“I see. That’s a great technique that only a Tyrant can use, but it’s incomplete and dangerous. Without Domination, every time you use Tyrannical Eye, only a part of the energy signature infused within an absorbed spell gets cleansed while the rest builds up in your body, causing mana poisoning.” Faluel said.
“It’s like dirtying your clothes and then wash them under a waterfall without using soap. No matter how strong the flow is, stains will always remain. Lith?”
“I wasn’t able to develop a technique of my own so I simply combined my elemental mastery with your meditation techniques to achieve the best next thing to Domination. Yet I can only use it on my own spells or on a weak enemy’s spells.” He said.
“That’s because just like Glemos, I taught you an ineffective technique. It was only meant to help you control your abilities and perceive the elements so that opening the rest of your eyes would come naturally to you.
“Unlike Glemos, however, my technique didn’t endanger your life nor did it make you dependent on me for your long-term survival.” The Hydra said.
‘The next time I meet Glemos at the Council, I’m going to kick his ass.’ She actually thought.
“First, Lith and I developed our technique together so I’m in the same situation as him. Second, why did both of you teach an ineffectual method to control the elements?” Solus asked.
“Because Domination is the secret behind the survival of all of our species. If it leaks out, it wouldn’t compromise just our lives but those of every single Hydra and Tyrant out there.
“It makes up for my inability to fly and my lack of Origin Flames while for Tyrants it makes them unstoppable war machines even though their body is barely bigger than that of a human.” Faluel said.
“Once Domination is used, we can’t afford to leave a living witness unless we can disguise it as elemental mastery. That’s why the elders of all species capable of using Domination teach their youths faulty techniques.
“Our purpose is to keep our whelps from using Domination by instinct during a stressful situation and throw its secrets into the gutter. Yet now I’m forced to teach you the real deal because those techniques only work at the early stages of development of our species.
“Otherwise, you will not be able to control your abilities when you reach the sixth eye. If that happens during a fight, the consequences might be disastrous.” Faluel invited them to follow her lead and to sit down on the stone floor.
“Domination is akin to controlling your mana flow. It requires finesse, not strength. So far, all of you have just overpowered foreign spells with your mana whereas true Domination requires barely more mana than elemental mastery but much greater focus.”
“The first exercise-”
“Wait, aren’t you going to cleanse me from all that elemental crap first? I wouldn’t mind you getting rid of the tracking spell either.” Morok cut her short.
“That will be your homework. It will serve as practice and as an incentive to not interrupt me anymore. I’m not Ajatar, one more word and I’ll beat you so hard that you’ll black out until our second lesson.” Faluel snarled.
Controlling the golems to train the others required six of her heads, leaving Faluel only one to both teach a demanding discipline like Domination without hurting them and use Lifestream from time to time to recover her strength.
The effort put a huge strain on her mind and made her cranky.
“As for the tracking spell, the only way to get rid of it safely is triggering it. Do you want your father to come here?”
“No.” Morok sighed.
“Neither do I so shut up and listen. The first exercise is to Dominate chore magic. The only difference between the tiers from zero to three is the amount of mana they use. By learning how to control chore magic the rest will come naturally.”
Faluel conjured a small bolt of lightning that grew in size as she spoke, going from the spark of tier zero magic to a Hydra-shaped arc of electricity of tier three.
“Tier four will require learning how to Dominate more than one element at a time which is not much different from multicasting. With practice and effort, you might learn to do that by yourself without further lessons, but since we’re already here, I’ll give you a hand.”
The Hydra made of lightning grew more heads while fire and darkness filled its body and painted it a dull crimson.
“Tier five magic, however, is much more complicated. Such spells are controlled by the willpower of their caster and can be freely provided with new mana hence Dominating a single tier five spell is harder than Dominating three tier four spells at the same time.”
Now the Hydra had seven heads, each one of a different element. Its eyes moved around the air dome and its movements were so life-like that Lith needed to use Life Vision to make sure it wasn’t a living being.
“That said, let’s take our time and start from the basics. What are the elements you’re naturally attuned with?” Faluel said as the hepta-elemental Hydra faded away in a rainbow.
“Light and earth.” Solus said.
“Darkness and fire.” Lith said.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” Morok said.
“Which eyes did you open first?” Faluel inhaled sharply to keep herself from beating the annoying Tyrant into a pulp.
“Water and darkness. Why?”
The Hydra ignored him and conjured respectively a razor-sharp ring of earth, a long string of darkness, and a bubble of water around Morok’s head that turned his following words into a gurgle.
“I’ll keep the spells active while making sure that they don’t harm you. Your task is not to take control of them nor to focus on them. You must learn to feel the flow of elemental energy and to counter the sudden surges of mana that I’ll use to poke at you.
“The use of any kind of mystical sense will make the exercise useless and mark your failure. Same if you use too much mana and destroy my spell. The exercise can be considered completed only when you manage to counter my spell without disrupting it ten times out of ten. Begin.”
Morok’s eyes turned blue, Lith’s became black, while Solus’s glowed orange as they tried to suppress their instinct at the best that they could. Using their respective mystical sense was second nature to them, especially when facing a threat.
Back at the academy, all of them had a hard time learning dimensional magic because they were more used to see mana rather than to sense it, and even after years of hard work, mana perception was still one of their weakest subjects.
Lith and Solus had to endure several stings on their neck and face while they racked their brain to make sense of the exercise.
‘I wish I could use the mind link to speak with Lith/Solus. He/she would know what to do.’ They thought in unison.
Morok, instead, had to hold his breath every time the water bubble closed in or experience drowning.
“Glub glub glub.” He said after one failure too many.
“Come again?” Faluel opened the bubble enough to allow him to talk.
