Castle of Black Iron

In this age, knowledge was very expensive, which led to the spread of mysterious knowledge from individuals to individuals, and the appearance of private libraries. It was said that before the catastrophe, there were large-scale public library in many cities and regions. Those libraries would always contain tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of books, or even millions of books. At that time, people could absorb the knowledge that they needed from the sea of knowledge at the cost of little money or none at all. However, in this age, that kind of scene was completely unimaginable.

As far as Zhang Tie knew, there wasn’t a single public library in the entire Andaman Alliance, even across the whole Blackson Human Clan Corridor. In this age, all the libraries were private, while all the books were very important personal assets. To manage a private library was the same to managing a plant or a shop as they could all bring you profit.

There were two private libraries in Blackhot City. They were all operated by the families that had once predominated the Coal, Steel, and Iron Federation. Although Zhang Tie stayed in Blackhot City for over ten years, he had not entered them even once. When he had time to visit there, he had no money, while when he had money, he had no time to visit.

For Zhang Tie, the position of the director of No. 9 Equipment Administration could almost be ignored. After seeing the hope of recovery in the Fruit of Redemption, he left his tenement early the next morning. He had a lot of questions and some unclear thoughts in his mind, which all needed to be solved and clearly formed by knowledge.

If this was Blackhot City and the guy Donder was still there, Zhang Tie would have definitely asked him about all of his questions. However, in Blapei, he knew no one and nobody could solve his problems or enlighten his unclear thoughts.

What could solve his problems and enlighten his unclear thoughts was only knowledge. If he wanted to obtain it, the simplest way was to go to a library. After all, he had enough time to spend there now. Like what was said before the catastrophe, he was going to ”charge himself”.

Although he had not recovered yet, the ripe Fruit of Brilliance and the unripe Fruit of Judgment made Zhang Tie’s spirits rise in the morning once more. He looked energetic as he finally didn’t feel like he was too weak to even catch a bound chicken. The god rune’s ”bind” effect implied that Zhang Tie could protect himself without even relying on his own hands.

After putting on his clothes and cleaning his face and teeth, Zhang Tie left the room. At this moment, he used his spiritual energy to present the list of binding skill’s attributes in his mind.

God rune’s binding skill!

Rank - preliminary.

The current number/maximum storage number of binding chain - 2/18.

Attack Radius - 17 inch.

Attack Effect - Spiritual attack. It can temporarily cut and terminate the nerve chain of the opponent’s brain, putting a screen between the opponent’s brain and its body. The one hit will be stiff all over and unable to move at all.

Applicable Targets - LV 7 fighters and those below, who have the same brain structure as Castle Lord.

The sustainable attacking time of preliminary binding chain is calculated as follows: the spiritual energy attack strength of Castle Lord minus the spiritual attack immunity effect of the opponent. After that, multiply the previous result by ten seconds, namely the basic sustainable time of one preliminary binding chain.

The maximal superposed number of binding chains that can be born by an individual being attacked is three.

These were the attributes of the binding skill after the god rune formed its first binding chain. This skill seemed to be able upgrade.

After Zhang Tie had almost exhausted his spiritual energy last night, the god rune formed two binding chains. Now, the two binding chains were swimming around that god rune like two small snakes in Zhang Tie’s mind.

Zhang Tie planned to exert his utmost effort to form all the 18 binding chains in the next few days. That god rune was like a finished factory. As long as Zhang Tie constantly injected his spiritual energy into it, it could process his spiritual energy into binding chains.He estimated that the distance of 17 inches was equal to 7-8 m or so. Needless to say, the target of binding chains should have similar brain structure as Zhang Tie.

For the duration of the attack, after thinking for a while, Zhang Tie finally decided that if the target had not been blessed by some spiritual defense skill or had no similar equipment, its spiritual defense effect would be basically equal to zero. Therefore, this formula was almost simplified to Zhang Tie’s spiritual energy divided by the target’s spiritual energy and multiplied by ten seconds.

