Castle of Black Iron

Zhang Tie didn’t know that after he became a loner, Glaze had searched for him in the Wild Wolf Valley for several days.

In Glaze’s eyes, Zhang Tie was still that trivial LV 1 warrior, LV 2 at most. As a LV 3 warrior, he thought that he would still have the absolute advantage. So his purpose for coming to Zhang Tie was obvious.

However, Zhang Tie’s speed of growth or some hidden force was surprising to everybody, causing Glaze to have a hard time sleeping and eating well.

Loner was the role with the highest casualty chance during the survival training! After silently negotiating with Zuhair, Glaze also declared to the public that he would start a loner’s survival training.

……

Zhang Tie moved at a medium speed. Since Glaze did not dare to get too close to him, he stayed far behind, at the distance farthest he could without letting Zhang Tie disappear from his vision. The best thing for Glaze was to find Zhang Tie’s base. When the night fell, heh… heh… everything would be easily solved.

……

Zhang Tie was not able to notice that someone was following him yet. After one day’s rest, the only things in his mind were the gorgeous fruits on that small tree in Castle of Black Iron!

The ripe Leakless Fruit and the Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit.

One hour later, Zhang Tie arrived at the woods on the hillside near where the gold-eating boa’s cave was hidden.

After several rounds of fights with Zhang Tie, Glaze was afraid of him due to his numerous tricks. He didn’t know whether Zhang Tie had already noticed him and just wanted to lure him into the woods. Anyone who had a bit experience would know that it was the most dangerous to follow a person into the woods. Once surrounded by the trees, the roles of the two people could easily change—the latter one might encounter the earlier one’s ambush and be trapped.

So Glaze was hesitant. He wanted to see whether Zhang Tie would come out of there...

After waiting outside the woods for half an hour, Glaze still didn’t see Zhang Tie leave. At this time, the sun had already went down, and the Wild Wolf Valley started to be covered by the night colors.

Did Zhang Tie live in that hillside? Realizing that, Glaze bravely ventured inside.

After one hour, it became completely dark. Feeling very dejected, Glaze walked out of the woods. By then, he had confirmed that Zhang Tie had noticed him and slipped away during the period when he hesitated whether to enter or not. After carefully searching the entire hillside and woods, Glaze couldn’t find Zhang Tie nor any trace of human beings’ settlement. So Zhang Tie became more cunning in Glaze’s mind.

“F*ck, you have good luck today...” Glaze swore as he left the hillside.

Almost the moment Glaze left the hillside, in the Castle of Black Iron, like what had happened after eating the first Leakless Fruit, the second burning point on Zhang Tie’s spine that radiated cyan lights consecutively broke through the blue light pass and the purple light pass.

Boom!

The purple light on the burning point was broken into light points that resembled rain. After that, the burning point turned pitch black. Soon after, a red sparkle appeared in the darkness. The sparkle then started to grow into an eternal flame, lightening up the whole burning point.

After the second burning point on his spine was ignited, Zhang Tie felt that his entire spine had become transparent. The places surrounding the burning point warmed up. Zhang Tie felt so relaxed, like having unloaded a heavy burden or opening a heavy lock inside his body. At the same time, a great new strength rose up in him.

After opening his eyes, Zhang Tie screamed loudly and jumped up from the ground. He then started to rush around the grounds of the Castle of Black Iron. He kept running for half an hour before stopping. Faster speed, longer time, greater endurance, and more ease! This was how Zhang Tie felt while running.

After running, he only rested a few minutes before lying on the ground to practice the Lying-Tiger Move. This time, it lasted for roughly 30 minutes. After practicing the Lying-Tiger Move, Zhang Tie practiced 36 Free-Hand Moves—the whole set of Iron-Blood Fist Skill once. This time, he could make it more like how tiger attacked.

After becoming a LV 3 warrior, Zhang Tie felt that his strength had increased by at least 30 percent. Along with the increasing strength was his endurance, responsiveness, and coordination of all physical aspects. This feeling of growing stronger was really fascinating.

