Castle of Black Iron

Chapter 675: A Remarkable Progress

Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem

On the same day, Zhang Tie moved to the foot of the mountain from the place under the small tree. Right on a stony platform near the Abyss of Chaos, Zhang Tie accepted the impulse of the powerful water flow as he attempted to polish that stick of spiritual feather in his Shrine...

At the first 3 days, Zhang Tie could not fully enter meditation under the impulse of the powerful water flow when he felt exhausted 12 hours per day. Until the 4th day, Zhang Tie became slowly adapted to it. He tried to enter meditation under the impulse. On the 7th day, Zhang Tie finally could enter meditation under the impulse of water flow. However, this process was intermittent. After eating 3 iron-body fruits in 10 days, Zhang Tie could finally fully enter meditation under such a powerful impulse of waterfall...

After that, Zhang Tie's cultivation schedule became steady in Castle of Black Iron. He would spend 12 hours a day to polish that stick of spiritual feather in his Shrine under the impulse of the powerful waterfall. After that, Zhang Tie used another 4 hours to cultivate his battle skills and other secret methods and 3 hours to read the endless true words of the Great Wilderness Sutra. As to the rest 5 hours in a day, he would eat food and sleep...

Zhang Tie cultivated and enlightened Iron-blood Fist everyday. Besides, he also cultivated other battle skills and secret skills.

The other battle skill that Zhang Tie cultivated was the swordsmanship called "Meteor Shower Sword" that he bought in the illegal demon hunters market in Selnes Theater of Operations which came from the Eastern Continent. When he bought this book, Zhang Tie was gifted with the secret book "Robust Ox Skill" for free.

Although "Meteor Shower Sword" was not one of the top swordsmanships in the legend, it was also extensive, profound and very powerful. Additionally, the secret knowledge at this level was always beyond the reach of commoners. In the Eastern Continent, some even promoted to sword sage with this secret knowledge.

As long as becoming a strong fighter, anyone could cultivate this secret knowledge. Additionally, as the cultivator's level increased, the cultivator would have deeper enlightenment about this swordsmanship; as a result, his swordsmanship would be more powerful. Zhang Tie didn't know whether it was benefited from his knight's consciousness because he could always understand the contents of the secret knowledge instantly. He made a remarkable progress in the process of learning "Meteor Shower Sword".

Additionally, due to commonplaces between swordsmanship and fist position, Zhang Tie also made progress in Iron-blood Fist.

When he was free, Zhang Tie would cultivate another secret knowledge——"Soul Capture Skill" of Bloody Soul Temple that he gained from Scala's corpse.

Compared to "Meteor Shower Sword", this "Soul Capture Skill" had higher requirements. People whose spiritual energy was lower than that of a battle spirit could not cultivate it. Scala didn't know where to get this secret knowledge. Scala as a LV 14 battle demon didn't unlock this secret knowledge before he was killed by Zhang Tie.

Although it was a higher request on spiritual energy for commoners, it was extremely easy for Zhang Tie. After eating so many fruits of brilliance, his spiritual energy would be much higher than that of common knights, not to mention that of a battle spirit.

Compared to "Iron-blood Fist" and "Meteor Shower Skill", "Soul Capture Skill" was too evil, which was based on the cultivation of vision, auditory sense, smell, taste sense, body sense, consciousness, predestined affinity and soul. As long as he completed the cultivation, he could capture or influence others' souls and consciousness with one look or motion silently which was unpreventable. The hypnotism that Zhang Tie heard before was dwarfed by this marvelous skill. When he reached an extremely supreme realm, he could even sow soul seeds in others' 8 senses, causing them to be his soul slaves. The soul slaves would say fragrant things smelly, smelly things fragrant, white black, black white; they would lose their mind and be fully hallucinatory; they wouldn't even know whether they were dead or not. How arbitrary! What counted most was that soul slaves didn't think that their actions and feelings were under your control. They would only feel that everything they did was following their mind and determination.

