The temporary fort is not something that I would have expected from the snowwinders. Even standing here I can tell that the thing will be quite easy to break apart. I can crack the wall with a single punch and I will be able to shatter the wall if I were to channel my mana into the wall. Well, no fort can purely function on the strength of the materials from which it is built. Most forts don't even need a mage channeling their mana to break it. Compared to those this is still better.

  Still, if you were to tell me that this fort was built by the snowwinders I would be very reluctant to believe it. They are legendary for their ability to build, especially defensive structures like this. After all the forts that they have on their southern border have managed to survive the invasion of an alliance of four countries. It still stands in the south, preventing any hostile force from entering the lands of the snowwind empire.

  Well, the reason that this fort feels so flimsy is due to the time that these people took to build it. The entire fort in front of me has been built within a few weeks. Well, it would be more accurate to say somewhere between a week and two months. That is roughly how long it has been since this mission was assigned to me. Even then, to think that the fort in front of me could be built in a month is a shock. Even in the South, they would need entire armies to achieve something like this.

  As for how large this fort is, it will be able to comfortably house at least four hundred soldiers. The fort is surrounded by a wall (made of a similarly flimsy material.) that covers the entirety of the fort. At each of the cardinal directions of the fort is a gate.

  I honestly did not understand why so many gates were required. That just means that I will be dealing with each as a potential point of entry. Well, I can't complain now, can I?

  While the base materials of this fort are flimsy, it has now become my duty to ensure that this place won't fall. Now, I can think of two methods of doing this.

  The first would be to reinforce the entire fortress. I do not have the resources nor the expertise to supervise or attempt such a reinforcement. You would need stone masons, carpenters and architects who are skilled at their jobs. I can safely claim that I am none of those things. Anyways, how am I going to bring them all here? Traveling here is neither cheap nor easy.

  Instead, it is for the second method for which I have been sent here. This would be a central formation. Now a central formation is a formation that is meant to act as the center for this fort.

  It will manage all the formations of the fortress. It might be an environmental formation, a defense formation or an attack formation, all of them will be managed by this formation. It is supposed to be able to power and control every formation in the place. This includes the defensive formation for the place. I am planning a passive defensive formation, one that will be able to increase the durability of every inch of this place.

  It acts as the center of the fort. You can say that it is the beating heart of the fort and I have been brought here to build this very heart.

  Now, I am a formation mage and not a construction mage so I don't know a lot of these formations. I do know of a few that I might be able to use but most of these are so subpar that using it would be plain suicide.

  If these formations are inscribed then the fort will be destroyed. The strongest of our enemies won't even need to breathe on the fort for large swathes of the fort to be destroyed. They are supposed to be first circle mages after all. I am certainly not going to be fighting them without strong weapons.

  Thankfully, the core of my formation is made up of copper bark. Copper bark is one of the most common materials that one can find of the druids. The reason for that is due to the nature of the material. Copper bark and similar materials were used by the druids to create environmental formations.

  Every druidic village is supposed to have a formation at its center which is supposed to make their villages more habitable. They had about the best environment formations in the continent. I am more than sure that their formations will be able to work even this close to the northern wastelands. At least that is the hope.

  Well, that leads to my present problem which is the fact that just having a formation core is not enough for a druidic formation. Most formations are built with ways of powering them built into it. Most of them can be powered directly by supplying mana from your mana core. (That is the reason that I need to practice battery magic.)

  Druidic formations are different from that. They have to rely on Elemental nodes to function. To put it in simple terms, an Elemental node is a stream of mana of a specific element that flows in the world.

  Most of them tend to be under the ground and are often coincident with magical ores. Detecting these nodes is supposed to be nearly impossible. The only two forces in the continent that I know that can detect Elemental nodes with any confidence are the druid and the dwarves.

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  I have little to no idea how the druids find Elemental nodes. Maybe, my master might know but the man is not yet trusting me enough to tell me about it. That leaves me with only the dwarf's methods. The dwarves go about looking for elemental nodes by looking for the ore that you would find with them. On this front, no other force in the continent can challenge them.

  The dwarves make use of mana echolocation to find ore under the ground. Now, how do I explain this technique to you? The technique involves the process of releasing waves of mana into the ground. These waves will then be bounced off the magical ores that they want to find which can be used by the dwarves to find the exact location of the ore.

  Now I only know the absolute basics of mana echolocation. I have never managed to release a pulse into the ground and make any sense of it. I used it a few times in the air though and once in the water so I can say at the very least that I have used it.

