Castle of Black Iron

Chapter 677: Painstaking Exercise

Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem

After finding Secret Knowledge Pavilion, Zhang Tie slightly adjusted his schedule. He narrowed the period to light the surging point and do exercises under the impulse of water flow from 12 hours to 4 hours and the period to read endless true words of Great Wilderness Sutra from 3 hours to 1 hour. He increased the period to cultivate battle skills and secret knowledge from 4 hours to 14 hours. What remained unchanged was the sleeping time——5 hours.

With such an adjustment, although Zhang Tie would take a few more days to promote to LV 12, he could lay a solid foundation. After all, he could promote to LV 12 only after lighting another 9 surging points. Therefore, Zhang Tie was not anxious.

During these days in Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie had forgotten about all the troubles outside. He didn't feel it was improper. 'No matter how the war progresses between humans and demons, I'm not even a knight, so it's not my turn to concern about that. This world will continue to run without me. My battle force is my largest dependence. The more powerful I am, the safer it will be for those beside me and myself, and the more influential my words will be to the overall battle situation. Even if a LV 6 soldier survived 100 years in the holy war, he could still not match the meritorious deed that a knight could make in one day on the battlefield. I gained nothing after following Senel Clan for more than 10 days; however, the moment Elder Muray arrived had he solved the problem. What a difference!'

Therefore, Zhang Tie continued his cultivation in Castle of Black Iron with a peaceful mind.

It would definitely be annoying for a person who could hardly make a choice when he discovered a Secret Knowledge Pavilion in the Trouble-reappearance Situation.

It was always a happy thing to find a secret book; however, when there were too many secret books to read, you would feel perplexed.

Thankfully, Zhang Tie had no trouble to make a choice, neither was he over-ambitious. For Zhang Tie, it would be good as long as he could become more powerful. But how? To further develop his strengths so as to enlarge the gap between him and others. When he activated his ancestral bloodlines, he immediately became able to challenge Scala although his level was lower than Scala's.

Therefore, Zhang Tie used the same method when he chose the secret books.

It took Zhang Tie 3 days to skim over the secret books in the Secret Knowledge Pavilion and learn what abilities they could bring to him.

During the 3 days, besides continuing his cultivation, Zhang Tie selected the 1st secret book that could make him more powerful.

As he met the bottleneck in the cultivation of "Meteor Shower Sword", Zhang Tie selected the first secret book "True Swordsmanship" and started to read it carefully. This was a secret book for those below LV 9. Although it didn't contain powerful battle skills or battle qi; it raised Zhang Tie's understanding about the cultivation of battle skills and swordsmanship to a new high.

After studying "True Swordsmanship", Zhang Tie didn't read any more secret books; instead, he started to accomplish the cultivation of his fundamental swordsmanship. It was not only a process to consolidate the foundation of his swordsmanship but also the foundation of Zhang Tie's road towards a real powerhouse.

When in Hidden Dragon Palace, he had to repeat the 8 movements of fundamental swordsmanship 8 million times so as to accomplish the cultivation of his fundamental swordsmanship. This was a painstaking process, which Zhang Tie previously didn't pay too much attention to. In Zhang Tie's opinion, the more powerful the battle skill was, the better it would be. However, after carefully studying "True Swordsmanship", he finally understood that all the great powers were based on the simplest and firmest foundation, without which, the alleged powers were just as illusory as moons in the river and flowers in the mirror. Only with the firmest foundation could one become powerful always.

The foundation of power was featured by a super strong will, forever persistence, strong body, faster speed, best coordination between limbs, consciousness, eyes and movements, 100% precision, great concentration that could turn failure into success and delicate control force like using 500 kg's huge ax to carve floral grains on a bean curd. The only way to reach all the above targets was painstaking exercise——to repeat each simple movement over 1 million times.

Until then did Zhang Tie understand the reason that Hidden Dragon Palace listed fundamental swordsmanship as a compulsory course for all the students. This was not an idea that occurred to someone when he patted his head, but the deepest enlightenment that a real powerhouse could have in the process of cultivation.

Without a firm foundation, the cultivator could never touch the peak of his battle road and battle skills.

