I have finally managed to get this piece of shit thought logger on my belt working. I am sure that nobody would think much of this device. After all, kids use this as a toy back home. (For me though, it has always been a source of nightmares.)
In my defense, my skill with mental magic (or lack thereof) is legendary in the Hexmountain. It took me almost an year to just learn the presence spell. (For reference that takes a kid a few weeks to learn.)
To be frank, I still don't know how I have managed to get this device working. I wasn't even trying to activate it, you see. I really should not get bogged down about it. Its working. The only problem is why did it have to activate right now? Based on how this is going, it feels like I have activated the damn thing just to record my death.
Fuck, I have lost my cool there for a second. Right now, losing my focus would be disastrous. After all, what I am doing with the sensory formation is very dangerous. I am pushing it to its limits right now. If I were to get distracted in the wrong moment, this will result in the thing exploding on my face.
Another reason that I can't get distracted is that I am taking in information from about a hundred kilometres around me. It is a surprise that I can reach this far. Most people would face permanent soul damage for pulling this off. My soul is much stronger than other people at my level, but I still have to be very careful.
As for why I am being forced to push my sensory formation this much. It is because we are being chased by enemies. Even at this moment there are three ships behind me. All three of these ships are about ninety kilometres away from me. Studying them, I can confidently say that they are the worst type of ships that you can find this north in the continent. (Which is saying something considering the average quality of ships that they already have.)
If I had a good ship, then these wouldn't even have been a challenge. I don't know If I can survive them with the ship I have right now. Even the propulsion formation of the damn thing is failing. (Those are built to last for a millennia and this ship can't be more than a decade old.)
The instant that it actually does so the ship is going to simply fall from the sky. When that happens I can't even try for a crash landing. The ship has a busted suspension formation. At the moment, I am not even sure if I will be able to crash the ship, let alone land it.
Well, I can't really blame anybody for my present state. the ship that I was supposed to be provided with was a standard guard ship. A standard guard ship is actually quite formidable. Such a ship would have enough cannons to blow the ships behind me to smithereens. The only issue is that I had refused to take the ship when it was provided to me.
The Head Office managed to convince me that such a ship would provoke the folks of this land. It had seemed a better option to take a harmless ship. A ship that they would have been unlikely to attack. I am regretting that now. I had expected that the ship that they would have given me would be a bit subpar. (Everybody knows that things are not fine between the Head Office and me.)
I had not expected the ship to be this much of a piece of trash. I will speak more on this some other time. It is not wise getting distracted in the middle of a fight. By the way, I should warn any future guard. Don't listen to the head office when they begin to praise your abilities. It is a sure shot sign that they are looking to screw you up in some way.
To return to the enemy. The enemy has no cannons, you see. (If they did, then we would have been destroyed already.) That means the only way that they can attack us is by boarding our ship.
Now, boarding should normally have not been a problem. After all, we are high up in the sky. The void outside is really dangerous to anybody not of a certain strength. The people capable of surviving outside are not going to hide themselves like this. They don't need to, a single strike from them and our ship will be split into two. The enemy has managed to find a workaround for this, though. The damn assholes are using their hooks to travel to our ship.
I guess that I should explain what a hook is first. A hook is nothing but a harpoon. Granted, it is enchanted to make it very hard to remove once it has been planted. Most have chains attached to them so they can drag stuff with them. You can barely consider them to be a formation. All ships have them in case they need to drag something behind them.
The enemy has been quite creative with using their hooks. They have somehow added a environmental formation to the chains of their hooks. This formation is able to generate a tiny habitable region around the chain. It is still a pretty risky method of travel, with half the people dying en route to our ship. Still, even if half the people they send make it, we are going to be in trouble. My soldiers should technically be able to handle them. I am just really worried that they will end up panicking and make mistakes.
