Lith pondered Faluel’s words, realizing that between being capable of producing Origin Flames and of Domination, he was basically sitting on a gold mine.
“Stop gloating over your gold mine and start breathing fire, kid. I’m already envious, you’d better stop asking for a beating.” The Hydra poked his head to snap him out of it.
“How did you know what I was thinking about?” He blurted out in surprise.
“We Dragons all make the same face while counting our treasures.” Faluel wore a set of heavy protective glasses while preparing the furnace.
The smithy of the Hydra was nothing like Zekell’s. A complex system of arrays would keep all kinds of heat contained, no matter if natural, magical, or Origin Flames based.
A huge hole in the middle of the lab channeled molten lava from the depths of Mogar inside the furnace, where it was used in the place of charcoal to keep the temperature steady.
“What is the lava for?” Lith asked.
“Even under normal circumstances, keeping the temperature high enough to liquefy Adamant takes a lot of focus. While using my seven heads on seven different tasks, however, it’s nigh-impossible without a source of fire element.” Faluel replied.
“It’s only thanks to the lava that I need barely a sliver of focus and mana to control the temperature of the furnace. There’s no Forgemaster that works without one of those.” The Hydra pointed at the hole, adding one more thing to Lith’s already arm-long list of to-do things.
“Today’s lesson will be special. Since there’s only a limited amount of Origin Flames you can produce before hurting your life force and we’ve got a lot of metal to purify, I’ll show you my Domination technique. I expect you to learn it by imitation.”
Faluel put in front of him a rectangular block of smelted Adamant that was 2 meters (6.6 feet) long and one meter (1 foot) wide and high.
Lith placed his hand on it and activated Invigoration, using the flow of mana to detect the size and position of the impurities based on the resistance that they offered to his breathing technique.
Then, he took a deep breath, focusing his will on his life force so that the Origin Flames would pass through the metal and affect solely the impurities.
At least in theory.
What actually happened was that the mass of deep violet flames had many random hot spots that would deform the metal, moving the impurities away from their position and greatly reducing the purification’s effectiveness.
Lith took control of the Origin Flames with his emerald eye and did his best to focus them on the impurities while also removing the unwanted hot spots. He displayed technique, willpower, and determination, giving birth to a glorious yet utter failure.
The Adamant block sagged like a badly cooked soufflé and the flames missed most of the impurities, removing a minimal fraction of them.
“Wow, that sucked hard.” Faluel said after checking the metal with Lifestream, her breathing technique. “I should make you pay me for purifying this stuff.”
She put the Adamant in the furnace, melting it inside a mold to give it a regular shape again. Making sure that every part of the metal melted completely and mixing it evenly required time, patience, and technique so almost five minutes passed before they could take another shot.
“Gods, this was so much easier with Zolgrish’s forge! All I had to do was wish for it and the forge would do in a split second what it took you minutes.” Lith whined.
“Agreed. When you manage to make a Lich spill their secrets without triggering a war, let me know.” Faluel replied with a scoff. “Again, but this time leave Domination to me.”
Lith checked the new position of the impurities and breathed another stream of Origin Flames. There were fewer hot spots, but by focusing on that Lith had reduced the fire’s piercing ability.
‘Fuck me sideways! This way I’ll melt the surface and we’ll waste more time.’ He thought as Faluel’s eyes turned emerald green.
The Origin Flames came to a halt as the Hydra got rid of the hot spots and of the sections with low piercing power. Only a few handfuls of tongues of fire remained, but they seeped inside the Adamant and completely destroyed the impurities that Faluel had targeted.
“Can Domination really do that?” Lith looked at the Hydra in awe.
Maybe it was for the loneliness, or maybe it was because he brimmed with gratitude for all the marvels that she kept teaching him, but Lith had a hard time not kissing Faluel.
“Yes, of course. This method is really wasteful since we used less than one-tenth of your flames but at least it’s guaranteed to give results. Check the block now.”
Lith used Invigoration again, discovering that while the smaller impurities were gone, the bigger ones had shrunk in size.
“Now it’s your turn. Remember to never overthink. Domination and the violet core work in a similar fashion. If you need more focus than that required to wave your own hand then you’re doing something wrong.” Faluel said.
“Easier said than done.” Lith sighed. “I’m one of the greatest overthinkers on Mogar.”
He breathed once more, with feeling. Trying not to think only made things worse as he thought about what to do in the case something went wrong at every step of the process.
“Fuck, no!” Faluel burst the Flames before they could reach the Adamant.
“Stop worrying! Here you don’t need contingency plans but to live the moment. You can’t succeed if you keep picturing in your mind all the possible ways that you can fail. Five minutes break.”
“Do I need to meditate to clear my mind?” Lith asked.
“Not for you, dummy. For me.” Faluel was in dire need of using her breathing technique to regain her strength and relieve the mental pressure from practicing seven different disciplines at the same time.
She sat cross-legged on the ground, bringing order to the mess that the shared mind of her multiple bodies was.
‘Fuck! Faluel takes care of a whole class and I can’t even make one thing right.’ Lith thought.
“That’s because I have 300 years of practice, you 19 years old runt. Stop trying to imitate me and just be yourself.” She replied.
“How do you-”
“I’m no mind-reader, but if you grit your teeth harder, I’m pretty sure they’ll crack.” Faluel conjured an ice mirror in front of Lith.
The Tiamat returning his gaze was stressed, angry, and needed to take out the stick up his ass.
Lith took a series of deep breaths trying to relax. Manipulating the Origin Flames was hard because not only was it his first time, but also because he had to perform several tasks in a split second.
The temperature, the hot spots, the piercing ability, and Domination all needed him to exert surgical precision and to make fast decisions.
By the time Lith was forced to stop to not compromise his life force, they had purified just two Adamant blocks.
“Great work. It took us a long time to get the job done compared to a decent fire breather but it still saved me a couple hundred thousand of gold or a few artifacts.” Faluel patted his back.
