After dealing with Jordan, the head examiner backed off. Cate wasn't sure why, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Cate had been so ruthless with the judge and Jordan to show what she was capable of and what she was willing to do if her benefits were encroached upon. She hoped the head examiner would see this and understand there was nothing to be gained by insisting the spell be handed over.
Once the Avalon Society realized they couldn't get the spell from Cate by force, they would be more interested in bringing her into their organization. Once she was one of them, the society could find ways to convince her to hand over the spell. They would offer her benefits and preach about loyalty and service to her friends. With this possibility, the society would likely pull a few strings behind the scenes to ensure Cate's next tests went smoothly. To make sure Mary benefited from the same corruption, Cate made it clear to everyone that Mary was under her protection. On Mary's behalf, Cate refused to hand over the spell Mary had used to summon the Beast Tree.
The head examiner didn't insist, and that's how the second test ended. This was only for Cate, Mary, and the Mage Born. Everyone else had to go through another test because they refused to create a spell. They had to enter the Edgeless Forest and tame beasts. They were supposed to tame only the beasts at the fringes of the forest, but even this task would see the group halved overnight. While these people underwent their test, Cate and her group stayed in the mansion and enjoyed the best treatment. They stayed with the supernatural creatures who had also completed their second test.
They, too, had been reduced to half their number. That night, the dining hall was very silent, with only the sounds of forks and spoons being heard. Cate ate at the same table as the Mage Born and Mary, but even they were silent. Cate wasn't at all affected by the slaughter of the past few days, but this wasn't the case for these young people, who were not even thirty years old. In their eyes, what had happened over the past few hours was something they would never forget, even if they lived to be three hundred. They thought this way because they didn't understand how terrible time was. "Time has the power to wash away all things," Cate had told her friends.
Mary and the Mage Born looked like people who had seen many things over the years, but they still didn't understand the ways of the world. They had yet to accept that to live is to kill, and to be killed is to allow others the opportunity to live on. Cate, on the other hand, was thousands of years old and had seen all manner of things over the years.
In the dining hall, Cate, Mary, and the Mage Born were the only magicians present. All the others were taking their second test. In the hall, they were surrounded by powerful supernatural creatures. Each creature had a unique origin that could never be repeated. Some were the results of curses placed upon humans by powerful magicians, others were descended from gods, devils, and other creatures that roamed the cracks between worlds, and a few had origins that were simply unexplainable. The three magicians were definitely outnumbered if they were to be attacked by so many supernatural creatures.
Fortunately, there were divisions among the supernatural creatures. Some of them hated each other with an enmity thousands of years old. An example of this was the vampires and the werewolves. The two groups were seated as far away from each other as they could get. As they ate, they kept eyeing each other as if thinking of the best ways to attack. The hatred between the two species was so powerful and ancient that no one even remembered why they hated each other. The vampires hated the smell of werewolves, and the werewolves wretched and even teared up in the presence of vampires. It was said that their hatred had even begun to influence their behavior and supernatural abilities, with werewolves evolving over the years to have venom lethal to vampires, and vampires developing in such a way that the wounds they inflicted on werewolves with their claws could not be healed easily and, in most cases, festered and caused death to the werewolf.
In short, the hatred between these two species was too great for them to ever cooperate on anything. The tension between the two groups grew deeper, causing everyone else to feel as though they wanted to bathe in blood. The werewolves were all seated at the same table, but the vampires were scattered all over the place. Werewolves lived in packs, but vampires liked the dark and that was all. They didn't like their own kind in most cases and even killed each other if they met in a dark alley somewhere. They liked to deal with matters on their own, but if a fight were to break out right now, everyone was sure that the vampires would put aside their introverted behavior and fight back against the wolves.
This was the power of hatred. Cate wasn't concerned with any of this. At that moment, a werewolf stood up from their table and smiled at everyone. It was a handsome young man with muscles that were almost ripping apart his black shirt. He had long black hair, and his yellow eyes seemed to glow as he spoke.
"I have lost my appetite after smelling something truly unpleasant," he said as he walked towards Cate's table.
When he spoke, Cate saw how the other werewolves in the hall looked at him. It was clear that he had come out on top and become the alpha of this group. This was the way of werewolves. When placed in stressful situations, they would always choose a new leader to guide them through the trouble. Even though they already belonged to an established pack, the wolves would form a temporary pack with a new alpha, who had to be the strongest wolf in the group. The pack could end up becoming permanent if the right conditions were met. The young man who was now speaking had clearly proven his power to the other wolves and become an alpha. Cate saw him walking over and she almost cursed out loud.