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Bookbound Bunny 2: Chapter 4
🕑 Added 2025-05-29 06:15:01 +0000 UTCB2 - Chapter 4 - Ritual Drawing
Lily first pulled out Arakil's book and placed him in a good position so that his eye was facing the center of the room. She wanted him to witness this event even if she wasn't actively getting his help.
Plus, he wants knowledge from this era. I could consider this a small payment for his boundless kindness.
Then, she emptied the bag in the corner and sorted the items for her use. She then pulled out a piece of white chalk and examined it briefly by activating her Magesight, revealing that it was clearly no ordinary piece of chalk despite its appearance.
Is this something like my glyph ink? But in chalk form? Did they grind up herbs into it, or did they imbue it?
Sadly, as much as she stared at it, she had no answer. She also looked at the different colors, but they looked identical under her Magesight's gaze. She shrugged and moved on, starting a rough sketch of the inscription on the stone floor.
"This inscription isn't even that complicated, I can't believe they were encouraging such laziness."
Lily wholeheartedly embraced Arakil's tendency for perfection. She felt small moments of delight whenever he genuinely praised her hard work. Even though she could be more wasteful than when she first started, she refused on principle.
Her initial draft looked pretty good, in her opinion, but it was too small to put in her four glyphs of choice. So she erased her first attempt and started a larger version, deciding that she could perfect it while she still tried to think about her four choices.
Which four resonate the most with me? If I think about it in terms of magic, it would need to be something similar to Astral, such as stars or the moon, but there wasn't anything like that. I suppose I could break it down to Astral's sub-concepts, like Arakil has mentioned. Light, darkness, void, cold, heat… I think there might have been others, but I can't remember.
Lily momentarily paused her introspection while carefully drawing out a large circle portion of the inscription. Her hand remained steady with practiced precision, and once it was complete, she gave a happy nod before returning to her musings.
There was a light and dark glyph in that list, although they differed from the ones I know. While there wasn't heat or cold, there was fire and ice. There was nothing for the void, although considering I've not even touched on that subject myself, I don't even know what it could be.
In theory, that meant she had already found four glyphs that "spoke" to her, although she couldn't help but feel she was missing something with the animal-related glyphs.
There isn't a bunny or Lagia glyph… There is a rodent one and a more general mammal one. Would those count? It said I could pick any four, so maybe I don't need one of the animal ones?
Lily continued racking her brain, trying to make her final decision, but by the time she had finished her larger replica of the inscription, she still hadn't made up her mind. While proud of her work, she couldn't help but sigh at her indecision.
I could always attempt without an animal and try again if it doesn't work. I have enough resources for a few goes. Pete mentioned I'd have roughly three chances. If I fail twice, I can always ask Arakil for help—it would be better than failing.
Lily moved away from her completed inscription and began using an unoccupied area to practice drawing the four glyphs she had chosen. Since they were much smaller in scale, she found them relatively easy to draw, and in no time, she felt confident enough to replicate them inside the inscription.
But before doing that, she opted to rest her hands a bit while looking up the needed materials. She could use the red feather for fire or one of the small rubies. For ice, she could use a sapphire or an herb called snowdrop. She could use the vial of monster blood or an onyx for dark, while she could use a small opal or a tiny diamond for light.
While deciding between her choices, Lily couldn't help but wonder if she couldn't get more chances if she directly imbued an object herself. If the ritual used the objects as fuel, then she could quite easily fulfill that role herself—and the Mana would be more directly aligned with herself.
Although I don't know if that would count. Would Astral Mana work for this?
Her curiosity and niggling doubts made her consider asking Arakil right away, but she shook her head. Lily wanted to at least try it twice on her own before asking for help. If Rose could succeed, then why not her?
With her hands feeling recovered enough to continue, she moved over to start drawing the glyphs. This time, she grabbed a different-colored piece of chalk so that she could differentiate them correctly from the main inscription.
Time continued to tick by while Lily was almost in a trance. Any mistakes were quickly erased and fixed, and soon Lily was looking at a complete inscription. While she was proud of herself for accomplishing a very accurate replica, she couldn't help feeling a little upset that she could have done a much better job with paper and ink.
Oh well, as long as it works, I guess I can't complain, Lily thought as she kept referring to illustrations in the book to triple-check her work.
She chose ruby, sapphire, onyx, and opal for her ritual offerings, as she personally felt more attracted to them. She placed them in the center of their corresponding glyphs and then carefully walked over to the center, where she was required to activate the inscription.
"I think that's everything…" Lily muttered, skimming the pages of the book to make sure she hadn't missed anything. "Looks good. Okay, let's give this mysterious ritual a try!"
Lily gingerly knelt down and placed her hand on the central spot of the inscription. This was effectively the "crest" of the inscription and would be the driving force of whatever this was supposed to achieve.
