To become a dragon one needed a dragon's heart.
For lesser draconic species like wyverns and aerodactyls, their existing hearts were close enough to that of a dragon, hence they only got an upgrade of the organ, but for non- draconic specimens like Max, they needed to be transplanted one.
While Max's original heart could only pump blood, the dragon heart would be able to pump both blood and mana through his body with both the blood circulatory system and the mana circuits connected to the heart.
In the dragon world, it was general knowledge that the older the dragon the stronger it was unless it had begun regressing and this was because of the special characteristic of the dragon heart.
Civilizations across the universe took conscious effort into cultivating their mana circuits, to improve the quality of mana absorbed, to improve the pathways of the mana circuit making them more elastic and robust and to do so they consciously moved mana through their circuits in a predefined path while controlling their breathing.
It was labelled as ' Meditation Techniques ' and it was one of the key rewards of a tier 3 promotion test.
Dragons however, cultivated naturally without conscious effort all the time because of their special hearts.
Their dragon-heart pumped mana through mana circuits constantly making them stronger and more robust with each passing day, which was the reason behind older dragons always being stronger than younger ones because their hearts had been pumping for way longer.
It was a broken ability and the reason behind why all dragons possessed enormous amounts of mana pools that seemed inexhaustible in battle.
One of the reasons why Rhea needed 3 months to prepare for Max's procedure was because she had to prepare a suitable dragon's heart for his body and the one she had chosen for Max was from the newly hatched egg from the tier7 white dragon baby which had decided to attack Rhea's hideout during Mira's childbirth.
The heart was about half a fist size, and was already treated by her to be perfectly preserved while keeping all the nerve endings intact, but simultaneously draining the blood.
Rhea planned to plant the second heart near Max's back side under his right shoulder, diagonally opposite to his existing heart.
Very skilfully, she cut open Max's right chest and removed a bit of muscle before placing the heart inside as she skilfully began to connect the nerve endings to the 12 meridian points of Max's mana circuit and the arteries and veins to Max's existing circulatory system.
The process was extremely bloody and Max's already low HP bar fell down to 300's as the rate of Rhea healing Max + his own body's ability to absorb blood could only maintain this level of HP as the loss rate was high.
Having already passed out cold, Max was now completely in Rhea's hands as the white dragon blood that Kremeth had killed entered his real heart through the runic channel and with his real heart unable to pump blood due to the gaping hole by Rhea's claw inside, the load of pumping the blood fell on the baby heart.
This was the absolute critical step and it was here that Max's body would either accept the new arrangement or he would die from blood loss.
Mira held her breath as she watched on in nervousness, while Rhea began to sweat as she reached the peak of her concentration.
A single mistake at this stage was fatal to Max as his new heart slowly showed signs of pumping blood slowly doing one beat every 1 second.
Blood gushed out of Max's wounds and bloodied muscles as if a layman saw this scene he would not believe that a man could survive after losing so much of his flesh and mass.
" It's too slow, his internal injuries are preventing his body from building the needed blood pressure, he will die at this rate " Rhea said in a panicky voice as although the new heart was pumping blood it was way too slow with a lot of it being wasted.
Kremeth was at his wits end as well on this and time was of the essence, but just as it looked like all hope was going to be lost Max's body became engulfed in a fire originating from his right arm as the strength of the flames was so strong that even Rhea began losing HP.
-150,000
-150,000
-150,000
Max's internal injuries began closing up under the immense heat as every single aspect of his being, from his severely damaged mana veins to his wounds all began healing at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Rhea felt Max's flesh tighten up against the claws inside his body as even there the wound was shut so tight that not a single drop of blood leaked from within.
" Flames Of Life - The secret skill of the phoenix clan, but how? " Rhea was astonished to see the signature skill of the phoenix clan be activated under such a circumstance as she realised that it was from the 1/3rd portion of the Agni-Astra in Max's body.
Apparently, she and Kremeth were not the only ones looking out for Max, but there was someone else as well.
Max's HP began climbing steadily as his heartbeat from the second heart became much more stable and louder.
Max's eyes opened suddenly as he stared at Rhea in amazement for a moment, before a wave of pain reminded him of his torments once again.
Rhea carefully removed her claw that was pierced in Max's throat as the dying embers of the flames healed the hole in Max's throat, restoring his HP to yellow levels.
*cough* *cough* *cough* *BZZZZZZ*
Max felt an irritation in his throat like an uncomfortable ball was growing rapidly in his throat, but when he coughed thrice he suddenly breathed fire from his mouth in what completely shocked Max.
" What? " Max questioned out loud as Rhea narrowed her eyes and said " The dragonification has started, the fourth kill, now! "
" Remember your roots, remember your values, Dragons are noble creatures not vulgar beasts, don't slander our great name " Rhea said as she removed the claws from Max's palm and his heart before turning Max around and piercing him straight up the A-hole.