If Zhang Tie’s spiritual energy was twice that of the opponent’s, the opponent would not move for twenty seconds after being attacked by the binding chain. If Zhang Tie’s spiritual energy was thrice that of the opponent, the opponent would not move for 30 seconds after being hit. Similarly, if Zhang Tie’s spiritual energy was four times that of the opponent, the opponent would not move for 40 seconds.

For this preliminary binding skill, if Zhang Tie’s opponent with the same spiritual energy had not reached LV 8, after being attacked with three binding chains consecutively, that guy would also not move for about half a minute. In this time, even if Zhang Tie’s health was in a very poor condition, he could still stab that guy to death with his dagger.

In contrast, if he met a commoner who had almost the same spiritual energy as him at school, with only one binding chain, he would be able to keep him still for 9-10 minutes. Even if the target was Huck or Snade, after being attacked by the binding chain, they would also not be able to move for three minutes.

For spiritual defense, it had to be a rare mysterious knowledge that Zhang Tie had not heard of before. It could never be seen on commoners.

When Zhang Tie wanted to launch the binding skill, once he gazed at someone, he would be able to do a long-distance attack in a pattern that he couldn’t understand. For his current physical condition, this was simply a hidden sharp weapon.

Although this preliminary binding skill only worked on people below LV 7, had very short range, and was far off of he could do with his power and combat effectiveness of when he was healthy, at least this binding skill enabled Zhang Tie to protect himself when he couldn’t fight at all.

Feeling like he was ”useful” again, Zhang Tie was in a pretty good mood today.

In the early morning, the tenant of the third floor was still not back as her door was still closed. When Zhang Tie came to the second floor, the 20-odd man of the couple was readying himself to leave, seemingly wanting to go to work while the 20-odd women was seeing him off outside the room while pulling a kid. They were bidding farewell to each other.

Right then, as the couple caught sight of Zhang Tie walking downstairs, both of them became slightly amazed. Not until then did they know that the new tenant who had moved in upstairs yesterday was a young military officer of the Norman Empire. Although he looked young, he was already a first lieutenant.

Seeing Zhang Tie coming downstairs, that young woman silently pulled her kid closer to herself.

Zhang Tie forced out a smile while slightly nodding to them before walking downstairs.

In the early morning, the owners Mr and Mrs Green were watering flowers, grasses, onions, and fiddleheads that they grew for entertainment in the garden outside their residence.

”Good morning...” Zhang Tie greeted the owners of the house.

Mr. Green raised his grass hat to show his courtesy.

...

Leaving the house of Mr and Mrs Green, Zhang Tie came to a tranquil street. After walking through the one meter wide street paved with pebbles for dozens of meters, Zhang Tie arrived at the avenue.

Similar to Blackhot City, when people could not take public transport, most of the commoners in Blapei would then choose carriages to travel around the downtown. This transport, which could provide convenience for people in downtown areas, had an universal name across the Blackson Human Clan Corridor - Horse Taxi.

Seeing a green horse taxi driving past, Zhang Tie hurriedly waved his hand towards the driver before jumping inside.

”Where’s the best private library in Blapei?”

”Sir, there’s only one private library in Blapei; therefore, no matter what, it is the best one!”

Zhang Tie was somewhat stunned.

”Well, let’s go there then!”

”It’s not cheap there!” The driver kept driving the carriage while shaking his head. ”I really don’t understand why people like reading books. Aren’t beer and women more interesting than paper that could neither speak nor be eaten?

Hearing his words, Zhang Tie didn’t say anything. This must be different personal pursuits.

...

After more than half an hour, the carriage finally brought Zhang Tie to his destination. After learning about the function of his spiritual energy, he had visualized two 13-column abacuses in his mind at the same time during the journey. He practiced different operations on two abacuses at the same time.

It was hard to say whether it was because of his sharply increased spiritual energy, but when he carried out different operations on two visualized abacuses, Zhang Tie felt that it went much smoother. The sense of the two abacuses’ independence became more clear. Additionally, ”interconnected faults” obviously decreased a lot during the calculations.

”Here we are, sir, here is the best private library that five generations of Grant Family has operated in Blapei!”

