You just gained a level in real life: 2022 edition!

[H_H_F_F]

I've been rethinking my position from last year about not using custom prestige race alterations with my sculpt self feat. I'm not sure yet I will, but I'm thinking about making a wilderness focus, opposed to the gear focus in a way that is akin to the opposing elemental foci. A couple of questions about that:

1: It was stated last year that I'd need to research my meditative focus on wilderness, akin to spell research.
So, question 1A is, how do I determine the equivalent spell level of the prestige race alteration, and do I still need to do a spellcraft check, or can it be replaced with a more appropriate check?
Question 1B is, do I have to research my own spiritual and physical focus in some big lab in a large city? Could I instead devote the same amount of time and resources to like, traveling or voulenteering in wild life sanctuaries to research that alteration?

2. Do I get to write the fluff implications my custom race alteration has on my physical/emotional status, or is it again something I'll only discover once I've done it? I remember someone explicitly working on turning into a TARDIS, so I'm assuming the former, but perhaps I'm mistaken?
Could I devote all this effort to becoming closer to nature and to my own core only to become some mushroomy mess with memory difficulties or something?

Edit: spell research lets the DM inform you at the end of research that the spell doesn't work. So, could I just write down the focus, including fluff, and simply be informed whther or not the research was succesful?