23 Princess Linneia Wimbledon's Journal

Linneia swiped through her personal journal entries using her metallic skeleton glove with a tired expression inside the shared tent. She had bunked with the other witches inside one spacious tent, hence there was no privacy between them. They had been on the move for the last 72 hours to avoid an incoming snowstorm from the west of the level four region they're currently in. Thank goodness they have a team of scientists on board that was capable of constantly observing and calculating the fluctuation of the environmental conditions to predict the weather in real time. The storm predicted was so gigantic. There was a high probability that they might get scattered or worse lost their lives if they were directly hit.

Being successful in avoiding the storm after such an arduous journey, Linneia had instructed her exploration team to find a safe location to rest for 24 hours. They pitched their tents in a somewhat flat but with a slightly elevated terrain with their vehicles parked encircling the tents to reduce direct contact with the wind with sentries taking turns to watch out around the clock. This way, their encampment would be easily defended against any incoming ferocious beasts.

Linneia's tent was situated in the middle of their encampment which made the cold wind a bit bearable. The cold wind outside blew harshly as usual, showing no signs of slowing down. Everything looked pure white, stretching as far as they could see. However, thankfully the sky was littered with a river of sparkling stars. Even the everlasting snowstorm could not obscure the sparkling jewels blanketing the night's sky.

She sympathized with the sentries manning the lookouts the most. The rest of the girls were fast asleep from extreme exhaustion with only Raksha was not in her bed. She had volunteered to join the sentries' group earlier the night before and the night before that as well. Even after these two years together, Linneia still couldn't really fathom the depth of the general which seemed to have infinite amount of energy. Linneia looked at the digital clock generated in her sight from the Cerebral Connector. That moment was around an hour or two before dawn.

She swiped to her very first log entry since she started the journey and lightly went through. She was trying to find older equations she had previously worked on for Professor Newton a few hundred thousand miles away. It seemed that he needed the information urgently for his research.

7 July 4812

What a bad way to start the expedition. In the train to reach the furthest outpost but I still couldn't find my honeyed dried fish snack anywhere. I'm so pissed off!

9 July 4812

Reached the Lesterchild's Military Outpost. Board Vulture III after the briefing. Finally found my honeyed dried fish snack in one of my Power Bank. So happy.

3 August 4812

What a boring journey! Moving towards north means approaching the cold. It was supposed to be summer, but we already needed to wear two layers of thick jackets. Everything was white. It' so boring. I'll work on the algorithm to fill my time.

12 August 4812

We had just survived an attack from a large group of gigantic birds the size of cows. The Vulture had made an emergency landing on a cliff. The mechanics was working on it. The problems were not that extensive and one of the engineers should be able to repair it. If only Anya is here, then she could repair it quickly.

17 August 4812

We were about to finish with repair. We will be entering a level two danger zone category from here onwards. The probability of encountering D-level ferocious beast such as the gigantic birds will increase to forty percent. The exploration members have been sufficiently briefed about this. On a side note, great progress was made on the calculations for the modified White's postulates spoken by Ancestor King during the Grand Lecture before. I can feel that I'm on the verge of a breakthrough!

...

Linneia skimmed through few pages of the journal. It should be a couple of entries after this. She could hear the wind blowing harshly outside and involuntarily shivered. Only the exploration team understood the harsh cold in this area. Around three months ago, Vulture III had finally entered the level four airspace. The airspace was so turbulent with shards of dangerous sharp wind and large ice debris. The flight crew had tried to brave the stormy weather, believing that the outer body of the Vulture could take it.

Around two kilometers in, an extremely huge chunk of sharp ice lunged towards their aircraft out of nowhere like a gigantic lance! With the expert maneuvering of the flight pilot, they had managed to save their little lives, but the body of the aircraft needed an extensive repair; the ice chunk had grazed the fuselage rendering the aircraft losing its stability. In this kind of turbulent condition, forcing to continue the journey mid-air was akin to killing oneself.

Hence, they had started travelling using amphibious armored military trucks once they entered the grade four region on land. The trucks were kept in the artificial space plate disc developed by Space-i Corporation, a wholly own company singlehandedly developed by Miss Khora. Keeping non-living materials in artificial space was not a problem to the business savvy beautiful witch. She started out by developing the company into selling 1 cubic meter storage space known as Material Power Bank to the masses 8 years ago. Since then, she had transitioned to living organisms, with larger capacity independent spaces, working hand in hand with the government. Linneia heard she was getting ready to test her work in space in a few days' time by following the spaceship crew on their first maiden flight.

