I can feel my sword tremble in my arms. It is not a particularly violent tremble, but it has been many years since I have felt something like this. A person fighting me might not even have noticed the thing. Still, such a tremble is usually a sign that your practice is getting out of hand.

  There is no use in practicing once you get this way. After all, once the sword leaves your control, it is out of your control. If anything, practicing now would teach me bad habits. Practicing now would make losing control of my sword that much easier in the future.

  That is why you are supposed to stop practicing when your sword begins to tremble. Such a thing should never become a habit after all. Yet I can't stop myself today. The state of focus I achieve when I practice is the only thing preventing me from spiraling today.

  Right now, practice is the only thing that is preventing me from losing control of my anger. I am going to need it today, but I can't let it consume me. After all, anger has its time and its place. Right now, the sight that I am seeing in my sensory formation is acting like fuel to my anger.

  Normally, the Hexmountain should be a welcome sight. (after all, it is home) Yet today it is just a reminder of the punishment that I will be getting. The conversation that I will be having soon is not helping with anything. This leads to a complex set of emotions in my heart, even as I gaze at the mountain.

  I feel a combination of rage and fear every time I lay my eyes on the place. The two form a mixture that does not allow me to sit peacefully. They hit me like I have drunk an entire casket of coffee as I pace about the formation room anxiously.

  I feel angry about the things that my master made me do. The man should have known that what the Aegis pulled there is not something that I can accept. He knows that I cannot abide by people like Anthony. I guess people might think that my actions there were not particularly rational. Well, there is nothing rational about what I did.

  This is going to have consequences. After all, somebody like Anthony is not an enemy you can afford. All I will say in my defense is that I have a long history with tyrants like Anthony. They are not the type of people that I can tolerate. My master knew that. The fact that he still made me work with them is the problem right now.

  I also feel fear. The guard corps is not an enemy that you can afford. Especially when you are somebody from the formation corps. There is also the fact that my master is going to get involved. For all my irritations and annoyances with the man, I really do not enjoy pissing him off. You can call my master many things. You can call him an asshole, a fool, or an idiot.

  The man is a monster when it comes down to it. He tries his best to hide it. (He certainly doesn't look the part of a powerful man). Still, pissing off that man is not something that you are supposed to do lightly. This time, the man is certainly going to be angry. I am sure that the Head Office has already begun to annoy the man.

  Well, this screw up of mine is going to have a lot of consequences for the man. My master's relationship with the guard corps has been messy before. Still, you could say that they had a tenuous alliance at the very least. After all, the Guard Corps cannot afford to lose the services of my master.

  Well, you can only blame the man for his present situation. He is the man who has somehow managed to piss off a bunch of diplomats into violence.

  Well, the main problem is that the guard corps won't forget this. The guard corps has always been obsessed with proving the Aegis superior to the Legion. When a person of the legion (in their eyes at least) beats a person of the Aegis, they are not going to forget it. With their egos hurt, I am not sure how exactly they are going to behave.

  That also means that my master is also not going to be forgetting it any time soon. I am sure that man must be coming here even as I am recording right now. Well, let him come, I say. I have plenty that I need to say to the man. The man might be terrifying to handle when he is angry, but it is certainly not my first time dealing with man's anger.

  My main cost of this is that all of my chances of joining the Formation Corps are dashed again, it looks like. I guess I have to explain why I am still not a part of the Formation Corps yet. You see, I have been under my master for many years. I have spent half a decade under him. Even with all of this, the man has not let me join the formation corps.

  The man never bothered to give me a reason as to why he has never bothered to take me in. He always delays it by giving some assignment or other. Some punishment that is meant to distract me. Even though the man has never bothered to admit it, I have my own guesses as to why I am not already in the Formation corps. (They are pretty accurate guesses, though.) Nobody knows the man better than me. I have been with the man the most in the last few years. The man believes that I am too violent to work in the formation corps.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  You can see it in the way that the man treats the people from the Legion. Like we are overeager apes that are looking for combat on our own.

