The Mayfires are our only true allies in the region. We do have other so-called allies, but they are also double-dealing with our enemies.

  The mayfires are the only ones that are truly loyal to us. That is why they are so important. They are the only ones that we can trust. Anyway, After all they have done to help us, we certainly will not be able to ignore them when they need us.

  For a more practical and selfish reason, They are our warning bell. Any attack on the hexmountain would certainly be preceded by an attack on the soldar plains. (The damage to our supply lines it would do is something that our enemies will simply not be able to give up on.) the greatest damage to our interests in the soldar plains is going to be removing the Mayfires from the chessboard.

  An attack on the mayfires will attract the attention of the higher ups. No wonder the guard corps are in such a panic. They need to confirm the truth of the situation as quickly as possible. If they are not prompt in their actions, the guard corps will have to give control of the plains to the legion. That is not an experience either group is going to enjoy.

  An invasion on the hexmountain is always doomed to fail, but it will still cause us to suffer. (Even the head office will have to answer if such an invasion were to happen.)

  To speak of the mayfires, they are a fascinating bunch. People tend to forget about this, but they are not a part of the soldar plains. Their history here starts as refugees from the desert in the east. The great desert there is as much a mystery to me as it is to most of you. The only thing that I know about that place that is its people are some of the strongest warriors on the continent.

  To return to the Mayfires, They managed to set up a presence in this region primarily due to their fire magic. In the soldar plains, that presents them with a very unique advantage, which they capitalized on to reach their present position.

  You see, the soldar plains at its core is a region of earth mana and wood mana. Almost all the people here are masters of earth mana and wood mana. Wood mana tends to be particularly susceptible to fire mana, as you can guess. (It doesn't tend to affect the users of the earth mana, but earth mana is not particularly offensive as well.) Also, which power would like to fight the Mayfires, who would be able to set fire to every single crop of theirs? When the only thing that you have are crops, you tend to be very careful around those that can burn it all to the ground.

  Incidentally, they started as pirates burning through the crops of their enemies. They were so effective at this that the local powers showered them with funding. They made use of all of this funding to make the Mayfire Castle.

  The mayfires have managed to create a base of power in this region that might be able to rival more established powers. They have been in this region for at most three hundred years. They are still able to rival powers that have been here for millennia.

  The reason for that is also the mayfire castle. Now, how is a man supposed to explain that castle's significance, when I have not even seen it with my own eyes until now? Much of what I am speaking comes from the logs of my predecessors (a heavily censored log at that. The mayfires are a key ally, which makes any information on them that much harder to give out.)

  Well, the Mayfire castle is both the military stronghold and the business center for the Mayfire family. To explain the former, it is a castle after all. Even the guard corps consider that place very hard to infiltrate. If you know the stuff the guard corps tends to do, that is praise that very few powers will be able to claim.

  It is the latter that I am going to struggle to explain. To put it simply, the mayfires are not farmers. (Unlike every other power that exists in the plains.) They might be able to burn every single crop in the soldar plains but it is of no benefit to them if they cannot produce crops of their own. The type of mana that they practice is more than likely to set fire to their lands.

  Instead, they take up a unique approach. They rather act as the middleman between the black mountain and the many small powers that exist in the region. (Who would not be able to bring much to the table, if they were to do so individually.) These powers are often the ones that have had all of their warriors defeated and killed by the Mayfires.

  They offer protection to these small powers, protecting them from bandits and the like. They make sure that their food is safely delivered to the hexmountain. These small powers grow the food and the mayfires transport it to us. With this approach, the mayfires have managed to establish quite a decent trade with us. At the same time made themselves quite important to their neighbours.

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  While they might not be the force in the plains with the most trade with us, they are comfortably in the top ten with this strategy. They also give the smaller powers a chance to compete with the larger powers. The way that they facilitate this trade is through that castle of theirs. It acts as a heart for the Mayfires, both a place where they can coordinate these transactions and the place where they can store these grains.

