Castle of Black Iron

It was too late when Zhang Tie came back home from the Shrine Palace of Huaiyuan Palace in Embracing Tiger Mountain. Zhang Tie had a new plan. However, as he found his parents had gone to bed, he didn't say it to them; instead, he went back to his inner chamber and had a big fun with his wives.

Beverly and Fiona were very diligent. After playing a game with Zhang Tie for almost one night, the three women finally fell asleep with a fatigued and satisfactory look.

Like charging, sleep was the best way for a person to recover his spiritual energy and vitality. Knights' sleep pattern was different than that of commoners.

Commoners' sleep was shallow. A part of the region and cortical tissue of commoners' brain was half excited in sleep, which consumed human's energy and vitality like an idling engine. Therefore, commoners would have a long sleep. Usually, it would take a commoner 7-8 hours to recover the vitality that he had consumed in the past day. There was a Hua phrase called sitting in repose with ones' eyes closed, the principle of which was that one could decrease the degree of excitement of a part of the region and cortical tissue of his brain by closing his eyes so that he could consume less physical and spiritual energy.

Knights' sleep pattern was different than that of commoners. Almost every knight had mastered a deep sleep skill when they promoted to knights. Like rapid charging, in such a deep sleep, it would take a knight only 3-4 hours to recover his spiritual energy better than that of commoners who would sleep 7-8 hours.

When he promoted to a knight, Zhang Tie had mastered a deep sleep skill. After his spiritual energy made a breakthrough once again, Zhang Tie's sleep skill further improved as he would enter a sleep state that he could not tell.

In this special sleep state, besides maintaining some senses and vigilance to the environment, his full brain and cortical tissue would enter an absolute tranquility. In this sweet and ethereal state, he didn't watch any dream or have any distracting thoughts like returning back to the huge placenta, which was comfortable and pleasant. Besides his consciousness becoming still, his guts seemingly started to "hold" things such as his qi, blood, vitality and spiritual energy, which formed and vanished in the dark quietly and established subtle relations with the energy between the sky and the land. They just quietly nourished, strengthened and purified his body; made him more vigorous and granted him with the greatest energy in the tranquility.

In such a quality sleep, Zhang Tie only needed to sleep 2 hours a day, which was many times more effective than sleeping 9 hours per day when he was in Blackhot City. Whenever he slept, he would feel like taking a special tonic. Whenever he woke up, his body and each surging point in his body would display a wholly new and great vitality, which always brought him a big surprise.

Sometimes, Zhang Tie even doubted that he only needed to take a nap one day in such a deep sleep mode so that he would root deeply in the ground and grow stronger like the big trees in the woods without having to do any cultivation or practice.

Now, Zhang Tie only needed to sleep 3 hours a day when he would feel being "full". After sleeping 3 hours, Zhang Tie would feel his vitality, qi and blood spilling out of his guts and being full of strength. He then could not fall asleep or become still any longer except for entering meditation. He could only radiate his brilliance. Zhang Tie didn't know whether other knights had the same feeling when they got up, he didn't know how to describe it. However, each time Zhang Tie got up, he would feel his body blooming like flowers and full of pleasure while another wholly new and nice day was coming.

...

It was September 19, when he woke up, Zhang Tie laid on the bed for a short while. After tasting the nice feeling of his blooming body, Zhang Tie opened his eyes.

It was 5 am. His bedroom was pitch-dark. It was still dark outside.

Linda was resting on his right arm; Fiona was lying on his chest; Beverly was leaning against his left arm. There was a pleasant complex smell in the room, which carried the fragrances of the three women's bodies and the faint, elegant fragrance of some purple rosemary in the vase. What was more, the smell of protein which had been sprayed by Zhang Tie also evaporated in the air.

The three women were in a sound sleep. Zhang Tie carefully drew his arms away from the heads of Linda and Beverly. After that, he moved Fiona's head onto the pillow lightly. He then kissed the three women's foreheads and covered the quilt for them before getting off the bed. After that, he left the bedroom and came to the outside bathroom. After taking a bath, he put on his clothes and left the room.

The female servants in the mansion would get up at 6 am. Therefore, it was pretty tranquil in the inner chamber. Besides those guards who were sticking to their posts, nobody else had gotten up in the mansion.

Zhang Tie came to the grassland in the backyard which had been covered with red maple. After warming up his body, he started to practice fist position slowly.

Zhang Tie moved slowly and naturally like moving clouds and flowing water. Although it didn't look powerful, it made onlookers comfortable. In the eyes of outsiders, Zhang Tie's fist position was nothing different than those performed by old men and women in the urban squares and parks in the morning.

After promoting to a knight, the so-called practice such as forming chakra or improving battle skills was always like deep water flow, which could not be sensed by outsiders.

As a knight, he was always different than commoners. Only after practicing fist position for over 10 minutes, his invisible qi had gradually spilled out his body while all the red maple's leaves and twigs and grasses within 20 m swayed themselves along with Zhang Tie's movements with an extremely strong sense of rhythm. When Zhang Tie's hands were facing upward, those twigs, leaves and grasses would face upward; when Zhang Tie's hands were facing downward, those twigs, leaves and grasses would face downward; when Zhang Tie faced east, they would face east; when Zhang Tie faced west, they would face west. It seemed that there was an invisible line between Zhang Tie's hands and those twigs, leaves and grasses, causing them to move with Zhang Tie.

The morning dew jumped off the twigs, leaves and grasses; broke apart and evaporated, causing the area within 20 m to become misty and weird. With Zhang Tie's movements, the mist formed and disappeared from time and then in a very unpredictable way. Like a drawing board, it showed dragons and snakes in the mist time and then. If some rustic villagers witnessed this scene, they might fabricate some stories about mountain spirits and wild monsters.

