Smiling at the young hawk's attempt to appear resolute, Avery conveyed his agreement and started instructing her.

  “Since you have made your choice, don’t regret it. When there is no turning back, you can only relentlessly pursue your path, overcoming every obstacle.”

  Audrey nodded imperceptibly, understanding it was impossible to reverse what was about to be done. After that, it would be her responsibility to make sure it was enough for her to lead the life she wanted.

  “Now, I just need you to use the necklace's central tooth to cut yourself. Anywhere is fine, as long as it draws some blood. It might hurt a little bit, but it won’t last long, so don’t be afraid.”

  The hawk acquiesced apprehensively, but quelled any remaining doubts as she moved to obey him. She took the ancient fang and awkwardly shoved it against her wounded wing, failing to pierce her feathers' soft defense. She tried a few more times, looking quite comical, before her violent movements made her lose her balance and fall on the side, her weight finally allowing the fang to slice deep into her wings.

  “What luck I have to be of service to such a majestic bird. Now, stop wiggling around, I will start the blood transfusion.”

  Ignoring her resentful look and concentrating on his task, Avery went to work. The dragon blood he had was very pure, evidently coming from a fairly powerful atavist cultivator. However, what he now had was merely a tooth of this creature, which contained very little blood. It took a lot of effort to condense all the remaining blood aura into a single red drop, which seemed to contain a faint golden light.

  He carefully examined the result of his labor, totally disregarding the impatient look she shot at him. This drop has a very high spiritual quality, but it was very small, so he would have to control it with care to make the most of its limited power.

  Once he had planned out the entire process, and was reasonably certain he would be able to complete it smoothly, he let the blood seep out of the ancient fang and invade Audrey’s blood vessels.

  The overpowering blood Qi slowly traveled through her body, chasing away her natural blood and replacing it with an endless amount of blood aura, which was slowly invading every inch of her body, converting and transforming her body, corrupting her with countless draconic properties.

  Just as Avery had ended up suffering greatly from his immortal tribulation because he had skipped the gradual cultivation of his body, this transformation was similarly unkind to Audrey.

  Much of her mortal flesh withered and dissolved at the contact of the overbearing traces of divinity, leaving behind only pure energy. It was Avery’s job to expertly weave that energy together with the blood aura, reconstructing her body fast enough to save her life.

  Fortunately, while his spiritual form was incapable of directly interacting with the material world, when it came to controlling spiritual energies, perhaps only the Elder could be his match.

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  This heaven defying jump in cultivation was no big deal for him. He even had some attention to spare to draw a complex purple pattern on her neck that would be able to house his spirit in the future. He had no intention of inhabiting some moldy old necklace for the rest of his life, and didn’t want to be separated from his protege either.

  Meanwhile, he also guided her original bloodline, which was being mercilessly forced out, into the now empty necklace, condensing into a new drop of blood. He didn’t have any specific plan for it yet, but keeping her original bloodline had many uses. It was not worth it to let it be assimilated by the stronger dragon blood and disappear, since the amount of energy it contained was insignificant anyways.

  Under his careful guidance, the transformation was smooth, and less than an hour later, everything was finished. Before him lay a beautiful bird, which looked both familiar and strange.

  Audrey had never been a big bird to begin with, and with how little energy he had to work with, the body he had reconstructed for her could only be called tiny. Her 60 centimeter wingspan was reduced to a third of that, with the rest of her body shrinking accordingly.

  Most notable were the changes to her legs. As a cultivator who had achieved her first transformation, the draconic properties had achieved a qualitative point, granting her the legs of a dragon. She undeniably looked quite peculiar, the thick, scaly paws at odds with her slim and elegant physique, but the power they contained was unmistakable.

  Other than that, the magical pattern on her neck, which Avery had drawn to resemble his runic true form, was very light and hard to see behind her plentiful brown feathers. Of course, her wing had been healed, or more accurately Avery had not seen fit to recreate any of her old ailments while crafting her new body.

  Satisfied with his craftsmanship, Avery smiled happily, but Audrey was in no condition to admire her new form. She laid motionless on the ground, drawing deep, ragged breaths as she tried to recuperate from the unbelievable pain she had just felt.

  Avery gazed at her whimpering form speechlessly, belatedly realizing that he could have put her to sleep and let her avoid all this suffering. He had underestimated how much the process would hurt, forgetting that not everyone was as accustomed to the pain of being transformed by a higher level of energy as he was.

  He awkwardly waited for her to regain the ability to think, and seeing her shivering and crying quietly, he decided it would be best not to mention that this agony had been completely unnecessary.

  “Now, now, Everything is alright now. You don’t have to cry anymore, your suffering is in the past. Look, can’t you see? You are reborn, and your dream of healing yourself has been achieved. This is a time for celebration, not misery!”

  His words had no effect, he tried comforting her in different ways, but surprisingly, none of them seemed to calm her down.

  “Remember that everything was worth it. Stop focusing on the trivial details, rejecting the enchantment of divinity to wallow in the woes of mortality. Your pain is transient, and will last for but a moment. Compared to the eternal happiness of the Truth, it is so insignificant, so why are you still crying?”

  “Calm your mind, forget the pain, and focus on the Tao. Feel the mysteries of the world, the beauty of natural laws, the majesty of divinity. Why do you let your pain distract you from contemplating the Truth?”

  Despite his various attempts, she remained completely unresponsive to his repeated prompting and clumsy attempts at consoling her. She didn’t even speak a word as she simply stared blankly at the starry sky, whimpering for hours before slowly falling into a dreamless sleep.

  He wasn’t very well versed in hypnotism or the manipulation of memories, but he was nevertheless able to play a supporting role, empowering the automatic defenses of her mind and helping her seal off these traumatic memories deep in her subconscious.