Well, I have to admit that the last couple of weeks have been very weird for me. After all, one doesn't expect life to take on such an ordered form in the middle of a danger zone like the bone pits.

  You could say that the last couple of weeks have been the closest that I have been to young master. You see, a young master is supposed to spend all of his days sitting in one place, cultivating. After all, most young master tend to be showpieces of their respective family. They need to have the best combat ability, the best cultivation and the best everything.

  That is only possible by sitting in place, cultivating and practicing their skills. I would say the young masters tend to be the most busy in a noble family. My life has always been the opposite of that. After all, I have formations to make. Making them usually takes so much time that I barely have the time to cultivate.

  That is why I have never spent all my time cultivating like I did for the last couple of weeks. The reason for that is the dragon meat that I have been fed. If I had not cultivated after that, I am sure that the people on this ship would have stoned me to death. (They would have taken care to make sure that my death would not be quick as well.)

  Even right now, I can feel my vital mana waiting for me to take control of it. I don't know how to exactly describe my mana right now. I guess the best term to describe it is springy. I barely need to will it to move, and my vital mana moves like an excited little kid. The process of creating the third slab has accelerated to such a degree that I can barely believe it.

  Well, the other people here with me also cannot believe it. That is why they have been forcing me to cultivate. They wouldn't have even let me out of my room if I did not have a ship to pilot. If they had their way, they would have locked me in the formation room. Thankfully, the formation room has no washroom.

  Even the searchers (Who don't tend to get involved in anything.) have gotten involved. They have taken over all the parts of the formation room that they can take over. They are not really up to the challenge of the bone pits, but they are managing. I still have to do a few of the vital tasks, but I am cultivating the rest of my time.

  Even now, we have landed next to the disciple's tomb but we haven't attacked the enemy at all. Both the sentinels and the Aegis claim that this is because they are scouting the place. (On this matter, they seem to have a single voice.)

  They are just whiling away the time while the blessing of the dragon meat will run out. Well, the chances of us being discovered are not high, so it is not too risky. I have hidden us in a relatively hidden cave that we found. The searchers had to expand the cave quite a bit to ensure that we could enter the place. Now it allows us to remain hidden from the necromancers in the tomb.

  Still, there is always a risk that we could be discovered. That is why I am surprised that the strikeforce is still willing to wait like this. They are just risking their lives now.

  That is why I think that the old man had something to do with our present situation. Only an overwhelming force would be able to unite the different factions of this place. (The gods know that I have tried that enough.)

  Speaking of the old man, he had disappeared when I lost consciousness due to eating the dragon meat. (The reason for that was the dragon meat was so nourishing that my vital mana had gone into overdrive.)

  Well, the Searchers who had come in after me claim that they found me alone. I was lying next to the extinguished campfire. They refuse to speak of the old man, and if they might have met him.

  That makes me wonder if I was really alone when they found me. Well, they are not speaking of it, and I shall not ask. Whatever threats the old man gave to them, let it remain a secret. After all, their egos are not something that I want to mess with at such a vital phase. We are about to complete this mission. (Which makes it that much more annoying that the blessing is not running out.)

  To speak of my cultivation, which is the cause of all our delays. I have finally completed the third slab of my foundation. I had already achieved some of it before this entire fiasco. Due to this blessing, I have finally completed it. I have begun work on my fourth slab as well.

  This blessing I have gotten is not permanent. Every day, I can feel my mana grow less energetic. Even now, I am sure that the blessing will finally disappear after a couple of days. It is fine since I have already completed about twenty percent of the fourth slab as well. By the time the blessing disappears, I am sure that I will complete a quarter of the fourth slab.

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  The only issue with all of this is that in the process, I have not been able to link up my foundation slabs. Firstly, the process is very painful. I cannot exactly do it in an environment where we can be attacked at any second. Without me piloting the ship, there is no way we are making a quick getaway.

  Also, the blessing was a temporary thing anyway. I had to make full use of it. I can link the slabs any time after they have been made. (And the blessing doesn't really help with that.) Also, there was a hint of self-preservation in this. If I had not been cultivating all the time, everybody here would have taken turns strangling me.

