Castle of Black Iron

Within one day, Zhang Tie had upgraded his swimming from a doggy paddle to a freestyle.

The kelp forest was over 100 m away; however, it took Zhang Tie less than two minutes to reach the place where Zhang Keliang had pointed to by easily moving his arms in the water. He then took a deep breath before diving into the sea.

After diving deeper than 10 meters, Zhang Tie had already seen a great area of red seaweed at the bottom of the sea. They were as tall as a person and were slowly waving along with the surging seawater. The bottom of the forest was like a fire while a great shoal of finger-long silverfish was swimming around there like changing clouds, making it very beautiful.

Because there were sea serpents and not too many navy-blue iron ores here, few people would like to pick up navy-blue iron ores here. Only Zhang Tie who had a special purpose would be here.

When he drew close to the seaweeds, Zhang Tie had become very careful and started to look for his target.

Within three minutes, before Zhang Tie noticed one, a sea serpent had already found him. When Zhang Tie swam across the red seaweeds, a fierce sea serpent instantly launched out of the reefs, intending to bite Zhang Tie’s shin.

Thankfully, the sea serpent didn’t swim very fast in the sea. The moment it drilled out, its black-and-white grains had already formed a sharp contrast with the surrounding colors and was noticed by Zhang Tie. Zhang Tie immediately pulled back his feet and rapidly turned around. He slightly moved his hands to remain balanced in the sea while directly facing the sea serpent.

It was a 2-m long sea serpent with a terrifying head. Its tail was flat, making it look like an eel.

Even though sea serpents were not good swimmers, it could definitely swim faster than Zhang Tie. It was impossible to outrun the sea serpent. Therefore, Zhang Tie just stayed to wait for its attack.

Although failing to hit Zhang Tie, the sea serpent didn’t leave; instead, it swam around Zhang Tie once before launching another attack towards Zhang Tie’s arm, as was expected by Zhang Tie.

Zhang Tie didn’t move until it almost bit his arm when he instantly stretched out another hand and seized the place where its heart was. All in a sudden, the sea serpent tightly wrapped Zhang Tie’s arm. Feeling its great strength, Zhang Tie became a bit amazed. He was wondering whether this sea serpent was mutated or not as he felt it was very powerful. Ordinary people might not be able to deal with it when being wrapped by this 2-m long sea serpent, no matter where it was.

However, for Zhang Tie, the fight between him and the sea serpent had already ended the moment he touched its body. After calmly assessing its strength, Zhang Tie had already infused his iron-blood untouchable strength into its body. If he used iron-blood hidden strength, the sea serpent must have become a bloody fog; however, with iron-blood untouchable strength, Zhang Tie could display his greater controlling force and destructive power.

In a split second, under the impact of iron-blood untouchable strength, each bone of this sea serpent became a fine powder. However, no wound was found on the sea serpent at all.

The sea serpent was like a lifeless soft rope which slid into the seaweeds from Zhang Tie’s arm.

”Two more!” Zhang Tie told himself before he continued to search for them among the seaweeds more carefully.

After 20 minutes, Zhang Tie exposed his head out of the water and took two breaths before diving again.

After 10 more minutes, Zhang Tie swam back.

”Have you seen the sea serpents?” The others who were resting on the reef asked Zhang Tie.

”Yes, I’ve seen them.”

”How do you feel about them?”

”They’re cute.” Zhang Tie smiled. They are truly cute. Without them, how could he form Trouble-Reappearance Fruit?

Zhang Tie made it!

After taking a rest at noon, everyone was busy as they entered the sea one by one to pick up navy-blue iron ores. After working for almost two hours, before the dusk arrived, the juveniles were already preparing to leave. As they had to walk over 10 km of a treacherous mountain path before arriving at the Palace, everybody could only carry a limited number of ores back.

Although it was Zhang Tie’s first time to here, Zhang Tie also had some achievements as he almost lifted over 50 kg of navy-blue iron ores today. After practicing for several hours, Zhang Tie felt that he had greatly improved his diving abilities.

When they finished work, the juveniles dived into the sea again with wires in hand. They buckled one end of a wire onto a sack before returning back to the reef. They then pulled their sacks up and carried them back onto the bank using a canoe. It was a painstakingly tedious process.

After arriving at the bank, everybody started to climb the mountain while carrying the sacks full of navy-blue iron ores and walked over 10 km of a mountainous path before arriving at Hidden Dragon Palace.

Actually, Zhang Tie felt nothing by carrying over 50 kg of navy-blue iron ores as he didn’t feel tired at all. However, Zhang Keliang, Zhang Yunfei, Zhang Hongsheng and Wei Wu looked pretty exhausted as their foreheads were already sweating when they arrived at the top of the mountain.

Actually, Zhang Tie really wanted to help them; however, as he had gradually realized the intention of Hidden Dragon Palace to force them to do this, he didn’t do that; instead, he just watched them carrying the navy-blue iron ores up with their own strength.

Besides teaching the juveniles of Hidden Dragon Palace to learn to survive on their own, this mandatory task had other two functions: first, letting them adapt to diving as it was another survival skill. If the people on the island drowned, that would be the greatest joke and an insult to the Hidden Dragon Palace; second, during this period, the juveniles would become stronger, temper their will and develop hardworking mindsets.

