Castle of Black Iron

Leakless fruits, iron-body fruits, the fruit of brilliance and two fruits of redemption...

As he engulfed those fruits one after another, Zhang Tie's battle strength gradually increased.

Leakless fruits lubricated and strengthened his battle qi; iron-body fruits strengthened his defensive and anti-strike capability; Zhang Tie's spiritual energy increased a bit after he took all the spiritual energy of Zhu Liang the fierce wolf; the two kinds of fruits of redemption further improved Zhang Tie's anti-strike and recovery capabilities.

That was how a knight gradually reached its heyday.

It took Zhang Tie 4 hours to digest all the fruits.

Eating fruits was the coolest and most effective way to improve his power. Zhang Tie enjoyed this process very much. After taking these fruits, Zhang Tie could obviously feel the pleasant, subtle changes in his body during the past 2 hours.

After the competition for the provincial governor of Youzhou Province and drinking the dragon-marrow liquor, Zhang Tie had lit two more dragon scales on his knight's crystal plate. After eating so many fruits, Zhang Tie felt that his battle strength had evidently increased than when he participated in the competition for the provincial governor of Youzhou Province.

Zhang Tie felt much better.

The last fruit on the small tree was the fruit of plunder.

At the sight of that fruit, Zhang Tie hesitated for a second, 'Should I take it now?'

'My current hidden profession is a very senior animal controller; I've reached the 15th floor of the All-spirits Pagoda and could even easily control a double-headed parent worm. The profession of rune equipment's master seems to be not meaningful to me for the time being. As a knight, I should pay special attention to improve my battle strength and form my chakras. No matter how much efforts do I make in these professions, it will never match the effect of forming one more chakra.'

'Additionally, I have Edward, Aziz and Agan in Castle of Black Iron and master artisans in Huaiyuan Palace. Will it play its utmost role? Perhaps, I could leave this precious fruit of plunder to one of my kids.' Zhang Tie thought.

All of a sudden, the look of Gorath occurred in Zhang Tie's mind. Zhang Tie's heart raced as his eyes turned firm at once. He then stretched out his hand and picked off that fruit of plunder. Closely after that, he sat below the small tree with crossed legs and took it...

'Skill is no burden. As the pillar of Zhang family, I should be more and more powerful so that Zhang family could have a bright future. If I collapsed, Zhang family would collapse too. Therefore, I don't need to leave this fruit to the younger generation of Zhang family at all. If I and my elder brother could not help the family to tide over difficulties, not to mention the younger generation. If I could become more powerful, I would provide better resources and conditions to the next generation of Zhang family. Therefore, I don't need to wait until this precious fruit plays its role over 10 years later; otherwise, it would be a great waste. Who knows what will happen in the decade?'

'Additionally, there's more than one shadow demon. If I met one in the future, I might gain another fruit of plunder.'

'What counts most now is to improve my battle strength to the utmost facing the stress of the Gobbling Party.'

'If I become a master artisan, I will have greater possibilities, which means more hopes and more freedom.'

After these thoughts flashed by Zhang Tie's mind, the fruit of plunder had been broken while an exotic energy directly scattered in Zhang Tie's mind. In a split second, numerous knowledge, skills and experiences about runes started to deepen into Zhang Tie's brain cells, awareness and physical neural reflex chains and became Zhang Tie's talents and gifts...

Zhang Tie felt that he gradually promoted from artisan apprentice to artisan, copper hammer artisan, silver hammer artisan, gold hammer artisan, mithril artisan, secret rune artisan and master artisan in a very short period as his experiences and knowledge gradually increased...

All the experiences and talents of "Master Jiang" in his whole life had been transferred to Zhang Tie through the fruit of plunder.

Sitting under the small tree with crossed legs, Zhang Tie closed his eyes although his eyelids were quivering. After a while, Zhang Tie opened his eyes and picked himself up from the ground.

During this period, Zhang Tie felt that he had spent as long as hundreds of years and as short as a couple of minutes...

After this contradictive feeling gradually faded away, Zhang Tie raised his hands and put them in front of his eyes.

Although the pair of hands remained unchanged superficially, Zhang Tie knew that they had already changed. Previously, they belonged to a knight as they could tear apart a powerful enemy in a destructive way; by contrast, they belonged to a master artisan; besides destruction, they were granted with one more ability——creation!

