Turns out that Shamon was not joking when he said that he was worried about the chill. I am worried about it too after learning about it. I guess I should describe the chill to explain why it is a problem.
You can think of our present situation like we are sitting in an ocean of ice mana. Our vital mana is like a boat in this ocean, protecting us from drowning in this place. The soldiers who are non-mages are essentially a flimsy plank always on the verge of collapsing. I am much closer to the fisherman's boat, capable of staying afloat if things are calm. Still, if the mana gets truly chaotic, there is a chance that even I might drown.
The man wasn't kidding when he said that we will turn into living statues. Exposure to too much ice mana means that your body begins to freeze from inside out. (This ice is supposed to be as solid as steel by the way.) The only reason that all my soldiers have not become a statue is because of the environmental formation. (Which is just getting worse with each passing minute.)
It is a risk with being exposed too much of a single type of mana. For example, too much of fire mana increases the probability of a fire occuring in that place, even from materials that can't traditionally burn. It might lead to a situation where even water will be able to catch fire.
Shamon has been spending the last week trying to handle the Chill. Under his command, nobody has died, so I let him do his thing. The man is making use of coats that have been enchanted to stop the ice mana. (Enchanted is a strong word. The runes are painted on the coat.) These coats are not too effective. If it had been non-mages from the Hexmountain, the man would have been able to do nothing as they froze to their death. The only reason it works is that folks of this Empire are just too strong physically.
I guess it makes sense. The Draconic path focuses on strengthening the body, you see. When an entire kingdom of people have practiced that path for entire milleniums, you can see the effects of it even in the non-mages. Still, I will have to hurry up with my plans. Even if they are not dying any time soon, the problem is that my army is also not really combat-worthy at the moment. They are able to take care of the tiny groups of Ice Beasts coming now, but they can't handle when a larger troop does end up coming.
For this particular task, the best option that I have is the formation base. I can use the mana from the elemental nodes once the formation base has been activated. I can use it to push out the ice mana. You can say that it will create a bubble around the fort. I can use this to temporarily replace the mana regulating component of the environmental formation.
Incidentally, this is the same method used by the Snowlords to survive in the Frozen Wastelands. Except, in their case, they are not pushing out the Ice mana with other types of mana, but their own will. It is supposed to be their innate ability to control any kind of ice mana, even external ice mana. This allows them to push away the ice mana around them to an acceptable level. (Their acceptable levels are still able to kill us.) It also gives them a nearly limitless reservoir in the Frozen Wastelands.
I guess now that I am a bit free, I should speak about what I have learned about the Snowlords (or the Snow Tribes) from Trevor. Obviously, we don't know a lot about them. There are just too many barriers to collect information on them. Still, we know that they are divided into multiple tribes, that are equally likely to fight each other or work together. (This far from the Frozen Wastelands, I only need to worry about the Snowlords)
We know that the Snowlords are their primary soldiers. They are mages of the Second Circle. (Which is equivalent to a fourth to sixth foundation stage.) They are supposed to be significantly harder to fight in this place due to their innate ability, though. They are supposed to be able to show a power equivalent to the third circle. (Which is equivalent to seventh to the ninth foundation stage.)
This is the main reason that I am worrying about their attack so much. Without my sword (And with my injuries), I won't be able to fight somebody at that stage. Unless, I have a similarly powerful formation to counter them. That brings me back to the formation base.
To those who do not know of the formation base, you can call it the beating heart of any formation. Its main task is the management of mana from the source. (Be it mana stones, Elemental Nodes or me myself.)
The formation base is usually the most complicated part of the formation. It has the most runes that need to be inscribed. (And you don't want to fail with the formation base. The consequences are not pretty.) It also acts as the base for the remaining part of the formation. (hence the name.) It is also the first part of the formation to be built whenever we make a formation. (It will also not be giving me any offensive or defensive benefit.)
That is why I need the elemental nodes this quickly. I can get working on something a little more offensive after the formation base is built. The formation base of the formation that I am planning to build needs a stream of three elemental nodes. One elemental node of the metal element, the water element, and the earth element, respectively. (These are the elements that the copper bark tree needs to grow.)
You see, that is the fascinating thing about druidic trees. Most of them can grow even from a single twig as long as you can supply them with the correct type of mana. The only problem with this is the fact that this process can sometimes take centuries. Druidic formations can be used to accelarate this process, but even then it can take decades. (I would like to see the Commander hold this place for decades.)
That is one of the reasons that the Druids fell to the Legion in the first place. When it takes you a few decades to build a base, a battle of attrition is something that you have to avoid. The Legion is, if anything else, a master of such kinds of battle.
