The Flying snake didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary at the beginning. Its internal organs and bones matched the records studied by Noah in the past, and even its remaining muscles corresponded to them.
Yet, every fiber of its body felt sturdier at his touch, and the amount of "Breath" that its complete form contained was above the standards of a rank 5 magical beast in the lower tier.
'Are beasts stronger in this world? Is this just a general rule?' Noah thought as he continued with the dissection.
Elder Austin and the other rank 5 cultivators reached his position and oversaw the procedure.
Noah was an expert in that field, so there was no reason to stop the dissection. However, they still wanted to be there in case he missed something or ruined some body parts.
Bones, organs, and strands of muscles disappeared as Noah stored them in his space-ring. The corpse of the snake lost part of its shine as its interiors left it.
Noah noticed how the leaders of the team didn't seem to mind his actions, so he simply kept on storing nourishments that he would eat later on.
The dissection continued with Noah using his instincts and consciousness to find the reason behind the extraordinary power of that species.
'What is this?' Noah thought when he severed a large chunk of muscles to reveal part of the interiors of the creature.
A spherical organ appeared in his view, and Noah was utterly sure that there wasn't supposed to be anything significant in that spot!
He had simply followed the trail left by the energy that the beast had started to release after its death, which led him to find that peculiar structure.
The organ radiated a soft light that flickered as it lost the energy contained in its insides. A tight array of blood vessels linked it to the rest of the corpse, and the tissues around it seemed to be even sturdier than the others.
Noah stopped his actions when he saw the sphere, and the leaders hovering behind him focused on that organ as soon as it entered in their vision.
"This is impossible!" Elder Estelle said when her consciousness enveloped the organ.
She was a middle-aged woman with short brown hair and dark skin, and she was the rank 5 cultivator sent by the Council. She was knowledgeable in the fields that concerned magical beings, and her expertise didn't stop at the magical beasts but covered even the magical plants.
That allowed her to notice the similarities between that spherical organ with the dantians of the cultivators!
Of course, Noah noticed that too, but his understanding of the matter was far more detailed.
'This isn't a dantian.' Noah thought as he neared the organ to let his body gather as much information as it could. 'It resembles a cheap version of my Liquid dantian.'
The spherical organ released primary energy identical to that stored inside his Liquid dantian, but it didn't seem as perfect as his creation. Also, its main function appeared to be the nourishing of the snake's body, as well as the empowering of its innate abilities.
'The presence of a Liquid dantian would explain the power behind its poison and its endurance.' Noah thought as he stored his weapons and reached for the organ with his fingers.
"Wait!" Cecil shouted when he understood Noah's intentions. "Do not taint the corpse further!"
Noah ignored his words and sealed his grasp around the organ before pulling his arm backward. The blood vessels around it broke, but Noah paid attention to preserve the structure of the organ with his gesture. Then, he turned toward the elders and showed the bloody sphere in his palm.
"Magical beasts with a fake dantian," Noah said while moving his gaze toward Cecil. "Has the Elbas family ever heard of this?"
The rank 5 cultivators landed on the ground and inspected the sphere, which released the last bits of primary energy contained inside its structure.
The organ was nothing more than a dark-red ball at that point, but the absence of energy made the cultivators able to ascertain the thickness of its walls.
It was just as Noah had said. It wasn't a real dantian but rather a cheap version that couldn't match the center of power of the humans.
Yet, it even that fake had made the Flying snake surpass the limits of its species!
Countless questions appeared in the leaders and Noah's mind as they kept their eyes on the bloody ball. That feature was something that could make vain the accumulated knowledge of the magical beasts' field.
Also, some issues concerned the actual layout of the Immortal Lands.
'If the Immortal Lands is a huge plane connected to multiple Mortal Lands," Noah asked himself. 'Why didn't we find this feature on any of the creatures inside the new continent?'
The heroic cultivators didn't know much about the Immortal Lands, but Noah had seen the statue inside the Mortal Palace, and his world had explored a piece of them.
He had formulated hypotheses that seemed somewhat on point, but that sudden discovery had already eliminated most of them.
'Is this limited to this lower plane?' Noah thought before rejecting that idea.
Magical beasts with a dantian would be naturally more potent than those without it, which meant that their chances to reach the higher plane would be higher.
It was evident that such an empowered species would need more energy to reach the higher ranks, but that requirement wasn't enough to stop their growth.
'They would be kings among beasts, even if their fertility turns out to be poor.' Noah concluded in his mind.
One of them would be far stronger than its peers, and it would soon take control of any environment with only weaker beasts as its enemies. Its rule would lead to the spreading of its bloodline, meaning that there were bound to be similar creatures in the higher plane.
Yet, none of them had appeared in the piece of Immortal Lands fallen in his world.
Of course, he had considered the possibility that such a feature was limited to the Flying snake species found in this lower plane. There was even the possibility that the fake dantian was something that the beasts of that world had developed only recently due to mutations.
"We know too little," Noah said when he accepted that he couldn't find an answer after analyzing only one specimen.
Not even a day had passed since they had reached the new world, but their notions of the balance enforced by Heaven and Earth were already falling apart.
"I agree." Elder Estelle said. "Let's capture more creatures and study the plants too. We must understand how this plane works."
The other rank 5 cultivators didn't object to her words, and even Cecil simply returned to the group still flying over the volcano. As for Noah, he stored the corpse of the snake before following them back in what was now their base.