“Zhang Tie, congratulations. You’ve become a LV 3 warrior!” Zhang Tie shouted out loudly in another voice. “What else do you want to say?”

“Ha… ha… I have a Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit to eat, I cannot wait to experience the feel of a wild wolf’s strength in my body!”

Saying this, Zhang Tie walked towards the small tree. He then took a deep breath. The rich fragrance surrounding the small tree was radiating from the ripe Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit. Although ripe, with the exception of its purely white body having become translucent like crystal, the Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit’s remained unchanged—it was still a cute wolf cub with two leaves on its head.

——Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit has gathered the Strength of Qi, the Strength of Blood, the Strength of Vein, the Strength of Channel, the Strength of Bone, the Strength of Marrow, and the Strength of God of a Wild Wolf. Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit has become ripe. Usage: Pick and directly eat it. Notice: The fruit cannot be taken out of the Castle of Black Iron. After twelve hours of having been picked off the tree, its energy and vitality will gradually decline.

Beside the ripe Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit was another Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit, which was Zhang Tie’s latest achievement. After last night’s massacre, besides the first one becoming absolutely ripe, a second one also came into being.

——Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit has gathered the Strength of Qi and the Strength of Blood of a wild wolf. Five more strengths need to be formed. This Fruit has not become ripe yet.

This was the message about the second Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit. It reminded Zhang Tie that he had killed at least 14 wild wolves more than the number he had predicted last night, driving two more strengths of the latest Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit to be formed.

At this time, Zhang Tie had already understood the tip—for each 50 changes, 49 of them are available while the remaining one belongs to people. If it was anyone else, after they killed 50 wolves, all of their energy, Qi, and blood, including the seven strengths in each wolf’s body would dissipate and return to mother nature.

However, since Zhang Tie had obtained the small tree, if he killed 50 wolves, the seven strengths of the 50 wolves would not completely dissipate, instead, only 49 wolves’ seven strengths would be returned to mother nature. The remaining one wolf’s seven strengths would be transferred into the small tree like how people digested food, finally forming a Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit.

Each wolf would contribute 1/50 of their strengths to one Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit. One could eat wolf meat to gain strength. Similarly, the small tree was like an invisible mouth which could eat the seven strengths of wolves that could not be seen by people and form a Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit.

The small tree named “Manjusaka Karma Fruit Tree” was really too powerful, unable to be predicted by Gods and Demons.

Zhang Tie was awed by the small tree once again. At the same time, he started to be filled with gratitude for being favored by the God of Destiny.

Compared to the Leakless Fruit, the Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit was what Zhang Tie was looking forward to most today.

After digesting that Leakless Fruit, Zhang Tie successfully improved to a LV 3 warrior. Now, it was the right time for him to try the effects of the ripe Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit.

After picking off that wolf cub from the tree, Zhang Tie carefully put it onto his palm. As if enjoying an art work, Zhang Tie watched it for quite a while. The fruit was really vivid. Zhang Tie even felt regretful for having to eat it. However, after enjoying it for a while, he finally made the decision. With eyes closed, he quickly threw the wolf cub into his mouth and swallowed it after a couple of bites.

……

Almost ten seconds after he swallowed it, the effect of the Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit begun to show up. With eyes closed, Zhang Tie sat on the ground with crossed legs, only feeling a wisp of energy and heat slowly gathering up in his chest. The energy and heat finally formed seven strengths in his chest which kept swirling in a clock-wise manner like seven fish. At this moment, Zhang Tie felt his chest was like a swollen balloon, close to exploding from the energy within.

Of course, those energies did not burst his chest because the seven strengths soon found their own directions to go.

The first strength swam across Zhang Tie’s chest and abdomen and finally entered the Qi sea two inches below his navel. Closely after that, Zhang Tie felt his Qi sea expanding in his mind and could almost hear the sound of a heavy wind blowing by...