  The mayfire castle is considered to be the greatest storehouse in the soldar plains. The Mayfires claim that at their full capacity, the mayfire castle can hold enough grain to feed the hexmountain for a year. Another reason that we cannot ignore them.

  This importance of theirs is a reason that we don't tend to allow the scholars to spy on them. (We can't do anything to push them to the enemy now.) This leads to something of a paradox actually, as we know less about the mayfires than any of our enemies. We know very little about the mayfires, other than the magics that they wield. Weirdly, we have quite a detailed record of that. (I will speak of it later when we meet them. Until then it is a waste of time. The closer to your heart you keep such information the better.)

  Of the little that is known about them, the amount that I have access to is even more little. The little that I had access to, I have mentioned in this log. (This will help me out later. It stops me from having to read all the necessary logs again.)

  Right now I have only managed to Inscribe seven class nine spells of one of the class eight spells for the coordination matrix. Well, before you get shocked. The only reason that I managed it is that the coordination matrix is a repetition of the same spell. It is known as the "manipulate" spell and it is used to control any cannon.

  The reason for that is the spell being used in the coordination matrix, has a pretty significant chance of failure. (That is why every cannon troop tends to have multiple people for a single cannon. The spell used to set the cannon off is that prone to failure.) Instead of setting off the cannon, the spell will not react at all or in the worst case backfire on you. (Thankfully the chances of that are very low.)

  That is why the matrix has multiple copies of the same spell. We are making sure that even if a single iteration of the spell fails, another will succeed where it fails. (I mean this does increase the chance of the cannon exploding, but the control it gives me is worth the increased risk.)

  So with that bit of theory out of the way, right now I have seven iterations of the spell to work with. That is roughly two spell iterations for each cannon. It is not much but it is something to work with.

  I should be in a better situation by the time I reach the Mayfire castle. This is the best that I can do with the limited amount of time that I have at hand.

  Let's hope that my luck holds up this time at least. With that, I guess I should speak about the remaining tasks. For the first task, which is my cannon. Progress has been slow on that front.

  That doesn't mean that I haven't made any progress on it. I have been studying its makeup and I know precisely where the problem is in this cannon now. Well, to explain that flaw I will need to explain how these cannons work.

  The way that they work is actually kind of like how propulsion formations work. In a propulsion formation, you are essentially converting mana into a spell that will push the ship. This occurs steadily, allowing the ship to stay in the air.

  The cannon is essentially the same thing. Except, in this case, the spell is not released directly as we do with a propulsion formation. Instead, we are storing that spell in a containment unit, where the spell can be stored and compressed. Then we can simply open up the containment unit using the trigger spell to release the stored spell directly at our target.

  Right now the problem with the cannon is actually on the containment unit. Somebody seems to have struck directly at the containment unit causing it to fracture. This means that right now the containment unit has some serious fractures present in it causing the entire thing to leak like crazy.

  Right now my work is to craft a new containment unit to replace the damaged one. I could pull it off but it is not going to be easy. I could try and patch up the existing containment unit. It still won't be able to hold up a lot of charge but it will be better than before at least.

  I would estimate that the strength of the magic will drop to the class eight levels. Well, In the short term, I guess that I have to be satisfied with that.

  To speak of the third task, which is the "fusion" spell, that has been a proper mess. I have tried to study it for the last few days, but there is a limit to which I can study this theoretically. Right now I have reached a point where I need to practically test stuff to understand it further. If only the damn thing was not related to my mana core.

  I will have to leave this task until I have more time at hand. Right now, when I am at the risk of having to leave at any second, this is a pretty stupid thing to try.

  That finally leaves my final task, which is the incomplete formation that my master has left for me. At least on that front, I have more positive news. I have been studying the notes that my master has left for me. While my understanding of the spells is nowhere near anything useful or practical. I am making progress at the very least.

  Still, there are no tangible benefits for even this. The problem is that I am entering into an active combat zone. I have been focussing on boosting my combat ability in the short term. Neither the fusion spell nor the incomplete formation are going to be too helpful for me at this moment.