Well, I am kind of fucked. To explain my present situation I will have to start from the very beginning. The deadliest place to build a formation is the battlefield. The reason for that is simply the fact that on the battlefield you have an enemy who is trying to disturb your work the entire time.

  If the enemy manages to distract you while inscribing. Well, I cannot imagine a more terrible way for a formation mage to die. Even in the best-case scenario, there is always the risk that the backlash will cripple me completely. It would burn through my mana sense. I don't even want to imagine the worst-case scenario. In the worst case, I would be consumed by the explosion that is going to happen here. So will this fort.

  Even in the best case, that means that the formation core is going to be destroyed. Somehow I don't think that the snowwinders will be giving me a backup core. They should have more materials capable of being used as a formation core.

  The ironic thing is that I am the person with the highest cultivation in this group. Right now there is no way for me to stay on the sidelines if and when the battle were to occur. We will lose the fort if I am busy inscribing while the enemy will be taking this fort. This means that I have to be extra careful to prevent that from happening as well.

  The legion even has a name for this type of thing. They call this having a "sword to the throat" because in this situation the best scenario is not to attack us. We can't wait too long before I am forced to start my work. (The soldiers will simply not be able to survive the cold without the formation base.) The instant that I start my work I need to be ready to face an attack.

  As for who is holding the sword to my throat. It would be the three troops of ice beasts that are standing guard outside of our fort. Now, I guess I have to explain what a troop of ice beasts even means. Let me start with what the ice beasts are.

  The ice beasts are the beasts of the snowlords. It is the only creature that can survive in the northern wastelands. At the same time, they can eat almost anything so they are easy to feed. Based on my understanding, they use these creatures for everything from labor to war by the snowlords.

  I cannot see them personally right now, both visually and in my mana sense. Normally, I should be able to catch them in my mana sense, but I still haven't gotten used to the place. Coming to this mana desert, everything around me has become shades of one single color. I am trying to get used to it, but it will take some time.

  Shamon assures me that he has seen many signs of these creatures. Even now he claims that a few of the creatures have been trying to sneak into the place. A few have even managed to do that. He has already begun to set up a patrol to ensure that we won't be caught by surprise.

  To speak more of the ice beasts, I have had to rely on Shamon. Firstly they are supposed to be masters at manipulating the snow and ice. That is supposed to be their magic, a basic ability to control elemental ice. It is not a particularly strong ability but in this area, it is one of the most terrifying abilities that you can face.

  Their claws and their bites are powered by the ice mana that makes this region such a death trap. Even a single of their strikes could prove fatal unless the soldiers are shipped to the frozen peak. They would freeze from the inside out becoming a statue of ice.

  They gave this process a pretty innocent name too. They call it the chill. I feel it doesn't capture the gravity of the situation that we are facing. Being hit by these creatures will mean that a hole has been poked in my vital mana. This would mean more and more ice mana will flow into me.

  The creatures have already built a base near the fortress. This underground base of their means that they have no desire to move from this region. They also do not show any signs of attacking us. (I have yet to see one of these creatures.) that means that these creatures are being directed into being a sword at our throats by their masters.

  They are waiting for me to build the formation, which is the only way that I will be able to fight them on an equal footing. It means that if I don't do this carefully I will be defeated here. The funny thing is that I don't even have a home-ground advantage here. (Trust me that is very rare for a formation mage.)

  We are surrounded by a plain of snow on all four sides. Even our mana stands out in this frozen wasteland. This is to a point where the enemy does not even need mana sight to track our path. I am not sure if I will manage to reach even the temple (which is the closest to us.) with enemies chasing after us. That means abandoning the fort is not an option.

  Now, If I am a bit honest. Things are not as bad as I am making them seem. The first benefit I have is that the creatures do not have managed sight. That means that it should give me some breathing room for inscribing if I do end up doing something.

  As for what I want to build now, that would be the metal side of the formation base, a nifty little spell that is called the ironskin. It was a pretty popular spell among the druids. The spell allows you to coat yourself with metal mana.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Due to the nature of metal mana (it is not particularly easy to shape such a variety of mana. It takes days to shape metal mana if you were to work on it personally.) this spell is naturally not particularly useful for humans.

  Things change when you involve a formation into the mixture. Maybe the barrier formed will not even be able to stop an arrow, but such a thing ends up accumulating with time. Within a few weeks, the barrier will become strong enough to block most attacks. Within a couple of months, the barrier will be strong enough to even handle ballistas. Then the barrier would be strong enough that it would match any conventional barrier that I can put up right now.