The trucks themselves were the most successful models in a number of military campaigns around the border of Graycastle empire. They have compacted armor bodies with the ability to move on land and in water. Light hot weapons were mounted atop each amphibian trucks. The only downside of the vehicles was their small capacity. They could only hold at most six personnel with enough resources and ammunition. Hence, the amphibian truck convoy was really extensive until they could be used to form perimeters encircling their tents every time during breaks. Steady attacks from ferocious animals came and go, but none had managed to penetrate the armor trucks' defense before they could be shot down to the last one.

[Yes. This is the entry Prof Newton needed.] Linneia finally found what she was looking for. She made a copy of the calculations and send the information to Prof Newton's personal tablet. She knew the professor didn't opt for Cerebral Connector surgery before, so she had arranged for a tablet connected to the centralized Cerebral Connector Depository Server as soon as she knew the old professor was interested to join the research team. It was the same model as the one she gave to her own great grandfather, His Majesty Roland.

After completing what she had promised, she then continued to read through her own personal journal entries to see if she has missed anything for the past two years.

...

23 August 4813

It took us one year to enter the level three region. The journey was dry and uneventful. I was only entertained by the research efforts over at Neverwinter. Prof Newton had been very thoughtful to include me into all of their research discussions. I will help them as much as I can if possible.

The attacks from aerial ferocious beast were still manageable before. However, once we entered the level four region, we encountered a flying beast the size of a four-storey building! The body was pitch black and elongated like a snake, but it was airborne during our encounter. The beast was aggressive and initiate an attack on us once it spotted us. Once again, our expert pilot had saved us by his out-of-the-world extreme maneuvers.

A team of military personnel led by General Raksha manned Vulture's Laser Cannons and a number of Subsonic Guided Missiles to face off with the flying black snake. After the bombardments, the snake-like beast turned tail and planned to run away to my relief. However, Adjutant Solstice appeared out of nowhere and delivered a single astounding punch to the snake beast's left temple. Brain matter splashed out as he grabbed for the soul-core of the beast and returned to the aircraft.

Everybody couldn't fathom how he could do that and had finally seen the adjutant in a new light. I myself was very surprised at that moment. It reminded me of His Highness jokes during Raksha's first meeting with him. It turns out Raksha's right hand man is not simple at all.

...

Linneia skimmed through a number of entries again until she reached the latest one. It was written three weeks ago as soon as they started journeying into the level-four hazardous region. From this point onwards, it was safe to say that they nearly reached their destination following the map and notes given by her great grandpa. It was not easy at all. She wondered how her great grandpa did it before when there was no aircrafts and amphibian vehicles. She previously thought that the ancestor king's stories must have been greatly exaggerated but she could only acknowledge his great grandpa's prowess now.

Progressing from the starting point of the level four region, they have been sieged by rampaging ferocious beasts multiple times when they unintentionally entered their territory. Only after passing the snowstorm did they manage to catch their breath. Linneia wanted to update her journal before they moved out later today. She had a premonition that she would be too busy to update her journal after this since they were already nearing the valley region spoken by her great grandpa. After reading through the last journal entry, she started typing a new one midair. The alphabets appeared in hologram form where she needed to lightly touch them in order to select them.

...

12 February 4814

We had just survived a 5th grade snowstorm. The blizzard was very dangerous. We have been on the move for the last 72 long hours just to put some distance from the large storm. We have witnessed with our own eyes several ferocious beasts being shredded by sharp ice chunks flying at high speed. It was like they entered a high powered blender. Thank god that our team is alright this time.

Since the last entry, we have encountered many sieges from ferocious animals. The one to note was the attack from a pack of mutated ice wolves. These wolves were as large as a car each, and there were about two hundred of them in a group. Initially they harassed us with minor skirmishes with the military guards. Prof Rogers explained that they wouldn't truly attack until they have figured out our group's strength. Towards the end, the attacks became increasing savage signaling their desperation. A number of military personnel who were courageous, again, led by General Raksha, had stayed at the rear to defend against them. The arrival of the storm had scattered the fight where each party take off at different direction.

Later today we will move towards the Nightcurtain Valley. It should take around two days' travel. I have sent out a number of scouts to survey the area and the route leading to the valley.

On a side note, Prof Newton had informed me that they are currently performing final touches on the spaceship. The first test flight will commence in six days from now. Hope everything will be alright.

...

Once Linneia finished up her latest log entry, she heard zipper of the tent's door being opened. Raksha's head popped in with white snow covering her damp hair as she was breathing heavily. Linneia placed the Cerebral Connector's core at the back of her neck and inquired gently, "Sister Raksha, who are you looking for?"

Raksha was taken aback and immediately composed herself. "Princess, I have something urgent to report." She gestured slightly. "The scout team we sent to survey the route forward is back. All of them are heavily injured! Please follow me!"

Linneia hastily got up from her seat and grabbed her heavy cloak. She draped the cloak hastily and followed Raksha towards the medic tent. She had a really bad feeling about this incident and hoped that the scout can enlighten them.

...