18 Greencrest Forest.

Since the fight was anything but satisfying, Raymond decided to keep going. Since he could kill a mid-grade rank 1 demonic beast in one attack, when he wasn't even using his full strength, Raymond was filled with confidence. His combat power was probably at either the peak of the mid-grade or maybe even in the beginning of high-grade of rank 1. To achieve this level of combat power after only having been in this world for less than three weeks, Raymond felt a sense of accomplishment.

Although his cultivation talent was granted by the system, his comprehension was his own, and without it, his combat strength would be way lower than it is now.

Since Raymond had decided to keep going, he left after harvesting some more materials from the gale wolf. He couldn't take everything with him, but it would be a waste to just leave it all, so he took some of the more valuable parts with him. The most valuable part was naturally the demonic core. Demonic beasts didn't use energy channels to cultivate in the same way cultivators do. Instead, they cultivate their demonic cores.

Since the demonic cores were the source of their cultivation, they naturally sold for a lot of money. Although Raymond was a little excited at first, he quickly calmed down. The demonic core of a mid-grade rank 1 demonic beast was naturally not worth that much. Compared to the demonic core of a rank 2 demonic beast, the difference was like the difference between heaven and earth.

After wiping off the blood on his sword, he returned it to its scabbard and went on his way.

Since he decided to go deeper into the forest, it didn't take long for Raymond to stumble upon another demonic beast. This one, however, was a little different. The demonic beast was a twin-headed demonic cobra. If that was all, Raymond wouldn't care too much, but what surprised him was the fact that the cobra was guarding something. Raymond wasn't sure what it was, since he could only feel the spiritual energy fluctuations from the cave it was resting in front of.

Even though he didn't know what it was, Raymond was sure that it was something valuable. Not just anything could give off such serious spiritual energy fluctuations. The twin-headed demonic cobra was a high-grade rank 1 demonic beast, and Raymond wasn't sure if he could beat it in a fight. Even if he wasn't completely certain that he could beat it, Raymond still wanted to give it a shot.

Right now, the twin-headed demonic cobra was sleeping. This meant that Raymond could gain himself an advantage if he played his cards correctly. His first idea was naturally to ambush it, but Raymond didn't have any appropriate techniques for that. To approach it silently, he needed a more profound footwork technique, or maybe even something that existed for the sake of assassination. As he was pondering, he suddenly realised something.

The cultivation technique that Raymond was practising was the Blue Wind True Art, and if he incorporated it into his Basic Footwork Technique correctly, his footsteps would practically be silent. Although he couldn't manipulate the wind in his surroundings, Raymond could still manipulate it as long as his body was in direct contact with it. The only real problem was that Raymond had never tried this out before.

If he was successful, he would be able to land a fatal blow on the cobra before it could even react. The most annoying part about twin-headed demonic cobras was the fact that they had two heads. To kill the snake, one needed to chop off both of its heads. This is naturally a lot more annoying than just cutting off one of them, but luckily, if you managed to cut off one of the heads, at least the cobra would grow weaker.

This was because the cobra had two demonic cores, one in each head. This meant that as long as you cut off one of the heads, the cobra would lose half of its energy reserves. Not only that but it would also be disoriented easily.

With his plan clear, Raymond steadied his breath and cleared his mind. The spiritual energy in his body started to slowly circulate in his body, before going to his legs. Normally, the Blue Wind True Art didn't have a way to muffle the sound of footsteps. What Raymond was currently doing was something that was way harder than he realised. Raymond was using his understanding of the wind element to "create" his own technique.

This was something that was only possible because of Raymond's sword force. Sword force was a power of the soul, and with it, he could utilise some of the power of the universe. This was something that only cultivators with profound cultivation bases could do. The only difference was that they didn't need to use a medium to do it, they could just do it normally. What Raymond was doing was basically just taking advantage of his Blue Wind sword force to use the power of nature.

The normal way to do something like this was to get a good understanding of the concept of wind, upon which you could use the wind however you wanted. This was naturally really hard, and it worked for the other elements too. Raymond had actually misunderstood how powerful his cultivation technique was. Because of its name, he had assumed that it would grant him some control over the wind, but that wasn't actually the case.

The Blue Wind True Art was only a mid-grade mortal realm art, after all, there was no way it could have such exaggerated powers.

Raymond had no idea that he had actually done something so outrageous. He didn't even notice that he had subconsciously stimulated the power of his sword force. He was more focused on the twin-headed demonic cobra. Slowly but surely, he made his way over towards it. He had already drawn his sword since the friction generated from drawing it out of the scabbard might attract the cobra's attention.

When he was only a step away from the cobra, Raymond swung his sword! This was the strongest attack Raymond could unleash without using his sword force.

Before the attack could reach the cobra, it abruptly woke up. Maybe it heard the sound of the sword cutting the air, or maybe it felt Raymond's killing intent, perhaps it was simply the power of its animalistic instincts, Raymond wasn't sure. What he did know was that cobra was desperately trying its hardest to dodge Raymond's attack, and it succeeded, albeit not completely.

The sword descended too fast, and although the cobra dodged with all of its might, Raymond still managed to cut off one of its heads. The cobra screeched in pain and quickly slithered away from Raymond before he could react. After regaining its bearings somewhat, the cobra stared Raymond down whilst hissing at him. Although it had lost one of its heads, and half of its spiritual energy, the cobra was still confident in killing Raymond.

This human in front of it was neither weak nor strong, which meant that the cobra should be able to kill him without problems!