Castle of Black Iron

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There was a beach covered with dense reefs to the west of Hidden Dragon Island. Only one tortuous path was accessible from the beach to the 100-m high steep cliff. The reefs on this beach were different from those in other places as these reefs slightly radiated a blue metallic luster. The beach was called Iron Ore Beach, where people on Hidden Dragon Island got the navy-blue iron ores from.

It was noon when the hot sun was like fire in the sky. Over the sea, near the Iron Ore Beach, more than 20 juveniles were working hard to get navy-blue iron ores out of the sea.

The exposed reefs in the sea stopped ships from drawing close but became the best bases for those juveniles who were getting navy-blue iron ores out of the sea.

With the rippling of the water, Zhang Tie exposed his head beside a reef as large as a house. He heavily breathed in the fresh air over the sea and spat out all the dirty air out from his body as he slightly rose and fell along with the waves.

"Zhang Tie...will you take a rest? As it's already noon, come here to eat something..." Zhang Hongsheng, who had been tired and was lying on the reef greeted Zhang Tie with a faint smile.

Beside Zhang Hongsheng was Wei Wuying, lying in the shape of the Chinese character "大" like a salty fish, who was too tired to utter a sound

With another ripple of the waves, Zhang Yunfei whose face turned a bit white revealed his head out of the water beside the reef and forcefully swam and climbed onto the reef before faintly laying down.

"I have a bit strength left. I can dive again." After talking loudly to Zhang Hongsheng, Zhang Tie made another dive by kicking the water by his feet.

"How...how long has Zhang Tie dived for this time?" Zhang Yunfei gasped as he asked Zhang Hongsheng.

"It's been almost 20 minutes. Damn, what a freak!" Wei Wu sat on the reef as he gritted his teeth and said, "This guy only knew how to swim like a dog yesterday and didn't even know how to dive. He couldn't even hold himself underwater. In order to learn how to dive, he had to foolishly hug a huge stone and jump into the sea, causing the other guys laugh loudly. I'd never have imagined that he could really learn how to dive in such a stupid way. Only after practicing for one day, this guy has already been impatient to make money here..."

"Alas, don't mention it anymore. If you keep talking about him, I'll lose face. Having been here for over a month, I could only stay underwater for 15 minutes. However, this guy has already been able to stay underwater longer than me on his second day. Comparisons are just..." Zhang Hongsheng sighed, "The ancestral bloodline that this guy has awakened might be related to water. I've heard about this bloodline in the Palace before."

The juveniles chatted on the reef while they heard movement in the water. It was Zhang Keliang who popped his head out beside the reef. After gasping for quite awhile, Zhang Keliang looked over the reef and asked, "Where's Zhang Tie? Has he come up?"

"Yes, he's already come up, but he dived in again..." Zhang Yunfei replied.

"This guy is really..." Zhang Keliang forced a bitter smile as he took two breaths and dived in again.

...

There were beautiful coral reefs beside him. Cute little fish were swimming across the coral reefs. The sea water near Iron Ore Beach was as translucent as a mirror. The sunlight cast on the sea caused large patches of fish-scale-like light shadows. It was an enchanting sight.

It was a brilliant world under the sea, which could never be matched on land.

Zhang Tie was like a clumsy yet curious little fish. With his eyes widely opened, Zhang Tie enjoyed the unprecedented fantastic submarine world as he tried his best to swim towards the nearest oceanic trench.

The topography in the sea was very weird as there were all sorts of deep trenches whose width varied from 10 plus meters to dozens of meters. The deep trenches became wider and deeper. The drop between the two trenches would be over 10 m. Those navy-blue iron ores were buried in the sands in the deep trenches.

These deep trenches were really like they had been carved due to the movements of glaciers several million years ago. Zhang Tie didn't know why these special navy-blue iron ores were buried here. However, now that there were exposed iron ores on the land, it was not weird to see such things in the sea.

Of course, all the navy-blue iron ores near Hidden Dragon Island belonged to Huaiyuan Palace.

As Zhang Tie had just learned how to dive, he was not adept at diving. Although he could hold his breath for a long while, he could only look for navy-blue iron ores in the oceanic trenches at the depth of over 30 m.

However, those juveniles in Zhixing Department who were better at diving could reach 50 m or deeper into the sea to look for navy-blue iron ores. The deeper they could dive, the more navy-blue iron ores could they find.

