There are two problems with a water spear spell. The first is the range of the spell. A water spear does not have any way for it to propel itself. Any other spell like it, like a fireball or even a light beam, has ways of propelling itself.

  The water spear has barely any range. I have to be above the damn creatures to even be able to hit them.

  The water spear is a kind of conjugation spell in that regard. It is not exactly one but it has clear elements of one. That means that I have to be the one to throw it. Even enhanced with all of my vital mana, the range of the spear is not particularly great. (Hey, my cultivation is not that strong.)

  Thankfully the druids had a solution for this problem of theirs. They have a pair of conjuration spells, which together make a ballista. The ballista is powered by earth mana and is strong enough to launch a water spear five kilometers. (The water spear won't have such a range here. The ice mana in the atmosphere will destroy the spear long before it can do so.)

  Right now I am nowhere near capable of creating the ballista. Firstly I don't have enough mana for it. It will take a lot of earth mana to manifest, and I have nowhere near the amount that I need. Anyway, I will need to inscribe two conjuration spells to create the ballista. Conjuration spells are something that I struggle with a lot. There is no way that I will be able to inscribe two of them any time soon.

  That leads to the second problem of the water spear and that is the problem of its stability. Water spears are volatile by nature. A water spear will start to dissipate in a couple of hours after manifesting. Within ten hours, the entire thing will disappear. When you have to use hundreds of water spears in a battle manifesting them while fighting is pretty risky.

  The druids are the ones that provided a solution for this again. The only way that a water spear can be stored is with a corresponding spell to keep it stable. That spell is called 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.

  This is something that I will achieve in the short term. 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 waste now.

  Shutting the formation base took quite a while. It is not easy to control an incomplete formation. Many people in my place would not have been able to achieve even this bit of control that I have achieved. 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, especially water mana. At the moment I am not even sure if I have enough mana to activate the water spear spell inscribed in the core.

  It won't take too long to recharge the formation base (maybe a week or two) but it is still wasted mana.

  This is a problem with most druidic formations. Well, this is a problem with all formations that run continuously. While running, such formations don't tend to consume too much mana but it takes a lot of mana to start such formations.

  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 ice beasts have given up on their surprise attacks. Now they are attacking us with their full force. At least three hundred and twenty beasts have been assaulting the fort in waves.

  They attack us like a horde, in a mostly formless manner. They appear like a horde attacking from everywhere. (it seems like it at the very least.) This continues for most of the day with creatures trying to breach the fort in various positions. It is like fighting an octopus with a hundred limbs. The creatures never attack a single location as well. They spread out in a manner that makes predicting their actions hard.

  I am surprised that the beasts are even able to maintain this level of order. It takes a certain kind of organization for an army to be able to attack like this. It is not something that I would have expected the troop leaders to be able to pull off. Also, how are the grunts able to follow such instructions? (Most humans can't.)

  The creatures have managed to do it. I at the very least am not able to notice any major mistake that could be exploited. Granted I am no strategist.

  Their goal is clear to me though. The creatures want to keep up the pressure on us. They are making use of their numbers to keep harassing us. Most of the soldiers have had to forgo their rest to keep vigil at the wall and push off any creature that comes up. No rest makes making mistakes easier and mistakes mean injuries and deaths. The more the soldiers are injured the fewer the soldiers that can be fielded at the wall. Thus we are stuck in a vicious cycle here.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Even with a third of the enemy's numbers, the man has been giving an equal fight to the beasts. Granted we have the benefit of the wall. Still, I don't think I would be able to pull it off if I was in the same position.

  Well, technically speaking they can climb the wall by digging their claws into the wall. By the time they did so, they would end up 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 collapsing. Only the troop leaders will be able to do that now, but I am there to hold them back.

  As for what is Shamon's strategy, I 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.

  He seems to be predicting the places where the creatures are attacking us. Don't ask me how. The only thing that the man has not been able to prevent is that his soldiers have been getting injured.

  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.

  The soldiers are not able to expel the ice mana from their bodies like I can. That means, for them the main threat with the chill is more ice mana flowing into their body, making their injuries worse. The water mana and earth mana in the room are cutting off at least a couple of weeks from their recovery time.

  Well, this silver lining in the fort is something that only I can notice. 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. Even in the hex mountain, not many troops are capable of being so steely in the face of a challenge like this.

  Well, I think that I will be able to help the soldier's morale at least. Building formations has always been the best way to boost the morale of a fort. I can imagine the ballista would be enough to calm down even the most tense soldier.

  While I am certainly not completing any inscriptions 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. Let's hope that it will be enough for now.

  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.

  It is torture to remove this chill. Pulling out the ice mana feels like I am actively freezing my insides. This is even more intense than the chill at its worst. The problem is that right now this is the only solution that I have to the issue at hand.

  To remove the chill painlessly would require me to enter into meditation. During meditation, I would be cut off from the world and my senses. The chill is intense enough that I would have felt it even in meditation but it would certainly have been more manageable. I can't enter into mediation right now.

  The fort is the ultimate target. If the troop leaders cause enough damage to the walls. If the bastards manage to bring down even a section of the wall. Then all they would need to do is to send their underlings after us. Without the wall, even I will be able to do little to protect myself against the literal horde of beasts that we are facing.

  I can fight these grunts as long as there are not too many. With ten grunts, I don't think that I will even struggle. With twenty grunts, I am still put up a fight. With thirty or forty grunts, even I will die. So, right now, no matter what happens I cannot let them bring down the wall.

  That means that I simply cannot meditate. I am not particularly skilled with it, so it takes me about half an hour to leave meditation. That is enough time for the creatures to bring down the wall. Even without the meditation, I am already cutting it close because I have to run to their position.

  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.

  Trevor has given me a reason for this as well. The control that the troop leaders have over their creatures is supposed to be pretty limited. With their fourth member injured like this, they must be struggling to keep their underlings under control it seems.

  That doesn't mean that they won't be able to attack us. It just means that they won't be able to attack us as frequently as they normally would have. I blame the chill for all of this.

  The damn thing has made my life a torture of the highest degree. It is not allowing me to work properly. It is not allowing me to fight the creatures properly. The fucking thing isn't even letting me sleep properly. Have you ever fucking tried to inscribe a formation while you are half a zombie yourself. I am lucky the formation core has not exploded on my face.

  Normally, we formation mages don't even need to take such an active role in the combat. The commander should have sent a mage with me. I don't even need somebody stronger than me. Even Eric Starfall would have been enough.

  Having to focus on so many things is not letting me do anything properly. Screw it, complaining about my situation is not going to help me in any way. It is better that I just keep working. (Better to call it torturing myself, to be honest.)