Castle of Black Iron

For the entire afternoon, Zhang Tie was practicing cultivation inside the mines. He felt as if time had flown really fast during the process!

When he walked out of the mining cave, the afterglow of the setting sun had already covered the entire Wild Wolf Valley with a golden color. With narrowed eyes, Zhang Tie peered over the peaceful and beautiful valley. Only after a while was Zhang Tie’s able to gradually adapt to the scenery before him.

Currently, he was feeling pretty good, seemingly because of the effects of today’s cultivation, which changed the color of the burning point at his rear end to a slightly red color; he never felt better. If it were not for those sparsely lit torches that reminded Zhang Tie that it was already almost dusk, Zhang Tie would have wanted to stay another several hours inside the mine to increase the amount of basic energy storage in the Castle of Black Iron.

Before leaving the mine, Zhang Tie sat in the mining tunnel he had dug in and entered the Castle of Black Iron once again. The whole process only lasted less than three minutes. Entering the Castle of Black Iron with Zhang Tie were the seeds of wild blueberries and hawthorn fruits. After rapidly running a lap around the Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie had casually spread the seeds onto the ground and checked the second Leakless Fruit before promptly exiting.

There was another 56 hours left before the second Leakless Fruit would become ripe. Seeing its progress, Zhang Tie felt very satisfied. However, at the same time, he felt a tinge of regret when he looked at the progress bar of the Iron Body Fruit, as it had remained unchanged. The progress of the Iron Body Fruit had probably stalled as he hasn’t been to the fighting club to be a flesh bag for the past couple of days. After gazing at that unripe Iron Body Fruit for a while, Zhang Tie suddenly came to the conclusion that he was really impatient and began to curse himself inwardly.

At this moment, those horny male students at Wild Wolf Castle were pretending to be gentlemen despite thinking of dirty things as they invited girls to have supper with them. Over the course of a week, some of the horny male students had already become well acquainted with the female students as they climbed down the mountain hand in hand while chatting happily with each other. This truly made Zhang Tie unhappy and uncomfortable. At the sight of such students, he could only touch his nose and forced a self-mocking smile before heading for the tree base.

On the way back, Zhang Tie was thinking about the achievements of Barley and the other members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood, wondering if they had successfully invited a group of girls to visit their tree base. Everything he had learned before the start of the survival training regarding the dangers in this place had already been forgotten by him. Zhang Tie himself was most likely the last person who would encounter any danger as a miner, despite having broken two records since the start of the survival training. Even if he met a wolf, would they really be able to pose any danger to him?

In the valley, as he thought of wolves, a pleasant smile drifted onto Zhang Tie’s face as a night breeze blew past it. If he were to truly meet a wolf at this moment, he would only regard himself as lucky and treat it as another gift from god. Despite it being a dagger, it was still a weapon; as a LV 1 fighter with a weapon, dealing with a wild wolf was as hard as carrying 100 kg of iron ores and walking a distance of 1.5 km. Although it was somewhat hard work, it still wasn’t dangerous...

However, danger would always arrive before one has become well-prepared. It would appear before you like a collapsing mountain, and if you were to make a mistake, you might be broken into pieces.

20 minutes after Zhang Tie left the mining cave, Zhang Tie had already walked several kilometers. Just as he passed by a small patch of grassland and was about to walk through it, Zhang Tie suddenly stopped.

At that moment, his heart suddenly began to pound heavily while blood all over his body rushed to his head. In a split second, Zhang Tie felt dazed and worried as his face turned pale.

Blood sense!

The same blood sense he felt when he encountered Huck and Snade.

This grassland was only half a person tall and was more than 30 m away from Zhang Tie. Beside that grassland was a path which Zhang Tie used to walk on everyday. Facing the breeze, the grass were swaying in a manner akin to wheat waving in the wind, seemingly as if something was hiding within.

Zhang Tie instantly became covered in cold sweat, as he had realized that something terrifying was staring at him within the grass. Zhang Tie didn’t know whether the thing hidden in the grass was man or animal. At the same time, the first thing Zhang Tie thought about was Glaze’s group, wondering whether they had set an ambush and were waiting to kill him over there.

Slowly putting down his mining basket, Zhang Tie took out the hoe from within the basket. At the same time, he pulled out the ordinary dagger which his elder brother had gifted to him in hopes that he would protect himself with it. As for that poisonous dagger gifted to him by Donder, Zhang Tie had already placed it in the Castle of Black Iron.

With two weapons in hand, Zhang Tie slightly recovered his composure. Widening his eyes, he gazed at that patch of grassland, wanting to see through what was hiding inside. If it was Glaze’s group, Zhang Tie swore inwardly that he would definitely beat them fiercely...

The breeze gradually became heavier while the grass was still swaying. However, at this time, Zhang Tie saw something that were akin to rocks in the grass, which changed the form of the grass as they swayed. Before his spiritual energy had sharply increase, Zhang Tie would never have noticed such minute details; however, after his spiritual energy sharply augmented, he was easily able to capture such a slight change. Forcefully swallowing his saliva, Zhang Tie slowly moved backwards; however, the moment Zhang Tie moved backwards, those hidden rocks also moved forward, splitting the grass as they moved towards Zhang Tie step by step.

Then, a wolf drilled out from the grass with eyes fixed on Zhang Tie...