This pair of hands mastered the 27 metal smelting technologies and 39 forging skills...

This pair of hands could turn ores into metals and metals into machines or equipment of fighters. It was a pair of hands full of magical creativity.

In the stage of copper hammer artisan, this pair of hands could turn iron and bronze scraps into a complete set of sophisticated steam engine, various machinery parts and common swords, sabers, helmets and armors.

In the stage of silver hammer artisan, this pair of hands could turn the ores in the wilderness into the preliminary production chain of the human steam industry.

In the stage of gold hammer artisan, this pair of hands could make the most sophisticated steam turbines and almost all the machinery parts. The manual processing precision of the flat file could reach 1‰ of the thickness of a hair. This was already the precision of senior steam processing machine tools. The weapons, helmets and armors made by this pair of hands were all of top quality.

In the stage of mithril artisan, this pair of hands could forge rune equipment with precious mithril. After reaching the peak of metal processing in the steam age, it entered a more mysterious and magnificent realm...

After getting hang of the structures, micro plating, fine seal, secret expedition and shape building of at least 48 runes, the pair of hands promoted to be that of secret runes artisan.

After the rune equipment made by secret runes artisan could completely break the bottleneck of black iron effect and could work on knights, the pair of hands promoted to be that of a master artisan. From then on, the owner of this pair of hands would win awe and veneration wherever they were. In any subcontinent, the owner of this pair of hands would be qualified to found a sect.

'Are they my hands?' Zhang Tie watched his hands.

Besides this pair of hands, when he moved his eyes onto the finger ring, Zhang Tie had an utterly different feeling, 'In the opinion of a master artisan, that finger ring made of nanobead is indeed not bad; however, being limited to time, it was a bit coarse and could not be further improved.'

At this moment, Zhang Tie felt that his manipulative ability had improved too much. He felt that he could make a lot of items from inferior to senior as long as he had raw materials. As long as he was free, he could produce a Faerie-dragon T9 sports car with the all the materials and conditions available in Castle of Black Iron.

"Congratulations, Castle Lord, you've become a master artisan and have one more talent!" Heller's voice woke Zhang Tie up from the thrill.

'What a funny world! Previously, I wanted to be an alchemist master; however, I became an animal controller and a rune equipment master consecutively instead. My weird master Zhao Yuan is a No. 1 criminal in Taixia Country, who will arouse great shocks the moment he appears.'

'If I changed my face and continued to live in Taixia Country as a master artisan, I'm sure that nobody could identify me.'

...

Time flew on the airship. Zhang Tie calculated time with earth-elements crystals instead of a clock.

In concentrative cultivation, Zhang Tie could absorb 10 earth-elements crystals everyday; as for the remaining 4 hours of the day, he would sleep 2 hours and eat or comprehend his fighting skills 2 hours.

Compared to the cultivation in the tower of time, such a intensity was just so-so. He felt pretty relaxed.

After almost 30 days, the 13th dragon scale on his knight's crystal plate was lit. On the second day, Zhang Tie left the room and breathed fresh air on the deck.

This time, he didn't see wilderness anymore, but a prosperous urban agglomeration. Among the urban agglomeration, he could see 100-storey skyscrapers everywhere. There were numerous airships in the sky. Zhang Tie even caught sight of some rare airboats. Some airboats directly landed on the roofs of those skyscrapers in a very domineering way.

It was evening. Expensive top-quality fluorites were installed on the crystal lends lamp holders whose diameter was over 1 m on the roof of the skyscrapers while light beams shot into the sky, making the sky colorful...

Zhang Tie asked the captain where they were. The captain told him that they've already arrived at Haozhou Province, one of the top 36 upper provinces in Taixia Country...

The prosperous Haozhou Province made Taixia Country more impressive in Zhang Tie's mind.

After then, Zhang Tie re-entered his room...

After about another 27 days, when Zhang Tie almost lit the 14th dragon scale, the captain knocked at Zhang Tie's hatch door for the first time.

"Elder Mushen, we're in Fuhai City, Yingzhou Province..."

The two months flashed in the blink of an eye...