I have been making use of the free time that I have gotten in the last week to begin my work on the remaining spells. I have completed almost all of the spells that could have given me an edge on the battlefield.

  The three spells of the formation base have been completed. Then we have the water spear spell and the quiver spell to store it. After that, I have completed two spells, which together work to form my ballista.

  Before I knew it, I had already completed seventy percent of the spells needed to achieve minor completion of the formation. (Minor completion of a formation means that I have inscribed everything in the formation except the final spell. It means I can use the formation at full power using formation control.)

  A class eight spell is more than powerful enough to fight the snowlords. I haven't been given much opportunity to play around with a class eight formation. (The most basic spell that my master uses is at class six. Even those he has to use too carefully to ensure that it doesn't get destroyed in a moment. Sometimes his strength seems so far out of my reach.)

  Each time that I have taken control of a class eight formation it is such a heady feeling. (Even an incomplete formation) It feels like I am a god. It is an illusion I know, but there is no way that a snowlord can be stronger than a class eight formation. If they were, the scholars would have been more interested in them.

  I guess that I should speak about the remaining spells that are left for me to complete. There are three class nine spells left,

  The first spell is a certain spell known as “earth pack”. The spell allows for the earth to be compressed to make it stronger. Much like the Iron skin though, it is a spell that takes time. With time the spell will be able to compress the earth in the ground.

  It is supposed to strengthen the ground to ensure that when the copper bark does take root, it will be able to handle its weight. Immediately it is not particularly useful though, other than stopping enemies from digging into the ground below us.

  Even that is not particularly needed since the ground here is covered in so much snow. Other than that the ground under it is as hard as stone. It makes me wonder how exactly the dwarves have dug their mines into this land. Well, the dwarves and their bombs are almost legendary now.

  Well, the second spell that I have to describe is the iron bubble. Well, how do I describe the iron bubble? It is a spell that is meant to supplement the iron skin spell. It doesn't provide me with any particular boost to the spell. The only thing it does is aurify the spell.

  Well, aurification is hard to describe if you are not a martial mage. Only those bastards need to make use of spells like this. Well, let's try my best. If the iron skin is at this moment like paint on the wall. Then with the iron bubble spell part of the iron skin is going to be well, like a bubble covering the fort.

  The bubble is going to be useful, much later once it has been given a chance to grow. For now, it does not have much use. It might be able to block a few arrows from the enemy and it will also have a bit of an isolating effect. That means it will reduce a bit of the ice mana in the region, not enough for it to have a significant effect though. (Unless I give it a couple of months, which is becoming a statement I have used too many times in this mission.)

  That leaves me with my final spell and the eighth class spell, neither of which I want to talk about at this moment. The final class nine spell is related to the nasty surprise and the lesser I record about that the better. As for the eighth class spell, now is not the time to waste a good surprise is it? At least, the gambles that I have been taking in the last couple of months have finally paid off.

  Right now we have managed to survive anything that the enemy has thrown at us. Every troop that they have thrown at us we have managed to destroy. That has brought us at least a couple of weeks of peace in which I will manage to complete my work. The hunt has ended and that means that we are going into the storm season it seems.

  The storms of this place are legendary. Even the snow tribes who can survive in the northern wastelands tend to struggle to move during the storms of this place. The storms are why I am getting so much time to inscribe.

  At the moment he has thirty soldiers, that are still able to keep fighting in this moment. These soldiers are not even enough to maintain vigil at one of the gates. That is why we have completely shifted to me patrolling for the enemy.

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  The injured soldiers are the ones who are having to face the worst of the situation at this moment. They all are suffering from the chill, though at varying levels. The storms are going to flood the fort with ice mana again. That means that the soldiers have to worry about wearing their coats again.

  The non-injured soldiers, he has stationed the soldiers at the southern gate.

  That is because the weakness at the southern gate is something that I cannot fix right now. It took me all of my creativity to make the gate fall in the first place. Spells like the iron skin tend to have runes in them that are used to describe the exact area in which the iron skin has to be applied. (Getting the runes wrong means some pretty deadly things.)

