Castle of Black Iron
Castle of Black Iron - Chapter 76: Achievements

Zhang Tie’s actions were fast and had enough strength. He was also the first to act. In contrast, the three girls were weaker and were slower to act. As the difficulty of picking pine cones was higher than peaches, they were on even grounds. There were at least 70-80 pine cones on the tree. Not intending to show even the slightest bit of courtesy, Zhang Tie’s two hands, which were as nimble as a monkey’s, grabbed the bigger ones. Seeing Zhang Tie’s attitude, the girls, one by one, began to grit their teeth. Although the pine cones they got were smaller, what irritated them more was this annoying guy, who ignored their charm, as he grabbed the pine cones in front of them, treating it as a big deal.

Seeing the two parties moving faster and faster and becoming increasingly more ferocious, Wood, who stood to the side, touched his head and became really speechless. It seems that he finally knew why Zhang Tie had been kicked by that girl. He was not like a gentleman in the least when in front of girls—he completely deserved it!

After a short while, under their collective efforts, all the pine cones on the tree, with the exception of the last, medium-sized pine cone that hung on a twig, were picked off. At the same time, Zhang Tie and that blonde-haired girl both stretched out their hand, intending to grab it. The instant the girl’s finger touched the pine cone, it suddenly disappeared right in front of her eyes; Zhang Tie had directly broken the twig, snatching the pine cone away.

Watching Zhang Tie slowly remove the twig from the pine cone and casually throwing it into the ugly mining basket on his back, all three girls stood up and glared at the ruthless guy, Zhang Tie, who lacked any traces of being a gentleman.

“What’s your name?” The blonde-haired beauty glared at Zhang Tie. “If you offend us, you will be the enemy of us, the Rose Association!”

“I’m Zhang Tie...” Seeing the angered look on the three girls, not knowing why, Zhang Tie felt the discomfort in his heart disappear and arrived a certain conclusion—if one was not feeling well, one could transfer their discomfort onto others, and thus immediately allowing the self to feel better.

“Good, I’ve remembered you!” After she finished speaking, the blonde-haired girl wanted to leave.

“You better not miss me...” Noticing that they were leaving, Zhang Tie hurriedly shouted.

“Hmph… Hmph…” A girl with freckles on her face raised her chin and gave a proud smile. “You rude guy, it’s already too late for you to apologize to us. We from the Rose association are not that easily bullied!”

“No, I think you misunderstood. My meaning was you better not miss me, and especially do not dream of doing those disgusting and terrifying things to me in your dreams when you miss me!”

Hearing Zhang Tie’s words, the girls gaped as their faces turned pale. After glaring at Zhang Tie and calling him a bastard, they turned around and immediately left...

Zhang Tie realized that his heart finally felt refreshed. This depression transfer method was really useful.

At this time, Wood, who was standing by the side, raised his thumb towards Zhang Tie. “Brother, I think I understand now…”

“What have you understood?” Zhang Tie curiously asked.

“My mom had told me that what men were afraid of the most was being unable to leave an impression in the mind of the woman they liked. For a man to succeed, if they could not cause the woman to fall in love with them at first sight, then the best alternative was to make that woman hate them during the first encounter. A woman’s heart is very miraculous. Even though they might hate you at first, they might very well fall in love with you later. Weren’t you using this method?” Seeing Zhang Tie’s shocked expression, before Zhang Tie was even able to open his mouth, Wood hurriedly stopped him and patted his shoulder. “No need to deny it. We are both men. I understand!”

……

Afterwards, working together with Wood for another two hours, they were finally able to divide the pine tree into three sections. Zhang Tie obtained more than 250g of pine resin and more than 10 kg of firewood, which were enough to make five or six torches. Zhang Tie put them into his awkward mining basket and left the forest of pine trees.

