment with only the formation. For example I can't really experiment with poisons now. The armor that I am wearing is most used by assassins due to how easy it is to infuse poisons into the entire thing.

It is a deadly process though, one that will require me to get used to the Armor and modify it to a certain degree. There are other avenues too, though it is going to be taking a while at the very least. I already have quite a few ideas popping in my head. For now though, I have to shelf all of those thoughts. Experimentation takes energy, something that I will have to reserve to keep this trash heap floating.

Thinking about the ship, I actually need to get to the formation room as quickly as possible. I can access all the formations from anywhere on the ship but I can only have fine control in the formation room. Most people would call what I did as stupid. Nobody has ever heard of a pilot leaving his room in the middle of being chased to fight boarders.

Well, what can I do? It is not like I have a proper troop of soldiers. I have three soldiers in this troop of mine. I am surprised that none of them are dead already in the way that our trip has been up till now.

Returning back to me, I have to admit that this fight has left me more injured than I would have liked to admit. There is a stab wound on my back, that stings pretty nastily. Thankfully, there was nothing on the sword to prevent my blood from coagulating. Pirates always poison their blades. (Which is just another proof of how bad these pirates are.) Blood loss is a very annoying thing to worry about when you need to focus on running a ship.

Other than that, there is a dull ache in various parts of my arms and my chest. This is where the enemy clubs struck me. I am sure that something is broken in my body, but it is already healing. At least I am cycling my mana to make sure it will grow into anything serious.

That is why I am not already in the formation room. Can't have the soldiers see me weakened like this. That would be quite a hit to morale. Though why I am worrying about morale with only four soldiers on this ship I don't know.

Still, I will have to get up soon enough. The room stinks of blood. That is a major problem with using a stabbing weapon in a group of enemies. Too much of what should be inside is on the outside, to my liking. With my sword here, things wouldn't have certainly gotten so messy and these injuries would not even be something that I would be worried about.

Well, I might blame my master but it was due to my ego that I am here in this state in the first place. After all, my master might be the man to set the challenges but I am the one that has to accept them.

Well, I have complained enough. It is time to return to the formation room even if it is a bit of a pain.