The Eruvrantish Kingdom had a unique method for extending the presence of mana outside a user's body, and this method was shown in Hafrun's battle.
The staff that Hafrun used to fight was a kind of large pen filled with ink. its reservoir filled with a rare, enchanted ink. This ink was not made from mundane materials but from a carefully concocted blend of plants, the key ingredient being mountain avens, a flower that grew exclusively in the harsh, windswept mountains of the Eruvrantish Kingdom.
The ink was mixed with the blood of mana users in large quantities. While this didn't enable mana to be activated directly through the ink, it did extend the mana's presence, allowing it to linger just a bit longer. When the spell circle was drawn with the ink, the user had to use new pure blood to trigger the active mana inside the ink.
"We elves rarely use such thing," Mortan said.