Zhang Tie started his painstaking exercise.

At the beginning, with one sword, he could repeat the 8 movements twice in a second, namely reaching out of his sword 16 times...

After 1 week, Zhang Tie held two swords and could repeat 2 rounds of the 8 movements in each second by each hand, namely reaching out of his sword 32 times per second...

This was a tough challenge. In the early days, Zhang Tie's two swords always collided with each other due to different movements. His footsteps would always become disordered when he usually disrupted his own rhythm. Gradually, Zhang Tie adapted to it in an unimaginable way and solved this tricky problem which seemed could never be solved.

Zhang Tie found that as long as he treated the two long swords in his hands as the two abacuses that he imagined in his mind when doing 'mental arithmetic' could he realize the most perfect coordination when making different movements with the two long swords.

This was a great discovery and an outstanding attempt. After realizing its feasibility, Zhang Tie was shocked as he knew what did this mean. Previously, Zhang Tie had never imagined that he could master the method to make two different movements at the same time after reaching that supreme realm of "mental arithmetic". After applying mental arithmetic in battle skills, Zhang Tie could almost increase his battle force by two times. Now that he could use two swords at the same time; he could also use his fist and sword or his shield and sword at the same time. An unprecedented road of cultivation opened in front of Zhang Tie's eyes, which shocked Zhang Tie for quite a while.

After recovering his composure, Zhang Tie started to cultivate his fundamental swordsmanship in Castle of Black Iron instead of being in the trouble-reappearance situation. He told Heller to divert a thick water flow onto his body from the heavens waterfall. Zhang Tie started to cultivate each movement of fundamental swordsmanship under the heavy impulse of the torrent. At this moment, Zhang Tie didn't need any iron puppet anymore. As he had gazed at that puppet for too long, he could imagine about its look even when he closed his eyes.

Zhang Tie used the two heaviest long swords that he could find from Castle of Black Iron, each weighed 280 kg, to attack the illusory steel puppet which existed in his mind.

He was improving his fundamental swordsmanship, his will and his body at the same time. Zhang Tie didn't stop his cultivation until the potential of each of his cells was fully tapped.

When he could not wave the 280 kg long swords, he used smaller ones. Until his fingers trembled when he held the commonest long swords would he replace the long swords with his fingers. Under the impulse of the heavy water flow, Zhang Tie kept repeating the 8 movements of the fundamental swordsmanship using his fingers.

Through such a painstaking exercise, Zhang Tie gradually recovered his attacking times per hand from one round to two rounds. Almost every time he took a fruit, Zhang Tie would feel freer in movements under the impulse of the water flow. However, the dropping speed of the water flow would soon increase, which gradually offset his physical strength.

In this way, Zhang Tie completely forgot about time; neither did he remember how many times had he repeated the 8 movements of fundamental swordsmanship. He could only remember that he had already opened the 4th floor of All-spirits Pagoda and lit the 143rd surging point. After lighting one more surging point would he promote to LV 12 great battle master...

...

This day, when Zhang Tie woke up, he didn't feel different than usual days. However, the moment he picked the two 280 kg's long swords to start his cultivation had he felt an evident agility and affinity from the two long swords. It seemed that they were not long swords but parts of his body. When he closed his eyes, the long swords almost became his eyes and enabled him to sense everything, including the trivial air turbulence. When he raised his long swords which then became his hands and enabled him to touch and tear everything apart. When he poked the long swords into the ground which then became his feet on the ground and could never be moved by others.

A whim occurred to Zhang Tie's mind while his long swords instantly crashed with each other. In a split second, with a sharp thunder-like sonic boom, two terrifying crescent-shaped sword qi flew out of the swords and swept over all the grasses, trees and mountain rocks within 50 m at the foot of the immortal mountain in the form of a cross after flying over all the obstacles in front of them, leaving a huge cross symbol on the mountain ridge...

Zhang Tie was shocked as he felt that he was pretty familiar with "Meteor Shower Sword" immediately.

"Congratulations, my lord, you've awakened another ancestral bloodline and formed the Iron-blood Battle Qi!" Heller's voice drifted from Zhang Tie's back...