One of the major problems with the water spear is just how volatile it tends to be. After about five minutes in the open the spear will begin to grow unstable and its shape will be lost. After about half an hour the mana in the spear will begin to dissipate. Within a hour nobody will even be able to tell that there was a spear here. Even the mana will be lost to the world.

The only way that a water spear can be stored is with a corresponding spell to keep it stable. That spell, is called as the quiver spell. The spell creates something akin to a storage location like how the formation base did with the formation core. Only here, the storage location will be mobile. I will be able to change its location whenever I want to. Any water spear stored in this location will retain its stability until it is brought out of that area.

Right now that is the thing that I have to focus on inscribing. If possible, I wanted to have the quiver formation built before I had to activate the formation base. That would have saved so much of the mana that has gone to a waste now. Shutting the formation base took quite a while. I would say that almost a majority of the saved mana has already bled away dispersing into the area that is surrounding it. The only thing that is still safe would be the iron mana which is safely bound to the fort in the form of iron skin.

The other two types of mana are at a critically low level. This is especially true with the water mana. For a few days I was not even sure if I had enough mana to make even a single water spear. At least I do not have that worry anymore.

It won't take too long to recharge the formation base (maybe a week or two) but it is still wasted mana. that is another problem with this formation you see. Once I inscribe the class eight formation it is going to be taking quite a bit of mana for it to activate. I would estimate it to be roughly ten times my mana capacity. I could activate it if I were to fill it with every single bit of my mana for ten days. That would even include the mana that I have to use to protect myself from the chill. I would literally become a statue before I end up supplying enough mana to the thing. A more stable method would end up taking thirty days for me.

Well, this is a problem with all formations that run continuously. it takes a lot of mana to start such formations. Thankfully, I don't have to act as the mana source for this formation. I don't even want to imagine what being without mana in this hellhole will feel like.

Other than the work that I am doing to prepare for inscribing the quiver formation, I have been observing Shamon doing his work. The man has been quite busy since the last week. The icebeasts have given up on their surprise attacks. Now they are attacking us with their full force. Three hundred and twenty beasts have been assaulting the fort in waves.

They attack us like a horde, in a mostly formless manner. I am not able to predict the actions of these creatures at all. they appear like a horde attacking from everywhere. (it seems like it at the very least.) This continues on for most of the day with creatures trying to breach the fort in various positions. It is like fighting a octopus with a hundred limbs. The creatures never attack a single location too. If they feel like they are not succeeding in a single location, they immediately shift to another location.

I am surprised that the beasts are even able to maintain this. It takes a certain kind of organisation for an army to be able to attack like this. If I were to try this on my own, the icebeasts would be tripping on each other completely destroying any momentum that the creatures would have instead of smoothly shifting to another location. The result of that would be the complete annhilation of the creatures.

Well, whoever or whatever is leading the enemy forces is pretty good at it. I at the very least am not able to notice any major mistake that could be exploited. Granted I am no strategist. Even in the legion they passed over me many times for the leadership positions. Well, regardless of how skilled the enemy seems to be, Shamon seems to be better at this.

Even with a third of the enemies numbers, the man has been giving a equal fight to the beasts. Granted we have the wall which the creatures are not able to climb.

Well, technically speaking they can climb the wall by literally digging their claws into the wall. By the time they did so they would end exhausting their ability to control mana. (Even the ice beasts have their limits to controlling external mana.) Then all it will take is one push to throw them to the ground where they will most likely fall to their death. Before that though these creatures are more than capable of taking lives.

With the strengthening that is provided by the iron skin the wall is holding its own at least. There are more than a few spots where the enemy has damaged the wall. Still, the wall is nowhere near to a collapse.

As for what is Shamon's strategy, I have lost track of it a week ago. The only thing I can tell is that the man seems to be ordering the soldiers on the fly. There has been a constant stream of orders that the man has been giving, redirecting the soldiers to different positions.