  Nobody ever seems to notice that it is the Legion that allows the formation corps to do their trade. (They also allow the guard corps do their diplomacy and the scholars their Research.) He never does realize that it is the sentinels that keep the people of the place safe from the monsters. Without us, the Soldar Plains would be overrun by vampires and demons.

  Anyway, all of that is not important for now. (for better or for worse). The man is simply not willing to let me join the Formation Corps. With this, there is no way that he is going to allow me. Well, there is no use thinking about the man. It just makes the complex emotions of my heart worse. I have worked absurdly hard under the man you know. Most people with my cultivation are barely able to inscribe a class nine formation.

  Yet I have managed to achieve class eight formations on my own. The man's ridiculous ban on my cultivation means that I have to do so with much less mana to work with. Most people at my skill level with formations tend to be at the peak of the foundation stage, you know.

  Well, there is no way that I will be able to circumvent the ban that my master has placed on me. The gods know that I have tried. On top of that, the man is barely there to help with my formations. (Granted, if he were to try and help me, I would be left more confused. The man's knowledge is too profound for me.)

  Leave aside all of that. Those have been frustrations that have existed for many years. Right now, my main frustration is that I am not able to get out of this stupid room. Ever since my fight with Anthony, I have been locked inside the formation room of my own ship. For the last five days or so, I have been stuck inside the place, bound to my own formation room.

  There is nobody on the ship that can take my place here, you see. The Searchers can pilot my ship to a certain degree, but they are not able to do it for hours on end. They would have grounded the ship by the end of the day, I tell you.

  That is why they have bound me to the very place of my work. This way, they don't need to worry about escorting me here every morning. The Searchers have used the same magic that they used to trap the captive to hold me in as well. (Unlike the captive, though, they at least feed me every meal.)

  Well, they claim that they are separating me like this for my own safety, but it is clear that they just don't want to risk it. Based on what I have been hearing (which is not much.), Anthony is presently bedridden. Well, blood mana tends to be toxic to any non-vampire. The man had taken a healthy dose of that in our little duel.

  I guess that I should feel sad about that. It is just that the bastard had crossed too many limits for me to feel any sympathy for the man. Granted, I don't think that I should have just struck the man first.

  The first principle of the legion is that you are not supposed to lose control. To lose control in front of the enemy is to give him opportunities to kill you. I shouldn't have lost control like that.

  Speaking of the legion, it is pretty unlikely that they are going to be helping me out. They might have helped if it were anywhere else, but I struck the man in the middle of a funeral. That is a taboo amongst us.

  There is supposed to be peace at a funeral. Weapons should be brought, but they should never be used. That is an iron-clad law in our style of funerals. The person conducting the funeral is also supposed to be the person who is meant to enforce the law. In this case, that was John.

  The fact that I struck first means that I am the person who has broken this law. That means that the legion should be killing me. That is their usual action should weapons are drawn in a battle. I am pretty sure that something like that won't be happening at least.

  The legion cannot afford to offend the master of the formation corps. My death would certainly be offensive to my master. (I think. It is hard to tell with the man.)

  So that means that I will be alive for now. That is part of the reason that the Searchers have put in the defense around my room. It is to make sure that nobody can enter the place just like that. (I am still sleeping with my sword below my pillow, though.)

  Well, I guess that I should also describe about my present situation. How can I practice my sword when the ship is presently landing in the shipyard? Well, the reason for that is pretty simple. The control of my ship had been wrested from me about an hour ago.

  I had to give up control of my ship the moment that I felt outside interference. The defenses of the Hexmountain have all been designed by my master. If I were to even show the intention to resist, my ship would have been ripped into pieces without any effort.

  Now, the defenses of the place only tend to get activated (Or at least primed to get activated.) when it detects an enemy ship. That means somebody (most likely my asshole of a master.) has set the defenses of this place on me.

  That is why I had to give up control as the defenses of the Hexmountain searched through every inch of my ship. It is looking for anything that I can use as a weapon.

  The defenses are meant to neutralise all of these weapons, violently if needed. I am not going to take any risks with my master's handwork. That is why I have been sitting here, practising my sword even as my ship is being searched.

  Well, I guess that I have recorded enough for now. I will continue this record when my master comes here. I am already working myself up too much for the meeting anyway.