  Using it inside the ground is a separate difficulty. There are just so many things on the ground. Only master echolocators can sort through the complicated set of information that they receive to be able to make use of this technique. Only they can tell if the reflection of their mana means that there is a piece of rock there or a magnificent mithril ore. I am not able to do any of that.

  Instead, I will be making use of the dwarves that have already visited this place to complete my work. The surroundings of this place have many abandoned mines of the dwarves. Most of these mines are going to be empty, completely run dry by the dwarves and their mining.

  I would have to assume that means that the Elemental node that would be associated with this mine would also run dry. That is what happens in most cases like this. There is a small chance though that the mana node is not completely dry and that is my goal at this moment. If I cannot locate a mana node at one mine, then I will have to visit another.

  It is all a game of probability. After all, if one location that I visit doesn't have a node then I will just keep visiting these mines until I find one that does have a mana node. Just a fifty-kilometer range around me has about a hundred mines. (That is a stupidly large number of mines.)

  I refuse to believe that I won't be able to find a node (or three) in all of these mines. The only reason that I am not in those mines at the moment is because I am going to be given all the details about these mines that the snowwinders have.

  It is supposed to be provided to me by the present head of this fortress, who is going to be my deputy. He is an interesting man who goes by the name of Shamon. His cultivation is supposed to be somewhere between a non cultivator and a first circle mage. The reason he is supposed to be so interesting is the fact that this man has managed to survive nearly ten years on this battlefield.

  It doesn't take long too as the man appears in the corner of my vision. It takes him a few moments more before the man appears in the room. He is a middle aged man, with no particularly distinguished features to him. The only thing that is different about the man is the aura that he gives. The man gives me the aura of a soldier. A soldier at the pinnacle of discipline, someone who won't panic even in the worst scenario. I will admit that it is a comfort to have such a second in command. The commander doesn't want me dead at the very least.

  “Captain, why have you summoned me here.“, the man speaks.

  “Well, firstly I want a report on every soldier that you have under you.“, I begin.

  “We have about a hundred soldiers under us. Five among them including me are capable of cultivating and powering any formations that you make. None of us have reached the first circle though. Each person here is an empire trained soldier.“ He continues. “They will not break rank even if they are being cut in half by a snowlord.“

  “Well, have you ever met a snowlord, soldier Shamon?“, I ask him.

  “Well, I am quite lucky in the fact that I have not, captain. I would be dead if that were the case.“, he replies. “Regardless, a snow lord appearing means that you are very unlucky. They do not like to be anywhere where they can be found by the commander. Still, I am confident that my soldiers will not be nervous in front of a snowlord.“

  “Well, have you bought up what I have requested?“, I ask him, distracting him from the topic of his soldier's discipline. The man looks ready to argue about it for the next couple of hours.

  “Yes, captain. A map of every mine in the region with a particular emphasis on the ore that is found at the location and its elements.“, Shamon replies.

  “Good, that is what I need.“, I reply. “Well, you seem to be a local of this area, Shamon. I am certain you must have an idea of the many threats that we must face in this region. What do you think is the most immediate threat.“

  “Well, we have three main threats in this region. The first is the snowlords themselves. Regardless of how much you strengthen this fort though, fighting them is impossible. The only thing we can do when we find out that a snowlord is coming is to run and hope that the commander reaches us before the snowlord.“, replies the soldier. “Thankfully they rarely appear this far south. Their minions though are a separate thing. Once the winter properly gets going, we shall be facing entire troops of ice beasts attacking us. By then, you will have to complete the formations, captain. Without a strong fort, the damn beasts won't even need to do much to get rid of us. This is their territory after all.“

  “What is the third thing then?“, I ask him.

  “That would be the very winds, captain. Winters here have the worst snowstorms. At its worst, these storms feel like the strike of a snowlord. I would say that the fort would buckle like a house of cards if it were to face a storm at this moment.“, he replies.

  “And how long does it take for these storms to go bad?“, I ask him.

  “We could face a storm like that tomorrow, captain. We might face it even in the next hour. There is simply no way of telling this far north.“, the soldier replies. “That is why I would suggest that you begin the work on the central formation as quickly as possible, captain.“

  “I know, soldier Shamon. The maps that I have requested are related to this very task. I am sure that I will be able to get started on the formation in under a week too. Until then, all we can do is hope that no particularly deadly Storm kills us all.“ I reply. “now that I have gotten that out of the way it is time for us to discuss the troops......