Castle of Black Iron

Zhang Tie kept running on the most open hill of the Wild Wolf Valley at a medium speed. Once someone was in the surroundings, he would notice Zhang Tie running in the Wild Wolf Valley even if he was far away from him.

In the past couple of days, Zhang Tie had run like this several times. He fixed his running range within 10 km of the border between the Crescent Prairie and the Wild Wolf Valley. In others’ eyes, Zhang Tie was no different from other students attending this survival training, seeking for the chance to hunt wild wolves.

Actually, the number of wild wolves in this range was much greater than in the Wild Wolf Valley. Additionally, besides more wild wolves, there were also more other kinds of wild beasts.

Surrounding a lake on the border, Zhang Tie saw two hazardous living beings that Blues had mentioned to him: huge varanid and horn crocodile. Varanid was a LV 3 living being while horn crocodile was LV 4.

Seeing the two of them, Zhang Tie couldn’t wait to fight them at once. However, he controlled his impulse and pretended to be amazed. Every time he met them, he would choose to hurriedly run away. In the past couple of days, once he met any living beings above LV 3, he would hide his real strength and pretend to retreat.

Zhang Tie’s main targets were still low level wild wolves and huge wolves that he would meet occasionally. There was only one time that Zhang Tie had met a golden wolf, but after throwing two lances at it, the nimble golden wolf still ‘escaped’ from Zhang Tie’s hand. Zhang Tie pretended to chase after it for a while before returning dejectedly with no achievement.

In others’ eyes, Zhang’s performance was close to that of a LV 2 warrior. As for Zhang Tie’s lance skills and precision, they might be able to threaten living beings below LV 2. Even when he dealt with the wild wolves with his lances, he would occasionally miss them.

In the past couple of days, Zhang Tie had controlled his performance to look below but close to that of a LV 2 warrior, which was a bit higher than when he had left the tree base. His lance throwing skills looked nice, yet he lacked physical strength and reaction speed.

After performing this for two days, on the third day, Zhang Tie felt that he was being spied on. He knew that after two days Glaze would have definitely jubilantly found him in the Wild Wolf Valley ‘once again’.

Knowing that Zhang Tie was tricky, Glaze observed him for a couple of days, during which he saw all of Zhang Tie’s skills. From it, he knew that the only threat that Zhang Tie could pose to him was with his throwing skills. However, it was only a threat which would be in effect when the distance between them was between 10-30 steps. If he was farther away from Zhang Tie, or closer to him, the lance wouldn’t pose him any danger.

Still, Zhang Tie’s performance greatly amazed Glaze. He became increasingly more certain that the reason Zhang Tie had dared to go against him those couple of times, embarrassing him, was because he was aiming at him from the beginning. With such a competitive level of strength, Zhang Tie would definitely want to obtain the school’s recommendation too. So of course he became Zhang Tie’s biggest opponent.

‘This guy is more vicious than Burwick and better at hiding his real strength.’

Glaze became increasingly more resolved to kill Zhang Tie.

In contrast, during the past couple of days, no matter how awkward he felt his performance was and how dejected he looked when he failed to catch up with his prey, Zhang Tie was actually jubilant inside.

The ignition of the second burning point on his spine and the increase of one wild wolf’s full strength had brought him more surprises. Especially that one wolf’s full strength made Zhang Tie feel completely different from before.

He realized that he had fallen in love with running. For him, running was an easy and pleasant thing. If it was before, Zhang Tie would feel very tired after running 10 km or for half an hour. However, now, after either of the two, he no longer felt that weary. Besides that, he felt a seemingly endless energy supporting him in his body, causing him to move with more agility and telling him that he could keep running like this forever.

Because he had experienced the effect of running after igniting a burning point, Zhang Tie clearly knew that this feel didn’t originate from the ignition of his burning point, but instead from the Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit. After eating that fruit, wild wolf’s terrifying endurance and running instincts seemed to have been activated in him. Zhang Tie became as good at running as wild wolves besides also gaining a super great endurance.

An adult wild wolf, when moving at its maximal speed, could keep running for half an hour at the speed of 60 km/h. If aiming to chase after a prey, even if it was an icy and snowy day, it could still keep following its prey for above 10 hours. Most prey weren’t directly hunted down by the wild wolves, but instead simply couldn’t keep up with the wild wolves’ amazing endurance. After being chased for a long time, most prey became exhausted, and had no strength to keep running anymore. Therefore, they slowed and were killed.

When he started his survival training in the Wild Wolf Valley, Zhang Tie mostly admired the wild wolves’ running speed and super great endurance. They were just like the wind.

At that time, he had never imagined that he could be as good at running as them. Although he still couldn’t match a wild wolf’s running speed and endurance, Zhang Tie was already very satisfied. This was the effect of the first Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit; who knew what the effects of the second one would be?

