Castle of Black Iron

The first rain of June abruptly came. The sky was still clear two days ago, but on the evening of the same day, the sky became covered with dense clouds as heavy rain fell. It continued to rain until last night.

Since it rained most of yesterday, most students chose to stay in their bases, and so did the members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood. Barley fetched a set of cards, and those guys spent the entire day playing cards in the tree hollow. That was a marvelous feeling. While it was heavily raining outside the base, they really enjoyed themselves in the tree hollows. Besides the sound that came from the raindrops falling onto tree leaves, no other sounds could be heard, as the insects and the birds had already hidden themselves. They could no longer hear the chirping of cicadas and birds. As the animals had already hidden themselves in such weather, naturally, it was not that easy to hunt them.

On the eighth day since the start of the survival training, god then allowed them one day of break...

In the past eight days, the tree base had been further renovated. When they had free time or had no firewood to burn, they further expanded the previous three levels of space, resulting in each of them having more space to sleep. They also hung a bamboo curtain, which they obtained by exchanging it for food with the girls, outside each of the tree holes. In addition, they also gathered several old vines, and in one night, wove them into a simple vine ladder for them to climb up and down. On the third floor, they expanded several pits and moved in some soil, wildflowers, and green plants from the valley to make the tree base more pleasant.

In the area under the tree, they dug a pond that was about 2 m2 and filled the bottom of the pond with pebbles and broken stones. They then dug a small ditch that was longer than 30m and cut several pieces of bamboo. Using the bamboo, they split the ditch from the middle and placed the pieces of bamboo inside, effectively creating a miniature water diversion system, which they used to start cultivating fish in the pond.

Although the water in the pond could easily seep into the ground, with the fresh water constantly flowing in, the depth of the water in the pond remained above 50 cm at all times, which was sufficient for the shoal of fish to survive.

After such renovation, the tree base had become completely different than before. A couple of days ago, they successfully invited a group of female students to visit their tree base and ate roasted fish together. As expected, with such an appealing tree base, those girls were greatly amazed, so much that they even entered the tree base to have a look. After those girls returned to Wild Wolf Castle, they began to tell the other girls at Wild Wolf Castle, thus causing their tree base to be well known among girls. Many girls started to learn of the male students who lived in a huge tree base and farmed fish inside a pond under the tree, and they knew if they were to visit, they would be able to drink delicious fish soup and eat roasted fish. Besides, it seemed that those male students worked hard and were able to hunt other beasts. Generally speaking, those boys were always able to obtain a sufficient amount of food. Once they set out to hunt, they would always return with something...

In order to allow the brothers of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood to not leave empty handed, Zhang Tie taught them how to dig those traps. In the recent days, under the collective hard work of the members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood, Barley and the rest had dug two traps that were deeper than 6m at a location about 5 km away from the tree base. These two traps, in addition to the fish trap that Zhang Tie made and the other traps made from twigs and stones to create small preys, greatly improved the living standard of the members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood. On the sixth day since the start of the survival training, they had successfully captured a wolf by placing the fish innards that oozed a fishy and terrible odor in the first pit. It was finally miserably shot to death by “Iron Gate T21”. On the same day, the members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood also enjoyed roasted wolf meat for the first time and acquired their first wolf hide in this survival training. After experiencing the success of the traps, every one of them thoroughly enjoyed setting traps. If it were not for the rain, they would have already made a third deep pit.

After they succeeded with their first trap, their tree base gradually became more and more famous. After feeling satisfied physically, the members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood started to dream about women. In the past couple of days, they had often frequented Wild Wolf Castle to pick up girls. Some of them had even successfully convinced some girls to work together to get through the survival training. For the girls, aside from having to return to Wild Wolf Castle each evening, they were free to do whatever they wanted. Realizing this, those male students worked harder. Many teams had gradually entered deeper into Wild Wolf Valley, as it was truly a paradise for beasts there. Naturally, they would be able to capture more difficult preys there.