  The only reason that I am even attempting something like with the creatures outside is because I am reasonably sure that I won't be detected. Once the iron skin starts working, it will also be quite detectable even to these beasts. I will be able to hide myself during the actual inscription process though.

  Now the only reason that I am taking such a risk is because Shamon assures me that he will be able to handle the enemy beasts. With the protection of the wall and the fort, they can hold their own against troops that are four times or five times their size or so he claims.

  The only problem that he is facing is the troop leaders. Any one of them will be able to bring down large chunks of the wall of this fort with a focused attack. If that occurs then things can go either way.

  Well, I cannot blame Shamon too on the troop leaders. Even without the troop leaders, they are outnumbered two to one. The troop leaders are creatures that are at my level. They would need at least ten men to fight against one leader. Personally speaking, I will be able to kill one troop leader quite easily. I will be able to fight two of them, though it is going to be a very hard fight. Against three, even I cannot tell who will live and who will die.

  It makes me wonder why they are not attacking us already. With their numbers, they have more than a decent chance of bringing us down with them. Holding a sword to our throat is a method of buying time. The difference is enough that it wouldn't be the first strategy I would use.

  Well, I will lose my mind if I have to ponder on the thoughts of the enemy. The situation left my control the instant that I appeared here. Right now the only thing that I can do is adapt. It is not like I am completely helpless as well. I have a few plans in my pocket, though they are going to be quite risky. I just do not want to record them in the middle of an active battlefield. You never know who is reading this stuff after all.

  Well, I started this log to record about my successes with the elemental nodes. I have found all three of the nodes that I need to power this class eight formation of mine. I have not redirected any of them at the moment though. The major reason for that was the fact that I did not have any plans to build the formation base in a rush. I will do it carefully and reasonably without panicking.

  It won't take me too long to redirect the elemental node. (I can even do it in the comfort of my room.)

  Now that I have recorded all of the important things that I can think of. I might as well record everything that I have learned about the ice beasts. The creatures are the reason that the commander has not yet gotten rid of all the snowlords.

  To provide a bit of context for you, Every snowlord has a horde of these creatures under his command. Each horde consists of about eighty troops of ice beasts. Each troop consists of eighty icebeasts and a first circle icebeast acts as the troop leader. (A troop leader has about the same amount of mana in its body as I have.)

  The snowlords are very weak compared to the commander. The commander would not even break a sweat if he had to kill a thousand snowlords. (This is the approximate number of snowlords that come here every year.) The man won't do that though. The reason for that is the snowlords are the only thing keeping the ice beasts in control.

  If a snowlord were to die, the horde that is under his control would become free without a leader. They will then migrate south in search of fresher pastures which would be the snowwind empire.

  The commander might be able to kill thousands of these creatures with a wave of his hand, but that is if they are bunched up together. They are spread all over the place. Even the commander and everybody at the frozen peak will not be able to detect each of these ice beasts before the battle spills into the Snowwind empire.

  The soldiers at the frozen peak even try to achieve this every year. They do this sending all of their soldiers at the beginning of each winter to hunt for these creatures. To the snowwinders, this hunt is killing two birds with one stone. It helps in reducing the icebeast's hordes while at the same time ensuring that the frozen peak has enough of a food reserve for the winter. The commander also participates in the fighting. Once he can confirm that the snowlord has lost the protection of his horde he will kill that snowlord.

  Even letting a hundred of these creatures into the empire will be a problem. These creatures are supposed to be fast breeders. If they become rooted in the empire, it will lead to a serious problem. Well, that would be wrong to say, as this problem already exists in the empire. Shamon tells me that he and his people have to maintain militias to protect themselves in their villages from these creatures.

  This is one of the reasons for the conflict between nobles and commoners in the Snowwind empire as well. After all, the escaped ice beasts tend to affect the commoners of the empire more. Every soldier that is at the frozen peak would have a story of how somebody from their family fell to an ice beast.

  Well, the ice beast problem would be a problem for the nobles as well since the region that would become infested would be the food plains for the empire. Having less food is always a problem for the nobles too, but it is simply not to the degree that the people in the villages would have to face.

  It is for this exact reason that the frozen peak has so many commoners. The frozen peak is the perfect chokepoint to hold back the ice beasts but the place is not easy to survive in. Even the locals of this place struggle to survive in this place. That means very few of the nobles would be willing to come to this place.

  Still, the most interesting thing about the place is the commander. The nobles are always wary of the commoners, especially one as powerful as the commander. How exactly the man survived the nobles is something that we want to know.