What should I speak of in this log. I have a lot to speak about and nothing specific to focus on. Well, let's start by speaking on the trek that we had to do till a couple days ago. Travelling in the forest has certainly been an experience. The heat and the humidity is honestly not an issue. With my vital mana I barely even notice it. Humidity is something that I am used to anyway. You will be if you work with my master.

It is the mosquitos that are causing me a problem. With my instincts and agility crushing them in my hands is not much of a problem, but there are so damn many of them that after a point I had to give up. After all, how many times can you slap your own face, even if it does not hurt. Even jacob has begun to give me looks by now and the man would not react to a bull charging at him.

Even now they are buzzing around in my ear, like they a practicing a symphony. A symphony meant to drive me into a rage. They have made sitting into an action that I have been avoiding for the last couple of days with a passion. Not that I am particularly safe from the infernal droning even if I keep moving. How the fuck is a mosquito annoying a mage.

Other than the damn mosquitoes, our journey has been quite smooth. Right now we are next to the mayfire castle. We have camped about five minutes away from the castle. The camp has been hidden as well as it can be from our enemies.

We are presently hiding in a cave that Andrew has found like magic. It is a hidden little place, that was occupied by a wolf. It did not take us long to kill it and take over it's cave. (The wolf itself did not go to waste as Trevor has made it into our food for the last couple of days.) The cave is a tight fit for us all but I have to admit that it is putting my mind at peace. I could add a few runes to make it more hidden. A little something to hide the smoke maybe. I could also try for a glamour though that might require materials I don't have right now. It is just such an unstable spell without something to anchor it.

We could go closer but then we would risk discovery. Turns out the mayfires are in a worse position than we expected. Way beyond the expectation of the head office.

The minute that we came close to the castle it was more than clear that the place was completely under the control of the bloodfire gang. The fact that their crownship is floating above the castle is more than enough proof of that.

It is a massive ship, reminding me of a merchant ship of all things. That is only the case with it's size though. No person would ever mistake this ship for a merchants ship. It has one too many cannons for that. Over the last couple of days I have been counting the cannons on that ship and I can confidently say that I have counted till thirty cannons at the very least. Imagine dodging that many cannons.

Well, there have been a constant stream of ships coming to and leaving the ship for the last couple of days. With the number of ships that can be seen here, I can at least confidently say that all of their forces are here.

As if that wasn't enough, there is a series of traps and formations that I can feel on the walls of the fort in front of me. These are most likely formations that have been placed here by the mayfires themselves but right now there is simply no way that the bloodfire gang has not already taken control of them.

That is why we are actually camping in this place right now. We don't know how exactly we can breach the fort now. Trevor is still sure that the mayfires are still somewhere inside the place, waging their war on our enemies. Now I have no way of knowing just how true that statement is but the man is completely sure.

As for what exactly we are doing here camping. That is something that only Trevor has any idea about. Speaking to the man, the only thing that I have understood is that he is calling for allies. What allies he can call here I don't know. It could either be some kind of summons or it could be the criminal element of the city. Both make use of summoning circles.

Every city has it's rats and the guard corps always work to be friends with them. As for what is the nature of our allies, I have no idea. The man has not been willing to share those details with me at all.

Well, I am not surprised that Trevor is not so open with me. The guard corps can be divided into two halves. The first half is the official one, the ones that go and deal with our allies. The one that has to go and satisfy the hexmountain treaty. The ones that have to engage in diplomacy with our allies.

The other half, is an unofficial half. I am sure that if I were to ask the head office about their existence, they would say that it does not exist. Even I know of their existence in whispers and rumours, mostly from my master.

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They supposedly deal with the criminal elements of each city and at the same time they deal with the more unsavoury elements of our work. After all an assassination would be more efficient on our coffers and certainly lead to less losses on either side, though only if our allies never find out about it.

I think that trevor has been placed with me to manage work like that actually. That is the reason that he is being given so much information that I am not being given. (And to be frank, I am not really trusted by the head office.)

