Well, it has been a day since we escapes those three ships. I had wanted to land immediately and start working on the formations. I could not take that risk though (even if I wanted to Trevor would not accept it.). The pirates of this region are very persistent. I would not be surprised if the two ships we have outpaced are still behind us steadily following us. We have had to face a couple of ambushes like that. We were absolutely confident that we had dodged the pirates, only for them to ambush us in the night.
Now comes the crappy part. right now I need to decide which formations I need to fix right now.
Right now there are three main formations that I need to focus on right now. The first is the sensory formations. Right now, they are barely working right now. Thankfully, I will be able to fix them. They won't work as well they normally would have. It shouldn't take me too long to fix it.
The suspension formation is also busted, but that has been the case for the last half month or so. I have been landing the ship based purely on my skill. Well, I can ignore this for a bit. After all, it is the third formation that I am worried about.
The main problem right now is that the propulsion formation has begun to fail. This time I do not know how to solve this problem. I might be able to extend its functioning for a bit longer but that is it.
The problem is present at a very fundamental level. To explain that I would first need to explain how exactly a formation core works. A formation is a spell inscribed into a core. All the runes that you would need to make for casting a spell are inscribed into the core. All you need to do is to charge the core with mana to activate the spell.
Right now the problem that I am facing is that the formation core is collapsing. The material used for the core of this particular formation is a piece of sky bamboo. It is as far as I can tell, inscribed with a wind spell. (I can't tell which spell though.) The thing with sky bamboo is that it is pretty good at boosting the power of wind spells. the only problem with it is that it has no durability.
A propulsion formation has to run for days (even months sometimes.) That must mean that it must have mana running through it for all that time. Sky bamboo is not able to handle that. The simplest way to put it is that the sky bamboo is burning. The mana passing through the formation is causing the entire thing to burn up. After the fight yesterday I can physically see the runes of the spells inscribed into the core.
I have heard that such a thing could happen but I have never seen this happen. It is quite a risky endeavor to deal with a failing formation core. With the amount of mana passing through this material, you never know what can happen when it breaks.
It will most likely create a hurricane in the middle of the room. It could also create a void in which none of us can take a breath. A thousand such things can happen depending on many factors. one thing is for sure, the crappy environment formations of this ship will not be able to handle it.
The problem with the propulsion formation is that I cannot predict when it will fail. If it were to do that in the middle of the night, we will all crash to the ground. With how busted the suspension formation is, this will destroy the ship. As for the worst case, I don't even want to think about it. Let's just leave it at it is not going to be pretty.
Well, the only real option that I have left is to change the core of the formation. Changing the core would essentially be creating a new formation. If I get a material that can act as the core of the new propulsion formation. I will still have to inscribe the formation. I will be able to do it but it is going to take a lot of time.
Other than that, the only thing I can do is to rearrange the runes that are supporting the core of this formation. This will reduce the strain on the core, which I hope is enough for me to keep this thing flying for a bit longer. If I were to do it though, our speed would only be roughly sixty percent of what it is now. On top of that it is only a stopgap measure not dealing with the actual issue at hand. The formation will still fail.
Well, I am sure that you are wondering how exactly I ended up with such a crappy ship. Well, there is not much behind the story. The ship that we are traveling on right now is a gift given to the black mountain by the snowwind empire.
The ship was given to us more as a political statement than as an actual gift. You see, the snowwinders are so violent that nobody is willing to let them develop their own airships. These especially include combat airships.
I don't know what they wanted to achieve by giving us the ship. Maybe it was meant to showcase their present capabilities at building airships. Maybe it is a method of diplomaticly threatening the black mountain. (What, this all is pretty new to me.)
The ship that I am driving is supposed to be the most advanced airship that they can build. (Supposedly.) The head office thought that using this ship would make us seem friendlier. They hoped that it would make them less likely to attack us. I agreed to this thing like an idiot. Well, it sounded so reasonable when they put it in that way. They had forgot to mention just how useless this ship actually was.
I don't know how useful this ship is anway. I don't know about friendlier, but they would certainly see us as idiots. Not even the snowwinders would use this ship. We have been barely making any progress with this damn ship. with a better ship, we would have already reached the frozen peak about half a month ago.
