Castle of Black Iron

Holding onto the mysterious book, Zhang Tie skimmed through the book of about 200 pages, unable to sleep. The paper was both water resistant and fire resistant and was coated in silver. Zhang Tie knew that silver coated paper was extremely expensive. Only a few very important classical or sacred books would be recorded on silver coated paper. However, as silver coated papers could not be printed, people had to use a special pen and ink in order to leave marks on the paper, thus all books or texts made using silver coated paper, including the book containing the skill, would have to be copied by hand. Even the patterns inside the book were painted by hand. Obviously, the book was copied and written by the hand of a highly skilled man, as the words and pattern inside the book would make people feel happy and looked more appealing than even printed books.

Originating from an imperial sacred book from the Norman Empire, although its contents had been spread for a long time, the Oriental fist skill contained within has contents which were incomparable to other ordinary sacred books. With the first page alone, Zhang Tie had already been deeply captivated.

Lots of secret knowledge was recorded in this book. After one night of reading, within his mind, Zhang Tie had basically formed a framework of cultivating the Iron-Blood Fist Skill.

The cultivation system of the Iron Blood Fist Skill was composed of three parts:

The first part of the book was stake work cultivation[1]. According to the book, stake work was the basis for cultivating and enhancing the power of the Iron-Blood Fist. There were three types of stake works introduced in the book: Lying Tiger Stake, Coiling Dragon Stake, and Cross Stake. For the Lying Tiger Stake, the cultivator was to lower his body and sprawl on the ground like tiger, keeping still for a period longer than half an hour before moving on to the next stage. For the Coiling Dragon Stake, the cultivator was to cross their legs until their knees touched, much like a coiling snake. They were to keep their spine perfectly straight and raise their head as they squared their shoulders[2]. The cultivator was to also constantly shake themselves by repeating movements like keeping their back straight while squatting up and down, much like a coiled up snake that was about to bite. For the Cross Stake, it was a mixture and a variant of the Lying Tiger Stake and the Coiling Dragon Stake and could only be cultivated after the other two stakes were well-practiced. The Cross Stake required the cultivator’s lower body to act like a coiling snake, while the cultivator’s upper body should act like a tiger who was holding a spear in each hand, using the spears to form a cross...

The second part of the book was about the combination and derivation of the 36 free hand movements and the 5 basic walking forms of the Iron-Blood Fist Skill...

The third part of the book detailed an oral formula for the Iron Blood Qi Combination skill, which could not be cultivated until one has become proficient at the Lying Tiger Stake. Using breathing skills to ignite their burning points along with the help of the stakes and the fist skills, a cultivator would be able to combine the six forces within the human body and form the Hidden Force and the True Force. Compared to the previous two parts, this part was a bit hard for Zhang Tie to master, as the most crucial part of the book that made Zhang Tie muddleheaded pertained to the cultivation of Iron Blood Battle Qi. This section contained the least amount of words and was only a single line of Chinese characters—”After one’s True Force forms and the six forces have been integrated, use the fire of god to purify the intention of your fist. Iron Blood Battle Qi will sprout after nine deaths and will come into being after a hundred deaths!”

What was the intention of fist? What did “using the fire of god to purify the intention of your fist” mean? What did it mean by nine deaths? One hundred deaths? Reading through the characters, Zhang Tie was truly puzzled for quite a while. Thankfully, he was forced by his parent to recite a big Chinese dictionary when he was young, thus learning many characters in the process. Due to this, he was able to figure out the original meaning of the final line of guidance written in Chinese. After translating it into English, Zhang Tie realized why 99 out of 100 people who had formed Iron-Blood True Force could not pass the final hurdle. Motherf*ckers! Foreign people wouldn’t be able to understand its original meaning at all. In the entire Blackson Human Clan Corridor, presumably only the monarchs of the Norman Empire would know the meaning of this line of guidance.

After spending almost the entire night reading over the skill, Zhang Tie’s eyes turned red. At 3am or 4am when he had almost skimmed over the entire book, Zhang Tie, in his heart, saluted all the female monarchs of the Norman Empire and closed the book. Afterwards, he fell asleep. As the current period of time was meant for him to recuperate, there was nothing important to do the next day, thus Zhang Tie didn’t care about when he went to bed.

On the second day, as expected, Zhang Tie woke up at noon. After getting up, he washed his face and rinsed his mouth before preparing his belongings and leaving.

In reality, Zhang Tie didn’t have many belongings here. Using the pioneer bag made from calfskin[3], which Barley had used to bring him food, Zhang Tie placed some food, seeds, and the book containing the into the bag before leaving the ward he had been living for the past week.

Before leaving the ward, Zhang Tie went to the office of the Temporary Supervision Committee to deal with the relevant departure procedures. He then went to bid farewell to Captain Kerlin and Zerom. Unfortunately, the two had already gone out for a routine inspection early in the morning, thus he had no choice but to leave.

