Castle of Black Iron

The estuary of Fitjar was more than 400 km away from the grey eagle tribe...

When the day broke, Zhang Tie set out with the team of grey eagle tribe. After 6-7 hours of travel, they finally arrived at the estuary of Fitjar at about 14:00.

The estuary of Fitjar was in the northwest of grey eagle tribe while the snow wolf lake was in the northeast of grey eagle tribe. Estuary of Fitjar was about 500 away from snow wolf lake.

This time, Zhang Tie really enjoyed riding a rhino-horse for a long distance as a cavalry. After over 400 kms of coordination, he further improved his equestrian skill. He could drive rhino-horse purely by his feet instead of having to draw the rein by hand.

For any cavalry, it was the first step to have fighting strength by setting free their hands.

Zhang Tie had not imagined that he could practice riding skills, one of the six compulsory courses in Hidden Dragon Palace through this travel in Ice and Snow Wildness. Therefore, he felt very good. Zhang Tie knew that horsemanship course in Hidden Dragon Palace could not be passed so easily. In Hidden Dragon Palace, horsemanship must include many fighting skills, riding movements and standard training of cavalries. However, Zhang Tie didn’t need to learn all of them in such a short period. He didn’t think that he could not drive a rhino-horse well as the only successor of the Great Wild Sect...

Therefore, Zhang Tie kept galloping his rhino-horse! For others, this was a rapid march; however, for Zhang Tie, it was almost like a tour.

After running his battle Qi for 5-6 times during the past 2 days and this early morning, Zhang Tie had almost consumed 1/3 of the bone-exploding needles in his body. It would take him 3-4 days more to completely clean off the bone-exploding needles. Therefore, Zhang Tie was not concerned about them at all.

Additionally, Zhang Tie estimated that he could have 1 more iron-body fruit to eat after 2 days of painstaking consumption of the energy of bone-exploding needles. Wherever he was, Zhang Tie was always sunny like how he was in the iron-thorn fighting club in Blackhot City as a flesh bag. As long as he changed his mind, everything would change.

Zhang Tie rode his rhino-horse back and forth joyfully as he stretched out his arms like a bird. At the sight of his movements, 2 people in the grey eagle tribe gritted their teeth.

The 1st one was O’Laura. She wondered how come a guy who had almost lost his freedom after being planted with the bone-exploding needles became so happy. Since that night when she heard Setton’s suggestion, she had been very unpleasant the moment she saw Zhang Tie in recent days.

”Did you just hunt wild huge wolves last night?” Riding on a snowwhite rhino-horse, O’Laura asked Setton while gritting her teeth. Based on her terribly precise intuition as a woman, O’Laura would never believe in Zhang Tie’s reason no matter how devoted he looked.

”This guy was really doing nothing else but hunting wild huge wolves!” Setton lowered his voice. At this moment, even Setton began to admire about Zhang Tie’s broad mind, ”Actually, this guy is really talented at learning horsemanship. Very few people could reach his level only after 2 days of practice.” Setton owed all these to Zhang Tie’s ”secret background” and the influence of Zhang Tie’s family education. ”Perhaps Peter has ridden horse or something before; therefore, he could adapt to rhino-horse so fast. If Peter could ride any beast in the childhood, he must have a good family. However, Setton would be the last person who believed that Zhang Tie was riding a transformed mini tricycle to carry goods when he was a child.”

”This guy is too smart. I always feel that he’s cheating us. Don’t be cheated by his look!” O’Laura warned Setton.

Scratching his head, Setton smirked as he glanced at O’Laura’s rhino-horse, ”Speaking of the look, have you found that the color of your rhino-horse is completely as same as his owl? They really match with each other. But I remember that you always ride black rhino-horse...”

Soon after saying that, Setton had kicked his rhino-horse and rushed ahead before O’Laura lost her temper.

O’Laura didn’t lose her temper; instead, she became stunned for a short while...

...

Another one who gritted his teeth among the team of grey eagle tribe was Salem who was provoking Zhang Tie outside the tribe last day.

Salem was the eldest son of senior Ollier and the head of the largest armed force in grey eagle tribe. Among all the sons of Ollier, Salem’s fighting strength was the highest as a LV 9 fighter.

Without war mobilization, the grey eagle tribe contained more than 900 professional fighters who were the most powerful military forces in the tribe. 600 of them were led by Salem while only 300 fighters were under the leadership of Setton, being loyal to O’Laura.

Of course, fighters had to eat. Given the population size and economic strength of the grey eagle tribe, it was already a bit difficult to maintain the regular fighting strength of 900 fighters.

As professional fighters didn’t attend productive labor of the tribe, they could not bring a single cent to the tribe; additionally, their weapons, armors, daily training and supplies were definitely not a small expenditure. Especially in Ice and Snow Wildness, each fighter should be matched with a rhino-horse so as to form mechanomotive force. In this way, it required at least 50 gold coins to maintain an average fighter’s one year’s expenditure. This meant tens of thousands of gold coins per year. For smaller tribes like the grey eagle tribe which had no powerful economic pillar, it was indeed a huge expenditure.

Because of the same reason, O’Laura needed money urgently. With money, she could train powerful fighters. With more fighters, she could take the power of the tribe without having to arouse a bloody war. In the tribe, the number of fighters represented the number of families. The more fighters you had, the more families would support you and the more influential you would be in the tribe.

This time, O’Laura took 400 fighters, 200 of them were hers, 200 of them were Salem’s. O’Laura was the head of this team while Salem was the vice head. The reason that senior Ollier supported O’Laura to take so many people out of the grey eagle tribe to gather at the estuary of Fitjar was that he wanted half of the achievements...