She confidently spun her Mana Core and felt her body fill with the magical resource, feeling bliss as always. Then, she began directing the Mana into the inscription, similar to how she would if she were imbuing ink.
She could feel the inscription's "brain" sucking up the Mana and equally distributing it to the rest of the ritual, but it remained entirely dormant the entire time. Lily grew nervous but continued until the whole inscription was "full" from her perspective.
She waited and waited, with her anxiety growing as the last portions of chalk became saturated in Mana.
Here it comes, the moment of truth! Lily thought as she held her breath.
Nothing.
Lily frowned and even activated her Magesight to get to the bottom of this. The chalk was glowing with her Mana, but nothing was happening. Even more peculiar, the offerings placed were not interacting with the ritual.
Did I choose wrong? But it's not even reacting at all.
Lily removed her hand while continuing to observe the ritual, but no matter how much she stared at it, nothing was happening. The inscription was dormant despite being full of Mana, and it wasn't draining or dispersing either.
"It's holding my Mana… but it's like a dam and not doing anything with it," Lily began to wonder out loud.
She pulled out the book and checked again, but everything was right. Unless her book was wrong, she couldn't see anything that would result in this strange phenomenon.
She carefully walked out of the circle and then looked at the supplies, thinking maybe she needed to swap out the gems for different offerings.
Her eyes fell on the box, and she had a dark thought.
Oh no… does the ritual need blood?
Lily was not happy, but then she realized that the ritual wouldn't be keyed to her without it.
And because it's not keyed to me, it's not activating… maybe a safety feature of the magic circle engraved into the floor? Or a requirement of the ritual itself.
"Ugh! I hate this!" Lily cried out in frustration as she reached for the box.
Even opening it, she felt a fermenting sickness in the pit of her stomach as she looked at the small blade. Lily tried looking on the bright side; they had provided her with a healing potion. But it was short-lived at the thought of being forced to do this. She slowly walked to the center once more, this time holding the box while her thoughts continued to stew.
If it's just to key the ritual to me, I probably only need a little bit. I've already saturated it with Mana, so at least I have that going for me. I guess this explains why Rose completed it so soon; she probably scribbled something on the floor and gave it a dose of super dragon blood.
Lily sighed one last time before sitting down and opening the box. She pulled the blade out and tried to put on a brave face as she brought the blade's edge to her thumb.
Just a tiny cut.
She poked her thumb and gave an overdramatic wince as she sucked air through her teeth. In reality, she'd suffered far worse, but having to do it to herself was like torture. She resisted the urge to place her thumb in her mouth and instead gave it a squeeze, helping the drop of blood to form. She held out her hand and waited with bated breath for it to drip and fall onto the ritual.
Right when it dripped off, Lily felt frozen in time. She hoped that this would resolve everything. It touched the inscription, and the chalk instantly took on a shining red hue that spread out from the center like a blossoming flower.
"It worked!" Lily cried for joy.
The ritual was coming to life, and she could see the Mana she had stored in it, which was now finally being used. The four offerings were swallowed up into their glyphs.
Now, this is a ritual!
She was ecstatic, and although she wouldn't admit it, she found this more exciting than the "ritual" they'd performed to fix Arakil's eye.
Lily noted that it was beginning to reach a climax and continued to wonder about the ultimate goal. Then she saw the central circle of the inscription start to darken as if opening up a hole directly into the world. Lily's eyes widened, sparkling with curiosity.
Is something going to come out of the hole?
The inscription flashed in rapid succession and then went dull. The hole closed and winked out of existence.
"What?" Lily asked, feeling dumbfounded and cheated. "Was that it? Or… did I fail?"
It was a dark thought, but she shook her head.
"No, I know I did everything right!" she reassured herself.
She activated her Magesight to see if she could see anything, but all she saw was the dying embers of Mana in the chalk, which were claiming the drawing itself as they faded away.
Lily dropped the dagger; she couldn't believe it.
"I really failed?"
She looked at the corner. She still had more resources to try again, but… would that change anything?
"I checked everything multiple times. The ritual even activated; it should have immediately failed if I screwed up…" she muttered and then wondered. "Am I the problem?"
While she didn't want to believe it, she couldn't help but think it might be a possibility. She had a Mana Core, not a bloodline. She scrambled to the edge of the room and picked up Arakil's book.
"I failed… and I'm not sure why. I feel like I did everything just as instructed. I triple-checked!"
[Lily, you did everything right. However, the reason you failed is actually my fault.]
"Your fault? How?" Lily asked; she couldn't believe it.
[It was some time ago, but do you recall the downsides of receiving an Astral affinity?]
Lily paused, trying to remember it had been quite some time ago.
"Necromancy and… hexes?" Lily eventually replied, feeling very unsure. It had felt so unimportant back then that she'd almost ignored it.
