Since he had stayed in the bandit den on Tianma Mountain for a long time, he naturally picked up some bandit habits. Seeing that this person was dressed in fine clothes, he quietly searched the corpse from head to toe, pulling out a black cloth pouch and a few scattered silver coins. Adam Brooks was clever enough to know that his title as the seventh chief was unreliable, and that he would surely be searched if he returned to the stronghold, so he didn’t dare to keep these extra gains. Taking advantage of a moment when no one was watching, he quietly tossed them into the grass by the official road, then circled back to pretend to be fighting.

Tianma Mountain’s main stronghold was formidable, while this caravan had only hired third-rate escorts. Unable to withstand such a fierce bandit attack, they were wiped out in less than half an hour. Adam Brooks alone killed seven tough escorts, assigned some underlings to dig pits and bury the dead, and personally directed the rest to carry all the loot up the mountain.

This time, the Tianma Mountain bandits reaped a great harvest. Afterwards, the Black Whirlwind chief rewarded merit and shared the secrets of the Iron Bone Technique with him, even teaching him the parts he had previously kept private, which made Adam Brooks happy for quite a while.

He stayed on the mountain for a few days, and since there was no business during that time, he took the opportunity to sneak down the mountain when no one was paying attention. He searched carefully for half a day by the official road where the caravan had been ambushed, and sure enough, found the black cloth pouch and the scattered silver coins he had discarded there a few days earlier.

Adam Brooks still didn’t know what was inside the black cloth pouch, only guessing that the burly man he had killed that day, who looked so dignified, must have had something valuable on him. After waiting these few days, Adam Brooks had long since lost his patience. Once he found the black pouch, he tore it open and reached inside, unexpectedly pulling out a handful of iron tokens engraved with birds and beasts.

These iron tokens were only half the size of a palm, each engraved with various birds and beasts, all vividly lifelike. At first glance, they looked almost real, as if living wild animals had been shrunk down to this size. Judging by the postures of these creatures, Adam Brooks even had the illusion that they might break free at any moment.

Adam Brooks had thought the black pouch would contain gold, silver, or jewels. Seeing only these iron tokens carved with birds and beasts, he was instantly disappointed and muttered to himself, “These iron tokens are quite exquisite, the craftsmanship is good, but I wonder how much they’d fetch? Too bad I’m on Tianma Mountain—how would I ever get a chance to visit a pawnshop?”

Still unwilling to give up, he opened the mouth of the black pouch wider and found inside a small banner, a black cord, talisman papers, and most eye-catching of all, a thick book. Not finding the gold and silver treasures he had hoped for, Adam Brooks was quite annoyed and thought to himself, “So much care for this pouch, yet not a single banknote inside—just a book! This man died at my hands and can’t complain about his fate.”

Adam Brooks pulled out the book, intending to tear it up, but saw on the cover three bold ink characters: 《禾山经》. His anger turned to joy and he thought, “So it’s a martial arts manual! This is great. If I learn a few moves, maybe thanks to today’s stroke of luck, I’ll make a name for myself in the underworld, just like the chief. Then I can eat whatever I want and no one will dare stop me, and even have a beautiful girl as my wife.”

Adam Brooks had studied for a few years and figured he could read the manual without trouble, so he started flipping through it. But after reading a few pages, his brows furrowed and he thought to himself, “This is bad.” It turned out that the 《禾山经》 was not a martial arts manual at all, but a book of sorcery. It contained a total of sixty-seven sinister and vicious spells, each one cruel and deadly. Just reading the descriptions and methods made Adam Brooks feel a chill run through him.

While hanging around Tianlong Mountain, Adam Brooks had heard of people with strange magical powers—such people were as elusive as dragons, rarely seen by ordinary folk, and could, with a single spell, wipe out all of Tianma Mountain. Realizing he had killed such a formidable figure, Adam Brooks was so frightened his hands began to tremble. In the past few days, he had been bragging in the stronghold about killing seven escorts and a mysterious martial artist on his first raid, and after repeating the story so many times, he even forgot that the man had died on his own, not by the hand of Big Boss Brooks.

“That man must have known sorcery, but for some reason was injured and couldn’t use it. Otherwise, even if I had ten lives, I’d be dead. The chief suffered losses in the past, once at the hands of a sorcerer. Now, whenever he sees monks or priests, nuns or Taoist priestesses, he doesn’t dare rob them. And yet I killed such a powerful man—what am I going to do?”

Adam Brooks’s hands shook uncontrollably, as if the book weighed a thousand pounds. After a long while, he suddenly came to his senses: “The man is dead—what am I afraid of? Is he going to come back as a ghost to haunt me? I might as well learn some of these spells myself; maybe it’ll bring me some benefits in the future.”

Adam Brooks casually opened the first page of the 《禾山经》 and saw the first spell, called Seven Kill Primordial Spirit, which described how to refine a snake or insect so that its spirit merged with one’s own, to secretly harm others.

Adam Brooks thought that if the man had mastered this skill, he could probably kill even as a ghost, and dared not read further. He was about to hide the book away, but because the 《禾山经》 had hard covers that were thicker than the pages themselves, it was not easy to put away.