  I can see the jealousy in their eyes when they see me make progress. Well, I guess that I should not complain about this too much. It takes a very long time to make these slabs. They must have spent the majority of their time cultivating to reach their present level.

  I can see the envy with which they see my progress. They looked like they were ready to murder me if it meant they also could eat dragon meat. The only problem is that a foundation slab is not really useful to me. Without linking it, it doesn't really boost my power that much. If I had managed to link my slab, it would have greatly boosted my strength. I would have gotten an update on every enhancement that my sword gave. It would have also boosted my blood mana.

  The new foundation slab certainly increases my mana quite a bit. The only issue is I don't know how to use this mana. After all, I am not as reliant on vital mana as I am on my blood mana. I don't mean to say that cultivating is useless. It will eventually prove its worth. The problem is that it doesn't do much to enhance my power right now.

  Other than my cultivation, things have been pretty boring. After all, there is nothing for us to do other than wait here. The Sentinels disappear every couple of hours to spy on the necromancers. What they are actually doing, I don't know. I just know that they are really busy.

  Well, that doesn't change the fact that we have been learning quite a bit about the disciple's tomb. The problem is that the only source of information about this place is the vampire. Now the vampire doesn't know much about the place. The reason for that is that the vampires did not spend too long in this place.

  Turns out the reason that the vampires had come to the town in the first place was due to a lack of food. They basically argued about feeding with the necromancers. Things had almost come to blows, it seems.

  The necromancers were not willing to sacrifice their fellows to feed the vampires. Due to that reason, the vampires went to the town where we were most likely to pop up. They could feed themselves and also stop us if we appeared in the place at the same time.

  Well, that unwillingness backfired on the necromancer. If the vampires had not been sent to the city, then it would have been very hard for us to find them. Anyway, the lady did spend two days in the place, so she has a basic idea of the layout of the place. Much like all the bases of a necromancer, this place is a tomb.

  Much like all the tombs in the southern part of the continent, it has been divided into three rings. The inner ring is the place where the corpse usually tends to be. This is also the ring where the necromancers are going to be hiding.

  The middle layer acts as a defensive circle, meant to put what is outside, and keep what is inside, inside. This is where all magical defenses will lie. That includes the magical barriers and the traps. That is going to be where I come in, I am sure. I wish I could study, but the only way to see them will be to enter the place.

  The outer layer is the barracks where the honorary guards of the tomb are usually stationed. (Whether they are stationed or not usually depends on the family they come from and their funds.) Anyway, the necromancers would have filled this ring with their undead.

  All in all, we have not been able to study the place much. It is, after all, their base. We cannot risk being discovered. (Especially when my fellows aren't ready to even attack the place.) The scouting trips of the sentinels have not all been useless. They have discovered quite a few points of entry. We can use these to sneak into the place. At least that is the plan.

  John has been using the week that we have spent here to look for these weak points only. The reason that it has taken him so long is that the man is not sure if the weaknesses are actually weaknesses. He is worried that these could be traps that have been placed by the necromancers. After all, they must be expecting an attack from us.

  After all, they have not even thought to check out our location, even though we are right next to their base. It means that they have barely enough people (or undead) to man the tomb. That is going to make it easier to sneak into the place.

  That is another reason that he has been delaying things so much. We need to study the place before sneaking into it. (We don't even have an idea of the exact layout here.) Other than that, we also have to worry about the undead that must be in there.

  After all, there tends to be a wide variety of creatures that you can find in the place. The consensus is that you cannot really control the creatures of the bone pits. Still, you can never really tell with the necromancers. They might have contracts with such creatures even If they can't control them.

  There do tend to be quite a few intelligent undead in the bone pits after all. Now that I think about it, that must be why the Minotaur had attacked us in the first place.

  Other than that, there are the undead that are going to be under their control as well. We are entering their base after all. Who knows just how many creatures they have inside the place? They would certainly be enough to overwhelm us.