"I'm in quite a pinch. Call Friya, please. She needs to hear this as well." Lith said.
After Lith finished telling them about the latest events, Friya was on cloud nine.
"In your face!" She pointed at Tista, Quylla, and Phloria in this order. "Serves you well for calling me the less skilled in the group. My baby is worthy of the Magus' title! I can't wait to tell Mom and Dad."
"To get yourself a nice collar and a leash of matching color?" Lith said with a sneer. "I left you out of it not to hog all the glory so much as to not force you to choose between your family and your apprenticeship.
"Helping a fellow disciple with his project is one thing, disclosing to someone else the Forgemastering techniques and the hammer that Faluel bestowed upon you is another."
"Oh, shit!" Friya suddenly remembered about her blood pact with the Hydra. Betraying her master's trust would cost Friya her life.
"Oh, shit indeed." Faluel glared at her. "You are not allowed to share with anyone what I teach you. You need my consent even to share anything that you learn by yourself during the apprenticeship. I made myself pretty clear back when you accepted my deal, remember?"
"Yes, master, but the dimensional runes I used for the DoLorean I learned them at the academy and I didn't show Lith how I combined that knowledge with your Forgemastering techniques." Friya said.
"Well done, but remember that your family is one of the great pillars of the Griffon Kingdom. If your parents pressure you, will you be able to deny their request? That Royal Forgemaster wand you hold is both a gift and a chain." Faluel said.
Friya clenched her fists, torn between her filial duty and her own ambitions.
"Thank you, Lith. If not for your thoughtfulness, I might have been forced to give up on the only means that I have to practice Spirit Magic and Forgemastering spells." Friya said while looking at the silver wand as if it was a venomous snake that might bite her at any moment.
"No problem. I just needed to warn you about the dangers that being one of the makers of the DoLorean poses." Lith said.
"No time for brooding, Friya. Your body may be strong for a human, but compared to an Awakened you're as weak as an infant. You need quality to make up for what you lack in quantity.
"The same applies to everyone else. Tempering your body is the only way to increase your chances of survival, be them in battle or during a breakthrough." Faluel said, shooing everyone back to the training grounds in the middle of the cave.
"Not you, Moron." She grabbed Morok by the collar of the shirt, stopping him in his tracks.
He had been in a deep meditative state, wondering about the marvels of magic as he followed Quylla and stared at her tight a.s.s.
"That's not my name!" He said while he lost sight of the prize.
"That's up to me to decide, whelp. I didn't bring you in here to enjoy yourself, but because your master asked me to help you. Is it true that you unlocked your fifth eye and yet you still refuse to Awaken?" Faluel asked.
"Yes to both. Opening the eye was a child's play thanks to the Fringe and Awakening still looks more like a curse than a blessing." Morok replied.
"For someone of our species, achieving the third eye by twenty-five is the mark of a genius, yet you got five of them. On top of that, countless people risk their lives to achieve what you so easily dismiss as an annoyance. Life truly is unfair." She sighed.
"Anyway, there's a reason why I sent everyone away but you three. Today I'm going to teach you the secrets of Domination."
"Wait, our species?" Morok scratched his beard. "I'm a Tyrant, you're a Hydra, but what is he? Also, are you telling me that this isn't just one of your toy golems?"
He pointed at Solus's stone doll form, who slapped away his hand.
"I'm not a toy and you are still the jackass I remember." She said.
"This voice! You're Lith's secret girlfriend. I'm no one to judge, dude, but you've got odd kinks to make out with a doll. Is she at least anatomically correct?" He tried to touch her, receiving a slap on his hand so strong that it almost broke a few fingers.
"She's not a doll." Faluel pushed Morok away before a fight broke out. "She belongs to an unknown hybrid species, just like Lith. Before we start, each one of you will share with the class your respective elemental mastery techniques."
She conjured an air dome that blocked the sounds and blurred the vision, isolating the four of them from the rest of the cave.
"I'm sorry, miss, but I can't do that. My father is an asshole, but I'm not going to tell you my family's secrets just because you ask." Morok shook his head.
"Really, Moron? Maybe this will change your mind." Faluel sneered as she placed her index and medium fingers on his forehead and activated her breathing technique, Lifestream.
"I told you that's not- By the Great Mother!" Lifestream made his life force and mana core visible to the others, but to Morok it bestowed upon him the same information it gave Faluel, as if he had used it himself.
Raw elemental energies tainted the entirety of his body in the form of colored streaks that flowed through his veins along with the blood and the mana. On top of that, a small sphere of light resided near his core, sapping its strength.
"What are those things? Get them off me!" If the colored streaks felt akin to poison, the sphere of light gave him the feeling of a foreign hand stirring his insides.
"Those things are the reason Ajatar sent you to me. The streaks are simply the consequence of your using the Tyrannical Eye technique without Domination, whereas that tracking spell is a gift from your father.
"Before abandoning you, he marked your core so that the moment you achieved Awakening, he would know it and would be able to find you." Faluel said.
"Are you telling me that every time I use the technique that asshole of a father taught me, I compromise both my life force and mana core?" Morok was flabbergasted.
"Indeed. I noticed the acc.u.mulated damage when I rescued you outside the Fringe. As for your father, I'm not going to try defending his choice, but he probably never thought that you'd gain so many eyes so quickly and yet choose not to Awaken.
"My guess is that he would have taught you Domination and fixed his mess the moment your core's evolution broke the light sphere." Faluel said.
"The Tyrannical Eye technique requires to use elemental mastery through the eyes on my body to suck in the enemy's spells after storing enough mana of my own to cleanse them from the original energy signature and replace it with my own.
"After that, I can choose if to project it outside or add more mana of my own to further strengthen the absorbed spells. I can even change their elemental attribute based on the eye I use to attack." Since his father had no qualms risking his life, Morok had no reason to keep Glemos's secrets from Faluel.
