There was no manual to follow for this but Caius felt he was on the right track.

He had been at it since last week.

First, he had gone to Lea Gilligan and given her the Arcane Circle as well and when he returned two days later, she had made use of it enough that drinking her Evolutionary-charged blood had added significantly to his Evolution Meter.

On that note, there was still a long way to go. The requirement for the Fifth Circle from the Fourth Circle was at least three times more than the requirement of getting to the Fourth Circle from the Third.

Even worse, Caius hadn't done all that by himself.

The original Caius had gotten the ball rolling in advancement before tragedy struck so Caius had been benefiting from that leg-up which he couldn't count on now. His advancement going forward was all on him and him alone.

Still, Caius was not all that bothered about the next advancement. He was fine with simply going with the flow but could and would still acknowledge when a particular feeding helped further that goal quite a bit.

Anyway, in the days before he returned to Lea to feed on her Evolution-charge-enhanced Blood, Caius had spent time with Arlette trying to come up with a way to use her—and the others he had given the Arcane Circle—to acquire a Divine Seed himself.

Technically, the answer to this was already quite obvious; He just had to take the Divine Energy in through their blood as he did with the Evolution charge they held. The problem though was that the Evolution charge actually had somewhere to go;

The metaphoric Evolution meter didn't really exist and was just a way Caius could gauge his Progress in advancement. In actuality, once Evolution charge enters his body, it just becomes one with the Blood that flows within him, driving it towards improvement.

There was no such thing as a core but the point is, Evolution charge already had where to go and what to do. Divine energy didn't have the same thing in Caius's body.

For humans/humanoids, the path was provided by mediating on the Arcane Circle. The power of the circle targeted the very essence of the user and that is also where the traces of Divine energy gather. That is where the Divine Seed is planted in a human/humanoid.

In other words, they just have to meditate on the Arcane Circle and things will just fall into place.

Caius didn't have that luxury. He couldn't meditate on Symbols like a human. Ordinarily, this was a benefit to being a Vampire; The Mind can't be affected by symbols—mostly Arcane Symbols—so reading and making use of the Arcane Codex is as natural as reading through any normal script.

Alas, now it was a disadvantage. He had the Arcane Circle in his mind, and it had Divine energy still trapped within it but could not be accessed by him. At least not beyond giving slivers of it to the ladies when he gave them the Arcane Circle.

Still, Caius believed it could still be done.

It would just have to be done manually.

When the blood of his target gets into Caius's system, the Evolution Charge within it simply becomes a part of his blood while the Divine energy just flows about and dissipates into nothing eventually. Before that happened though, Caius could direct the Divine energy to his blood.

Why his blood? Well, that was the closest thing he had to a 'core'. Unlike humans/humanoids, everything about him—his magical and physical might—was all within his blood.

Caius had given it a try already and he had already confirmed that his Blood was capable of accepting and adapting to the Divine energy, trapping it and keeping it from dissipating.

Still, it wasn't easy.

Grabbing the Divine energy was like grabbing air with one's bare hand. Without magic.

It felt like Caius was trying to take control of something that didn't exist. Or at least, something that shouldn't exist. Still, while most of the traces he got from the blood of his lovers usually dissipated into nothing and got lost forever, a viable percentage still got taken hold of.

Also, the more he did it, the better at it he became.

He just had to he very focused and deliberate about it.

His grip on Kaya's ass and breast grew quite firm as he shut his eyes hard and focused on his task. With every spurt of her blood that splashed into his mouth and down his throat, Caius took control of the traces and directed them to where they should go.

He sucked once more, a bit less urgently now as he was reaching the limit of how much he was willing to drink from Kaya in a single moment of feeding.

He was preparing to take his face out of her neck when something happened.

A jolt shot into his heart and caused it to beat a particularly hard beat. Caius groaned but didn't take his fangs out of Kaya. Or more like he couldn't. Something had taken control of his body now.

The Divine Energy traces that had been trapped within his blood had had more of a scattered feel to them but now they pulled together, becoming a singular string that moved through his circulating blood as a singular entity.

'A Divine Seed,' Caius thought in realization.

Considering its string shape, calling it a 'seed' seemed like a misnomer but Caius was even more convinced now than ever before that that was exactly what it should be called. He could feel its capacity to germinate.

And then he was gone.

He was still aware of his body pressed up against Kaya's, his dick still inside her, and his hands on her ass and breast, but he was gone from that plane.

He had experienced this before.

This had happened when he became a True Vampire weeks ago. And with that, he now knew what to expect.

"Caius," Athenodora's voice said from behind him.

Caius turned around and was looking at the face of his creator whom he hadn't seen since his ascension to Vampire Nobility which she had facilitated herself.

"Athenodora," Caius greeted in turn, "You look… well."

Caius paused before saying the last word not because Athenodora didn't indeed look well— she looked better than well, actually. Her body was tantalizing to observe and Caius might have gotten carried away if he hadn't been drawn back quickly to her face which had been the reason for his pause. She looked troubled and that was not an expression he had ever seen her wear. He hadn't seen her all that many times—two times in person and four times in total if you count these 'visions'—but this didn't seem like an expression she wore often. He doubted much ever worried her.

So why now?

"What did you do?" Athenodora asked.

"What?" Caius asked, confused.

"I felt a change in your blood," Athenodora said with furrowed brows, "There was a sudden spike of energy within it.

What did you do?"

As his creator, her blood was coursing through Caius's veins. She was technically more of a parent to him now—by blood—than his actual parents were. So she could sense him just well enough to notice him 'tampering' with his blood which was the very basis of their connection.

Still, Caius had no intentions of just saying what he was up to and wanted this to be done with quickly so he opted to make her question herself.

"Do you still feel the change?" He asked, "The sudden spike?"

Athenodora cocked her head to the side.

"No," she answered eventually.

Caius was about to let out a breath of relief but Athenodora was not yet done;

"My no longer sensing it either means I was mistaken or wherever irregularity I sensed has since become stable."

She stepped closer now, her eyes even more troubled as she asked once again,

"Caius, what did you do?"

There was something about her tone that had Caius share her worry though he didn't know what the cause of it was. He opened his mouth, ready to assuage her suspicion when the entire space rumbled and a darkness, far greater and deeper than any mortal mind could possibly comprehend crept closer.

Athenodora's eyes widened and a look of fear mixed with reverence crept in as she observed the space. She looked back at Caius then and he opened his mouth to speak…

"What…?" He started and stopped short when a force wrapped around him and ripped him away.

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