This really made Ethan Brooks itch with impatience. The first layer of the Heaven-Opening Creation Art already had such heaven-defying results—wouldn’t the second and third layers have even more good things? But… he couldn’t get in!

He couldn’t get in, so what to do?!

He tried again and again, but it just didn’t work. Even with Ethan Brooks’s perseverance, he couldn’t take it anymore. In the end, Ethan Brooks finally confirmed that it was absolutely impossible to open the second layer in an ordinary state. It would probably be like the first layer—when the opportunity came, he’d enter it intentionally or unintentionally. If the time wasn’t right, smashing his head against the wall would be useless. It had nothing to do with how many times he tried. He might as well just focus on his training.

Of course, Ethan Brooks also took a look at the family’s inherited profound energy and found that the profound energy of this world was very similar to the internal energy cultivation of his previous life, but in nature, it leaned more toward the type of battle energy, a kind of energy cultivation method that was somewhere between the two. However, every time this profound energy advanced by one grade, it would undergo a qualitative change and show a subtle color shift. In this respect, it was somewhat similar to the Five Poisons Kung Fu Ethan Brooks had encountered in his previous life. But profound energy was definitely not poisonous.

With the Heaven-Opening Creation Art in hand, Ethan Brooks naturally looked down on this so-called profound energy. But to avoid suspicion, he still practiced it symbolically—barely advancing to fourth-grade profound energy. Ethan Brooks felt that was enough and stopped practicing further.

On the Xuanxuan Continent, profound energy ranges from first grade to ninth grade, then to higher levels: silver profound energy, gold profound energy, jade profound energy, earth profound energy, sky profound energy, and supreme divine grade. First to third grade are red, light red, pink, and bright red. Fourth to sixth grade are purple, light purple, medium purple, and deep purple. Seventh to ninth grade are black, purple-black, gray-black, and shiny black. Silver grade is silver, gold grade is gold, jade grade is green. Earth grade is yellow, sky grade is blue, and supreme divine grade is colorless.

And every advancement in profound energy is extremely difficult, and during breakthroughs, there is always great pain—very much like internal energy cultivation, cleansing the marrow and washing the bones! What Ethan Brooks can currently release is light purple fourth-grade profound energy, which, for a scion of a noble family, is truly a pitiful and dismal achievement!

Chapter 12: David Turner Who Lost His Wife in a Bet

On this day, Ethan Brooks was idly chatting with Emily. During this period, because Ethan Brooks’s behavior and personality had changed drastically, the little girl was finally no longer as afraid of him as before. Although she still refused to get close to him, she no longer rejected him so strongly, especially not the stories Ethan Brooks told. Whenever this happened, the little girl would rest her cheeks in her hands, her big eyes blinking as she sat quietly in front of Ethan Brooks, listening to the story with rapt attention, afraid to miss a single word. As the characters in the story experienced joy or sorrow, she would cry or laugh, her pretty eyes wide with tension…

Ethan Brooks told a story about a mermaid, which moved the little girl to tears like a river bursting its banks—she sobbed and cried for a whole day… From then on, Ethan Brooks swore to himself never to tell women tragic stories again!

Tears… could drown a person!

“Young master, Mr. Turner is here.” Ethan Brooks was just telling the part where the Monkey King was locked in the Eight Trigrams Furnace, and the little loli in front of him was listening intently, her cheeks in her hands, her little hands twisted together, clearly extremely anxious about Sun Wukong’s predicament. Suddenly, a guard rushed in to report.

“Mr. Turner?” Ethan Brooks looked up in surprise, then quickly recalled memories about this person. “Invite him in, quickly.”

From afar, a meatball rolled in from the courtyard, shouting as he rolled, his voice full of misery: “Third young master, Morris brother, save me! This is terrible!”

Ethan Brooks stared, mouth agape, dumbfounded at the rolling meatball—he really couldn’t imagine a meatball could talk! Only when the meatball got closer did Ethan Brooks realize it was a person!

This person definitely had no neck—at least, with Thomas Brooks’s eyesight, he couldn’t see one. His shoulders were broad and thick, his arms extremely short and stout, his round head sloping smoothly down, his legs barely a foot long but as thick as a hug! When he walked, his whole body of fat rippled like waves on the Yangtze River, one after another; in short, you could call him anything but a bamboo pole—he just didn’t look much like a human.

From the gate to here wasn’t far, but he was already panting and constantly wiping sweat, clearly exhausted. This was none other than the eldest young master of the Tang family, a family as famous as the Jun family in Tianxiang City—Richard Turner!

He really did look like one, just a few sizes bigger, Ethan Brooks thought.

“Uh… David Turner, what happened to you? How did things get so bad you need saving? Who was the fool that provoked you?!” Ethan Brooks looked at this sworn brother of Ethan Morris Brooks, barely holding back his laughter as he asked.

“Damn it, it’s those bastards from the Li family and a few from the Meng and Song families!” David Turner said angrily, struggling to open his eyes from within his fat. “These days, I’ve been at our Qianjin Hall for ten days straight, and I lost a total of one hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver. Third young master, you have to save me! Otherwise, when I go home, my old man will beat me to death!”

“One hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver!” Ethan Brooks was shocked. “How did you lose so much? Where did you get that much money?!”