The second strength swam to Zhang Tie’s heart and flew into his blood from his heart before spreading through the rest of his body. Then, Zhang Tie was almost certain he heard the sound of strength flowing in his vessels...

The third strength swam to Zhang Tie’s brain and entered his muscles by thousands of individual strengths. After that, Zhang Tie thought he heard his muscles resonating like the strings of a lyre...

The fourth strength swam across Zhang Tie’s whole body along a weird path that Zhang Tie had never heard of before and disappeared. Closely after that, he was sure he heard the sound from his body like that produced when a huge tree is knocked at. It was powerful and low, and full of the feel of wood.

The fifth strength swam to the top of Zhang Tie’s head before flowing downwards like water and entered his skeleton. Later on, it sounded as if metals and stones were knocked against his bones.

The sixth strength swam to Zhang Tie’s rear end before entering his spine from there. After that, it spread to the middle of the spine and entered the marrow of all the bones. Zhang Tie could almost hear a drumming sound in his bones akin to a booming of the land.

The final strength swam into that pale golden Qi swirl that represented Zhang Tie’s spiritual energy. Zhang Tie thought he heard a distant wolf howl. At the same time, the Qi swirl that represented his spiritual energy abruptly expanded a lot. As a result, his spiritual energy suddenly rose by 5%, causing Zhang Tie to tremble all over as he opened his eyes...

This was a very strange feeling. Although his look remained unchanged, Zhang Tie felt like he had ‘grown up’ a lot. He felt a strong sense of existence, strength, and coordination. This was a metamorphosis physically and spiritually from inside to outside, and a real ‘growing up’ instead of mere development of his muscles, bones, and height.

At this moment, if Zhang Tie had to describe his feeling using one word, it would be ‘Great’! Really great! He felt a sense of rebirth!

After igniting the new burning point, Zhang Tie felt like having unloaded a heavy burden and opening a shackle. But this time he felt that he had changed to a better body that was more suitable for him. He had completed an update and improved all over, bringing him a fresher and more shocking feeling.

This was how it felt after one wolf’s strength formed in his body.

At the sight of another Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit, Zhang Tie revealed a smile...

“Wild Wolves in the Crescent Prairie, don’t run away, you’re all mine...” Zhang Tie uttered in a weird voice before leaving the Castle of Black Iron.

When Zhang Tie moved to the entrance of the gold-eating boa’s cave, he was stunned by the fact that it was already late morning!

‘Does it mean that it took me one night to digest that Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit?’ Zhang Tie was shocked. Since he was in deep meditation, he could have never imagined that over ten hours could pass so fast.

However, it was all worthwhile.

The moment Zhang Tie wanted to exit, he was shocked by noticing something different on the ground from when he had entered.

After entering, Zhang Tie had grabbed a handful of soil from the ground near the cave and evenly sprayed it over the ground near the entrance. This was the simplest and easiest form of ‘natural trace system’ used as an early warning.

Now he saw several new footprints on the ground where he had sprayed the soil...

They were large footprints, at least larger than those of Zhang Tie’s. Seeing them, Zhang Tie had a sense of déjà vu. He thought back to the bloody footprints in the wild wolf den and immediately knew what had happened.

It had to be Glaze. Glaze must have visited here...

Zhang Tie then carefully checked the dew on the weeds near the mountain cave. The dew was still there which meant that Glaze had not come this morning. Neither did he leave this place in the morning.

It was last night. Soon after Zhang Tie had entered the cave, Glaze had also went in. Perhaps he had been following him.

Did it mean that Glaze had discovered his secret? Thinking of this, Zhang Tie became tense. No way! Even if Glace had entered the cave, he could not see him enter the Castle of Black Iron. The cave was very deep. If Glaze couldn’t find him, he would only think that he had hidden somewhere.

‘Why would he follow me then?’

Thinking of how Glaze had glared at him, Zhang Tie understood it. His heart started to pound from the other’s killing intent.