Ambition

Each time someone had a breakthrough in the Body Refinement Realm they expelled impurities out of their body in the form of excretion.

As a result, the body was cleansed and the resistance in essence flow was reduced, increasing your ability to wield your Mana and enhancing your strength. A by-product of this was that you also became more attractive.

Clear skin, muscular physiques (for males), soft bodies (for females) and symmetrical faces. There was no such thing as an ugly cultivator. This didn't mean that beauty suddenly lacked value, it just meant that the bars were raised.

But despite the concept of Body Refinement, even the most talented of cultivators would only get rid of 25% of his impurities before being forced into the Mana Refinement realm.

These were the benefits of the Body Refinement realm and they ended with the Body Refinement realm. Unless you took special treasures, you would never get further chances to remove the impurities in your body.

Or at least that should be the case, but here's where Anatomy Refinement comes in. Anatomy Refinement did the same things Body Refinement did on a much more stupendous scale but just as a side effect.

The point of Anatomy Refinement was to make the body tougher, stronger, faster… in fact, the intent of Anatomy Refinement was bodily perfection. ANYTHING to do with the body was empowered each stage. Even things like Coordination, dexterity and cognitive abilities were improved, after all improving the body meant improving the brain.

Not only did this increase your talent for Energy Refinement by making the flow of Mana in your body run ten times faster, it increased your appearance by manyfold. The 2 big reasons that Cultivators salivated at the concept of Anatomy Refinement.

The scary thing that many people didn't know was that… Anatomy Refinement had no limit.

As long as you had the will and the resources, you could technically reach stage 1000 or more, gaining a body that would be unscathed even if you threw a condensed universe at it.

But there were two things to note here. 1, while the term 'will' was used lightly. Just the refinement from Stage 9 to Stage 10 would require the will to withstand swimming in lava and that was having it easy. Typically, all the impurities in the body would be vanquished at stage 10 so Anatomy Refinement stopped wasting time with cleansing the body and put it's full attention on perfecting the body, increasing the effect and simultaneously the pain of Anatomy Refinement by multiple times.

And 2, The resources required to enter something like stage 1000… Wouldn't you need to empty out an entire universe or 2?

At this moment in time, Raiko didn't have to worry about things like that, the breakthrough was over and he had to first, get rid of all the trash on his body.

After jumping in a nearby lake and cleansing his body, he came up to a clean side of the lake and finally got a good look at himself.

The orange on Raiko's fur was turning gold with his black stripes looking more sleek and the under white looking as pure as snow. Even his facial structure and muscle ratio had changed, looking more handsome(for a tiger) and symmetrical. Raiko's change in appearance made him look majestic and imposing, giving off the impression of a divine Beast King.

After striking different poses and tooting his horn for a little while, he decided to flee from his location.

Raiko wasn't dumb before but now he was one of the smartest Beasts in the entire World and he knew that as long as he stayed here, the Rank 4 (at the time) Drako would be back tomorrow to make his life hell.

He knew that to get his revenge, he had to increase his strength and challenge the evil snake at a later point and so now that his body was healthy and he actually had the capability to leave this time, how could he possibly be so foolish as to dilly dally?

From then on, Raiko began to move smarter, he conquered the weak and escaped from the strong until he could come back and defeat them. With his power, he swiftly started an uprising in the Tiger Hierarchy and achieved dominance over all Tigers within 2 months. At that time, he had also become a 3rd stage Magic Beast with the power of a 4th stage Magic Beast.

But he knew it wasn't enough to even hold his ground against the Snake with perfect affinity with the Laws of Fire (even if he didn't know the source of his strength). Despite Drako still being a 4th Stage Magic Beast, he could easily deal with a Stage 8 Magic Beast so if Raiko wanted to compete, he had to reach a power level of Stage 9 just to have an 'even' fight.

How did Raiko know? Well, he had once encountered the evil snake again and almost died. Using all kinds of shameless and unconventional techniques, he escaped the Snake who was using his full power to chase, allowing Raiko to feel the powerful vibe.

Even then, there was no way he could contest with the powerful Snake Clan even if he somehow obtained revenge, they would never let him go and if that was the case, he needed his own 'army'.

The tigers weren't enough, their population was roughly 12,000 (at this time) even though all of them throughout the Forest had migrated to the South side while the Snakes had roughly 50,000 (at this time). Snakes produced 10-30 eggs in one go after all. If not for them antagonizing Dodo, there would be a lot more.

So how could Raiko get more subordinates? Well, how about other races?

It was this thought that caused ambition to flood Raiko's heart, even causing his ravening desire for revenge to slightly diminish.

Why must a powerful and handsome Beast like him have to be content leading one race? There was no one but him and that devilish snake (that he knew of) that was better than him and since taking care of that sinister snake was only a matter of time…

He was the only one eligible to become the King of all beasts!