Castle of Black Iron

In the evening, the wind grew heavier with the surging waves. It became colder outside. Sailors were busy repairing the damaged facilities. As the greater part of the metal guardrail on the left shipboard of Zhang Tie’s floor had been destroyed, sailors were knotting nets with ropes in case that someone fell into the sea.

Given the low temperature of the sea in the Oro Strait, if commoners were to fall in, even if they could swim, they would be freeze to death in only 5 minutes.

After being anchored, the Polar Light was bumpier than when it was in motion. Therefore, sailors were very careful on deck.

Tonight, the stars were sparse while it was pitch dark over the sea. The fluorescent lamps hanging on the shipboards could only illuminate the area within 10-odd meters. The surging waves were blocking people’s vision like the rising and falling of large black mountains.

Certainly, darkness only affected commoners. For Zhang Tie, after activating his night vision, he found nothing different between the day and night. The only difference was one layer of golden light when he activated his dark vision.

Now, Zhang Tie could not see the dead body of the huge deep-sea monster and its 100-m long tentacles that were floating not too far from Polar Light several hours ago. Due to the heavy northeast wind and the surging waves, it had been blown away.

Zhang Tie came downstairs to the bottom deck from the left side of the top deck.

At this moment, a manager was surrounded by 50-60 infuriated passengers at the entrance of the bottom deck. It took Zhang Tie a lot of effort to push through the crowd.

It was really noisy over there. Many people were screaming loudly while some were weeping.

”I’ll say it again. No insurance service is provided for any ship that heading for the Ice and Snow Wildness from Saint Herner Island. No business group or insurance company would be able to guarantee the safety of ships and passengers on this most dangerous route. This custom remains unchanged for hundreds of years. For those passengers who were killed, we can only give our condolences. We can’t compensate them anything they’ve encountered. Your shipping tickets don’t include insurance fee. You can see it at the ticketing center.”

The manager was explaining loudly which was soon drowned by furious voices.

Zhang Tie could not give any help to the relatives and friends of those victims, neither was it related to him. Therefore, he just kept walking downstairs. Those above floor 3 were common cabins while those below floor 3 were economy class cabins and cargo cabins.

The hull below floor 3 was also attacked by the huge deep-sea monster. Thankfully, the damage wasn’t as severe as that above floor 3.

It was the same as above, the bottom area was also very noisy. A great number of sailors were gathering in the center of the ship as they were pulling up a 50-m long tentacle by tower cranes, steel ropes, and pulley blocks.

Among those tentacles, this one was the shortest as it was only half of its full length even though Zhang Tie found that it still weighed over 100 tons.

Many people living in economy class cabins were watching them work. Some even gave them a hand. Therefore, over 100 people were busy working over there.

A fat man in a chief’s uniform was commanding them.

”Take care, guys. The huge deep-sea monster’s flesh is a top seafood ingredient. It’s much more delicious than any octopus you’ve ever eaten. Those rich people prefer to spend much money on this. What a pity! Our ship is already at full capacity. Even if it wasn’t, it would go bad in a couple of days on the ship. If we can move its body back, we will be rich!”

”Chief Hegel. Is the flesh of this huge deep-sea monster really as delicious as you’ve said?” A sailor asked loudly.

”Of course!” The fat chief said proudly. ”Although its tentacle is sturdy, it tastes as tender and fresh as a sea cucumber. Additionally, the flesh of this huge deep-sea monster is high in nutritional value. Additionally, its qi and blood are very beneficial to people’s health. If one always eat the flesh of huge deep-sea monster, one could be very robust. I was told that some powerhouses in Slav tribes like Mr. Samaranth would regularly hunt for huge deep-sea monsters and cultivate powerful fighters with the flesh of huge deep-sea monsters!”

”Haha, we will have yummy food!”

”Come on boys! I will show you my skills on roasting sea monster, trust me, you will bite off your tongues...” The chief waved his hands. Hearing this, all the sailors cheered up and started to work harder.

Hearing Hegel’s words, Zhang Tie made up his mind. If he just let the food float away in front of him, it was no different than committing a crime.

The engine room was under the deck at the stern of the Polar Light. It was so noisy inside the room while the air was filled with stimulating smell of turpentine. Therefore, few people would usually come here, especial in the evening. There were only 2 dim fluorescent lamps at the stern, which reluctantly illuminated a small piece of area, leaving the surroundings shrouded in darkness. Almost no one was close to the deck and shipboards at the stern. Surging waves collided against the stern as sprays flew over the shipboards and fell onto the deck.

Zhang Tie came to the stern. After checking that nobody was there, he directly jumped into the sea without making a sound.

The moment Zhang Tie dived into the sea, he had activated a rune of the rapid moving skill. Meanwhile, he felt an undercurrent being pushed by the powerful north wind.

In a small range, when the undercurrent flew southwards, some other undercurrents were flowing oppositely as compensation.

Although it was an interesting circulation of water flow in such a small range, Zhang Tie knew that in a wider range, being opposite to the most famous flow driven by north wind was an ocean current that moved northwards.

