Castle of Black Iron

The shadow demon's head was circled on its neck before shrugging down weakly...

A dead demon was most reassured and valuable. After losing its power, the shadow demon was like a huge mutated lizard with wings and a unique horn; plus its tail, this shadow demon was almost 3 m in overall length.

As an earth knight-level shadow demon, its unique horn, wings and the color of its skin were obviously different than that of common shadow demons.

Zhang Tie let out a deep sigh, easing a lot of depression and indignation caused by Lan Yunxi's departure.

It only took Zhang Tie less than 1 hour to kill this earth knight-level shadow demon, the demon ghost who made all the human knights across Tiewei Mountain restless since he saw it. This could prove Zhang Tie's battle strength for sure.

Zhang Tie felt a surging strength inside; therefore, he became ambitious and confident once again immediately.

'The unrivaled earth demon knight which was previously as overwhelming as a mountain before me has already lain at my foot like a dead dog. One day, a shadow demon knight even a heavenly demon knight would lie like this at my foot. The result of the shadow demon today is that facing the Gobbling Party tomorrow. Heavenly demon knight? Top three chancellors in Taixia Country? Whatever! They only represent the past; however, I represent the future.'

After throwing another glance at the empty, deserted underground mine, Zhang Tie grasped the shadow demon's neck like lifting a dead dog before disappearing out of the void in a split second.

...

Zhang Tie returned to Castle of Black Iron.

He had not been here for over 2 months since he met Bai Suxian to the present.

"Congratulations, Castle Lord, for killing a shadow demon!" Heller had long been waiting for him in the lobby of the palace tree. At the sight of Zhang Tie coming back, Heller had bowed towards Zhang Tie, "After killing this earth knight-level shadow demon, Castle Lord could definitely enjoy a higher honor and reputation in the human world, even in Taixia Country!"

This shadow demon was the eyesore of human knights in the Earth-elements Realm. It was very harmful to human knights, especially black iron human knights. On the battlefield, this shadow demon had made too many people restless; therefore, Taixia determined to reward the one who could kill this shadow demon with a big reward so as to motivate morale.

It was definitely a symbolic event that Zhang Tie could kill this shadow demon, which was of a special significance for human knights who joined the large-scale battle in Tiewei Mountain. It was an inspiring victory. Additionally, after Zhang Tie killed the earth-knight level shadow demon the weirdest species of demons as an earth human knight, it indicated that he had become a member of powerful earth knights in Taixia Country.

This shadow demon was a stepping-stone of special significance, with which Zhang Tie's reputation would reach an unprecedented new hight in both Earth-elements Realm and Taixia Country.

"Help me check whether this b*stard has some personal belongings. This b*stard has tortured human knights in Tiewei Mountain for so long and made humans abhor him so much after killing so many human knights, he should have something valuable!" Zhang Tie told Heller.

Due to the experience in searching over Old Monster Qi's corpse, Zhang Tie realized that he might miss some good items on the knight's body through simple superficial search. If he wanted to find all the valuables from the shadow demon, he might severely destroy the shadow demon's corpse in the end; therefore, Zhang Tie directly took the shadow demon's corpse into Castle of Black Iron. The moment it entered Castle of Black Iron, all the valuables on it would be under Heller's control on a molecular level.

Heller replied with a smile silently. Closely after that, he pointed at the shadow demon's corpse while two items flew off the corpse towards Zhang Tie.

This skill could even match Zhang Tie's capability as a divine dominator. What was more, Zhang Tie didn't feel any spiritual energy or battle qi waves on Heller at all.

One item was a necklace from the neck of the shadow demon. This necklace was faintly similar to that the demon general once wore. At the sight of it, Zhang Tie had known that it was a space-teleportation equipment. The other item flew out of the place beneath a scale in the middle of the forehead below the unique horn.

After catching the necklace, Zhang Tie confirmed that it was a space-teleportation equipment, which was much more senior than that of the demon general. He didn't want to waste time injecting his spiritual energy into the necklace to check what was inside. He directly poured all the objects from the space of the necklace into the lobby of the palace tree.

There were thousands of golden earth-element crystals, hundreds of blue water-element crystals, some food and water, two mirrors, dozens of clothes of various styles and some scattered objects.

It was shadow demon's special hobby to look into the mirror. Those clothes might be used for figures in disguise. The earth-element crystals and water-element crystals were a big surprise; it was not easy for an earth knight to have a stockpile of so many crystals, especially those water-element crystals. It would take Zhang Tie many years to gain such a number of crystals if he just garrisoned in the Lion Fortress.

