Better to meet King Yama than provoke a Brooks Clan disciple!

Members of the Brooks Clan act with both righteousness and wickedness. If they like you, they’ll call you brother; if they don’t, they’ll wipe out your whole family with a wave of their hand. So, most people in the martial world, whenever they encounter someone from the Brooks Clan, run as far away as possible. It’s not that the disciples of the Brooks Clan are overwhelmingly powerful—if it came down to a fight, everyone has one head and two arms; it’s not like your Brooks Clan disciples have three heads and six arms, so who’s afraid of whom?

What people in the martial world truly fear are the Brooks Clan’s ruthless assassination techniques, their secretive killing methods, and their terrifying poisons and hidden weapons!

Chapter 7: The Art of Impermanence

The three great skills of the Brooks Clan: poison, hidden weapons, and mechanisms! Each one is enough to give anyone in the martial world a massive headache!

Better to meet King Yama than provoke a Brooks Clan disciple! This is a hard-earned lesson, summarized over countless lives by people in the martial world for hundreds of years. It’s also the one phrase every master repeats endlessly to their disciples before they set out to travel.

In his previous life, Ethan Brooks was dazzlingly talented, but a single act of saving someone caused all his grand ambitions to come to nothing. Now, fortunate enough to be reborn with his memories, he absolutely cannot allow any more regrets!

Even if I, Ethan Brooks, am reborn through reincarnation, I am still a disciple of the Brooks Clan! I will let all my enemies know who can be provoked and who cannot!

I will let this world understand the true meaning of the phrase: Better to meet King Yama than provoke a Brooks Clan disciple! I will make anyone who dares to harm me repent for their actions in death!

To achieve this, I must meet three requirements.

Strength! Strength! Strength!

As long as I have enough power, no one can look down on me.

After a whole night of contemplation, Ethan Brooks finally found the great gifts given to him by Ox-Head and Horse-Face in the underworld. Ox-Head gave him ten years of ghostly cultivation, while Horse-Face gave him a cultivation manual.

As two great deities of the underworld, the techniques practiced by Ox-Head and Horse-Face naturally aren’t suitable for a living person like Ethan Brooks. If he forced it, the result would be to become neither human nor ghost.

But the cultivation manual was adapted by Horse-Face from the memories of many souls who had gone to reincarnate, so Ethan Brooks had no worries about practicing it.

The Art of Impermanence!

Since this manual was a gift from a deity, it surely wouldn’t be mediocre. Moreover, as one’s cultivation deepens, it’s said to grant some miraculous abilities, though Ethan Brooks hasn’t reached that level yet and can’t verify it.

The Art of Impermanence has twelve levels, each with its own cultivation method and incantation. Ethan Brooks can currently only see the first level; only when his strength reaches a certain point will the next level’s method and incantation appear in his mind.

Patiently pondering the Art of Impermanence, Ethan Brooks sat cross-legged this time. Although he hadn’t slept all night, he didn’t feel tired at all—in fact, he was even a bit excited.

With the first level’s incantation firmly in mind, Ethan Brooks was about to try sensing the so-called spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Unexpectedly, as soon as his mind moved, a slightly cool aura suddenly emerged from the spot between his brows. This aura started at the brow center, passed through Baihui, Fengfu, Fengchi, Tianzhu, Chengjiang, continued downward through Tiantu, Yutang, Tanzhong, Shenque, and rushed straight into the lower dantian, then through Zhongzhu, Mangyu, Youmen, Shenfeng, and finally returned to the brow center.

A complete circuit!

Ethan Brooks couldn’t help but shiver and opened his eyes in astonishment.

What was this? Although Ethan Brooks hadn’t reached the stage of cultivating inner power in his previous life, just because he hadn’t eaten pork didn’t mean he’d never seen a pig run!

The key to powerful inner strength lies in opening the body’s meridians. The points that the cool aura just passed through were all vital acupoints along the Ren and Du meridians. Ordinary martial artists might not be able to open even one or two of them in a lifetime, but he had just guided an aura through the entire Ren and Du meridians in a single circuit. What did this mean? That his Ren and Du meridians were fully open?

Was he dreaming? Ethan Brooks immediately felt a sense of unreality.

Not quite believing it, he closed his eyes again and focused his mind on cultivating the Art of Impermanence. This time, the sensation was even clearer—the cool aura was indeed circulating along the two main meridians, over and over, endlessly. What’s more, Ethan Brooks discovered that his mind could actually see the movement and flow of this aura! He could observe it as clearly as if with his own eyes.

Inner vision! Only when one’s strength reaches a very high level can one achieve this ability to control the entire state of the body with a single thought.

With his mind following the cool aura as it roamed through his body, it felt as smooth as a fish swimming in water! Gradually, Ethan Brooks noticed the aura slowing down and becoming less robust than at first. However, his internal meridians had been expanded—wider, stronger, and more resilient.

He completed over a hundred circuits, and only when the aura was completely exhausted did Ethan Brooks still feel unsatisfied.

He checked his dantian to see how much his strength had progressed, but as soon as he looked, Ethan Brooks was stunned.