"Haaa" Celes exhaled slowly and steadily to calm his still racing heart as he looked at the vast expanse of scenery before him.
Just moments back, after successfully breaking-through to the Spiritual Master stage, he come running here as fast as he could to test his newly found powers. Good thing too, as it would be easily noticed, had he unleashed his powers and spiritual energy in the vicinity of the clan, thus catching the attention of all the experts which is not necessarily a good thing as they might just dispose of him if they thought him to be a threat to their and their descendants' ambition.
However, this place wasn't like the plains he went out to train in when he was a toddler. This place contained actual ranked beasts.
Ranked beasts are beasts which have grown beyond measure by killing and thus absorbing the spiritual essence of thousands of other regular beasts; The spiritual essence in turn enhances their body including the brain, thus boosting their intelligence. Since beasts, unlike humans, are born with instincts rather than intelligence, don't know how to cultivate by absorbing the spiritual energy around them, and can thus only obtain the spiritual essence from the prey they kill.
Spiritual essence is different from spiritual energy.
Spiritual essence as its name states is the essence that make up the core component of any living being.
It is the energy which fuels the soul, once it falls below a certain limit, the soul starts absorbing energy from the body to sustain itself, if not sufficient, which is the usual case, the soul drains all the energy from the body, which can result in anything between a dried mummy to nothing left behind, and leaves the body to re-enter the cycle of reincarnation.
Soul essence is also one that determines the life expectancy of a being, thus explaining the long life of ranked beasts, as they usually have large amounts of spiritual essence, unlike most humans who start cultivating it only after transcending. However, humans have found and created certain medicines that lengthen one's life upon consumption, by bringing out the hidden essence stored in one's body during cultivation, thus limiting its use.
Celes himself was a Tier 11 beast in his previous life, extremely close to attaining what humans call ascension.
Currently, Celes was in the process of fighting a regular panther which he had come across.
The panther leaped at him with paws outstretched and mouth wide open, thinking of tackling him down before tearing a huge chunk of flesh from his neck.
However, all its planning was over thrown by a single side step from Celes, with his interlocked hands still behind his head.
The panther having missed its target, slid for a few feet due to its moment, before turning its head towards its prey before growling and lunging forward for a second time, fully incensed by it missing and the casual behavior its prey.
However, this time its helpless prey couldn't dodge in time and thus allowing it to fully pass through it.
This totally confused the panther as its primitive brain couldn't process what just happened.
Three hours later, a flock of vultures could be seen feasting upon the beheaded corpse of a panther with a confused expression on its now unattached head, as a vulture pecked its eyes out.
Similar scenes with carcasses of a confused lion and frightened elephant being swarmed with ants and hyenas respectively could be seen a bit further away.
Celes was still having a relaxed stroll in the jungle with his hands interlocked behind his head as he pondered "Hmm… so I could said to be having strength equal to an elephant, stamina of an ox and speeds reaching up to 80m/s once I use my spiritual energy. Though why haven't I met a single tiger up until now?" as Celes continued to be deeply engrossed on some thoughts, he missed out to notice a particular sign board which was placed with words and a skull with crossbones which were on flames "Danger! Fiery Gecko up ahead. Proceed with caution (or with experts!)"
Fiery Gecko was a regular gecko which somehow came across and absorbed trace amounts of fire essence most probably due to a lucky encounter with a weak fire oriented spiritual plant.
This in turn caused its body to grow to a length anywhere between 3 to 10 feet long and between 4 to 6 feet tall depending on the potency of the plant, as anymore would cause its body to overload and blow up.
The essence not only increased its size, but also its intelligence and gave it the ability to breath lava, though actually its molten, undigested food. (AN: yuck!)
As Celes was walking, he suddenly went into a fighting stance as he smelt smoke and felt the ground rumbling under his feet.
"Whatever it is, it's too big for me" thought Celes as he bolted back from whence he came.
However, what ever that was chasing him, seemed to have caught on to his scent as he could still feel it charging over toward him.
It was only now, when he was running back that he caught sight of the sign board.
"shit! It's a ranked beast Fiery Gecko. Though it's one of the lowest with potential to grow from rank 1 upto rank 3, it's still something beyond my capability. Heck! Even a rank 1 beast is too much for me." By now the rumblings and gotten much larger, with even boulder the size of a full-grown man jumping up and down by almost 3 inches! Moreover, the gecko was still out of sight "and judging by the rumblings, I guess it's the latter!" Celes was now shouting to himself. Sometimes, even though he has the soul of an ancient beast and a powerful cultivator, due to having merged with the soul of a new born child, childish behaviour and thoughts occur.
Had he thought properly, all he had to do was to jump into the river which was about 520 meters to his left and he would easily escape the pursuit of the fire-oriented gecko, however due to the above-mentioned reason, fear and survival instincts flooded his mind and urged him to run.
Though it turned out to be insufficient as he could now see the fiery gecko approaching, luckily in face of death, his mind cleared and he suddenly remembered about the river and estimated, based on his current speed, that he would take slightly more than a minute to reach the river, however with the gecko fast approaching, it would be cutting it close.
Celes had almost reached the river, with it being only a meter away from him, when he realized that the gecko had caught up to him and he wouldn't be able to reach the river in time.
"I guess I have to use that huh? Well I guess there are no secrets without life. Still with my current power, it would at most give me a fraction of a second to escape from this rank 3 over grown lizard, which is just enough time for me to reach the river"
So, he turned to face the lizard and thought "first roar: Roar which freezes even hell!" followed by a "Rooooaar!".
He was known as the Nine Roars Golden Armoured Divine White Tiger in his previous life for a reason, and this was exactly why...those who heard all of nine roars would face only one outcome...death.
This particular roar of his, in his apex, could freeze even a divine dragon of blazing inferno to death.
However, contrary to his expectations, the lizard wasn't even affected by the roar and continued to charge at Celes.
"Am I going to die…again?" was all that ran through his mind before the lizard leapt with its forearms outstretched and tongue hanging out.