No matter how weak the person was, after carrying 30000 kg of navy-blue iron ores to Hidden Dragon Palace from the sea, he would become strong. Take Zhang Yunfei as an example. He was living like a young master since he was young as his family had a steamer in Yiyang City. After he came to the Hidden Dragon Palace for one month, the young master had already learned to disregard his dignity using his weak shoulders. He started to survive on his own by working hard.

None of them had suffered this before. At this moment, everyone could only persist. No matter how well you lived before and what kind of great family you born into and what reason you had, everyone had to grit their teeth and tough it out. No one dared to show off their status and family background to seek special treatment——because——the one who held the record for weight of navy-blue iron ores when he entered the Hidden Dragon Palace was Zhang Taixuan, the head of Zhang clan, who had carried 760000 kg.

Even the head of Zhang clan had worked so hard here without any complaints like a willing ox, nobody else dared to seek any special treatment with their great family background and status.

The record was carved on the 100-m high cliff near Iron Ore Beach in scarlet letters so that each juvenile who came to Iron Ore Beach to finish task could catch sight of it the first time they arrived here. No matter how unpleased they were with the task, after reading the record, they would have to lower their heads and start working hard.

The first day Zhang came here, he was also shocked by the record and the status of the record holder.

It was an over 10 km mountainous path. It took them over one hour to go back to the Palace to submit their achievements. When they were on the way back, they kept encouraging each other although they moved slowly.

Compared to the weight two days before, they all got more ores. Zhang Yunfei carried back 152 kg’ navy-blue iron ores and gained 15 silver coins. Holding the 15 silver coins, the juvenile who was a young master in the Yiyang City stared at them and cried.

”I can finally survive by myself. I can finally make above 7 silver coins a day, wu...wu...I can finally survive by myself...”

After crying, Zhang Yunfei started to laugh. From today on, his debt to Hidden Dragon Palace could be gradually paid off. Before today, Zhang Yunfei’s debt to Hidden Dragon Palace had already reached 34 silver coins. As he could make 15 silver coins today, it meant that his debt would not keep growing if he kept carrying so many ores a day; instead, it would gradually decrease. For this 15-year old juvenile, it was his first time surviving on his own since he had arrived at the island for more than a half month.

Zhang Tie carried 56 kg’ navy-blue iron ores today, which brought Zhang Tie 5 silver coins.

”It’s really not easy. From tomorrow onward, I have to make at least 7 silver coins a day to survive on my own.” After weighing the silver coins marked with a huge scale issued by Huaiyuan Palace, Zhang Tie felt it was becoming more and more interesting here. For Zhang Tie, it was of course not difficult for him to make 7 silver coins a day.

After getting their payment, everyone became very happy and returned to the Xingzhi Department together. This time, Zhang Tie found that the girls living in the Xingzhi Department also came back. Compared to the male students’ task, the female students’ task became relatively simpler yet not easier. When male students picked up ores, the female students had to pick up pearls in the sea. Although not requiring great labor, this task also meant great exercise for them.

There were totally 43 people in Zhixing Department, among which 31 were male students and only 12 were female students. The ratio between male and female was close to 3:1. Among the 31 male students, 23 of them were still finishing the first task at Iron Ore Beach while the other 8 male students and 2 female students had already reached level 6 and had accumulated enough money to go to Dragon Cave to form their battle qi.

Amongst peers, once there were girls, male students would always care about their own images. The other juveniles who had come back together with Zhang Tie all hurriedly returned to their own rooms to take a bath and put on new clothes so that they didn’t look that awkward when eating supper together with the girls in the canteen.

Zhang Tie also returned to his room. After taking a bath, he put on his clean clothes and washed his dirty clothes before drying them in his room.

After doing all this, it was almost supper time. Therefore, Zhang Tie left his room for the canteen.

When it was supper time, almost everybody in the Zhixing Department had come back. Therefore, it looked very boisterous in the canteen. After picking up their own supper, the male and female students obviously sat on two sides of the canteen as they murmured to each other. Among them, there was a short boy whose voice was so loud. Zhang Tie glanced at those male students in that circle and realized that they were of his age had all reached level 6 and were preparing to form battle qi in the Dragon Cave.

They were talking about fighting level 6 magical beasts——the huge black spiders in Dragon Cave.

”As long as I could kill some more black spiders, I would be able to form the New Crescent Battle Qi and officially enter the Lingtian Department!” The juvenile said proudly.

”We will be there soon too. Wanjie and I killed 1 black spider. After practicing over 2 years in the Zhixing Department, it’s time to show off our real strength!”

His voice gained the approval of the group.

Seeing them loudly talking about their strength while listening for the girls’ responses on the other side, Zhang Tie shook his head inside, ”You want to attract the girls’ attention in this way? You are really innocent.”

Zhang Tie had not realized that he had been utterly different from those juveniles of the same age with him after experiencing the dense ”intoxication” of the girls of Rose Association.

...

”Who’s Zhang Tie?”

When Zhang Tie took his supper and arrived at the table where Zhang Keliang and the other pals sat, a loud voice at the entrance of the canteen instantly arouse everybody’s attention as everybody looked at that direction.

A tall, robust and handsome youth who was over 20 years old and wearing a set of black warrior clothes were standing at the entrance of the canteen and looked around the people in the canteen with his gleaming eyes.

This 20-year old youth had a pair of dense eyebrows which were as sharp as a sword and looked very powerful. His eyes presented an unknown sense of oppression, making nobody dare to look directly into his eyes.

Given that look which was a bit similar to his, Zhang Tie identified his status——his cousin!