[Correct. But you forgot one—Summoning.]
"Summoning…" Lily whispered. "So this was a summoning ritual? That hole was like a door to let something in?"
[Yes. It's been quite modified from my time, with some intriguing new additions. But, at the crux, this is very much a ritual to summon and bind yourself with a Familiar. Your selections are to narrow down the candidates and then make offerings to draw them in. Ideally, you'd want one that suits your style of magic and is compatible with your Mana to form a symbiosis.]
Lily opened her mouth to say something but then paused. She wasn't actually sure what she wanted to say. What could she even say? The final test to enter Regarth was to perform a summoning ritual, one of the very few things she couldn't do with her Astral Mana Core.
Lily felt cheated, not by Arakil but by the school. She'd done everything to the best of her abilities, going above and beyond, and now she was going to fail at the door to the school of her dreams!
Comments
mbncd
Thank you for the chapter!
enderman
I don’t think the summoning itself is a secret between the schools. It’s just the exact inscriptions of summoning that they want to hide from the other schools. As for the potential students, it’s better for the other schools to hide it so that there is a chance that the students could come to there school after students fail to get into Regarath.
Vantar
We all know Lily is only here doing all this to be with her friend/sister. The school wants her and is almost certainly watching . I doubt this test is about the summoning itself and more focused on the student having a familiar/partner. If they are watching her talk to a book, and even only hearing one side of a conversation, it could be easy to decide said book is some type of familiar.
zment
Called it! Now I just don't understand how this can be kept a secret. Anyhow, I'm pretty sure Arakil figures out a workaround...
enderman
As far as work arounds go maybe arakil can summon something and let her bind it after the familiar has been summoned.
CataFlan
TFTC!
Daniel Mountain
Well, here's hoping there's a workaround.
Engineer4God
Tank oo fur da chap!
Antony Claughton
I don’t think binding the book would work. Surely that would bring far too much attention and questions.
Lionheart Copperhead
I think Pete or another person already knows that she preformed the summoning ritual because of whatever magic is monitoring lily to make sure she doesn't break the rules. That or it has to be checked in a log somewhere and just says the ritual was performed but failed to summon anything. Also I think they would count that as failing because "blood lines are really important" and the way the culture around magic being in blood is all they know.
Ronny Cook
Arakil has been examined previously for whether he is "magical", so his existence is already known. Claiming him as a summon at this point would be fairly risky. She MIGHT be able to redo the ritual with some sort of power-up; she still has two sets of ingredients.
phantom
They only cast magic through bloodlines. or humans who are not attuned. Lily is an anomaly.
phantom
If she is abnormal in this regard they likely already called someone to investigate. there is no way they were not observing her performing this and see the spell clearly go off. unless they think a familiar didn't want her but i imagine they'd still call in someone.
Hodge Wasson
The most obvious solution, IMO, is to claim Arakil is her familiar.
Enthernal
Interesting to see where this will go. I don't think forcing matters is the right way to go, though it's likely what will happen. She should just go back and tell Pete she preformed the summoning ritual, describe the hole that came and went, and see what they have to say. If they don't accept her because of that, She shouldn't go to regarth honestly. It always felt a bit off, she only wanted to go there for Rose, not because it was the best school for her. I know it's unlikely, but one can only hope. Also, a bit of an upset would be refreshing.
Viria
Dammit. I can't wait to know what she will summon !
Lionheart Copperhead
Well I saw this coming, either Lily needs to boost the ritual to the point of overcoming the aversion to summoning (which seems like it would be pretty difficult}, or turn the book into her familiar, or maybe a 3rd option like calling a specific entity for the summoning or something like that.
daroi holtsag
I see this going one of two ways, Either he gives her a work around. Or he binds himself as her familiar
Michael Zinkstein
Thanks for the chapter. Poor lily. Maybe Arc can modify the summoning and conjure up the white killer bunny from monthy pythons knights of the coconut as her familiar. See here: https://youtu.be/tgj3nZWtOfA?si=CR_Wuvwc_9HSmFUE
chaz mars
Okay. Now how to get around this. Surely it's not the first time they've had a student who can't use certain types of magic. Astral can't be the only one that preclude summoning. At least we know who/what roses new cuteness source is. Lol
IntheRaccon
And now we have a chance for a book summon.
Limecake
Poor Lily, I hope Arakil can help her.
SapientX
Don't feel bad bunny. Some of the other schools weren't bad options at all. But... we all know it's gotta be Regarth!
dtape467
so it is a familiar summoning ritual. Poor Bunny
Napalm078
ooo~
CringeWorthyStudios
Well… that’s a little bullshit. To be fair, pretty sure they’ll figure out a way around it but still. Thanks for the chapter!
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Shai182
TFTC!
