'It could use an update and I a hand in my evolutionary endeavour. Pun intended.' Faluel crouched in the middle of the focusing array, letting the world energy fill her body and the Hands to the brim before activating her breathing technique, Lifestream. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎 Then, she took two Life Sculptures out of her dimensional ring. One stored the blueprints of Faluel's current life force, precise down to the smallest details. The second one, instead, contained all the information the Hydra bloodline had uncovered about the possible ways to awaken their Dragon bloodlines. Thanks to Menadion's and Baba Yaga's help, the Hydras had scrapped most of the details useful only to those belonging to Ufyl's same bloodline, establishing a starting point that was supposed to work for any Hydra. 'Or so they say.' Faluel grunted while revising what little was left of the research. 'The problem is that this data is bare bones. Ripha helped us reach a better understanding of the evolutionary process, but she also made most of what we learned after the end of the War of the Griffons pointless. 'On top of that, even Baba Yaga has yet to find a way to differentiate atrophied mana organs from mere imperfections in our life forces. Without that knowledge, I have to take it nice and easy. 'If I stimulate the development of one of my atrophied mana organs, I'll get one step closer to Dragonhood. If I stimulate the development of an imperfection, instead, I'll get one step closer to joining the fallen races.' Even with the help of the three white cores, the best the Hydras had obtained until that moment was to isolate the position of the mana organs responsible for the development of Dragon Eyes and Origin Flames. Alas, they were not close to each other, and stimulating them at the same time had triggered a domino effect on the life force of the Hydra who had volunteered as a test subject that had almost cost him his life. As Menadion had shown the Hydras, with each mana organ they awakened, their life forces would rearrange themselves, causing alterations in their physical organs as well. 'Let's start with the Dragon Eyes. They are the beginning of everything. On top of that, if I succeed, they're going to make the rest of the job easier.' Faluel thought, and she was right. Just like the thousands of other Hydras of her clan who had tried and failed in taking that same approach. Unlike them, however, she had the Hands and a deep knowledge of Lith's and Nalrond's life forces. They were very different from her own, but Faluel had seen them change over time and grasped an understanding of what the natural development of a life force looked like. She used Lifestream to turn the accumulated world energy into mana and channel it to the atrophied mana organ with surgical precision. 'I could use Body Sculpting, but that would change my life force into what I expect it to become instead of what it's supposed to become.' She thought. 'I bet that Mom and all the other Hydras have yet to succeed because they focus too much on the destination and too little on the journey.' The pressure exerted by the mana increased gradually, making a section of Faluel's life force swell and bloat. It felt like having an indigestion and a splitting headache at the same time, but she endured. 'Don't rush it.' She gritted her teeth, her heart pumping faster. 'You know what happens when you do. Give it time. The discomfort will probably pass. It must pass.' Her previous attempts had failed because she had either used a too strong mana flow or because she had lost her focus due to the pain. Darkness fusion wasn't an option. Faluel needed a way to determine if things got better or worse as she adjusted her technique, and pain was the most reliable indicator. 'Keep the flow steady until the pain subsides. Only then kick things up a notch.' She told herself while remembering a previous failure that had caused her internal bleeding and spilled most of her guts on the floor. Slowly, what looked like a small bump in the star-like Hydra's life force bloomed into a perfect bubble. Faluel felt the pain moving from her stomach to her eyes, making them itch like crazy while the headache lessened. 'Like this. Give your body the time to adapt to the changes in your life force before triggering more.' The Hands of Menadion kept the mana flow to the mana organ steady while harmonizing the new flow generated by the mana organ with the rest of the body to perfection. Faluel observed the flaming bubble spread thin tendrils under the surface of the star, inducing small adjustments in her life force that made some imperfections more definite and others less. Only once the process stopped did she increase the pressure on the mana organ. 'Will the bubble burst? Turn into a satellite like it happened to Ufyl, or…' Much to her dismay, it collapsed on itself, leaving behind nothing but a sunspot. 'Fuck, another dud! And this time I have no clue what I did wr-' Faluel was expecting a pang, that one or more of her eyes would burst, or maybe that a frenzied eight head would pop out and attack her. All those things and worse had happened after her past failed attempts, and there was no reason to think things would go any differently this time. Yet the pain remained tolerable, and the itch behind her eyes worsened, spreading all the way to her brains. The sunspot slowly went from round to a black fissure, whose outline became clearer over time instead of blurring. 'That's no fissure, that's a vertical pupil!' She thought in realization as her vision became keener and she noticed unknown properties in the familiar runes of her arrays. 'Gods if I'm stupid! Of course, Dragon Eyes isn't just in the eyes but also in the brain. 'Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to process the information I can now sense.' Faluel waited patiently while the mana organ's tendrils generated auxiliary sunspots and smaller bubbles on the star's surface. 'Oh, shit! This is nowhere near Dragon Eyes, and I have no clue where I have to send the next burst of mana to continue the process. The big pupil? The maybe proto-pupils? The bubbles? 'There is only one right evolutionary path, the rest are imperfections that would lead me to a fallen state.' After taking a long look at her own life force and the records of Ufyl's, Faluel was none the wiser. 'Only one way to find out, I guess.' She sighed. She increased the energy flow to the newly formed mana organ, and the effect was no different than plunging a hot knife into all her fourteen eyes. The pain was literally blinding, and if not for the clock hanging on the wall, she would have believed she had endured it for hours instead of three minutes. It was the threshold time after which her life force would start to change and the pain to abate if she had sent mana to the right spot.