Castle of Black Iron

That earth knight who came to Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory with Bai Suxian last year had already left Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory for the south border of Taixia Country when Bai Suxian and Zhang Tie returned to Youzhou Province. However, Bai Suxian’s subordinates stayed in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory. A part of her subordinates stayed in Immortals Gathering Peak to serve Bai Suxian; the rest part built manors, workshops and farms in the hills and basins at the foot of Xuantian Eighteen Mountain Peaks and formed the first spontaneous town within the territory of Iron-Dragon Sect. Her subordinates included a great number of able workers who also became the first batch of people who relied on Iron-Dragon Sect.

Any sect of Taixia Country included master, disciples, elders and a lot of producers and servants. Take Taiyi Fantasy Sect and Heavens Fortune Sect as an instance, they could almost produce everything and get involved in all aspects. The sects in Taixia Country were super armored interest groups in terms of interests, secret methods inheritance and bloodlines. The masters were the heads of these super armored interest groups.

Such groups had strong vitalities as they had lasted thousands of years. In the era of science and technology before the Catastrophe, due to various reasons, sects were sluggish in a period; however, they didn’t disappear. After the Catastrophe, the sects in Taixia Country won their vigorous development once again.

The Xuantian Eighteen Mountain Peaks of Iron-Dragon Sect covered over 6,000 square miles. Besides Xuantian Eighteen Mountain Peaks, there was a large area of basins, hills, slopes, even abundant water resource at the foot of the mountain. Zhang Tie targeted at building a unique Class A city within Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory based on Xuantian Eighteen Mountain Peaks in Northeast Military Region.

Rome was not built in one day. Besides money, population and attraction counted most for running a Class A city. Zhang Tie was not anxious about that. Whatever, the Xuantian Peak of Iron-Dragon Sect had been established. Iron-Dragon Sect finally had a glorious face. As for the others, step by step. Zhang Tie was confident to meet this objective as Iron-Dragon Sect gradually grew prosperous.

After getting off the airboat and having a short talk with Lu Yishan, Zhang Tie had led Bai Suxian, Bai Zhengnan, Mountain Lifting Hermit and Donder to a warehouse which was not far away from the airport.

Zhang Tie knew what they were interested in. Therefore, he didn’t tantalize them. They indeed didn’t need to wait until tomorrow.

On the way, Lu Zhongming and Lin Huanxi were evidently interested in the mountain peaks that Bai Suxian and Mountain Lifting Hermit had in Iron-Dragon Sect as they kept inquiring Bai Suxian and Mountain Lifting Hermit about the situation inside Iron-Dragon Sect.

“Actually, his identity of the master is just relative to those disciples in Iron-Dragon Sect. You’ve already seen that. In the territory of Iron-Dragon Sect, he just treats me and Mountain Lifting Hermit as his friends like how he did when we organized a team in the Earth-elements Realm. The difference was that he became our team leader this time. We’ve already reached an agreement. Within the territory of Iron-Dragon Sect, as long as we don’t violate the rules and regulations of the sect, he, the master of this sect would not interfere with the internal affairs of each mountain peak. We could enroll disciples when we want; if we don’t want to enroll disciples, we could be hermits on our own mountain peaks!”

After hearing Bai Suxian’s explanation, Lu Zhongming and Lin Huanxi threw a glance at each other silently.

Only after a short while, Zhang Tie had led them to the front of a closed warehouse, which was made of a steel structure. Being covered with blue corrugated steel tiles, the warehouse looked very firm. The gate of the warehouse was tightly closed. The open airport was on the opposite of the gate.

“What’s inside here? Would it be an airship? But it’s a bit low for airship!” Donder said curiously as he looked up at the height of the gate.

All the others then looked at Zhang Tie out of doubt.

Zhang Tie revealed a smile towards them before saying, “You will know it!”

As for Zhang Tie, although there was a gate in between, he could still see clearly what were inside the warehouse.

Zhang Tie had people carry that thing into this warehouse by airship on the 2nd day after the rotating chakra ceremony. Besides, Zhang Tie, even his disciples and Mountain Lifting Hermit had not seen it.