Wild Wolf Valley was naturally the paradise of wolves. In this age, even the species of wolves are categorized differently than the most universal categorization of animals. Wild wolves were the most common type, which did not differ to the wolves before the Catastrophe. According to the most universal classification of animals, wild wolves were categorized as Level 0 living beings, whose fighting force was equivalent to a common human soldier. A Huge Wolf was a Level 1 living being that had physically evolved and mutated after the Catastrophe and was much larger than the normal wolf. The Huge Wolf was much more fiercer, stronger, and more agile. A Golden Wolf was a Level 2 living being which had further evolved and mutated from a Huge Wolf. A Golden Wolf looked brilliant as it shone with gold all over and was also larger than a Huge Wolf. It was said that a matured Golden Wolf could easily kill three LV 1 human fighters. Above the Golden Wolf were the Level 3 Bloody Wolf and the rarely seen Level 4 Shadow Wolf, which was said to be the top of all the beasts and magical beasts that had been seen in Wild Wolf Valley in the past few decades. Actually, people had rarely seen beasts above Level 2 in the past decade, which was why Wild Wolf Valley was selected as the location for the survival training of the students of Blackhot City.

Zhang Tie heard that no beasts above Level 4 were found in Wild Wolf Valley because there were once many Gold-Eating Boas here. Although those Gold-Eating Boas had been exterminated, their high-level Qi still lingered in this valley. The more advanced the beast or magical beast were, the more sensitive their Qi would be and the farther the beasts would stay away from them.

On the sixth day since the start of this survival training and also the day before it started to rain, the team headed by Burwick from Seventh National Male Middle School besieged and killed four Huge Wolves. That was the first time for students to have hunted four Level 1 magical beasts at once. Burwick greatly shocked Wild Wolf Castle this time. A large number of female communities and teams requested to cooperate with Burwick. Compared to Glaze, who was hapless these days, Burwick really obtained a good reputation this time.

One week after the survival training started, the excellent figures from the different schools also gradually stood out.

When Burwick’s group gained the four Huge Wolves, a male student from the another school who excelled in archery, the one Barley had mentioned to Zhang Tie, became well known as “Bowman Blues”. In contrast to the achievements acquired by Burwick, which was obtained through a group effort, “Bowman Blues” from Second National Male Middle School” climbed atop a tree alone and shot two Huge Wolves to death. Compared to Burwick, Blues was an individual with more heroism and easily aroused the adoration from the girls. As a result, “Bowman Blues” also became Mr. Perfect for every girl.

Of course, there were more excellent figures among the four schools...

The blacksmith workshop in Wild Wolf Castle gave off black smoke around the clock. The cutleries and the swords as well as some of the productive tools made in the workshop had already been placed on the square for sale. In the same workshop, it was said that someone had already started to build the model of the first steam machine.

There were also two female students who were excellent characters. It was rumored that there was a girl who showed her superb skills of identifying and finding plants, as she had already easily found a 100 kg root of a kudzu vine buried in the soil. Another girl displayed her amazing ability of implementing administrative management, as she well organized all the items in the inner castle of Wild Wolf Castle. There was even one girl who was a LV 1 fighter, was even braver than most boys, and had already gone hunting with several friends, causing the other male students to be embarrassed.

Those elites gradually showed off their talents, leading to this survival training becoming more and more boisterous.

Compared to those glamorous figures, Zhang Tie’s miserable life as a miner had seemingly just started. Two days ago, he went to dig traps with the other members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood. Yesterday, he took a break due to the rain. According to the regulations, if Zhang Tie wasn’t able to submit more than 300 kg of iron ore today, then he would not be permitted to be a miner anymore.

Therefore, the morning after the rain stopped, under the blessings and condolences of his brothers, Zhang Tie, once again, looked like a miner that was destined for the job. After checking his equipment, he silently carried that ugly mining basket and set off on his trip alone.

“That is too miserable!” The other members of Brotherhood sighed at the sight of Zhang Tie’s back...