We are about to leave for the Bone Valley in a couple of hours, and nothing has seriously gone wrong yet. Right now, all the factions are settling in each of their rooms.

  That basically means that the scholars are setting up their rooms. The legion and guards would be walking by each other's rooms, trying to provoke each other. They can do whatever they like as long as they don't come to blows. To be honest, I had expected them to already start fighting each other.

  The gods know that they have been giving each other enough stink eyes.

  I wonder what the mayfires must be doing right now. Are they quietly setting up their rooms like the scholars? After all, this is the best opportunity to learn about all of our internal conflicts. They could also try and be noisier than the legion and the guards. That is the only way to gain either faction's respect.

  Well, I don't know which faction they would likely end up supporting. One would assume that they would support the guards, but you can never tell.

  At the moment, I have more immediate work to do. I will have to leave this for later. After all, politics can only happen if they are alive by the end of the journey.

  Right now, there are almost a couple of dozen people on this ship. All the formations on this ship were not designed for so many people. Even right now, I am tweaking the environmental formations. If I don't do this, I have no idea when it will fail.

  This basic work won't take long. Thankfully, I had managed to complete the bulk of my work before the people started coming. The major issue was how to manage this space. Only I know how I have managed to fit a couple of dozen people in a ship meant to hold ten people.

  Fitting the people is still fine. They might not be comfortable, but they can be stuffed together without much thought. They are all mages. They can handle certain levels of discomfort.

  Getting enough food in storage has been a separate nightmare. I had to fix up one of the backup storage rooms with a formation meant to preserve food. I only managed to get it into place because my master has helped me out a bit.

  Normally, I would not have done this much work for mere food storage. The problem is that the place we are going to is the bone pits. Trading for food in the bone pits can be a messy affair. Especially with the guards at hand.

  As if that was not enough, the Aegis is refusing to do any work right now. I will have to go and sort that out soon enough. (We are packing stuff into my ship right now.) They got into an argument with John and the group. (Well, what else could have happened). Now they are just about doing nothing other than taunting John and his troop. At least they are working to keep stuff inside the ship. (It would have slowed down the packing process even more.)

  Speaking to them now is going to be a separate mess to deal with. They felt that I had not greeted them with enough respect. I greeted the fuckers exactly as I did the other two groups. Well, I had expected to group to be like this. Granted, this was not supposed to happen until much later.

  If it were a normal group from the Aegis, I would have managed them somehow. I did not expect the Aegis to send Anthony Greyvoid and his team. he is the worst group that they could have sent with us.

  Anthony Greyvoid is something of a legend in the Aegis. He joined the Aegis at the age of eight years after all. Now the Aegis does not have as strict testing as we have for the sentinels. Still to join it at the age of eight is not easy.

  There are four people that he leads. Now, if they are with him, they must be approaching his level of strength at least. I can at least confirm that they are at the peak of the foundation stage. One of them is a giant man, about half the size of Lauren. He wields an axe.

  The other three are more ordinary-looking, with three wielding swords. The last one holds a spear. Beyond this, I have learned nothing about them. Not even their names. Anthony Greyvoid is considered to be the strongest foundation mage in the Aegis. That makes dealing with him much harder. The man is the most arrogant man that I have seen,

  Just like any troop of the Aegis, this troop is legendary for its dislike of the sentinels. If anything, they are supposed to be even more extreme than the average Aegis troop.

  Well, this entire trip is going to be a pretty uncomfortable experience. Well, I can be happy in the knowledge that Jacob is going to be in a worse position compared to me.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  The rations and the accommodations are the least of our problems, though. Those issues have solutions at least, and most of them are already being implemented.

  Right now, the main issue is that there is no clear chain of command in this strikeforce. Technically speaking, I am the leader of this group, but it is unlikely that they will listen to me. That has never ended up positively for us.

  To explain this, I will have to explain how the four factions work with each other on missions. The only reason that we are capable of working together is that we keep away from each other. When we are forced to work together, one faction takes clear control of the joint group.

