Right now things are going pretty well if I have to say so. Cloak is right now carrying me into the storm and the man has yet to drop me to my death. Given the number of chances that he had to do that, I can at the very least be confident that this man has no desire to kill me. Well, if the man were to even drop me of here, I am confident that I will be able to survive. The weather has been becoming more stable the further the man is carrying me into the council's territory.

The man is delivering me to the people that would be deciding if I am to die or not. They are called as the council and I am surprised that cloak was even willing to share to me anything about the council. Most people do not tend to be that open with the black mountain.

If anything, the man has been more than happy to share with me the functioning of the council. The snow tribe is not a monolith as they like to show themselves as. Instead they are an alliance of smaller tribes that work together to form the council.

There are five major tribes that work together to form the core of the council and it is of these five tribes that I need to speak of today. Each of them is going to be voting on my fate and each will be having one vote to decide my fate.

The first tribe is the tattoo tribe. As their name suggests, they are masters of tattoo magic. As far as I can tell these tattoos of theirs is supposed to be a variant of formation magic. They are able to control a ridiculous amount of ice mana through their tattoos.

Other than that they also are the strongest of the five tribes that make up the council in terms of military might. They are strong enough that none of the other tribes will be able to beat them on their own, though an alliance of two or more tribes will be able to do so.

They are also going to be after my head now. Turns out the giant was a person of the tattoo tribe and a pretty important one at that. Also, these people are the ones that have the worst relation with the legion. They send the most people to hunt for the soldiers of the legion and also lose a lot of their people to the legion. There is no way that this blood debt is going to be paid any time soon.

The tribe after that is the spear tribe. They are masters of the spears and are supposed to be able to use magic that makes their spears nearly unbeatable in battle. Cloak has not been particularly interested in describing their powers to me, so there is little I can tell other than that they use spears.

They are also strictly after my head. In this case though, they are more after my identity as a sage. Turns out the sages managed to screw up a place known as the spear valley which is supposed to be a very important place to these people due to their faulty formations. (Well, knowing the sages it could be intentional as well. They ally with everybody after all.)

The third tribe is the beast tribe. They hold the ability to command the ice beasts and a variety of other beasts. In the council, they hold a pretty interesting position since they do not hold a particularly strong combat capability. Cloak claims that the only reason that they are barely considered of the five tribes is due to the fact that their trade is extensive and widespread. They provide ice beasts, beasts of labours and many more things to the various tribes in this place.

Due to their tendency to be merchants, they also are the only neutral force of the snow tribe. They have a good relation with almost every force of the snow tribe and they also have the most unpredictable vote due to it. It could be against me or for me, depending on if I manage to convince them that I don't harm their bottom line.

The fourth tribe is the wolf tribe. They are supposed to be item mages, based on how cloak speaks of them. They imbue their magic into beast hides, specifically a species known as the winter wolf. As you can guess cloak is supposed to be a member of this group, though the man claims that he is independent of them now.

He actually spoke of them the least, only letting me know that they are supporting me. He did not even tell me the reason that they were willing to support me. Some places even I know not to push.

And that leaves me with the fifth and the most interesting tribe of them all. They are called as the blood tribe and their abilities are unknown. Either cloak is unwilling to tell me or even he is not sure of their abilities other than the fact that it has something to do with blood.

They are the smallest tribe, having only a thousand or so people. yet, none of the other tribes seem to be particularly inclined to fight them in any shape or form. They are supposed to be so great at combat that none of the other tribes can ever be sure if they can take them.

They are also supporting me, though the only reason for that is my master has made a deal with them. How and what the man has traded to buy their support I do not know.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Anyway, the blood tribe likes to go against the popular opinion. That is if three tribes were to vote for my death then they would vote for my life and vice versa.

So these five tribes together form the council. I guess that I should also explain why the council is needed in the first place. Well, the simplest way to put it is the truelands (as they call it.) is not a gentle place to live in. The snow tribe has the ability to resist the chill and live in the northern wastelands but even they are not able to survive in the storms of this place.