After reading "Soul Capture Skill", Zhang Tie confirmed that Koz had not cultivated this secret knowledge. Otherwise, he might have exposed everything he knew to Senel Clan when he fell in their hands in Tokei City. One could easily obtain any information that he wanted from others' mouth using this "Soul Capture Skill".

As this skill was a bit evil, Zhang Tie was considering whether to cultivate it or not at the beginning; however, after reading the secret knowledge once, Zhang Tie tragically realized that he had already bore the contents of the entire "Soul Capture Skill" firm in mind. Furthermore, as the only request that this secret knowledge posed to its cultivator was the cultivator's spiritual energy, after skimming over the secret knowledge, Zhang Tie had already mastered some low-end secret methods such as soul obsessed skill.

'Whatever, just cultivate it. With more skills, I will be more powerful. As a righteous and kind youth...ahem...ahem...I will not do evil things with those evil secret methods.' Zhang Tie thought as he started to cultivate the "Soul Capture Skill". The moment he started had he found a more tragic fact——although always being average in talents, he had a great aptitude in cultivating the evil secret method. It only took him 2 weeks to promote to the level that 'would be reached by commoners after many years' of serious cultivation on many contents as was written on the mysterious book...

'F*ck, this father is born to...have a...'

Zhang Tie swore inside. At the same time, he made the determination that he would never tell others that he had such an evil aptitude. 'As long as I leave Castle of Black Iron, I will never have heard about "Soul Capture Skill" or anything else.'

Castle of Black Iron would engulf 1.17 million cubic meters of seawater per second. Furthermore, the small tree could provide Zhang Tie one iron-body fruit per 3 days and 1 leakless fruit per 7 days. Meanwhile, when in deep meditation, Zhang Tie could produce a golden bird-shaped flame that could light a surging point from the stick of spiritual feather in the Shrine with his knight's spiritual energy. What an amazing speed! Zhang Tie just gnawed fruits and cultivated carefully when the time elapsed...

Zhang Tie didn't know how long had he stayed in Castle of Black Iron. He felt that he had already lit 134 surging points in the blink of an eye. After lighting 10 more surging points, he would promote to LV 12...

...

Today, Zhang Tie didn't count how many times had he died in the trouble-reappearance situation...

With a sound "bang", Zhang Tie who attempted to light the next surging point on the seaside exploded and turned into bloody mist in the blink of an eye. At the same time, the trouble-reappearance situation broke apart...

Under the torrents, Zhang Tie, in naked body, opened his eyes. After taking another deep breath, he activated that trouble-reappearance situation once again...

After failing over another 100 times consecutively, Zhang Tie stood on the seaside in the trouble-reappearance situation once again. However, Zhang Tie became fretful at this moment. The process of attempts depended completely. Sometimes, he might find the next surging point after exploding 200-300 times. Sometimes, it was not enough even after dying 600-700 times. Today, Zhang Tie had already died more than 700 times; however, he still didn't find that surging point yet. Therefore, he gradually became fretful. Thankfully, he had Castle of Black Iron; otherwise, he might have already died.

Recently, Zhang Tie met two bottlenecks in the cultivation of "Meteor Shower Sword": one was that Zhang Tie could not convert his Iron-blood Battle Qi to sharper Iron-blood Sword Qi. As Iron-blood Battle Qi was very powerful as a top battle qi, it was more difficult for it to convert to more powerful Iron-blood Sword Qi. Zhang Tie had spent many days; however, he failed to break through it. Another bottleneck was that Zhang Tie felt not being able to manipulate some delicate moves and battle skills in the cultivation of "Meteor Shower Sword" although he had great physical strength. The reason was that he had not laid a solid foundation when he started to cultivate swordsmanship. Due to the above two bottlenecks, Zhang Tie's swordsmanship cultivation had to stagnate.

The poor small sea snake had already arrived at the seaside. It was trying to bite Zhang Tie.

