Eating a rank 5 beast while having a rank 4 body wasn't an easy task.
Magical beasts had only one center of power, which meant all their accumulated \"Breath\" would be redirected to reinforce it.
That led to a situation where beasts on a lower rank couldn't even wound those on a higher one.
Rank 5 beasts couldn't control dozens of rank 4 creatures if the latter had a chance to defeat them, the food chain of the magical beasts would be quite chaotic otherwise.
Yet, that didn't mean that they couldn't eat them.
The corpses of the magical beasts would begin to release the \"Breath\" contained inside them in the outside world after their death, which weakened the structure of their bodies and allowed weaker creatures to wound them.
However, there was still the issue of their digestion at that point.
A rank 4 body couldn't possibly have the power to destroy and absorb a rank 5 beast, even one that had begun to weaken.
Any body part that a weaker beast managed to bite off would need to stay inside its stomach for a while before it was fully absorbed, meaning that eating the entirety of a stronger beast couldn't happen in a matter of days.
Noah faced the same problems when he began to eat the materials that he had managed to steal from the battlefields during the last assault of the winged beasts.
He had it a bit better compared to ordinary beasts on his level due to his hybrid status, but he still met difficulties in digesting those rank 5 resources.
The blood remained in his stomach for days, and there was nothing that he could do to hasten the absorbing process, nothing worth doing at least.
He could use the secret technique to boost the power of his body momentarily, but part of the nutrients contained in those materials would be wasted to refill the expenditure of the technique.
The amount of absorbed \"Breath\" would still surpass the depleted one, but Noah was aiming for a complete absorption since there were some variables that he couldn't evaluate.
He wasn't a magical beast, he was a hybrid born through the fusion of a dragon and a cultivator who had trained in one of the best methods available to humans.
Dragons were considered as the powerful kind of creatures in the magical beasts' world, and their power was balanced by higher requirements when it came to the amount of \"Breath\" needed for each breakthrough.
Yet, those requirements could only become harsher when they were coupled with the features inherited from the Yin body.
Noah knew that he couldn't calculate the requirements of his body through normal standards, so he simply stole as much as he could.
The blood came from various rank 5 beasts, but the body parts mainly originated from the winged creatures which didn't focus on their bodies.
However, he was quite confident in reaching the breakthrough with all that blood, body parts, and one almost entire corpse.
It took a bit more than a month for Noah to empty the inscribed barrel and completely digest the blood that it contained.
Noah felt drowsy when that process was over, he felt as if he needed to sleep to allow that new power to modify his body thoroughly.
Of course, Noah followed that instinct.
He was a peculiar case in the magical beasts' world, meaning that the growth of his body could take strange paths or deviate from what was generally considered normal for those creatures.
Also, he was unique, the first and only of his species.
There was nothing in the collective knowledge of the four nations that could give him some kind of foresight about his breakthroughs, Noah was walking on entirely uncharted territory.
Yet, magical beasts generally had powerful survival instincts, and Noah could only rely on them as he made his way toward the peak of the fourth rank.
Noah slept for a few weeks only to awaken due to the splitting hunger that was assailing his mind.
He felt that his body had improved by a lot, but he didn't linger on useless tests since his meal had just begun.
His next targets were the broken claws of the winged beasts and the tentacle of the rank 5 octopus.
It was needless to say that eating them was even more troublesome.
The claws weren't that big of a problem since they were already broken, but it took him some time to divide the tentacle into small pieces so that he could gulp them without chewing them.
His teeth didn't have the power to tear such powerful skin apart, and Noah had kept those body parts inside his space-ring, so they hadn't been weakened by the passage of time.
Noah had to wait until the full power of his martial art became able to pierce those materials, and there was nothing that he could do about the \"Breath\" lost in the process.
It took him some months, but, in the end, he managed to consume even those body parts.
Noah felt the drowsiness invading him again, and he slept only to wake up a whole month later at the peak of the upper tier.
His body brimmed with power, he felt the strength of a being at the peak of the fourth rank filling every fiber of his body.
Nevertheless, he wasn't done yet.
He had purposely left the most nourishing meal for last since he knew that magical beasts needed a large amount of \"Breath\" during a breakthrough to the next rank.
That process was similar to an evolution rather than a simple strengthening, and Noah had to be sure to have enough energy to succeed in it.
The almost complete body of the rank 5 beasts appeared on the floor, and Noah immediately began to eat it.
That corpse had been reduced to a pulp by the rank 5 snake, which greatly helped Noah in that process.
Small bites and long digesting periods filled his schedule in those months.
His body had improved enough to quicken the absorption of those materials, but he still needed a few months to digest that corpse completely.
Noah felt that his body was ready to explode when his stash of rank 5 materials was over.
His hunger had long disappeared, and incredible drowsiness filled his mind.
His eyelids felt heavy, but Noah struggled to remain awake since his instincts told him that the mansion wasn't the right place where to hibernate.
Noah left the invisible dome in a hurry without even minding the greetings of the elders that he met on his path.
His instincts led him to the eastern border of the territory containing the lava lake, and Noah didn't hesitate to dig a deep cave when he reached that spot.
The underground area glowed with a red color there, but Noah barely noticed it and fell in deep sleep after sealing the entrance to that cave.
He didn't even notice that some of the \"Breath\" contained inside his body came out in the open and created a dark membrane that surrounded his sleeping figure.