Anyway, getting back to more relevant matters. The process of capturing elemental nodes is very fascinating. Normally, non-Druids have to construct massive formations to redirect the elemental nodes. These formations tend to be massive, some of them reaching class eight and beyond. Still, there is no guarantee that the elemental node will be redirected in the direction that you want it to go. There is also a significant possibility that such an formation will explode on your face.
The druids make use of a simpler method of doing this. I could try to explain this method but that is not going to be an easy task. You could say that I am essentially massaging the elemental node to flow in the direction that I want it to go to. The only problem with this method is that it needs me to come directly into contact with the elemental node.
That is the only reason that I would spend my time crawling in these mines. I am trudging in tunnels that the dwarves would consider a tight fit looking for an elemental node. (I can barely crawl here.) Thankfully, it was the dwarves that dug these tunnels. It is very unlikely that any part of it will cave in on me. (The dwarves fight entire wars in these tunnels. That is how durable they are.)
Until now, I have visited five mines. I can't even feel the traces of a elemental node in any of them. That is weird. Normally, you can feel a small part of the node even if the entire thing has been dissipated. (It is an echo of an echo, but you can still feel it.) It almost feels like somebody was here clearing the entire thing away.
I have never seen a case like this. I would have to assume that it has something to do with being this close to the Frozen Wastelands. After all, I have heard that a mana desert can do weird things to mana in the surrounding areas. Maybe it is just that. (Something tells me it is more nefarious than that.)
Even then, things are going okay. After all, there is a massive list of mines that I can still go to. Let's just hope that I don't need visit all of them. I can barely crawl through the tunnels as it is. I have no interest to do it for the next couple of days.
I can technically find these nodes from the ground above me as well. I have a sensitive enough mana sense that I can detect a node if I am right over it.
The only reason I am down here in the tunnels is that coming here above the ground in this weather could kill me. This place is at the border of the Frozen Wastelands. The chaotic mana here can kill me if I were aboveground. The only reason that I am still safe is that I am presently in a cave. The massive layer of earth (and all the earth mana it contains) is muffling the storm of ice mana up there.
Even then, I can feel the violent changes in the ice mana occurring up there. They hit me sometimes like waves on the beach. I can feel the it wash over me, trying to drown and freeze me, but my vital mana is strong enough to shrug it off. Still, it feels like I am becoming a block of ice.
Thankfully, I am not the only person with this problem. All of the dwarven tunnels are interconnected to each other due to this reason. They essentially create a complicated tunnel system deep under the ground. As long as you enter one mine, you can go to them all. So it seems like I will be stuck in this place for a while. I am not too surprised about this, though. The dwarves must be more fragile than me. I can survive up there for a bit, but there is no way that they are doing so.
I cannot help but wonder whether this storm will be able to destroy our fort. I mean, I am not that far away from our fort. Even from down here, I can tell how violent it is up there. Well, Shamon seemed to be more than confident that the fort won't face permanent damage. We are in some kind of a dead spot, it seems. Looking at the storm, though, I am struggling to believe these words. How can anyone call the storm above stable?
I have taken the man's word for it now. I do not have any actual method of protecting the fort even if such a storm happens closer to the fort. I have a few plans for it, but they are not anything that I will be able to pull of easily at the moment. The formation base is the only practical thing that I have at hand, and I am already doing my best to make that a reality.
Normally, this is not a task I do alone, but I cannot exactly send the soldiers in here. Firstly, I am not sure how the Head Office could react to this. While revealing small secrets such as detecting elemental nodes shouldn't cause me much problem with them. I still have no desire to antagonise them.
Secondly, most of the soldiers don't have any form of cultivation. They will freeze to their deaths even with the protection of the tunnels. Ultimately, the best way to do this would be to do this personally. To physically crawl into these tunnels and find the elemental nodes I need.
I think it is wise to focus on the task at hand. I don't have a lot of time to to spare. I am in a mine that the dwarves have built to extract an ore that they call "blue mithril". I think they mean mithril that has water mana flow through it with it. (Any water spell cast from a weapon made of this will get a boost.)
I assume that this might lead to an elemental node of either the water element or the metal element. If I am really lucky, there could be an elemental node of both elements here. (It is rare for elemental nodes to coexist like this, though.)
That means that I am left with a lot of crawling, and cursing, and shivering. I have no desire to record that, so I will be taking my leave here. I need to figure out where I am going anyway. A dwarf's mine might look small on a map, but they tend to be literal mazes, I tell you.
On top of that, you can't be sure of the actual location of the node either. It will most likely be found in the region that has the highest concentration of the ore. That could be at the very end of the mine, or you could find it right at the entrance. That means that I have to check out every inch of this place to make sure no elemental node exists in the mine.
Just thinking about the amount of crawling left for me is making me feel claustrophobic. Screw it, I will continue this log when I have finally found an elemental node.