Chapter 14 - 2nd Revolution Of Body-Refining.

After getting back to his room, Raymond sat down on his bed to cultivate. When he tried to open up his 4th energy channel, he noticed that it had grown noticeably harder than before. He speculated that the reason he had a hard time opening it was that opening up the 4th energy channel would mean that he had broken through to the next realm. Breaking through to the next realm would obviously be a little harder.

With that said, opening up the 4th energy channel was still not much of a bottleneck, all Raymond needed to do was to keep trying to pry it open using the spiritual energy that was stored in his 1st energy cycle. Thanks to his talent, he only spent around 2 hours opening up his 4th energy channel, successfully breaking through to the 2nd revolution of body-refining. What shocked Raymond was that upon breaking through, his body seemed to have strengthened considerably, even though his spiritual energy remained the same. The strength surging deep within his body made him even more motivated to keep going.

With a satisfied expression on his face, he was about to continue cultivating when a putrid smell assaulted his nose. Looking down on his body, he noticed that he was covered in small amounts of black filth. This black filth was some of the impurities that were stored deep inside of his body. When breaking through certain cultivation realms, the body would sometimes be cleansed of such filth. He had heard about this process before, but he didn't think it would happen to him this quickly.

With a disgusted expression plastered on his face, Raymond quickly took a shower, trying his hardest to scrub it all off. With a little hard work, he was soon cleaner than ever, and he could get back to cultivating again. Filling up the 4th energy channel would naturally take some time, but Raymond decided to start cultivating now, rather than putting it off until the next day. After cultivating for close to 4 hours in complete silence, Raymond was getting exhausted. At this point, the moon was already out, and the daylight was long gone. To Raymond's surprise, he had already managed to completely fill up the 4th energy channel.

With a helpless smile, Raymond lit the light standing on his bedside table and angled himself so that he could read without problems. His vision was better than before, and he could definitely read without a light on, but he wanted to make it comfortable for himself. What was the point in straining his eyes just so that he didn't need to turn a light on? With some excitement, Raymond read his novel for close to an hour before he turned off the light and went to bed.

The novel that Raymond was reading was actually pretty interesting. Compared to modern literature, the writing wasn't the best, but the story was captivating and interesting, with a plotline he had never seen before. Although he could probably read the entire thing in a sitting or two, Raymond wanted to spare it for later, and he set up a rule for himself. This rule was to read for at most 2 hours per day.

The next day came quickly, and this time, Raymond woke up a little later than usual, perhaps because he went to sleep a little later than usual. After stretching himself, Raymond got himself some breakfast and went out to the courtyard. He noticed fairly quickly that his body felt a lot lighter than the day before. This was naturally thanks to both his breakthrough, as well as his cultivation technique.

The wind element was known for its speed, sharpness and how unrestrained it was. This made it a great element for sword practice, which was also why Raymond was so set on buying the Azure Wind Sword Art from the Profound Secrets Trade Guild. Just thinking about the sword made Raymond excited, and his heart started beating faster than before.

Listening to his heart, Raymond picked up his sword after finishing his breakfast, and he started practising. Since he had learned a footwork technique the day before, Raymond incorporated it into his sword practice. This made his practice way less static, and he got more and more used to using his body after his recent breakthrough. Compared to the day before, it was harder for Raymond to work up a sweat, but since that was the case, he just trained for a longer period of time.

Like this, 2 hours of training quickly passed by, and Raymond was finally starting to get exhausted. The training was pretty fruitful, and Raymond felt like he wouldn't be far off from a breakthrough in his techniques if he kept practising for a few days. This day, Raymond noticed a middle-aged man who was meditating on a bench not far from him. If this was all, then Raymond wouldn't care too much about it, but this middle-aged man was a little peculiar.

The first thing that Raymond noticed was that the middle-aged man was obviously watching him, with no intention of hiding it from him. This made Raymond particularly uneasy, but he wasn't going to stir up any trouble. Since this middle-aged man could look at him without a care in the world, Raymond felt like he was probably a bit too strong for him to take on. He could also feel something in his soul slightly quivering when looking into the middle-aged man's deep red eyes.

Since that was the case, Raymond decided to just leave a little earlier than he had wanted to. His mood for training was ruined, and training when he was in a bad mood would just yield mediocre results at best. Since he couldn't keep training, for now, Raymond decided to go to the library he had found the day before. He was going to live in this world for the foreseeable future, perhaps even for the rest of his life, so it was paramount for Raymond to be knowledgeable about his surroundings.

He started with reading the beast encyclopedia, but after reading it for a while, he also started reading a few books on geography and the like. After reading for a few hours, Raymond had gotten a better overall picture of his surroundings. The kingdom he was in was called the Herus Kingdom, which was a small kingdom on the north continent. Greencrest city was located in the southern reaches of the kingdom, whilst the capital was further north, practically in the middle of the entire country.

This info might come in handy later, but for now, Raymond was more interested in the forest he had woken up in a few days prior. The forest was called the Greencrest forest, mostly because of a specific tree that grew in the forest. It was because it was located next to this forest that Greencrest City had gotten its name. Greencrest forest was rather big, and it extended into a few of the surrounding countries. The thing that piqued Raymond's interest was that it was practically a treasure grove.

Cultivators from all around would venture into the forest to try their luck. There was only one thing they were all after, money!