Storms in the truelands occur only during the winter and they are devastating to put it in mild terms. That is if you are not ready for it. Only the snowlords and their masters are able to physically survive in the truelands during the winters.

That is why, every tribe has to make sure that they are protected against the storms. Well, the only way to be doing that would be to erect massive barriers that would be able to block the storms, protecting the more weaker of their people.

The council is here to make sure that every tribe will be able to actually pull this of. Firstly, they make sure that every tribe will be able to set up these barriers. If they are not able to do so the council will absorb these tribes into other tribes that will be able to do so and so on and so forth.

By the way, I do not know any details on this barrier that cloak speaks about. All I can tell you is that it is not formation magic of any kind. Such a strong formation would have left marks that I will be able to detect.

Regardless, this barrier of their does not seem to have a particularly high success rate since it is supposed to fail quite explosively too. If that happens, then the council is also charged with rescuing them and protecting them.

That is why they need to raid the snowwind empire. That is the only place nearby that would be able to provide them with the supplies that they would need to feed these people.

Naturally, the council does not do this for free. They are supposed to extract a very heavy price for their protection in the form of tributes. Though what form these tributes take is something that the man is not willing to speak about again. Now that I think about it, the man does have experience with the black mountain. He knows how to hide the truly important stuff.

Anyway, I have spoken about the people that will be deciding my fate. I guess that I should now speak about the place that is going to be my court.

The council of the snow tribe is a piece of work. it is a massive crystal mountain, that seems to be glowing like a sun in these frigid lands. Well, it would be wrong to call it a crystal since the entire mountain is made up of a special kind of ice, though why the material is special has again been withheld.

As for why it is called the council, it is because it is the only place in the truelands where the council will be able to convene. As you can guess, the mana that is emitted by the leaders of the five tribes would be more than capable of worsening any storm that would be in the region.

The mountain is a massive environmental formation that is working to stabilise the weather of the surrounding region. Well, calling it only a formation would be wrong. It is a mixture of magics of which formation magic is only one thing. I am not even sure if there is a formation in the place. There is something quite similar to it though.

The mountain barely shows any pulsation of mana which would have calmed anybody else down. Any non formation mage would take that to be proof that the formation is not being powered with that much power. They never seem to realise how wrong that logic of theirs tend to be.

No mana leakage is often a sign of mana efficiency and only a good formation mage is able to create formations of that variety. It would be easier to find a bad formation mage experienced in using only good materials but much harder to find a formation mage that would be able to make complete usage of a formation using any materials. Just doing this can cut the costs of a formation by a quarter.

it is doing it's work amazingly well. The instant that the mountain came into view, I could feel the wind around me stabilize almost stopping now that we are much closer. Only very powerful formations should be capable of something like this and I personally cannot imagine creating such a thing.

it is supposed to be the grandest work of the council and the greatest proof of the council's ability to work together and also the most precious thing that the council owns, though I would say the better proof would have been the thousands of tents containing shops next to the mountain. I can better explain once you know of the history of the tribes.

The market is also another thing that defines the council. It is supposed to be the greatest market of the truelands. Almost every tribe is able to make their way here and trade for goods here.

The way that the market connects the people of different tribes is also one reason that the council holds such great power. After all, even the beast tribe who can be considered to be the richest of all the tribes would not be able to afford the cost of building the massive block of ice that works to keep the market below safe from the weather.

I guess that I should describe what my present position is. Right now I am standing outside one of the gates of the council, waiting to be allowed into the place. Cloak has just dropped me here just a couple of moments ago.

Based on the looks that the people around me are giving, I have to hope that the man will hurry. If they don't, I don't think there will be anything of me left for the council to pronounce a verdict on.

Other than that, I guess I can describe to you how the place looks from close by. Well, the place looks painfully ordinary to be frank. The ice it is built from reminds me of glass rather than ice.

I don't touch the gate though. I am sure that it will be more than cold and that is something that I don't want to be experiencing now anyways. The people that are surrounding me are already giving me weird looks.