Watching that small sea snake struggling to climb onto the beach while twisting its body, Zhang Tie, who was fretful, suddenly burst out laughing. His fret and boredom disappeared at once...

Watching the glistening ripples and feeling the sea wind and seeing the familiar scene on the Iron Ore Beach, a whim occurred to Zhang Tie's mind, 'I've kept cultivating for so many days without any rest. I will have a day off today. Just take a walk in Hidden Dragon Island to relax myself.'

Thinking this, Zhang Tie instantly arrived at the cliff from the Iron Ore Beach with one stride. Closely after that, he disappeared from the seaside.

In the trouble-reappearance situation, besides live animals, everything was as same as that in the real world, including all the grasses, trees, sand and dust. Walking in the familiar Hidden Dragon Island, Zhang Tie couldn't help but sigh with emotions. He recalled what happened in Hidden Dragon Palace when he came there at the beginning——carrying navyblue iron ores with Zhang Hongsheng and the other partners, joking with girls from Zhixing Department and seeing Lan Yunxi's charming look for the first time...

Zhang Tie felt that these things very warming and interesting.

As he reminisced about this, Zhang Tie had already arrived at Hidden Dragon Palace and stridden over the mountain gate.

The Hidden Dragon Palace in the trouble-reappearance situation remained unchanged. Nobody was inside.

Walking in Hidden Dragon Palace and watching all the familiar grasses and trees, Zhang Tie recovered his composure completely...

After remembering that he met bottlenecks in the cultivation of swordsmanship, Zhang Tie directly came to the Swordsmanship Gym. Watching those familiar steel puppets, Zhang Tie sighed with emotions, 'As a common member here, I cultivated my swordsmanship diligently while spraying my sweat like the rain. Pitifully, before I passed the test on a fundamental swordsmanship had I left Hidden Dragon Palace due to various reasons.' Zhang Tie almost forgot when he came here last time.

Zhang Tie came to the front of a row of long swords and slightly touched their handles. After that, he took the heaviest sword on the rack and came to the front of a steel puppet before starting to practice the eight moves of swordsmanship repetitively according to the requirements.

Zhang Tie moved as fast as a lightning bolt. Accompanied by his virtual shadow were the consecutive tinkling sounds. At the same time, the data on the counter of the steel puppet upsurged...

After practicing for more than 1 hour, the data on the counter had risen to 5 digits. At this moment, Zhang Tie felt a link between him and the long sword. He then casually threw it backward, which fell on the rack 30 m away precisely.

"Hmm, it seems that I have to mend up the fundamental swordsmanship in the trouble-reappearance situation so as to master "Meteor Shower Sword". For commoners, some fundamental skills could never be fixed after being lost, even with knight's consciousness!" Zhang Tie mumbled. After that, he walked out of the Swordsmanship Gym while waving his head.

'I wonder how does Lan Yunxi's bedroom look like?'

A bizarre, evil whim occurred to Zhang Tie's mind, which aroused Zhang Tie's curiosity. Zhang Tie then smirked as he turned around and walked towards Lan Yunxi's residence.

On the way, a tall pavilion's roof entered Zhang Tie's vision while being almost covered by woods——Secret Knowledge Pavilion...

After recalling that old man who drunk tea water here everyday in the Secret Knowledge Pavilion, Zhang Tie revealed a smile as he continued to walk forward. However, he gradually slowed down his footsteps and finally stopped. He then turned around abruptly and gazed at the very Pavilion...

Zhang Tie remembered how he discovered the Gold-eating boa's teeth in the river when he joined the survival training in Wildwolf Valley and all the details in the trouble-reappearance situations these years, even the training in the Swordsmanship Gym just now——in the trouble-reappearance situations, all the lifeless objects were nothing different than roadside rocks and soil as the complete copy of the material world.

Zhang Tie's heart raced heavily while he darted towards the Secret Knowledge Pavilion...