Castle of Black Iron

Chapter 411: Earthworm Number One

Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem

At this moment, as Zhang Tie had just come out of the river, he was wet all over. Although, looking embarrassed, he still looked very good. In the first round of fight with that LV 10 strong fighter, Zhang Tie was the winner; besides, he even humiliated that b*stard and escaped away under his gaze. Of course, Zhang Tie deserved the high spirit, It was not because of his advantage on fighting skills but on his high spirit and will.

Dawson didn't say that he was LV 10. However from his swift actions on dodging Zhang Tie's bolts and escaping away, Zhang Tie found that it was nothing different than that b*stard in Zhen family who chased after him in Dragon Cave. Therefore, Zhang Tie had figured out his level.

"Demon Snake Island truly dispatched a LV 10 powerhouse to kill me as I've imagined." Zhang Tie felt stressed while a wild fire completely burned inside, "This Dawson will be the first stepping stone on my way to be a powerhouse."

"Have you started to catalyze those seeds of Buckthorns?" Zhang Tie asked Heller.

"The first batch contains 400 Buckthorn seeds which have started to catalyze according to different input plans. We will know about the catalytic result of the first batch of seeds in 3 weeks. If any Buckthorn seeds evolve or mutate, we can increase the input of aura values to accelerate their growth and stimulate them to bear fruits. In this way, we can gain a great number of evolved and mutated Buckthorn seeds!" Heller explained calmly, "The aura values and basic energy storage in Castle of Black Iron could satisfy this round of catalysis; however, the merit values grow a bit slowly. Its main source is from setting free fishes on Hidden Dragon Island. We could only obtain 50-70 merit values a day by doing this."

Zhang Tie recalled that he only had a bit more than 500 merit values left on Polar Light when he formed the Flower of Life. If he wanted to accomplish the catalysis of so many Buckthorn seeds at once, he estimated that those merit values might have been dried up.

"I might add some merit values in a few days!" Zhang Tie replied uncertainly.

"Might?" Heller stared at Zhang Tie with a doubtful look.

Zhang Tie then scratched his head, "I made an appointment with someone last year. In case of no emergency, another batch of earthworms would be set free in a few days!"

Heller then responded with a relieved look...

If Hanna's family members could still comply with that appointment that Zhang Tie had made with them before he left Blapei, they would be buying earthworms from Chevli village and its surrounding villages and set them free. After one year, the number of those earthworms which should have been used to feed domestic animals had recovered to its previous level. It was the right moment to set free.

However, Zhang Tie had been forced to leave Blapei so long as a criminal and didn't contact them in this period, Zhang Tie was not sure whether Hanna's family members could still imply with the appointment or not.

Although Zhang Tie was not in Blapei, with the ability to control yeasts granted by the fruit of creator, he could let Hanna's beer lose its special taste which helped her win the reputation "Beer Queen".

Zhang Tie didn't know how Hanna's family life had changed after Hanna won the reputation of Beer Queen. If Hanna's family failed to comply with the appointment, Zhang Tie could punish them by inactivating the mutated yeasts. However, Zhang Tie didn't want to do this. Actually, Hanna's family treated him well while Hanna brought him much pleasure. If Hanna's family failed to fulfill this appointment, Zhang Tie would just call it an end to their friendship. To be honest, Zhang Tie didn't want his beloved woman to lose everything.

As for merit values, Zhang Tie intended to seek for other methods. Zhang Tie didn't believe that there was no chance to do good things in Ice and Snow Wildness. If not, he could return to Ewentra Archipelago and set free fishes and shrimp at the cost of tens of thousands of gold coins. However, if he did this, he would be taken as a lunatic by others.

"Speaking of earthworms, I've got a good news to tell you, Castle Lord. Those earthworms in Castle of Black Iron have completed their first round of mutation and evolution. A new earthworm had formed in Castle of Black Iron. It's waiting for you to name it, my lord!" Heller smiled.

Hearing this news, Zhang Tie became stunned. Closely after that, he became too excited. After about 1 year, since he handed the work of the evolving earthworms, bees, basic energy aura yeast, soya beans and corns to Heller, he almost forgot it. It was really out of Zhang Tie's imagination that he could have new species in Castle of Black Iron. Zhang Tie had not figured out the effects of these new earthworms; however, thinking of that he could control a wholly new species after eating a fruit of creator, Zhang Tie felt so happy.

The moment Zhang Tie wanted to open the operation panel of Castle of Black Iron, he was stopped by Heller.

Pointing at Zhang Tie's clothes which were still dripping wet, Heller suggested, "Castle Lord, why not change to a new set of clothes?"

Zhang Tie responded with a smile and accepted Heller's suggestion. "As I'm already in Castle of Black Iron, I have enough time."

Zhang Tie then took a bath in Castle of Black Iron, after that, he changed to a new set of clothes before sitting on one chair in the room comfortably. After doing this, he touched the option "Management on Livings and Populations" and found the item "Management on Animals" under "Management on Carbon-Based Livings and Populations" where he found the information about the new earthworms.

The three-dimensional holograms of 2 earthworms appeared in front of Zhang Tie at once...

From the appearances, Zhang Tie had already found the difference between common earthworms and mutated earthworms.

Before mutation, common earthworms were red and reddish-brown, which were also the colors of most earthworms. However, the mutated earthworms had 2 more black circles on their heads and tails besides the original red and reddish-brown colors.

Additionally, mutated ones were larger than those common earthworms.