During the survival training, teachers and coaches both had their own responsibilities. For teachers of the Temporary Supervision Committee, they were responsible for sweeping magical beasts and mutated living beings that could endanger the lives of the students in Wild Wolf Valley. Therefore, it became their daily job to make routine inspections over Wild Wolf Valley. For many of the teachers, with such an easy job, it was as if they were out for vacation.

After being told that Captain Kerlin and Mr. Zerom had left, Zhang Tie bid farewell to the guys in the iron smelting workshop whom he had gotten familiar with in the past few days. Afterwards, Zhang Tie walked out of Wild Wolf Castle.

The square of Wild Wolf Castle was already teeming with people at noon. Coincidentally, Zhang Tie saw Pandora once again among the crowd. Pandora had always set her booth in a corner that was not particularly eye-catching. Sitting in a corner, that thin and small girl would hide in the corner as she hugged her knees.

It was only when Zhang Tie had arrived before Pandora’s booth did the girl with a thin and small frame raise her head and look at Zhang Tie. “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t able to pick any fruits today...”

In front of Pandora was a small pile of ordinary, wild vegetables. Looking at Pandora, Zhang Tie realized that her clothes were soaked from the morning dew and realized that she must have gone foraging for wild vegetables and fruits early in the morning. However, during the survival training, many people would choose to forage for wild vegetables and fruits, thus making them harder to find due to lower quantity. Since this was the case, objectively speaking, the girls were forced to team up with boys to finish the survival training. After all, humans lived in groups. As an individual, unless they were exceptionally powerful, it would be difficult to survive in the wild.

The pitiful look of that petite girl slightly shocked Zhang Tie...

“Ah, my wounds are not that serious anymore and I can now freely move. I will be leaving today, so before leaving, I came to say goodbye! Zhang Tie felt bashful as he scratched his head.

“Oh, I hope you recover soon!” Pandora smiled. This was the first time Zhang Tie had seen her smile. With her pair of beautiful blue eyes, she looked pretty nice when she smiled. As he gave Pandora a second look, Zhang Tie mumbled inside, “Hmm, with the exception of her thin and petite figure and the freckles on her face, Pandora is still very beautiful.”

“Are you free tonight?” Zhang Tie suddenly asked.

“What for?” Hearing his words, Pandora suddenly became alert as she hid her chest behind her knees.

“I… wanted to invite you to dinner at our tree base. I realized that you always forage for food by yourself, so if you haven’t joined any team yet, then I wish to sincerely invite you to join us. We have seven male students, all of which are nice guys!”

“Are you inviting me to be your partner during the survival training?” Pandora’s eyes started to shine; however, they soon became depressed once again. “No… I can’t agree!”

“Why?” Zhang Tie was startled.

“They said that anyone who’s with me will suffer misfortune. I don’t want to bring you troubles. Last time, right after you bought my wild fruits, you were forced to jump into a hole by wolves,” Pandora dejectedly said.

“Nonsense. How could I blame you for that!? Look at me, aren’t I perfectly fine?” As he said this, Zhang Tie flexed his muscle in a manner akin to bodybuilders in order to show off the muscles on his arms, causing Pandora to bashfully chuckle.

“You really don’t care?”

“Of course not. Don’t listen to what they’re saying. I even see you as my lucky angel. If it weren’t for you, I might have already starved to death...” Zhang Tie loudly shouted.

“Then… okay!” Pandora finally agreed after thinking for a while.

Receiving Pandora’s consent, Zhang Tie heaved a sigh of relief inside. Since this was the first time he had invited a girl, if he were to have been refused, then he would really feel like he had lost face. In regards to the attack from the wild wolves, Mr. Zerom had already implied that Zhang Tie might have been set up by someone, so how could he blame Pandora for that incident?. Besides, when Zhang Tie was very young, his mom had told him never to blame others for your own bad luck. A man should be committed. Zhang Tie had always kept that sincere guidance deep in his mind.

“Then, it’s a set! In the afternoon, I will come here to pick you up. Our tree house is very interesting, and we all live inside tree hollows. We will also have fish soup to drink tonight...”

“Living in tree hollows?” Pandora slightly raised her face, which contained an expression of longing. At the sight of Pandora’s curious expression, Zhang Tie immediately affirmed that fish soup and tree houses were both attractive to girls.

“Oh, right...” Zhang Tie took out of several pieces of dried rations and dried meat from his bag and put away all the wild vegetables that had been wrapped with clean tree leaves by Pandora. “I want all the wild vegetables!”

The dried rations and dried meat given by Zhang Tie to Pandora was excessively greater than the value of the wild vegetables, causing Pandora to get up hurriedly. “It’s too much, I don’t need that much...”

“Haha, it’s ok. The extra can be considered your free lunch...” Zhang Tie smiled and waved his hands towards Pandora before he strode out of the square...

Looking at Zhang Tie’s shadow, the girl slightly narrowed her eyes as she mumbled, “Could I really be someone’s lucky angel?”

……

TL/ED Notes:

[1] Think of it as like a wooden stake. This is building the foundation of what’s to come.

[2] To pull back one’s shoulder.

[3] Leather made from cows.