In the past couple of days, although Zhang Tie was ‘fishing’ and had not completely showed his real strength, he had killed ten more wild wolves, forming two more strengths in the second Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit on the small tree. As four strengths of the total seven had been formed, the ripening wasn’t far off.

Therefore, Zhang Tie felt pretty good; he had no reason to feel dejected. Today, he had even felt a killing intent in his surroundings. After being spied on for the third day in a row, Zhang Tie knew that Glaze would launch an attack against him tonight.

……

When the sun started to go down, Glaze gritted his teeth, silently following Zhang Tie. After the past two days’ observation, he had found a new reason to kill his rival: that guy was really good at running.

Zhang Tie’s running ability filled Glaze with both admiration and jealousy. In the end, this admiration and jealousy changed into a desire to destroy something. If it wasn’t daytime, Glaze would have probably launched his attack long ago. But if he attacked during daytime, he would have to suffer a much greater risk of being seen by someone, and according to the wartime decree of the Andaman Alliance, the teachers of the Temporary Supervision Committee will immediately punish him with a death sentence for the crime of murder. They wouldn’t even have to send him back to Blackhot City for a trial in court.

What Glaze was worried about was also Zhang Tie’s concern. Zhang Tie was also scheming carefully and thinking over the details of his plan for many times. After confirming that no flaws could be discovered, Zhang Tie became reassured.

At this time, both of the two people wanted to kill the other.

This was the first time Zhang Tie had wanted to kill someone since he was born. To tell the truth, the reason for them going against each other was kind of funny—it was several motherf*cking dining plates. This was really a bloody case arisen from several dining plates.

Zhang Tie felt that this was really f*cking absurd. When you sat alone under a tree, some bastards threw several dining plates before you to have you wash them. You refused and got hated in return. Later, the other side even decided to kill you, setting you up for a couple of times. Even forcing you to kill to escape the constant threats.

‘Even if this was for a woman, this ordeal is really ludicrous!’ Zhang Tie mumbled in his head while running into the ravine where he had chosen to end this thing.

After that, not knowing why, Zhang Tie remembered a funny story. It was about a person having to kill another, and had been spread in Chinese clan for roughly one thousand years.

Donder had told Zhang Tie the story. Someone, once met, would always force the event to develop to the last step. If that story about buying menu was changed into washing plates, Zhang Tie felt that he could say that he had already encountered the same thing.

The story started as this: two classmates ate together in a canteen. If one strove to wash the dining plates, the other would consider that he was showing off and would kill him. If one didn’t strive to wash them, the other would consider that he was forced to wash everyone’s and would kill his classmate. If they went dutch and washed their own plates, the other classmate would consider that his humble friend wanted to be on an equal footing with him and would kill him. If they didn’t eat, the other one would consider that his classmate refused to eat together with him in the canteen, meaning he didn’t like him, and so would kill him!”

“Damn!” Zhang Tie swore while running...

……

Seeing that Zhang Tie was not returning to his base, but to a strange ravine, Glaze became surprised instead of alert. This place was really remote and hidden. There was nobody here during daytime, let alone at night.

Whether it were students who attended the survival training or the pioneers who appeared in the Crescent Prairie, none of them wanted to be here. Students found it too dangerous here since it was too close to the Crescent Prairie, while pioneers had no interest in it because it wasn’t the Crescent Prairie, and they could not find golden wolves or goose-neck grass here.

Before rushing inside the ravine behind Zhang Tie, Glaze paused outside and looked around. When he ascertained that the dusk had almost fallen down and nobody was close-by, he revealed a shadow of a grin, then rushed in. At the same time, he silently pulled out the long sword from its sheath at his waist.

‘One minute, in only one minute, that disgusting guy will disappear forever!’ Glaze mumbled inwardly.

At this time, the sun had gone down, causing the ravine that was surrounded by dense woods to become even darker. Glaze could only hear the tweets of insects, instead of the sounds made by a person. When Zhang Tie’s back had disappeared from Glaze’s vision, in order to prevent him from slipping away again, Glaze had increased his speed.

It was easy for a person to hide himself in a ravine. After searching around it for roughly five minutes, Glaze still couldn’t see Zhang Tie’s shadow. When he became dejected, thinking that Zhang Tie had slipped away again, he suddenly heard a strange sound. It almost sounded like someone was digging something.

Glaze then searched for where the sound was coming from.

It was getting increasingly clearer, and easier to locate. Someone was truly digging something in the ground, making the sound of ‘Cha cha cha cha’ of the spade entering the soil.

After detouring through the woods, Glaze finally saw Zhang Tie, digging something using a military shovel.

“What are you digging here for?”

With a shadow of a gloomy and cold smile, Glaze walked out of the woods, a shiny weapon in hand...