Even with the fire, the group was lucky enough to avoid any attacks from the creatures that moved around in the darkness. That night, Cate did not get even a wink of sleep. She and the Mage Born were on high alert. The following morning, Mary was much better, but she had been poisoned by the creature from the lake.
They moved along while searching for herbs that could be used to make a suitable healing potion. Cate had fortunately taken the snake-like creature along with them. Mary needed to make the healing potion, but she was barely breathing. Cate had no choice but to resort to something unsavory. After inspecting the snake-like being and concluding that nothing could be done with it, she threw it away and gave up on the plan to make the healing potion. The Mage Born was surprised by this, but he said nothing. He trusted that Cate would not give up on saving Mary. Even though the three of them had only met a few days ago, they had become very good friends, and the Mage Born even believed that there was something more going on between Cate and Mary.
Cate needed to hunt for the only thing that could save Mary at this point, and she did not dare wait for the night. She used her mind to carve a magic circle in the earth. Each stroke was made with mastery and imbued with her desire for the spell. It took an hour, but this was to be expected since she had not used this spell in hundreds of years. The Mage Born did not understand anything that Cate was doing. This was Sorcery, and the Mage Born was a mage with very little understanding of the other magical paths.
After seating herself at the eye of the magic circle, Cate used her will to reach into the magic of the world and channeled it into the circle. The circle began glowing with a sinister red light that rapidly grew more powerful as more magic was sent into the circuit. The Mage Born, who was carrying Mary, moved further away from the circle and watched everything while keeping an eye out for attacks from the magical beasts. It was common knowledge that using magic attracted magical beasts, and right now, they were in the Edgeless Forest, a place filled with magic beasts and other beings so old that they did not have names.
Cate stood up after the red light reached its peak. She brought out an athame, a pitch-black ceremonial magic weapon she had gotten a long time ago. When the Mage Born saw this athame, he felt his blood go cold and his stomach turn. Before he could get a handle on these feelings, Cate raised the athame and cut her left wrist open. Blood spewed out with an unnatural pressure, covering the entire circle. After a few seconds, the blood began gently flowing down her hand. She then went ahead and did the same thing to her right wrist.
She planted the athame at the center of the circle and allowed her blood to fill the circle. When her blood touched the earth, it seemed to gain a life of its own as it moved through the carvings of the circle, turning them into small streams of blood. The stench of blood suddenly became overwhelming. It then exploded out and reached into the forest. The Mage Born felt like throwing up, and yet at the same time, he looked at the blood on the earth as though it held all the power he would ever need to overcome all his troubles and conquer the world.
A few kilometers away, the vampire that had fought with the wolf alpha in the dining hall was rushing through the forest, trying to reach the other side as fast as he could. It was daytime, but he managed to keep in the shadows due to all the trees. He moved at incredible speed, a human eye could never track him. He had been doing this since the moment he entered the forest, and yet he was still inside. He was more than pissed off. Even though he was a vampire and did not have to worry about getting tired, he still needed human blood to maintain this level of power. It had been days since he had any blood, and he was soon approaching his limit.
"I will one day kill that stupid examiner. How dare she make us do this? We are doing them a favor by joining the Avalon Society, and yet they have the guts to pretend to be superior," the vampire was grumbling to himself when he suddenly smelled the fountain of youth. His heart, which had stopped beating hundreds of years ago, suddenly pumped with vigor. He was caught off guard and fell out of the sky. He did not care for his broken arm. He stood up and looked in the direction that held this amazing smell. His heart had gone back to being as dead as ever, but his desire for the blood he had just smelled only grew.
He felt that if he had even a drop of this blood, he would become the most powerful creature of the night. He would gain more power than he would know what to do with. Under normal circumstances, he would have realized that something was off with this situation, but this overwhelming smell seemed to make him dumber. His hand healed in a few seconds, and by that time, he was already rushing towards the blood. He was flying through the forest in a shadowy manner that made him appear like a truly evil creature.
Cate sensed the vampire moving towards her and smiled at this. She wiped her left wrist with her right hand, and the cut closed immediately. She did the same to her right hand. When she was done, the vampire stood before her, just outside the magic circle. The magic circle she had used was something employed by the Hunters to attract and kill vampires. She had learned of this circle when she still had her full body thousands of years ago, and there was also a time when her severed head was in the hands of a clan of Hunters. She had the opportunity to learn about the magic circle in more detail, and she even learned a few other things.