There were green marine plants that looked like water weeds in the oceanic trenches. Under these plants were a layer of soft silver-like fine sands. The navy-blue iron ores were buried under these fine sands. A part of some bigger ones could be seen above the sands, radiating a faint blue luster. There was a sharp comparison between these ores and the surrounding environment in color.

The moment Zhang Tie found two fist-sized navy-blue iron ores from the sands of a sea trench and was preparing to put them into the wire sack no far away, Zhang Keliang had already swum towards him and made some hand gestures to Zhang Tie, telling him to pay attention to his surroundings.

Zhang Tie then nodded in the water. It was not absolutely safe in these waters. It was said that there were guardians of Lingtian Department in the distant waters who were arranged to kill those dangerous and mutated marine creatures near the Iron Ore Beach, such as mutated magical sharks.

However, there were also many dangerous creatures below the water within 1 square kilometer of Iron Ore Beach such as poisonous sea serpents, which once bit, their poison would kill a person in five minutes if one didn't take the antidote.

The price of the antidote per vial against sea serpents was 20 silver coins, which would be taken by everyone here besides dried rations, except for Zhang Tie who had not yet made even one silver coin.

This time, Zhang Tie stayed under water for less than 20 minutes. After collecting ten more kg of navy-blue iron ores, Zhang Tie gradually felt it hard to breathe. He then insisted on another 1-2 minutes. When he felt that he had stayed a bit longer than last time, Zhang Tie returned once again and revealed his head above the water. After gasping twice, he swam back to the reef and climbed onto it.

The Preliminary fish-like diving skill was also a skill that required increasing amounts of practice before one was adept in its use.

However, Zhang Tie had already reached this in two days, which already surprised many people. Nevertheless, Zhang Tie still didn't feel pleased about it. Zhang Tie felt that he was still not adept at holding his breath while moving flexibly in the water and had not fully exerted the essence of the Preliminary fish-like diving skill.

"I should make it better!" Zhang Tie mumbled. However, when he looked at Zhang Yunfei and the other pals when they watched him, Zhang Tie knew that he should not be too anxious about that and could only slowly improve it like how he practiced the Iron-Blood Fist Skill.

Although he could still dive many times due to his strong body, Zhang Tie didn't want to stand out too much. Therefore, he also climbed onto the reef to eat his dried rations and took a rest under the sun.

Several minutes later, Zhang Keliang also swam onto the reef. Sitting on the reef, he took a rest while drinking water and eating dried rations.

From the early morning to now, the five people had worked for 4-5 hours underwater. With the exception of Zhang Tie, all the others felt very tired.

Looking at the vast sea and eating the dried meat and preserved fruits in his hand, Zhang Tie felt like returning to the New Crescent Prairie as the water waves were like the grass waves across the prairie.

Thinking of the New Crescent Prairie and those wild wolves, Zhang Tie forcefully slapped his forehead as he swore inside, "Zhang Tie, how stupid you are?! How could you forget such a thing? It's just a Preliminary fish-like diving skill, would it be as sophisticated as the Iron-Blood Fist Skill? Have you forgotten how you practiced your Iron-Blood Fist Skill? Have you forgotten your Trouble-Reappearance Fruit?'

"Hahahaha..." Zhang Tie suddenly burst out laughing loudly, causing Wei Wu and Zhang Keliang glance at him.

"What's wrong with you?" Wei Wu asked.

"I was thinking of a funny thing..." Zhang Tie said mysterious manner.

"What's that?"

"I realized that I haven't seen sea serpents!"

"Argh? Lunatic..." Wei Wu twitched his mouth as the others showed the whites of their eyes to Zhang Tie.

"Where can we find sea serpents?" Zhang Tie asked Wei Wu.

"Are you seeking death or have you made enough money? A vial of antidote for sea serpents would cost you 20 silver coins. That's one day's work!" Zhang Hongsheng urged.

"It doesn't matter. I want to see how sea serpents look so as to prepare for their attack in case I'm ever bitten. Even if I was bitten, I could borrow your antidote first and pay you back when I get enough money!" Zhang Tie explained innocently.

"Do you really want to see what sea serpents look like?" Zhang Keliang seriously looked at Zhang Tie.

Zhang Tie nodded.

"Over there..." Zhang Keliang pointed at the sea with some desk-sized reefs exposed out of the water 100 m away to the left, "They are over there. There is a wide area of red kelp forest in the water over there. I was bitten by sea serpents over there last month. These sea serpents like to hide in seaweed. There are black and white circular grains on them."

"I will take a look over there..." After saying this, Zhang Tie stood up from the reef and dived into the sea once again before rapidly swimming towards the sea serpents.