The only thing that I know is that the man has been making use of contract magic, so there is a pretty good chance that the man is summoning one of our allies in the other worlds. Over the course of the last couple of days, the man has been raising summoning circle after summoning circle, trying to look for a specific creature. Sadly, this is not my field of expertise so I can't really say what he means to do. He could be summoning elementals, imps, fairies or demons for all I know.

The man has not been doing blood sacrifices, so it is not the devil's at the very least. The hexmountain is better than that.

Right now in this group, I am the only person that is not able to handle this waiting. Andrew and Jacob are both meditating like crazy. I am not surprised that they are so willing to meditate.

Andrew is at the fourth stage of the foundation stage. Jacob is at the third stage, almost on the verge of reaching the fourth stage.

They both (especially Andrew) are at a key stage of their cultivation. If they both manage to break through into the fifth stage and unlock their mana sense, it would be very good for them. I actually need to ask them about their cultivation. My only problem is their background. Everything that I speak to them is reported back and that gives me a certain kind of anxiety dealing with them.

Looking at them makes me want to continue my studies as well but my question is how the fuck are they doing it. After all, meditating just requires so much focus and I can't do it with these damn mosquitos. I don't know how people do it sometimes. Even in the legion, I used to be the one that got the most distracted. (That is one of the reasons that I am still at the second stage.)

At the moment I have no idea what it is it that I want to do. I can't meditate anyways. After all, if cultivating was the goal I already would have the second slab by now and begun work on the third slab. I am still not too confident that I would be able to pull of the fusion spell. I could study the fusion spell, but at the moment I don't want to do that.

Studying that spell reminds me of all the formations that I need to fix at the ship. Then I start thinking of my ship and that is just depressing. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I thought that I could deal with all of this damage. Well I still could, it is just so much work.

The damage done to the ship this time is even more extensive than I was hoping it to be. Every single one of those formations were put in there by my master. Knowing my master's work, I know that the formations are not going to be easy to fix.

While all of the formations that he has put here are recorded in his notes. It is not going to be an easy task. Just the list of formations that I need to manage are causing my head to spin.

Right now my primary goal is to fix the sensory formations. They are the most screwed formations on my ship due to the fact that I had to explode them.

I guess that I should explain why I did that in the first place. It was actually a trick that I learnt in one of the other logs. You can overload the sensory formations to cause a decent explosion. Usually any explosions in ships like this is quite dangerous for any ship that has a mana battery. Any strong force is able to destabilize a mana battery.

An unstable mana battery is a recipe for disaster. Even the smallest of forces could cause the entire thing to go up in flames. I am hoping that the risk of an explosion (at least in their heads) would make them double think the prospect of exploring the ship.

Well, to return to the matter of the damage on my ships. The formations used to navigate the ship are also shot. The culprit is actually one of those cannons shots.

They managed to take out the formations meant to keep the ship in control. It actually should not be that hard to repair. After all it is just replacing a few inscriptions. Well, the only problem is that this is my master's work. Until I completely understand his notes that is going to be very hard (if not impossible.) for me.

Then we have the formations that store mana for me. They are completely and truly screwed. This damage actually happen during our second crash. there is a crack the size of my head in the mana storage formation and I will need to replace them all.

Any mana that will go into my storage is just going to leak out of the crack. This is the major cost of running with a ambient storage system actually. The durability of your mana storage is about as strong as the place in which you have inscribed the storage formation. (Which is not much considering the materials usually used.)

That is one benefit of using mana batteries. It is that breaking a mana battery is very hard. The only problem is that once the mana battery is broken, things are going to go to shit very quickly.

well, I guess that I should speak of what mana batteries are exactly in the first place. It is not common knowledge for non formation mages. Well, a mana stone is a naturally occuring mineral, that can be mined from the ground. Mana stones can be recharged but they can break after recharging it a couple of times.

A mana battery is a more processed form of a mana stone, with formations put into a mana stone to regulate the mana leaving and going into the battery. It is capable of absorbing and emitting an absurd amount of mana for a period longer than any mana stone should be capable of. That is why mana stones are used so much in airships.

Well, for now, I think that I should stop this log now. Well, I had started the log to distract me from my boredom. Now I feel my anxiety grow. Fuck it, I have recorded enough. I might as well begin work on those cloaking runes.