At the same time, I can't really leave this room. There are three ships behind us. Without me at the helm, these three ships will be able to surround us instantly. Even I can't do much if that happens. That is why it has been so important to keep my distance. Even a single hook is a risk that we cannot afford.
Now, they have taken position about ninety kilometres from me. At this distance there is nothing that they can really do. The problem is that at this distance, there is nothing that I can really do as well. Even my sensory formation is barely reaching this distance. That means that they have the initiative. If they are willing to burn through their mana stone reserves, they will be able to get their ship fast enough to catch me by surprise.
The little that I can sense is coming from me pushing the sensory formation to its limits. (Even now, I am not really sure that I will be able to do much if they were to move.) I can't really do this forever. My soul might be stronger than the average person, but it is not easy to manage so much information. (Hells, the pain has already started to creep up on me.) The enemy also knows this. That is why they are hanging back even though they could have already attacked.
At least that Is what I need them to think for a bit more. You see, I have been making use of this stand off to prepare a little gift for our enemy. I need them to not attack me until I am ready. They are not the only people that are capable of modifying their hooks, you see.
Calling it modification is a bit of an exaggeration. I have overloaded a couple of hooks in my ship with my vital mana. The runes on the hook are very unstable at the moment due to this. The act of setting them off should make them go critical.
If my calculations are right, the hooks will explode on contact creating a hole in their ship. This hole will not be very big. Still, that should cause their environmental formation to fail. (They don't tend work that well without enclosed spaces.) With how high up in the sky we are right now, they all will choke to their death in moments.
I was preparing to bait a few of their ships into coming closer when the thought logger activated. The sheer surprise of the thing activating caught me offguard. I have been using all of this time to reorient myself. After all, if I want to hit them with a hook, I have to let them get close enough to get hit myself. That is not something done lightly.
My musing is distracted by a knock on the door. With a wave, I open the door. (It is a neat little trick using control strings.) On the other side is a middle aged man, in the first foundation stage. He is a soldier under me, though he has been placed more as a guide than an underling. It is a pretty interesting arrangement, about which I will speak some other day. Really, Why did the thought logger have to work in the middle of a battlefield? I do not get to speak at all.
"Greetings, captain. Are they still chasing after us? it is rare to see such persistent pirates. Most would have given up by now," Trevor speaks while getting into the room, a humorous twinkle in his eye.
The man has already shared with me all of his suspicions, so the both of us know that this is no pirate. I feel a twinge of irritation at the mans cheeriness. Well, I can blame the ache in my head for that. (You try sensing a hundred kilometres around you.)
"Let's hope that they do not have any more patience. If they keep at it, they don't even need to do anything. The way that everything in this ship is failing, I am surprised if we can keep ahead of them for long. Still, I have managed to activate my thought logger," I reply, pointing to my belt.
"Better a month later than never. The Head Office was behind my back due to your inability to get that thing working. How was I supposed to help you with something so basic, I don't know?" replies Trevor. "You found the absolute worst time to get it working, though. It will act as nothing more than a distraction at the moment."
"What can I do, Trevor? It is not like I have been free in the last month. The only reason that this ship is floating is due to my skill. You people have given me the absolute worst ship you could get your hands on," I speak, getting annoyed. Do you know just how busy I have been for the last month.
"You were the one that accepted the ship when the head office had given it to you. I am sure that your master must have warned you to be ready for their tricks. It is not like they were forcing it on you, as well. Anyway, learning how to use a thought logger should take a week or two at most. It is the first time that I have seen it take a month like this," replies Trevor.
"Well, how was I supposed to know that the ship is going to be this crappy? Do you think that I would have accepted it had I seen it?" I ask him.
"There is no use complaining about it now, ki....." The man speaks, his voice taking on a lecturing tone.
"Can you go out on a patrol? An enemy ship has begun to move," I interrupt the man, waving the door open again.
Thankfully, he doesn't argue with me as he leaves. Good because if he has actually started his lecture I would have punched him in his face. (I have tolerated enough of those as it is.)