The ocean currents here also formed a system. Under big ocean currents, there were medium-sized ocean currents, under these there were also small undercurrents. Under small undercurrents, there were smaller ones. Although of different sizes, these ocean currents formed an organic entity as they were linked with each other. Additionally, they had the same structure. Ocean currents that lasted thousands of miles and small undercurrents behind Zhang Tie both presented the same feature.

At this moment, Zhang Tie had a strange feeling. He thought about the Taichi pattern, which was from traditional Chinese culture. Zhang Tie felt that the circulating ocean currents formed a perfect Taichi pattern. Additionally, such circulation presented weird geometrically fractal laws.

’Some secrets seems to be hidden inside.’ some thoughts flashed across Zhang Tie’s mind.

However, when Zhang Tie wanted to considerate it, he lost his inspirations at once. Therefore, he could only give up temporarily.

Although Zhang Tie was wearing a thin piece of cloth, he could still freely move like a fish. After slightly sensing the surrounding sea flows, Zhang Tie turned around and dived towards the south.

The huge deep-sea monster was a territorial creature. Generally, no other sharp monster would be seen within hundreds of miles from a huge deep-sea monster. Therefore, Zhang Tie was brave enough to dive in the sea at this moment.

Although Zhang Tie was very confident about his great swimming speed in the sea and didn’t think it was possible to see any sea monster swimming faster than him, he didn’t know what surprise this mysterious ocean would bring him. Perhaps, this monster was a male while there was a female near it. Zhang Tie really didn’t want to meet another huge deep-sea monster.

With this thought, Zhang Tie became alert as he started to look for the dead deep-sea monster.

He started from the stern and searched towards the south in the shape of a ”Z”. Based on his intuition, Zhang Tie judged that the dead body was at most dozens of miles away at this moment. Additionally, the huge deep-sea monster and its tentacles were so great in size and length. If Zhang Tie kept searching towards the south along the wind and ocean current, he definitely wouldn’t miss it.

Zhang Tie moved very fast. After leaving the Polar Light for several minutes, he had already been moving as fast as when he traveled in the sea several days ago. After eating a lot of fruits, his endurance had increased a bit. Gradually, Zhang Tie’s moving speed exceeded the maximum that he reached several days ago.

Zhang Tie felt like he was driving a supercar in the sea while his body was that supercar. Similarly, the size of the sea flow that he absorbed into Castle of Black Iron with his spiritual energy was like an accelerator. It felt pretty cool. Additionally, with the help of his night vision, he could see this colorful underwater world. The whole ocean was golden while various fishes and shrimps and other marine life passed by him.

Although there were heavy winds and surging waves over the sea, it was relatively peaceful underwater.

Only after swimming a couple of minutes in the sea, Zhang Tie had already heard Heller’s voice in his mind——Space and Topographical Transformation of Castle of Black Iron is completed.

After using up the basic energy storage, merit values and aura values of Castle of Black Iron, Heller had already built an ice cave which was about 600 m in length and over 100 m in width and height.

Because this ice cave was purely for storing food, Heller adopted regular geometrical patterns for this standard building. The whole ice cave was a square warehouse, the inside of which was divided into 21 rooms with different sizes. The temperature inside was kept lower than -18 degrees Celsius while the other indicators like moisture inside the ice cave were most suitable to store food.

After faintly sensing it through the teleportation gate of the Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie had known the situation inside.

”Oh, do we need lots of energy to sustain this ice cave?” Zhang Tie asked Heller in his mind. After using the Castle of Black Iron so many times, Zhang Tie had learned one law——there’s no free lunch in this world.

”It only requires a bit of energy. Because the Castle of Black Iron has a relatively closed and efficient energy circulating loop, absorption, and release of energy both happen in the Castle of Black Iron. I mean, you only need to throw some bricks into the Pool of Chaos. The energy converted from these bricks would enable this super large underground ice cave to run for hundreds of years with this low temperature. It is similar to the magma cave which was used to plant the fiery-flame red lotus.”

Hearing Heller’s explanation, Zhang Tie finally understood.

Only after a few minutes, Zhang Tie had noticed a broken tentacle of the monster, half of which was floating on the sea.

That tentacle was almost 100 m. Its thickest part was even greater than Zhang Tie’s height. With a glance, Zhang Tie knew it weighed at least hundreds of tons.

Back on the continent, Zhang Tie could never bring such a huge thing into the Castle of Black Iron as he could not carry it at all. However, he had a much easier solution in the sea. After locking onto the huge tentacle with his spiritual energy, Zhang Tie grabbed one end of that huge tentacle. After that, he opened the teleportation channel of Castle of Black Iron and absorbed that huge tentacle in together with a great amount of seawater.

Zhang Tie obtained this technique when he traveled in the sea several days ago. If an object could float in or on the sea, it meant that its weight equaled to its buoyancy. Although it was there, it was in a special state of zero weight for the Castle of Black Iron. Therefore, Zhang Tie could move it into the Castle of Black Iron using this method.