  Each of the four factions has a clear purpose. The guard corps' work is diplomacy. They deal with our allies and maintain our treaties. They also do the work of making our enemies into allies.

  Then we have the legion, which is tasked with destroying our enemies. We sentinels also tend to hunt and kill any creature that dares to sneak into our lands. That is not exactly approved, though. (Hence why we need to keep sneaking into our missions.)

  Then there are the scholars, which is the reason for our significant knowledge. Their task is the collection of knowledge and information. This involves the exploration and repair of ancient ruins.

  Finally, we have the formation corps. We are tasked with the creation, maintenance and usage of formations. That includes all of our defenses and other formations, such as airships.

  There is a reason that I am speaking about these purposes. We make use of this only to decide who will take charge when multiple groups have to work together.

  For example, in the Snowwind Empire, the guard corps takes preference. That is because the Snowwind Empire is still our ally. Any legioner, scholar or formation mage will have to listen to the commands of the guard corps.

  This way, the guard corps will be able to work without any worry in the Snowwind Empire. The legion holds similar authority in the territory of all of our enemies. (Well, it would be better to say in the territory of our non-allies.)

  The scholars have a similar authority in places of knowledge. An example that I can think of at this moment is exploring ancient ruins and the like. They also tend to take charge in areas full of such ruins.

  We at the formation corps have a much more limited scope to take command. The most relevant area is concentrated in the shields around the hexmountain. We have also taken command of any airship that we are piloting.

  That is just common sense. Not listening to your pilot in the middle of a combat zone is the best way to die. This system works very well most of the time. It is the only way in which all of the factions can work with each other.

  This system is the only thing that is keeping the legion and guards from each other's throats. Otherwise, the guards would be doing one thing. The legion would be doing another. The scholars will do whatever it is that they do.

  The mere presence of the legion in our ally's lands would have made most of the guard corps' work useless. (I swear that half of our allies became allies because they would rather deal with the guards.)

  To get back to the point, the bone pits are a place where this system will not work. There is no clear idea of who will take command.

  That is because the bone pits are a place where all the factions can take charge. (And more importantly, wants to take charge.) The guard corps wants to take charge of the place because the entire place is full of allies. They feel that the legion's presence is why they have not managed to make all the people here allies.

  The legion also wants to take charge of this place. We have just as many enemies here as we have allies. (Don't say that to a guard. They will say the reason for that is legion itself.) They believe that supporting the guard corps is nurturing an enemy in their lands.

  That means both the guards and the legion have reason to try and take control away from each other. More importantly, they have a justification to take control.

  Normally, in such a messy place, we would have made use of boundaries. In enemy territories, the legion would hold command. In the ally's territory, the guard corps would have control. It is a messy solution, but at least it prevents them from fighting each other outright.

  The problem is that this solution does not work for the bone pits. After all, the borders in the bone pits are always changing. You could say that cities are built and destroyed in the same place every day in that place.

  Now, I have to make sure that swords are not drawn. As if these two groups were not easy to handle, the searchers are going to be another headache to manage right now.

  The bone pits are an ancient place. There are many ancient tombs and ruins that they would like to visit. If they took command, the entire purpose of the mission would be derailed. We can forget about the necromancers then.

  I am the only person who will be able to keep all of the forces on task. The problem is that I have no way to take charge right now. That would require me to be significantly stronger than I am right now. The only thing that I can do there is to try to pit the three groups against each other. The goal is to make sure none of them forget what the actual task is.

  At least it is going to be a bit easier while we are going through the Bone Valley. For now, they should listen. The necromancer's trap should force them to focus. After that, though, things will become interesting.

  Right now, the only way to go through the Bone Valley is through my ship. Every other ship here is too large. The place is supposed to be thin and narrow enough that only a small ship can fit in it. Even then, it would take an expert pilot to get through the place, it seems.

  That is why we are making use of my ship, even though we have better ships at hand. The guard corps caused quite an issue about it. Nobody is willing to argue with my master about it, though.

  Well, I have complained enough, I guess. I will continue this log when we have finally entered the place. The gods know that I have enough work as it is.