When he replied, Zhang Tie clapped his hands. Closely after that, the gate was opened. Zhang Tie entered it at once, followed by all the others out of great curiosity.

The inside of the warehouse was brightly lit by crystal lens fluorite lamps. Right in the warehouse, there were three huge odd-looking objects being covered with cloths.

Under the gaze of everyone else, Zhang Tie walked over there and forcefully jerked off one piece of cloth from the huge object, exposing a silvery odd-looking aircraft which was over 4 m in height, over 9 m in length and over 11 m in wingspan.

Under the lamplight, the entire aircraft was like a fabulous, brilliant artifact being covered with halos.

Besides Zhang Tie, all the other 100-odd people were stunned including Feng Cangwu and Zhang Tie’s disciples.

“This is a glider…ah, no…glider is much smaller. Additionally, there’s no propeller in front of a glider…is it an antique that you collected? But…how…how could it be so new?” Bai Suxian’s elder brother responded to it at once. No matter what, most of the people of this age were familiar with airships and gliders. Those who could contact airship troops must have seen the real airships and gliders. However, for those people who understood the history, science and technology of humans before the catastrophe, they could immediately discover that it was similar to a propeller-driven airplane before the Catastrophe.

There was no propeller-driven airplane in this age anymore because of the exhaustion of fossil energy before the Catastrophe. In this age, only airships were driven by steam; the coal-fueled airplane had not been invented although many people were studying about it over the past hundreds of years. It was destined to be a distant dream. Efficiency, weight, volume of the steam engine and coal weight couldn’t correspond to the maximal takeoff weight that it could output. Even though all the rest weight except for that of the steam engine and coal was zero, such an airplane couldn’t fly off either.

Someone claimed that nobody in this age could invent the airplane anymore.

Almost everybody believed in that humans could only build three kinds of aircraft in this age, namely, glider, airship and airboat. Strictly, glider was not an aircraft.

However, it was a real airplane in front of them.

This airplane had a two-seat cabin. Behind that water-drop shaped cockpit, there was a steam crossbow which could flexibly change its direction.

As they were all attracted by this airplane, none of them noticed the 10-odd 1 m-higher thick green iron pails at a corner.

When the others were wondering about this model of airplane, Zhang Tie had already seen through this airplane. As the best and most experienced glider pilot, Zhang Tie was clear about the flight principles and operation skills of aircraft. Additionally, as the dual-drive engine of this airplane was designed by him, he was clear about the principle of operation of the dual-drive engine. With these strengths, Zhang Tie had grasped the functions of all the operational bars and buttons in the cockpit

Only by throwing a glance at this airplane, Zhang Tie had grasped the driving skills of this airplane.

Under the amazed expressions of the others, Zhang Tie nimbly jumped onto the wing of the airplane. After that, he slid open the cover of the cockpit and put his upper body into it. After pressing the oil supply button, he jumped off and ran to the front of the airplane. He then held the propeller of the airplane and forcefully rotated it in a clockwise manner…

The dual-drive engine was started through machine strokes. The engine could only be started by external strength.

At the beginning, Zhang Tie didn’t dare use too much strength in case of ruining the engine. He just used a little strength. However, the engine stopped running only after 2 seconds.

“Ahh, what are you doing? Is this really an airplane? But what could this airplane work for?” Lu Zhongming asked out of amazement.

Soon after Lu Zhongming’s words, Zhang Tie had held the propellor for the second time and rotated it in a clockwise manner once again…

The loud boom and the heat wave that was released through the vents blew over the surroundings in a split second. As Bai Suxian and Lin Huanxi were standing beside the propellor, their skirts were blown up by the hot air flow at once.

Combustion of alcohol was different than the combustion of the other fossil fuels as burning alcohol only led to water and carbon dioxide; instead of black smoke and smelly flavor…

“No way, am I dreaming?” Donder watched the rotating propellor with widely opened eyes and sensed the strong cold wind brought by the propeller as he exclaimed unbelievably.

At this moment, nobody felt that Donder was impolite, because everybody wanted to shout out the same sentence…