Vita traveled further into the middle of the massive lake. This new form, while it wasn't a shape that worked well, was still better than a ball of meat and bones. It did tickle Vitas nonexistent mind to be in control of something so silly, but it was a learning experience for sure. For example, swimming requires different motions compared to moving on land. The difference is especially notable when you're swimming in the shape of a tube with no notable limbs.

But this wasn't a real problem, but a surprising tool to get more mass! Could Vita just grow some more cells on their own? Sure, but that's boring, and there is so much fun to find in different lifeforms. Like a crustacean that was oddly similar to a certain type of punching shrimp, but much larger with actual limbs to punch with. Its arms were locked into position on its sides, and when fired, produced a similar amount of power as the rock-lobster bullets. The only issue being that touching Vita would spell the doom for anything made of flesh. Therefore, after a couple seconds, the punching shrimp joined the pommer.

And by join, I mean fusing together by having the pommer 'eat' the punching shrimp and forming an ugly chimera of the two. Is it practical? Not in the slightest, but at the end of the day it is just a vessel for Vita to travel and experiment with. So being a little lazy with mending the two together is only natural. Or unnatural.

But a mezmer hasn't been seen in a long time, not even with the multiple sensory organs that Vita had managed to collect, which was rather boring. It seems that a fish able to somehow dodge projectiles moving at massive speeds are hard to come by, while powerful but otherwise normal sea creatures are more common.

Another thing that seems to be a problem, is that Vita hasn't been able to figure out how the 'inverted fins' worked for the pommer. For at a basic level, the fins move and the pommer gets a massive boost in speed. The more fins, the more speed. But here it didn't seem to work as intended, it just acted as a normal fin when Vita tried replicating the speed the pommer showed previously. What could be the issue then, since there was no way for it to not work.

Unless?

Vita thought, with no mind to think with, about how magic worked in this world. Having seen plenty of examples already, and the whole university of the soul nonsense teaching people about magic, there must be something that Vita is missing somewhere. Maybe it's a special resource that can't be grown like a body can be grown? Is it learned then? But that wouldn't explain the Mesmer or any of the other magical creatures Vita had seen before. If a wild creature could obtain it, then that would mean that Vita did not have something that random wild animals did have. But Vita quite literally had control over the bodies of wild animals. Some that has shown magical abilities.

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It was annoying. It was something Vita would need to learn through Diana back in the wendigo body.

But that is something to figure out later, like right now that Vita was getting closer to the center of the lake. While Vita was still a bit away, it was far enough that Vita could start with some experimenting. And the first thing to experiment with was the samples legally acquired from a royal donor. But for safety reasons, this had to be done slowly with perfection and a steady hand…

Good thing Vita doesn't need hands!

So it was a simple matter of figuring out how a human, or at least a humanoid, turns into a half-lizard.

*Aqua-Vita*

Alright then, beginning the operation of pipsqueak redhead bastard. Vita! Gloves!

You don't need gloves, dipshit. Stop talking to yourself and start looking into the samples, you quite literally need to stop doing this for your non-existing mental health.

Fine, sheesh, talk about me being rude. Alright, let us see about this sample. We know from context clues that the kid seems to be related to something that might either be a dragon or something similar. Now let us see what is going on with this fella. Membrane or the outermost layer of the cell looks rather normal, if not slightly better than any cells that we have found at the moment. And now for a deep dive into this bad boy.

Wow… This isn't as cool as I had hoped. Everything is dead. Or at least rotten. But it is to be expected with what is more or less waste material. There is the nucleus, Golgi apparatus, unknown, Mitochondria etc…

What the fuck? What is this thing? This isn't normal, and it also isn't nearly as damaged as the rest of the cell. The same goes for the other samples, but this one seems to be in the best condition compared to the rest. What is this thing, then? It couldn't be something vital to living, since nothing else so far has had this in it so far. Interesting.

Time to mess with it!

*World*

Vita, using the damaged versions to patch up the one that was in much better shape, started testing out the strange thing. Fixing it up and putting it together took a surprising amount of effort. Not to actually form the finished product, but to make sure it didn't damage itself or damage Vita. For every time Vita attempted to finish it, a dangerous amount of heat would be produced and Vita would have to back down. Like a dance between blowing up or not seeing the end result, Vita was starting to get tired of it. While Vita-cells were easy to remake, don't know why they are so easy to actually remake, it's the surrounding flesh that would suffer if things went poorly.

So with one last push, right as the odd draconic cell started igniting, Vita covered the small ball of energy with bones and pushed it further away from the main body.