Zhang Tie's elder brother Zhang Yang had stood over 20 m away from Zhang Tie and watched Zhang Tie practicing fist position for quite a while.

Over the past years, Zhang Yang had formed a stable daily routine. When he got up, he would always do morning exercise. However, he had not imagined that he could meet Zhang Tie here.

The moment Zhang Yang entered the backyard, he had been attracted by Zhang Tie's movements. Although Zhang Yang wanted to move closer, he was blocked by Zhang Tie's invisible qi wall over 20 m away.

Watching the twigs, leaves and grasses swaying with Zhang Tie's movements and the changing mist beside Zhang Tie, Zhang Yang was more astonished than that when Zhang Tie flew off in front of him last night.

This was Zhang Yang's first time to see Zhang Tie practicing his battle skills over the past years.

Zhang Yang had no talent in cultivation. He could not identify which kind of fist position was Zhang Tie practicing. Although it was similar to iron-blood fist, it was different than that as it contained forming and vanishing intentions like the ebb and flow in Zhang Tie's movements and sudden pauses.

The forming and vanishing intentions were very terrifying. Zhang Yang could sense that as long as Zhang Tie liked, he could shatter everything around him including Zhang Yang himself. As he knew that Zhang Tie would never do that; therefore, he just felt relieved while watching Zhang Tie's performance on one side.

After practicing for a while, Zhang Tie moved to the original place and stood well. Closely after that, he leveled up his hands before his chest and let out a breath of relief while the surrounding mist disappeared at once. Meanwhile, Zhang Yang felt that the invisible qi wall disappeared too.

The stars in the sky had almost faded away while some rooms in the mansion had been lighted up. Some female servants were getting up.

Zhang Yang walked over there.

"What's this fist position? It did not look like the iron-blood fist that you usually practiced before." Zhang Yang asked.

"It's not the iron-blood fist. I was just warming up my limbs. It could relax tendons; stimulate the blood circulation and improve my health." Zhang Tie answered in a bashful way.

Actually, it was not a casual fist position. Zhang Tie attempted to simulate and reappear the cavitation effect that he had sensed underwater using this fist position and battle skills. Zhang Tie had realized the great destruction of the cavitation effect, he thought that if his fist position and battle skills could be as destructive as that of the cavitation effect, it would be awesome. Even if common bubbles' formation and vanishment in water could make him unbearable, not to mention the formation and vanishment of battle qi and fists.

Zhang Tie lately realized that the situation that the five elements in his Five-element Ground-look Sutra were mutually generated and constrained was similar to the formation and vanishment of bubbles in water; therefore, he tried to simulate it just now. However, as he had not made it, Zhang Tie felt too bashful to tell his elder brother that he wanted to create an extremely powerful battle skill as it would be too amazing. Even knights could not create a battle skill, especially a powerful battle skill as easily as they would. Most of those battle skills that were popular in this world had two origins, the pre-historical secret skills that had been excavated by people from the underground world and the battle skills and martial arts of humans before the Catastrophe which modern humans had inherited and made the breakthrough. Iron-blood Fist belonged to the first category; the inheritance and breakthrough that Hua people had made to the battle skills and martial arts of humans before the Catastrophe led the humans. Although humans had created some battle skills in that age, very few of them were popular among humans and posed a great influence on humans. The creators of new battle skills were always masters of certain sects.

After hearing that Zhang Tie was just warming up his limbs, Zhang Yang forced a bitter smile, "Warming up limbs? That hurts my self-esteem so much! If you were warming up your limbs, we were practicing sh*t."

"Of course, elder brother is practicing something much better than me. When you promote to a knight, you could also warm up your limbs!"

After hearing Zhang Tie's witticisms, Zhang Yang burst into laughter, "As you're here, how about guiding your elder brother's kungfu?"

"Fine, elder brother, just show it!" Zhang Tie replied as he moved a few steps back.

When in Blackhot City, before Zhang Tie graduated from the 7th National Middle School, his battle skills and cultivation were always guided by Zhang Yang. This time, although being completely opposite, the two brothers didn't feel anything wrong.

Zhang Yang was not talented in cultivation; additionally, he spent most of his time running Jinwu Business Group these years, he would have less time to cultivate. As for Zhang Yang, the battle skills and cultivation completely deteriorated into morning exercises. It was more like a lump of sh*t than being average in Zhang Tie's eyes. Any LV 9 demon fighter would kill Zhang Yang countless times.

Watching Zhang Yang's fist position, Zhang Tie completely gave up the idea of guiding him. 'Alright, no matter how much time elder brother will spend in battle skill, he could at most fight a LV 9 iron-armored demon to death. Don't waste time anymore. Just consider how to light more surging points! He should just take this battle skill as an aerobic exercise.'

After performing twice forcefully, Zhang Yang finally stopped when he started to ooze sweat over his forehead with a red face. After that, he watched Zhang Tie and asked with a bit pleasant look, "How do you feel about my Heavens and Land Palm?"

Rubbing his face, Zhang Tie answered, "Elder brother, do you remember how you described my fist position before? Ahh, I got it, it makes me excited. Your Heavens and Land Palm makes me too excited to provide you with any guidance!"

After being stunned for a second, Zhang Yang burst out into laughter, followed by Zhang Tie.

"I need to go to Youzhou City!" Zhang Tie said with a big smile, "As the selection of the provincial governor for Youzhou Province is going to be hosted in Youzhou Province by Commander Cheng, we elders have to go there; the Clan elders were talking about this last night!"

Zhang Yang stopped smiling at once as he asked, "Is it dangerous?"

"It's safe. It's said that Youzhou City is very boisterous. Therefore, I plan to take mom, dad and my wives there!"

"Together?" Zhang Yang became confused...

"Yup!" Zhang Tie nodded...