The horse taxi that carried Zhang Tie parked before a place which looked more luxurious than this city’s parliament building.

After paying fifty copper coins, Zhang Tie jumped off the carriage. With his eyes fixed on this seven-story building, Zhang Tie took a deep breath.

’This private library is very large. It should contain a lot of books. I hope it won’t disappoint me.’

Like high-end hotels, this private library had a very gorgeous gate. Outside it stood two rows of doormen and armored guards. The entrance was marked with the name of this library—Grant’s Library.

This was a library named after its owner’s family name.

The library’s first floor was an elegant hall with several rest zones. In them stood dozens of rows of cabinets which looked like lockers. Zhang Tie didn’t know what they were used for.

The moment he entered through the gate, he saw several plates placed in the most eye-catching place, on which were the terms of service. Besides them there was a board with reading instructions and another with instructions on using bibliographic retrieval. After carefully reviewing the two, Zhang Tie understood what the dozens of cabinets in the rest zones beside the hall were used for—they contained the list with all the books in the library and where each one is placed.

After swearing himself a rustic inside, Zhang Tie came to the bibliographic retrieval zone and started to look for books that he wanted to read. Time reading would be charged, but looking through the list was free.

The bibliographic retrieval in the library contained very sophisticated classifications. Zhang Tie spent a whole hour searching through the complex retrieval catalog cards.

After searching there for quite a while, he took the paper on which he’d copied down a couple retrieval numbers of books that interested him and came to the library’s service table. The one standing behind it was a 60-odd man.

After receiving the retrieval numbers, the old man lowered his head and looked behind the counter for a while. Then, some time later, he raised turned back.

”Sir, the books you chose are available now. With the exception of the book ’Initial Exploration of Human Beings’ Special Professions in Black Iron Age’, ’Gods’ Codes’, ’Oriental Occultism Phenomena’, and ’Water Knows the Answer’ are all rare books that our library purchased from the ruins of the prehistorical human cities. As they’re human publications of before the catastrophe, they are in the Human Ruins’ Reading Area on the fourth floor.

”The charge of reading on the fourth floor is two gold coins per day. Besides the books on the fourth floor, you can also read the books on the third and second floors. The charge of books on the third floor is sixty silver coins a day. If you want to read books on the third floor, you can not read the books that you chose on the fourth floor today. Can you tell me which floor’s books you’d like to read?”

The old man spoke in an inflexible manner.

Hearing his explanation, Zhang Tie almost wanted to swear at him. Although he was much richer than before, he hadn’t imagined that it would cost him two gold coins a day to read books on the fourth floor.

’F*ck, this is almost equal to my dad’s two-month salary.’

It had cost him only two gold coins to rent Mr and Mrs Green’s house for a whole year. Although, Zhang Tie knew that the price of entering private libraries was very expensive, he had never imagined it could be this expensive.

In this age, the price of knowledge was absolutely out of most people’s imaginations. With two gold coins, Zhang Tie could only read books for one day in the private library. However, the business time of the library was from 9 am. to 9 pm., which meant that he could at most read for twelve hours. During the process, he could neither copy nor take photos. He should also wear a pair of gloves and pay for the damages according to preset prices if he made any.

’F*ck!’ Zhang Tie swore inside.

He then took out two gold coins. After signing a service contract, he was led into the Human Ruins’ Readings Area on the fourth floor.

Zhang Tie had not seen the alleged human ruins of before the catastrophe in his life. He had only heard that most of the ruins were of cities and other regions where many humans lived, crashed by the fragments of the God’s Star. They were in a special force field and existence brought about by the fragments of the God’s Star. As a result, all the inanimate objects in the ruins still remained unchanged even after one thousand years, as if the catastrophe had happened yesterday.

Driven by a dream of becoming rich overnight after discovering some human ruins of before the catastrophe, numerous pioneers were heading everyday for remote areas on all the continents to explore the wastelands.

Glancing over the books on the shelves in the room that covered less than 500 square meters, Zhang Tie gritted his teeth, swearing to read as much as was the value of two gold coins.