"We are idiots." Lith and Solus said in unison.
"No, you are not." The Hydra shook her head. "Yours is an incomplete version. It's perfectly normal that you failed to understand the scope of the Hands' abilities. Had you imprinted the original, you would have been forced to keep them for yourselves.
"Which would have also meant that I would have never shown them to my mother, she wouldn't have taught me how to use the Hands, and I would have never taught you in turn. Your generosity came around nicely."
"You would be right, if we didn't already know about the sharing ability of the Menadion's set after trying Scarlett's Eyes." Solus took a deep breath and conjured a plain pince-nez made of stone, offering them to Faluel.
"That frigging cat had the Eyes?" The Hydra took the priceless artifact from Solus's hands and put it on her nose. "This is amazing, I bet that this is how it feels to have Dragon E-"
The tremendous load of information from her own cave and her apprentices flooded her brain. At first, Faluel felt dizzy, then Mogar started to spin like a frenzied top on steroids, making her puke her guts out until nothing but bile was left.
"Solus, why didn't you give her the trial version?" Lith took the Eyes back before the Hydra's eyes rolled back into her head.
"I'm sorry. It's just that we are always trying to get used to the full power of the Eyes so it became their default form." Solus used darkness magic to clean the cave and get rid of the terrifying stench that several half-digested deer emitted.
"Dammit, guys. You have to be careful with that thing. The Eyes fried my brain to the point that I've trouble remembering what I did during the last two days." Faluel said after washing her mouth and assessing the damage.
Part of her short-term memory had been replaced by the information that the Eyes had collected while she wore them. She used her breathing technique, Lifestream, to get rid of the redundant data about her own workings and keep only those about Lith and Solus.
"Wow, you guys have progressed by leaps and bounds while in the Desert." She said while pointing at Lith's armor, Solus's Sage Staff, and Friya's railgun. "I wish I had the ability to craft stuff like that back at your age.
"They are small masterpieces."
"Thanks, but that would have never happened without your teachings, the techniques we acquired in Urgamakka, and Grandma using Creation Magic to endlessly recycle the materials." Lith said.
"Otherwise I would have lacked the crystals and the Adamant necessary to perform enough experiments."
"Creation what?" Faluel demanded a full explanation about the tower's abilities and the details about their stay in the Desert, becoming more pissed off the more she learned.
"Gods, I hate you guys so much." She said with a sigh. "Can I have a tour of the tower? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"
Faluel tugged at Lith's shirt forcing him to look in her big eyes while she did her best impression of a puppy stare. She was very lovely and he was very lonely so it was super effective.
"Yes."
"Great! Time for round two." She took the Eyes again, but before putting them on, she reverted to her Hydra form.
The Eyes of Menadion grew with her by collecting dust, debris, and everything non-magical that they found in the lair.
"Oh, gods, this is amazing! Please tell me that you have the original Eyes as well. I'll do anything if you give them to me." Now that she had seven heads and the burden of the artifact was reduced accordingly, the Eyes had become a true source of wonder.
Faluel could not only see the spells, pseudo, and power cores of everything in her lair, she could also read the flow of the world energy going through each of her magical workings and see which runes were less efficient, making the enchantments weaker.
'Is it the euphoria, the Red Dragon, or the greed of Dragons talking?' He thought.
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