  Without these runes, it would be quite impossible for the iron skin to even function. Manipulating these runes should only be done at their creation to specify the structure of the entire building. This way, the iron skin can be applied at every wall, at every gate and every hinge.

  I can manipulate the runes that I have inscribed. It is very risky though, like trying to remove a card from a castle of cards. That is what I have done. With a weakened hinge and the mass of corpses, putting pressure against the gate came down like a piece of paper. (Don't ask me how long that took to calculate.)

  To achieve my task I essentially made my formation stop applying the iron skin on the hinges of the southern gate. I could try and change the formations to make it go back to its usual state.

  That is a risk that I do not want to take. You see, if the entire castle were to fall because I needed to return one card to its position, well I don't even know how I would react. Maybe I would burn the entire thing down in frustration.

  Well, I think that Shamon has understood that point by now. I can't say if that is the case but the man has at least given up trying to convince me to repair the damage to the formation. He has taken to more mundane methods of reinforcing the southern gate.

  A group of soldiers have been reinforcing that gate with everything that could be spared in the fort. I have seen old furniture be dismantled to shore up the gate. Old spears, old barrels, and everything that was there in the stores had already been broken apart, stitched together to reinforce that gate.

  I honestly don't know how effective it is going to be but at the very least it should be able to do something. It shows their ability to build as well when their foot soldiers can build something like this.

  The gate cannot be used at all now so these new reinforcements better be worth it. It has kept the soldiers busy and at the moment that is enough. Right now I would say that the southern gate is the most defended location in the fort.

  Speaking of soldiers, I guess that I should also tell you that Shamon has failed at getting any reinforcements. The frozen peak is useless at the moment, as anything or anybody that they will send will have to travel a week at the very least. While the storms are not particularly intense it is more than enough to make the process of travelling through it quite hard. With the retreat of the nobles, that is time that they cannot afford to waste.

  The remaining temporary forts are a different matter. They are close enough that the storms will not significantly stop people from traveling across. Based on my understanding of their conversations, (naturally, I am making use of my superior hearing here.) the other forts have not been attacked as intensely as they are usually attacked. This is what makes Shamon think that all the troops that have been attacking us are the troops meant to attack them.

  Regardless of how true this is he has been making very good use of this rhetoric to try and get a few soldiers here. Not that he has been particularly successful at this process. The only thing that he has gotten is maybes.

  This bit of politics I understand at the very least. The other forts are trying to save their hides. They have more than enough soldiers to spare but they are not going to do so. It is a simpler process to keep their soldiers with them rather than commit them to some random fort whose success would not even help them.

  After all, even if this fort lasted, it would not help them out in any manner. Instead, if they were to commit their troops to help us and their fort came under siege it would just make their work that much harder.

  Also, the situation this time is more chaotic than usual. There is a clear lack of nobles in this place. Normally, at the very least one set of nobles is sent to these forts. That usually creates a pretty clear chain of command. It would also be quite easy to send multiple noble factions to this place. (This is what must happen usually.) This would also create a pretty structured chain of command. Two to three forts at the very least would be able to work together.

  This time there is nothing of that sort. Not a single faction of the nobles has been given control of the forts.

  Normally at least a single family is given control of the place. This way, there is a clear chain of command in place. If they do end up focussing on a single fort like this, then they can just force troops from one fort to move to another.

  Well, the commander usually gives this control to two or three families. That way there is competition among the nobles. This way the nobles are more busy fighting each other and not wasting their time bullying the commoners.

  The lack of nobles has also led to another problem, which is the lack of mages in the temporary forts.

  Based on Shamon's estimate there are only seven mages in total here, including me. One for each fort. That is an abysmal amount. In the previous years, every fort at the very least had four to five mages to help hold off the enemy.

  Well, I will leave the politics of this to the scholars. The only thing that I care about at the moment is this fort of mine. As long as it lasts and the ruin is protected all the other forts can fall for all I care.