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As for the strategy of the beasts, that is more obvious at the very least. They just want to maintain pressure on us. Their attacks are meant to keep us on edge until we make a fatal mistake. Then they bring us down like a crazy beast. They are clearly being used as pawns by their masters, most likely to keep us busy.

Well, whatever Shamon has been doing has been very successful. He has yet to make any mistake. There have been no major losses and the enemy soldiers have certainly been facing more losses than ours. There have been losses on our side too, mainly three deaths and seven injuries infected with the chill.

At least in this matter the mana that has leaked from the mana core has helped us out. All that mana will disperse in a couple of days, but for now it is helping insulate the soldiers from the chill.

Once it dissipates though, things are going to be much worse here. All the injured soldiers are essentially useless until they can recover from it.

The morale in the fort is pretty bad if I am to be honest. The soldiers are professional enough that they don't let it affect their actions too much, but it is starting to creep in. Well, I think that I can help out on this front at the very least.

Building formations has always been the best way to boost the morale of a fort.

While I am certainly not completing any today, they should at the very least feel like some progress is happening. I should be able to give that feeling at the very least with the quiver. Other than this I cannot think of anything else that will be able to boost the morale of the soldiers.

I won't be helping them beyond that though, either in strategy or physically. After all, what is the use of good morale if it means that the enemy is going to slaughter every single one of you. I have a primary task here after all. I have to take care of the troop leaders or regardless of how skillfully and brilliantly shamon does his work the only end will be death. They might be able to kill a leader if they were to isolate it from its troop but it would kill too many soldiers for it to be a viable strategy.

The four troop leaders have not been present on the battlefield ever since the previous fight so that is a good thing at the very least. All they have been doing is circle the edges of my formation directing their soldiers. Until they make a move things are going to be like this.

Right now the hope is that I will be able to complete the ballista before they attack. The ballista is a combination of two spells, an earth spell which will conjure the body of the ballista and a water spell which will act as the string of the ballista. Once I have inscribed these two spells, I will be able to launch the spears at the enemy rather than throw it at them. With the ballista I will be able to fight them off quite easily.

Even with the quiver and a steady supply of spears I can't be sure as to how effective it will be in the battlefield. After all, having more spears won't mean anything if I don't get to shoot it. That is why I will have to get started on the ballista immediately after the quiver.

This is about the hardest part in the crafting of this formation. Conjuration spells by their very nature need to be very precise. most humans take years and decades to be able to craft conjuration spells exactly as they want it. to do it with a formation is even more harder. All runes need to be precise or the best case scenario would be the formation exploding in your face.

All of that is assuming that the enemy will be giving me time to protect myself. I am surprised that I am even being given so much leeway

Normally, these creatures could harass me by consistently attacking me.(That is what would have happened down south.) As long as they do not give me the time to inscribe.

The fort is the ultimate target. If the enemy causes enough damage to it, all they would then need to do is to send their underlings. Without the wall, even I will be able to do little to protect myself against the literal horde of beasts that we are facing.

It will just take twenty of the grunts to crush me. Well, thinking all of these thoughts is just causing me to enter into a panic. All I can do is to focus on my work. Anything beyond this is out of my control.

On to more positive news, I have finally managed to begin work on expelling the chill. Even now I can feel the insidious chill wax and wane like the moon. It is not being expelled as quickly as I would have liked it to be but it has certainly gotten more easy to manage.

To remove the chill properly would require me to enter into meditation and that is still not an option at this moment. While I have grown powerful enough with the water spear not to worry about a sudden strike from the enemy, I still have not grown strong enough that I can completely relax.

Even now if they were to attack suddenly I will have to be there within a couple of minutes or they will gain the ideal opportunity to attack the base. They still will be able to bring down the wall if they were to focus their attacks for a while. If before it would have taken two or three minutes, now it will take five to seven minutes. Well, complaining doesn't really help me achieve anything. It is about time that I got back to work again.