A wolf? Soon after, Zhang Tie slightly became relaxed, but at the sight of the other six wolves who drilled out from the grass, his tension once again intensified...

With red eyes, all seven wolves only glared at Zhang Tie. After looking straight into the eyes of those wolves, Zhang Tie could already feel their mood. They did not show a greedy expression like the one that would be present when they’re hunting, but instead, they showed hatred—a hatred so deep that they would not let him go even after draining the last drop of his blood.

Why do these wolves hate me? Zhang Tie was completely dumbfounded. At this moment, the only thing he knew was that he would probably lose his life this time. Seeing them gradually bare their snow-white fangs as they lowered their bodies, when Zhang Tie heard “gulugulu” sounds drifting from the inside of their throats, Zhang Tie could feel all the fine hair on his body standing on their ends...

Zhang Tie instantly turned around and started to run. At that moment, he spent every single bit of effort to stride forward. Zhang Tie’s mind was as clear as a crystal; various information flashed in his mind at the same time...

Currently, he was no less than 30 m away apart from the wolves. If he didn’t spend every ounce of his effort into escaping, then with his current speed, he would only have a bit more than 20 seconds before they caught him, as he was not their match in terms of speed with his current capabilities...

Once they caught up, he would have less than 30 seconds to choose between life and death choices. Within those 30 seconds, he could only try his best to kill one or two wolves; however, the time it took him to do that was enough for the remaining wolves to tear through his stomach or crush his throat. The moment he was knocked down against those wolves, he would be doomed ...

If he wanted to enter the Castle of Black Iron, he needed at least ten seconds—no, nine seconds. In order to enter, he would need to be calm, which meant that he could not be disturbed during the nine seconds before he entered the Castle of Black Iron. Obviously, he did not have enough time at this instance, and the Castle of Black Iron would not be able to help him get out of his current predicament...

As there was nobody nearby, Zhang Tie realized that nobody would be able to save him within 50 seconds, thus he only had one choice: he had to disappear from the sight of those wolves within the next 20 seconds since he would be killed the moment they caught up...

He could neither run as fast as the wolves nor could he rely on other people. His last beacon of hope was to take advantage of the topography and trees 200 m behind him.

The best terrain to take advantage of would be water, assuming it was present. Unfortunately, there was no water nearby; however, luckily, there were many trees behind him. The fact that he was not the least bit good at climbing trees implied that he wouldn’t be able to reach a safe height. At this moment, the last choice appeared in his mind, one which might be his last beacon of hope.

The train of thoughts almost flashed in Zhang Tie’s mind within 0.1 second. Within such a short period, Zhang Tie had already determined his final plan to escape. If it were the others, 90% of them would choose to escape towards the direction of Wild Wolf Castle, where it was populated, dreaming about a slight chance of surviving against the pursuit of the wolves; however, Zhang Tie realized that this choice would not work for him—if he chose this option, he would die within fifty seconds. The other 10% would just escape without knowing the direction, as they just wanted to stay away from those wolves, resulting in most of them dying even faster than the other 90% who would die within fifty seconds. Zhang Tie didn’t choose this option either. Instead, he chose to rapidly run towards a specific place for the last beacon of hope...

Certainly, it was not enough to just escape. He would never give up, not even losing a bit of hope. As an adolescent with great ambitions in the new age, he could not follow the masses and just wait for death; therefore, the moment he turned around to escape, Zhang Tie used all his efforts to shriek loudly, creating a really terrifying shriek.

“Help...”

Such a voice shocked numerous birds in the valley, causing them all to fly away...

After such a high-pitched shriek, Zhang Tie used all of his strength to run, closely followed by the seven red-eyed wild wolves. They gradually narrowed the distance between them and Zhang Tie.

……

As expected, the last “help” was heard by more than thirty male and female students who were roasting meat on the top of a hill more than three hundred meters away. In a split second, they hurriedly took up their weapons and ran out of the woods. One of them was that red-haired beauty who had previously kicked Zhang Tie. From the top of the hill, they witnessed the “final seconds” of Zhang Tie in this world...

The wolves had finally caught up with Zhang Tie, and some of them charged at him, yet their attacks were avoided by him. As if he had an eye on the back of his head, the moment a wolf jumped into the air towards him, he would swiftly move to the side while raising his dagger and slashing the stomach of the wolf. Another wolf charged at him, yet its lower jaw was ferociously smashed by a hoe, causing it to give a miserable howl that was even more high-pitched than Zhang Tie’s “help” that had drifted to their ears. Meanwhile, another wolf had already fiercely bitten Zhang Tie’s shin, pulling him down onto the ground. As the other wolves pounced towards him, the youth instantly stabbed out his dagger at the wolf that was biting his shin. Pulling away the wolf using one hand, he jumped into a jet black hole beside him...

The decisiveness and braveness of Zhang Tie’s “final seconds” deeply shocked those boys and girls who stood on the top of the hill. Seeing Zhang Tie jumping into that bottomless hole, tears began to drip from the faces of many girls. Among them, only Kristine could recognize that boy who was fighting wolves using his hoe.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have kicked him while we were in the square even though he had thought about doing that with me in his mind...

Thinking about this, Kristine slightly felt guilty. As a breeze blew over her face, the girl suddenly felt a slight chill on her face...

For the commoners, they were in an age where youth was as short as the morning dew, while life was as short as a straw.