"I'll go back practicing Domination with the others. Invigoration has no effect on my life force but it can still replenish the mana I spent on Domination." Lith's voice was coarse and deep as if the flames had burned his throat.
"No, you're going home. You're done for today." The Hydra took off her working clothes while shaking her head.
Sweat made her clothes stick to her like a second skin and her face reddened from the heat looked even lovelier than usual.
"I'm still full of energy. I-"
Faluel poked Lith's forehead, cutting him short and making his vision go blurry.
"Rest is an integral part of training. You have no idea how exhausted you are. The physical, mental, and emotional stress will kill you if you don't take care of yourself."
Lith tried to use Invigoration, but he didn't feel any better for it.
"Your life force is severely shaken. I let you overexert yourself to show you the consequences of abusing Origin Flames while in a controlled environment." Faluel helped Lith to get up as his head cleared little by little.
"How do I get better quickly?" He asked.
"There's no shortcut. Food, sleep, and relaxation are the only cure I know. Bye!" She Warped Lith in his barn while it was still noon.
He would have gladly gone back at the tower, but without Solus there was none. Elina and Raaz rejoiced at the idea of spending some time with him after so long.
"Gods! Look at that, dear." Raaz said. "The stubble, the hair, the black circles around the eyes. Lith looks like crap!"
"Raaz! Our son- Great Mother almighty!" Elina didn't like how Raaz had expressed his diagnosis but she found it accurate. "Go take a bath while I prepare you something nutritious."
Raaz had failed to notice the bloodshot eyes and the loss of a few kilograms but Elina's routine check-up didn't. After the bath, Elina forced him to get rid of the stubble and to eat enough for four Quyllas.
"Mom, Dad, I've made up my mind. I'm going to celebrate my birthday only once and only with my family this year. I can't stand nobles sucking up to me and I don't have the strength to smile as if nothing happened. Not now." Lith said after cleaning his plates.
"Of course, dear." She nodded.
Lith gave her a brief guest list that included solely his family, the Ernas sisters, and Protector's family. Not seeing Kamila among those names or at least Zinya pained her, but Elina said nothing.
They made small talk about the farm and the animals until the end of the meal. Lith offered to heal for free cattle and farmhands before going back to his room.
'Faluel can say what she wants, but I've got no time to waste. I can develop a new breathing technique without putting any extra burden on my body even by myself. The first thing I need to do is-'
He fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.
Lith woke up a few hours later when it was too late for practicing but too soon for dinner. Also, Solus and Tista had yet to return. Lith Warped to the Hydra's lair, drawing a lot of hateful gazes on himself.
He looked well-fed and rested whereas they looked like miners at the end of a double-shift.
"I told you to rest." Faluel said while focusing on her breathing technique.
Having one less person to take care of made her work easier.
"I am not going to train. I just want some information." Lith took the Darwen out of his pocket dimension and showed it to Faluel.
"Where did you get this?" Her eyes shone with the same greed that Lith saw too often while looking in the mirror.
'Maybe she's right. Maybe all Dragons make the same face while looking at the objects of their desire.' He thought.
Lith told her how he had found the magic-resistant metal while fighting a Rock Worm. He had searched for information about Darwen while in the army, but it was classified as Royal Forgemaster-only.
"Now that I'm learning how to use both Domination and the Origin Flames, I might be able to turn the Darwen into something good, if someone just tells me what it is." Lith said.
"Darwen is a metal as rare as Davross and the reason why you never heard about it is that they are two sides of the same coin." Faluel checked at the lumpy black mass with her breathing technique.
'How could someone be so stupid as to use this Darwen as it is and not even bother trying to get it back.' She had no idea that back then the Master's Organization had no Bytra and that even Vastor's knowledge as a Royal Forgemaster didn't help.
Refining Darwen was something only Awakened could do and the Master had so much of it that he didn't even care retrieving what he had given to one of his most worthless minions.
"What do you mean?" Lith asked.
"Believe it or not, while a common metal gets refined by the world energy until it becomes Davross, the same happens to its impurities. During the natural tempering process, impurities lump together until only those more resistant to magic remain.
"You can obtain Darwen only by smelting Davross. It's an amazing metal that can be used for cloaking devices far superior to those that use gold and to craft protections that offer you little physical protection but absolute magical defense." Faluel said.
"You can use it for crafting? But how? I tried everything I could and failed. It's too hard, making it brittle. Also, I can't use Invigoration to spot impurities, and all of my attempts to melt it and then give it a shape failed." Lith said.
"That's not something a beginner can do. To craft something out of Darwen it first needs to be purified of the Davross impurities. Once you're done, you have to treat it with regular blacksmith techniques.
"To make matters worse, due to its magical resistance, it can only be treated with natural fire, but Darwen requires temperatures that no furnace can produce without magic." Faluel pointed at her lava pit.
"What? That's why I failed to melt it. How do I purify Darwen?" Lith asked.
"You're not going to like the answer. You do it by brute force." Faluel put her hand on top of Lith's and both over the metal before activating Lifestream.
Darwen was resistant to both mana and world energy, requiring the power of a violet-cored individual just to examine it. Unlike what happened for normal magical metals, impurities could be found wherever the energy flow became easier.
"Can you feel those points? When you work with Darwen, you must treat Davross, Adamant, and even silver as impurities. In order to craft something out of it, you first have to completely remove them." She said.
"How do I do that? Origin Flames?" Lith asked.
"You wish. Darwen is resistant even to those." Faluel chuckled.
"Then how?"
"Lava for melting the Darwen and Origin Flames to melt the impurities at the same time. Do you understand now why Royal Forgemasters have yet to crack the secrets of Darwen?" Faluel gave him back the metal and wrapped up the lesson.
The Hydra had used Lifestream so many times that it had lost most of its efficacy.
