[Coldsaturn]

I went back through Under Deepspace gathering all the info needed. I was especially looking for mentions of the Aether core, and MC's gradual connection to Onychinus.

- At the beginning of the story, during MC's first visit (that we see) with Zayne, she says "This isn't the first day I had protocore fragments in my heart."
- MC knows Onychinus is modifying protocores and Sylus is at the head. Then there's the explosion, and for the next 6 months MC barely sleeps while doing research because she believes the explosion wasn't an accident like the news is reporting.
- After Zayne gives her the letter from her grandma with all the info about the experiments with the Aether core, she says "It's about my heart. is the protocore fragment in it the same as the ones in other protocore syndrom patients?" and he says "It certainly is a strange protocore fragment"
- With Zayne she goes to Dr.Noah (who knew her grandma and treated MC before Zayne became her primary physician 6 months before the start of the story), and Noah tells her that it doesn't look like anyone put the Aether core in her because the surgery would leave traces. MC still thinks someone put it in her and says "The person responsible for this will find me sooner or later"
- Aether is at the center of the web and her grandma is just one thread of it. So MC draws a line connecting her grandma and the old experiments, her own Aether core fragment/s, and whoever wants it now. Noah also tells her that all the researchers who worked on the Aether core or know about it have either died or disappeared, but he recalls her grandma mentioning one researcher who had run away to N109 Zone, joining Onychinus. So it's another thread connecting her grandma to Sylus.
- Noah says that all the doctors involved started disappearing, just like her grandma eventually did. MC thinks that she doesn't know what her grandma was researching, implying that the content of that research might be why someone is taking out anyone who knows something.
- Zayne also tells her "If they're (info about MC's heart and its connection to the Aether core) leaked, you might become Onychinus' next target." and MC answers "But why would they kill researchers who worked with an Aether core? they want to keep its existence a secret?" and Zayne replies "Perhaps they don't want anyone else to get their hands on it as they try to obtain one for themselves. Or there are Aether cores already in their possession, and they're currently trying to keep it a secret"
During the course of the story we switched from talking about fragments to just cores, but it's still fragments. So the idea here is that people are trying to collect Aether core fragments like dragon balls. This makes sense, since Aether cores are so damn powerful, if someone had already an entire one at hand we'd definitely be hearing about it.
- This prompts MC to check the documents Noah gave her. We learn of an Aether core's energy output (MC's heart) at rest: 3021.7 eV. The modified protocore found in the no-hunt zone with Xavier (when we first learn of Onychinus) has an energy output of 3019.9 eV. Very very close. MC thinks "This can't be a coincidence. That protocore is a result of Onychinus using an Aether core to modify it"

So up until now MC has spent 6 months hardly sleeping while researching the explosion, and now that she has a lead, she's immediately working on a plan to infiltrate. 

- Tara mentions that a month before a whole bunch of protocores were all cleaned out without a trace after numerous deals in the black market, which was Lumiere's doing. She meets Xavier, they defeat a wanderer, talk about Lumiere in relation to the N109 Zone and MC keeps on deflecting every time she's asked if protocores are the only reason she wants to go. Then she admits "There's something I need to do there"
- They talk a bit more, then Xavier says "The reason you want to investigate the N109 zone is because of your family. Am I wrong?" She's determined enough that she tells him he might become her enemy in the future based on what info she might learn and if he'll get in the way.
- Xavier gives her 24 hours of unrestricted access to the hunters association files and she immediately starts doing research. She quickly jumps into shady chatrooms to get insider info about a murder (of a researcher from Ever) that happened 2 years prior. It's here that we hear Sylus' voice for the first time. The insider then asks if MC is interested in the new bounty that has been just put up, and it's Rafayel.
- She meets up with Rafayel, Raf lies his entire ass off the whole time as usual, a journalist tries to get a scoop on him because Raymond is officially dead (get back to the beginning of chapter 7 if you want details on how he died, it's lore relevant for Raf and also deliciously creepy)
- The first time MC meets Sylus his eye does something and with the voices in her head giving her headache and hallucinations (she sees her hands covered in blood) she instinctively takes a knife to his eye to stop whatever is going on.
- When she wakes up 3 days later and Sylus brings her on his lap (never forgetting that), she says "My family's deaths... you're behind them, right?!" to which he doesn't say no and simply gives her an answer that almost sounds like "well, I actually did you a favor they want you dead", and THEN MC snaps and tells him that she wants to kill him herself (which is true if we trust what the voices in her head keep on saying). Then the iconic scene with the gun, but let's notice how her hands were trembling and how she reacted just after the gun went off. She really didn't want to kill him right there and then. When she says "No! You can't die yet...!" the tone of her voice almost sounds like she's almost crying. It isn't clear whether she doesn't want him to die because she needs answers for her family, or because by instinct the pull she has toward him goes from lethal violence to whatever this is.
- Notice how hungry and thirsty MC is when in front of Sylus. She talks of feeling a void that she needs to fill. Power hungry? Biologically hungry? Just plain old horny?
- Sylus eye glows when he's using his power. MC thinks "Where does the power in his right eye come from? Why does it feel so familiar to me? Is it related to the Aether core?"

Putting all this together, and working under the assumption that there's one Aether core that's being broken into fragments, we can deduce that's why she thinks she has half of it, and Sylus the other. 
That's it for now I'd say. There will be more info coming from the rest of the section. If it looks like I'm slightly stretching the text, it's because sometimes the translation is ambiguous and we have to work with the distance between one main story update and the next. There will be times when it almost sounds like certain details are being "corrected" or slightly altered. They haven't done it to the point of retconning their own lore, but it's definitely easier to guess the direction they want to take by analyzing all canon lore available.

That being said, much much love to Sylus. What a great section this is, and I enjoy MC in it immensely.