Under the three-dimensional holograms were the differences between 2 kinds of earthworms on chromosomes and DNAs. Zhang Tie couldn't understand them; therefore, he just skipped to the end to see the new features of this mutated earthworms.

——Black-circle earthworm is a whole new earthworm species which has experienced a round of mutation and evolution. This earthworm is more suitable to environment than common earthworms. Under light, its survival time is 31% more than that of common earthworms. Besides, this new species could adapt to 4 Celsius degrees more or less than the highest and the lowest temperatures respectively. What's more, this earthworm is more suitable to various soils and is able to improve and fertilize the activity of soil.

——The feces of this earthworm contains 2.75% of nitrogen, 1.96% of phosphor, 0.37% of k-alum, 35.4% of organic matters, 23 amino acids and rich earthworm enzyme. Each gram of its feces contains more than 10,000 beneficial microorganisms; as a contrast, there are only a bit more than 100 beneficial microorganisms in aged and barren soil. Earthworm enzyme could kill many kinds of viruses, harmful bacteria and a lot of special substances which restrict the growth of plants.

"Castle Lord, please name this new earthworm!" Seeing Zhang Tie finish reading this information, Heller said aside.

"Let's call it earthworm number one!" Zhang Tie casually named it like what lazy guys always do.

For this name, Heller only nodded his head. However, from Zhang Tie's look, Heller felt that Zhang Tie might not know about the significance of this kind of earthworm at all.

"Castle Lord, do you know the real effect of these earthworms?"

"Aren't they used to improve and fertilize soil?" Zhang Tie asked with a curious look.

"That's true; but do you know what does this effect mean to you?"

"What?" a thought flashed across Zhang Tie's mind.

"Right, have you got it?" Heller smiled.

"You mean...we don't need to plough soil anymore with them!" Zhang Tie's heart raced.

"Right. From then on, as long as there is such earthworms, all the farmland would be free from ploughing with the help of these earthworms. If you put 0.9 million of this kind of earthworms on a parcel of land of 10,000 square meters, you will save 4 skilled farmers "8 hours" work in each day. Additionally, their feces will be equal to 140 tons of organic fertilizer each year on that parcel of land.

Although Zhang Tie had not done any farming work, he clearly knew about farming through the education at school in Blackhot City which emphasized survival ability. It could be said that plough, as an important farming activity was closely related to crop farming and agriculture since a long period before catastrophe. As the old saying went, "No pain, no gain." Ploughing was very important in agriculture, which was almost the most consuming work in the rural areas. But now, Heller told him that all the farmlands were free of plough with the help of this kind of earthworm.

"Don't be strange about that. Actually, before agriculture, some countries and regions had already adopted the most advanced and natural farming mode after figuring out this effect of earthworms. 'Agricultural Free-Plough Act' was even formulated in many regions. Actually, they put a lot of earthworms in the soil so as to substitute manpower and mechanical plough. By doing this, they could save a great amount of manpower and money; meanwhile, the soil was improved and purified!"

"Why didn't they popularize this method in a wider scale?"

"There are too many reasons about this. Only a few people knew about this method at that time because a powerful selfish interest group stopped its popularization in the traditional agricultural mode! At that time, traditional agriculture was a inferior farming mode which separated farmland from crops and the mother nature. By doing this, someone could get rich. All the people who could make money through this way didn't expect this channel to be stopped by little earthworms!"

Zhang Tie finally understood. Because of human's greed, selfishness and arrogance, many people thought they were greater than creator. As for cultivation and fertilization, people invented many machines; however, few people knew that even the greatest machine could not match these trivial earthworms.

With this explanation, Zhang Tie recognized the importance of earthworm number one. However, the quantity of these earthworms was relatively small. If he wanted them to exert a greater importance, Zhang Tie had to prepare enough quantity of this kind of new earthworms. Take Castle of Black Iron as an instance, if he wanted to turn this parcel of land into forever quality farmland, Zhang Tie had to put at least 6 million earthworms number one here based on Heller's calculation.

Thankfully, earthworms reproduced very fast.

After solving the questions about the new earthworm, Zhang Tie came in front of the small tree.

Besides the second iron-teeth hyena seven-strength fruit, Zhang Tie found a new fruit of creator in shape of a kidney bean.

——Fruit of Creator has become matured. 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.

——All the creations carry infinite karma. Because of you, earthworm number one appears in this world. They are your creations. Therefore, they belong to you. You are their father and god. This fruit of creator will grant you with the supreme control over this earthworm in the world. In accordance with the material existence law of earthworm number one, your will and orders interpret their existence.

With his eyes on this fruit of creator, Zhang Tie picked it off devoutly. Before eating it, Zhang Tie touched the trunk of the small tree and told him seriously, "Thank you. Without you, I will be nothing. Please believe in me that I will treasure this marvelous fruit!"

Hearing this, the small tree waved itself, causing the sound, "sisi".

After eating that marvelous fruit, Zhang Tie soon had one more special ability. Without having to count, he knew everything about these new earthworms——at this moment, there were 185919 earthworms number one in Castle of Black Iron.

These earthworms really liked Castle of Black Iron, especially that soil nearby Pool of Chaos as if it was like their holy land.

"Reproduce, put your efforts to reproduce. From now on, your greatest task is to enlarge the quantity of your species", Zhang Tie released his first order to those earthworms.

After this order, Zhang Tie picked off that delicate seven-strength fruit in shape of iron-teeth hyena. After that, he sat under the small tree before he put it in his mouth...