When seawater poured into the Pool of Chaos, that huge tentacle was thrown into the largest room in the underground ice cave.

As it was his first time to move such a long tentacle into the Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie felt it a bit difficult to do despite his great physical strength.

However, everything he did for this was worthwhile. The moment he thought that he could add hundreds of tons of flesh into the warehouse of the Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie would be very energetic in doing that.

In the next half an hour, Zhang Tie found another 2 broken tentacles and teleported them into the Castle using the same method.

1 hour later, Zhang Tie saw the hill-like body of the huge deep-sea monster 70 km away to the south of the Polar Light.

Some of its 8 tentacles had been broken while its body was covered with wounds caused by the Star and Moon Sword Sage. Only 5 tentacles of different lengths were left with it. Zhang Tie took a look at the huge deep-sea monster and found that its eyes had been dug out. Zhang Tie didn’t care whether its eyes had special functions, he only cared about its flesh.

It was so huge. Even with the method that he used before, Zhang Tie could still hardly move it into the Castle of Black Iron. Staying in water, Zhang Tie thought about it for a short while before taking out of his double-carp swords. He firstly chopped off all the tentacles and teleported them into the Castle of Black Iron, leaving a hill of flesh.

It was the most tiring thing that Zhang Tie had ever done since he was born. It took him 4 hours to dismember the huge deep-sea monster and move them into the Castle of Black Iron.

After doing this, Zhang Tie was exhausted. It was really a great test for Zhang Tie both spiritually and physically to teleport all of its flesh into the underground ice cave of the Castle of Black Iron.

Commoners could never make it. During this process, the sharp and long double-carp swords helped Zhang Tie a lot. Holding the swords’ handle, as long as Zhang Tie released sword qi several meters in length, he would leave a huge wound on its body and tentacle. After circling around a tentacle with his double-carp swords, Zhang Tie would soon break it off. If it was a shorter sword, it would be much harder.

After doing this, Zhang Tie felt pretty satisfied and safe. This time, Zhang Tie finally understood the old Chinese saying, ”With grains in hand, one would not be flurried”. ’Old Chinese sayings are really wise!’ Zhang Tie sighed inside. He estimated that the flesh as high as a hill in the Castle of Black Iron and would weigh at least 4000 tons. No matter how long the holy war would last, Zhang Tie knew that he wouldn’t worry about meat to eat anymore. This huge deep-sea monster would enable Zhang Tie, his family members, and friends to survive longer than 100 years.

’What a worthwhile trip!’

Thinking of that trouble-reappearance fruit and the flesh as high as a hill, Zhang Tie burst into peals of laughter.

...

After leaving the Polar Light more than 5 hours, Zhang Tie silently climbed back onto the deck of the Polar Light wearily from the gangway ladder. He was wet all over.

When he was aboard, some passengers on the deck were almost stunned to death. They even took Zhang Tie as a monster in the legend. Otherwise, who could climb on board from the sea in the middle of the night? Pointing at Zhang Tie, one of them even stammered, ”Who...who...who are you?”

”Don’t worry, I’m also a passenger of this ship. I dropped off into the sea just now. Thankfully, I’m good at swimming and survived...” Zhang Tie said with a fearful look as he took off his shoes and poured out the sea water. After that, he lifted his shoes and returned to his own cabin in wet clothes under the amazing looks of those people, leaving them glaring at each other.

When Zhang Tie was out of his cabin, he found Isle going out to the washroom. At the sight of Zhang Tie, Isle widened his eyes and seemed to be wake up instantly. ”Peter, what are you doing?”

”I dropped into the sea just now when I was sleepwalking, so I swam for a while in the sea.” Zhang Tie smiled, revealing his white teeth. Before Isle replied, Zhang Tie had opened his door and entered his room. Closely after that, he shut up his door, making a loud sound, ”bang”.

”Dropped into the sea while sleepwalking and swim back?” Looking at Zhang Tie’s door, Isle muttered, ”Lunatic!”

...

In the next 5 days, Zhang Tie ate food made of the flesh and tentacles of the huge deep-sea monster in the dining room. To tell the truth, it was really fresh, yummy and tender. Although it was not the staple food, after eating it for 5 days, Zhang Tie still liked it. Especially when it was cooked with spices, Zhang Tie felt it was pretty good.

Thinking about his storage in the Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie almost burst out laughing in his sleep.

On the 6th day, the scarred Polar Light finally arrived at Eschyle City, the only city on Ice and Snow Wildness, one day later than the estimated time of arrival.

During these days’ travel by ship, Zhang Tie was told that Eschyle meant ”The place where my lord is coming!” in the local language, which was hilarious and strange.

On August 2nd, 890th year of the Black Iron Calendar, it sprinkled in Eschyle, making the port hazy.

After taking a deep breath, Zhang Tie left the deck of the Polar Light and landed on the Ice and Snow Wildness on foot after 8 days of bumpy travel on the sea.