After glancing around them, Zhang Tie fixed his eyes onto those scattered objects, from where, he caught sight of a shield which was a silver secret item as same as that Zhang Tie gained from the demon general; plus the one that he gifted to Lan Yunxi, Zhang Tie had got 3 shields.

'Does it mean that such shields account most of the silver secret items?'

Zhang Tie became speechless. However, besides this shield, there were 10 more crystals being wrapped with metal among those scattered objects——senior secret methods.

Zhang Tie ran his spiritual energy and those secret methods flew towards him.

With a glimpse, Zhang Tie saw 4 strange classic secret cultivation methods whose levels were unknown. The remaining 11 secret items were all powerful battle skills.

Blood stains could be seen on most of the crystals of these secret cultivation methods. Given these blood stains, Zhang Tie knew how did this shadow demon gain them.

"What's this?" Zhang Tie caught that bead which flew out of the forehead of the shadow demon with a bizarre luster.

"This is a rare silver secret item, Castle Lord, you will know its function after pasting it onto your forehead!"

After hearing Heller's suggestion, Zhang Tie pasted it onto his forehead by hand.

The moment it touched his forehead, Zhang Tie had felt his spiritual energy rocking in his mind sea while a refreshing and cool feeling slowly spread over Zhang Tie's mind sea.

'Unbelievable, this bead could nourish spiritual energy!'

Zhang Tie went ecstatic. He just watched the bizarre bead over and over and was unwilling to part with it.

'But how do I use it? I'm not a shadow demon; therefore, I cannot hide it in my skin. Neither can I mount it onto my forehead. If it was made into a headwear, it would be pretty awkward for a man.'

Zhang Tie touched his head helplessly. When he imagined how it would look when it was mounted onto his forehead, he revealed a bitter smile. 'All right, just keep it. When I wear a battle armor, I could inlay this bead into the helmet. If not, this bead could actually serve as woman's headwear.'

Zhang Tie really wondered about such a marvelous silver secret item.

"Heller, what's this bead's name? I feel it should be mounted onto something!"

"It's called Spirit Nourishing Bead. As you said, it should be mounted onto some special equipment. Precisely, it should be used together with some special silver secret item."

"Together with the other silver secret item?" Zhang Tie became faintly shocked. It was his first time to hear that different silver secret items could be combined.

Heller replied with a smile, "There're various silver secret items, more than weapons and space-teleportation equipment. In a far-ancient age, the so-called silver secret items were actually common tools produced by people. Of course, different tools could be combined. Castle Lord, when you see more silver secret items in the future, you will know it!"

After hearing Heller's explanation, Zhang Tie became silent.

...

After over 2 months, the small tree had been covered with fruits once again. However, there was no iron-body fruit anymore and was only one leakless fruit.

After Zhang Tie promoted to an earth knight, the small tree had stopped producing leakless fruit. The last one was left by Zhang Tie as a souvenir.

If the shadow demon was not an earth knight, there should be at least one fruit of plunder; however, the small tree could not produce any fruit of demon knights. What a regret!

Those on the small tree were all fruits of redemption from the gratitude of hairy shellfish, gulf shrimps and golden uangs.

Hairy shellfish increased Zhang Tie's physical defense and anti-strike ability; gulf shrimps improved his ability in healing and recovering wounds; golden uangs granted him greater physical strength.

After taking the fruits of redemption from three animals, Zhang Tie's physical defense and anti-striking ability had increased 0.45%, his ability in healing and recovering wounds had improved 0.87%; his overall physical strength had increased over 280 kg.

Being affected by these fruits, Zhang Tie's overall strength had reached a small new high.

After taking those fruits, Zhang Tie directly sat with crossed legs under the small tree and started to digest the water elements that he refined from the shadow demon...

...

2 days later, Zhang Tie opened his eyes while the 7th dragon scale on his earth knight's crystal plate had been lit. This shadow demon lit 5 dragon scales for Zhang Tie.

After 2 days' cultivation and rest in Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie recovered his look as Cui Li. With the help of Heller, Zhang Tie made himself look embarrassed purposefully like having experienced a hard battle. After that, Zhang Tie left Castle of Black Iron for Black Armor Battlefortress as he directly hefted the shadow demon's corpse onto his shoulder like hefting a prey in a domineering way...

...