‘Let’s go, Jay,’ Rick jumped on Holmes alongside Jay and rushed out the forest. They were only two minutes away from the entrance to the Rose park and out of the doomed forest. 'I need to get stronger, I won't be able to run every time.'

It was already past noon and the sun drew painted building on the road. Rick carefully put Jay down on the road sat down on his knees with the Lemegeton on the tarmac.

“Jump at anyone that comes close,” he instructed Holmes. That was the only defence mechanism he could think of while trying to find a cure for Jay at the same time.

“Bleeding Poison,” Rick said and watched the Lemegeto’s pages flip on its own accord. After a few seconds, it stopped on a page titled Bleeding Poison. With a finger on the book,

[Bleeding Poison]

A Grade II poison that can suppress the bodies ability to heal any wounds inflicted on it. The poison spreads from the wound throughout the body, inflicting greater blood-loss.

Various beasts use the Bleeding Poison as a weapon. They are…

Effects of an Arambh Grade Bleeding Poison can last for a day long. The effects of Balak Grade Bleeding Poison can…

Ingredients required for…

The effects of the Bleeding Poison can be stopped by closing the wounds by forceful means. A-

“Rick! Call him off or I will break him,” a voice startled Rick. He looked up to see Holmes jumping at Sam repeatedly, and Pip screeching at the golem atop Samira acting tough.

“Return,” he instructed and put the golem core away. “Jay is hurt. Do you have anything to cure the Bleeding Poison?”

“Bleeding Poison? No! I don’t think there is any cure for it!” Samira ran over, crestfallen. She winced at the look of the greening wound. “Maybe your grimoire will know something. Have you tried asking the grimoire?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to find out!” Rick said returning his gaze back to the book.

The Lemegeton has various methods listed, but the further he read, the drier his mouth felt. In the end, he found one feasible cure to the Bleeding Poison amongst the hundreds of solutions that were listed.

“Sis, are you a Fire Mage by any chance?” he asked.

Samira shook her head no, “Why?”

He laughed nervously and held his hands over the wound. said, “A Mana Fire cauterization will kill the Bleeding Poison. There is no other way”.

“There is no other way?” Samira asked stopping Rick’s hand.

He had never done something like this and it made him nervous too, but there was no time to discuss. “I wish there was, but there is no other way,” Rick replied taking off Samira’s hand.

He closed his eyes and felt the mana around him. He revolved his mana in his Fire Path transforming his mana into fire elements.

‘If I can convert the mana outside into the fire element, I will be able to start healing Jay,’ Rick evaluated his plan.

It was easy to control his internal mana, but he had never tried to control the mana outside.

“Adolebitque Huoagni” he cast the Hot-Hands Spell and felt the heat radiated out of his palms.

The Fire-path extended through his arms to the tip of his finger, opening up to the world. He tried again and again but could not create one fire-element. The world-mana danced away excited. A dozen attempts later, the Fire-path could finally attract a single pale white mana to dance its way to the tip of his finger. Slowly, the colourless particle turned yellow-orange.

‘Okay, now to the second part,’ Rick gave a quick smile, looking at the fire element on his fingertip. It was the sole elemental particle shining red in the sea of pale while elements.

*Ding

A notification alert popped, but Rick ignored it. He could feel his start draining the moment the mana-particle turned red. Time was ticking.

Rick slowly inched the fire-element closer to gashing wound but just as the two came in contact, the fire element disappeared.

“Aah!” Jay thrashed in pain, coming back to his senses.

“Sam, hold him down, I can’t do it otherwise,” Rick said aloud. The thrashing stopped a couple of seconds later and Rick closed his eyes again, and this time tried collecting a couple more fire element particles on his finger.

With the Fire Path flowing, he converted the first mana particle. It was much easier the second time.

Next, he reached out to another world-mana element.

His forehead dotted with sweat, his fingers twitched ever so slightly as he contained himself from screaming every time he failed. His first attempt completely failed, controlling two particles was twice as hard as controlling just one fire-element. He had to concentrate on both things at once as he tried to convert a second mana particle while at the same time concentrating to keep the first from disappearing. On his fifth attempt, he finally converted the second mana particle into a fire element but by then, the first one had escaped.

After a couple of minutes of frustrating failure, he finally succeeded. Two red dots rested on his fingertip, rotating along with each other.

‘I shouldn’t try for a third,’ Rick took a dry gulp. Controlling two elements was a task hard enough, he was not going to try and get three. He immediately brought the elements closer to the sludge-green poison on the wound.

He heard Jay’s muffled scream as the elements touched the poison, but his body did not move an inch. A slight smile appeared on Rick’s lips. The sickly green poison had finally disappeared from the one spot and he could see the pink flesh there.

‘Okay let’s do it again,’ Rick resolved.

He repeated the process repeatedly dozens of times more. He kept receiving notifications in between, but he ignored the lot. Slowly, after nearly an hour of burning the wound thoroughly, the greenish skin was almost completely washed off.

“Rick, it's working,” Samira called.

“Only a couple more time,” he groaned back. His Mana was almost at rock bottom and it had left him with a headache threatening to crush his head.

Rick cauterized the tissue a dozen more time before he was finally done.

“It’s done. Bandage him up and all,” Rick said before collapsing on the roadside as well.

----------------------------

"How is Rick?" Jay asked just as she walked into the room.

"He is fine, just sleeping," Samira replied as she closed the door behind. She could see him fidgeting in worry over Rick's health, but she could not bring herself to sympathize. "How is your wound?" she asked curtly.

Jay winched at the voice, but did not retort back. He gingerly touched a scar running across his abdomen, "It's all good now, except the scar. Boy I thought I was going to-"

"Do you think I care?" Samira snapped. "You went into a fight with Treants? Are you crazy?"

"Sam its not like that," he explained.

"Know your strengths. I CAN'T take a Treant down alone. It took thirty of us last time to take down one Ent-Lord! And you though you could do it alone is it?" she reprimanded.

"I didn't know. I felt something was off, but I didn't know. I am sorry! " Jay said somberly, hanging his head by his shoulders.

"It's okay," she said softly,sitting down beside Jay wrapping her arm around. "At least both of you made it out alive."

"About that," he said sitting upright, "I don't think they were out to kill us. The Treants stole the simulacrum."

"No! Please tell me no," Samira dropped her arm and stood back up.

"I wish. I messed up," he replied,

"We need to leave. Right now," she said. Samira rushed out of the room, Pip still atop her head, fast asleep.