That reminds me, I should go and inform Trevor about this development. I will have to modify the ship in ways that will require his permission. I will need to get it soon too. If the ship were to crash now, we have about a couple of months of trekking before we might reach a city. That is if we were to survive the crash in the first place.
(After about five minutes.)
I am standing outside Trevor's quarters right now, which is also his office. Entering into the room is an experience. To paint a scene, Trevor's room has a bed to the side, something that never seems to be used. His table though is the exact opposite, full of papers and documents. I am surprised it has not broken yet. He is always sitting in that chair, doing whatever he does. I do not know what it is and I do not dare ask. All I know about them man is he is supposed to be very important.
The man has a higher security clearance than man. To be honest, that in itself is not weird. my clearance is lower than other people at my strength level. (Lets just say I lack certain knowledge that they have.) The weird thing is that I cannot figure out what exactly the man does. I have asked all of my colleagues in the guard corps. (Not that I have many of those.)
The weird thing is that the man is at the first level of the foundation stage. Yet the man is somehow more important than me. Not that I care, I just want to know why. I don't dare to ask the man himself though. Right now, he is so focused on this work that he has not noticed my entry at all. Focus like that is not easy to achieve, you know.
"Trevor, I have come to speak to you.", I speak, looking at the man in front of me.
"Well, captain. It is a surprise to see you here.", he replies, still signing away.
"What can I do, it is not like you would heed my summons anyway. Regardless, we have important matters to discuss.", I speak, taking one of the seats. "We need to figure out what needs to be done regarding the ship."
"Well, what can you do?" Asks Trevor. "It is not like we can stop in some city somewhere to get the ship fixed anyway."
"That is true, but that doesn't change the fact that using the ship has become dangerous. It could fall any second.", I reply.
"Well, you are the expert. I am sure you have some solution ready already.", he replies.
"I have told you of my worries with the propulsion formations before as well. Most of them are coming true at the moment. I believe the formation core would burn out in a couple of days at the minimum and a week at the maximum." I speak, trying to emphasize to the man the gravity of our situation. "I can tweak the formation to make it more stable, but it will cost us speed."
"Well, how much time would we take to reach the frozen peak and how much time will the formation last then?" He asks.
"I think that it take a fortnight to reach the frizen peak if I were to modify it this way. This way the formation will last a month or even two, though it is still going to be risky.", I say.
"Then it is a risk that we will have to take. Don't forget, Even if an attack does happen, you should be enough to deal with them. Right now we are pretty close to the frozen peak. There will be no pirates here. It would damage the snowwinders reputation too much." The old man speaks after a minute of pondering. "the two soldiers can replace you on the sensory formation when you are sleeping. That way we won't be caught off guard."
"Still, I am not comfortable. This is supposed to be a very desolate area. What would they even be getting here that would be worth pirating.", I speak. "I am telling you that the snowwinders are somehow involved in this matter."
"Well, it is not as desolate as you assume it to be, captain. The frozen peak has at the very least ten thousand mages. Such a large group of cultivators consumes a lot of resources. On top of that, these people are right next to a mana desert. They will need a lot of mana stones to keep running the frozen peak. I have to assume that the formations at the frozen peak must eat through mana stones.", replies Trevor. "anyway, the Snowwinders have a very strong supply line in this area for all of this. I am not surprised if a few thieves are active here."
"If that is the case, the snowwinders would have been the first to get rid of them.", I speak. "They like to send messages as you said. If they had a strong supply line as you claim, they would have already destroyed all these ships to prove a point. You can't say that does not look suspicious."
"Well, now is a sensitive time for them. Anyways I don't think these attacks have been accidental at all. The Snowwinders are behind them. The thing is that it does not matter. This is nothing compared to what the people here normally do. It is downright polite if you ask me.", Trevor pondered. "I have warned you enough times that it does not matter. We have made it this far and we will reach the frozen peak as well."
Saying that Trevor returns to his work. I quietly slip from the room, wondering sometimes why such a man of presence is working as my underling. He would make a killing in the legion or even as a bandit.