……

While Zhang Tie was busy chopping the pine tree, Glaze’ group had stealthily slid back to their base. Since Glaze felt that he was stronger than the others and wanted to show off, the four of them had set base at a location that was 10 km away from Wild Wolf Castle. The four had set base in a natural mountain cave on a cliff that was 6 m above the ground. In order to enter the cave, they would have to climb down a vine of the tree above the cliff. Although it was far from Wild Wolf Castle, they would not be threatened by common beasts here. This could be considered a decent location.

The atmosphere in the mountain cave was depressing. It was dead silent. This time, Glaze did not lose his temper nor did he shout loudly; instead, he calmed down expressionlessly. However, the more silent Glaze was, the more the other three felt uneasy.

After being silent for a long time, Glaze finally opened his mouth, “Zuhair, if I stealthily enter Zhang Tie’s base and chop off his head, do you think there’ll be a problem?”

Hearing Glaze’s question, the other three quivered at the same time as they felt a terrifying and cruel air from Glaze’s calm tone.

“Since the conflict between him and us have been made public today, everyone knows that you want to kill him. So, if you kill him during the survival training, you would be the first to be suspected and would definitely be investigated by the Temporary Inspection Committee. The four leading teachers in the Temporary Inspection Committee are all great and fierce. I also don’t know what means they would use to investigate you. If you go kill him, it would be difficult to ensure that you haven’t left any evidence!” Zuhair forcefully swallowed his saliva and glanced at Glaze as he chose his words carefully. “Today’s conflict was completely out of our expectation. If things went according to our original plan this afternoon, then he would be suffering for the next couple of days. We only need to slightly adjust our original plan, and we would be able to kill him. These past few days, we have already found a wolf den. Luckily, Zhang Tie chose to be a miner alone. Not only is Zhang Tie looking for his own death, but the Gods have even gifted us such an opportunity. He’s definitely dead this time. For the next couple of days, I will stealthily follow him and grasp his habits. Afterwards, we can carry out our plans against him!”

“That Burwick should also die. Anyone who blocks my path ahead should die!” Glaze ferociously said.

“That Burwick is more cunning than Zhang Tie. Ever since we arrived at Wild Wolf Valley, he has already made precautions against our revenge. Right now, he has a certain degree of influence and has more than 200 people on his side. These past few days, they have been practicing how to hunt prey. At any time and any place, there would be a large number of people around him, making it hard for us to find an opportunity to kill him. If we really want to deal with him, we will have to think of another way. According to the usual arrangement of survival training in the past years, there would be a competition between students from different schools. If Burwick wants to stand out in the final competition, he has to get a good rank. When the time comes, you just need to find an opportunity to pretend to make a mistake and heavily wound or kill him, but...” Zuhair stopped talking...

“But what?”

“Burwick is already a LV 1 fighter, and he’s not much weaker than you. He is also cunning and good at hiding his real strength. If you fight him in the ring, he might find a way to escape.”

“Not much weaker than me?” The corner of Glaze’s mouth raised into a cold smile. Glancing over the three in the cave, Glaze asked, “Do you think only others will improve or hide their strength, and I will stay a LV 2 fighter forever?”

“Glaze, you...” Sharon showed a face of surprise...

“At most, it will take me two weeks to ignite the second burning point on my spine. Once I do that, I will become a LV 3 fighter...” Glaze’s eyes seemed to shine with ghost fire. “In the final competition, I will definitely find an opportunity to kill Burwick. The moment I start to control my own fate, you will also start to control your own fates with my favor...”

They no longer talked about Zhang Tie. Previously, when Zhang Tie went against them at school, Zuhair had already thought up of a fierce plan to take revenge on Zhang Tie during the survival training. After today’s incident, they were more determined to take revenge on Zhang Tie. A few of them didn’t even think Zhang Tie would be able to defend against their revenge. In their eyes, Zhang Tie was just a rude and brainless, trivial figure who dared to go against them and sought his own death, while Burwick was the one who could really threaten Glaze’s position at school. At school, there were even rumors that some teachers thought that Burwick was better than Glaze. Once Burwick found an opportunity to stand out in the survival training, he would be able to obtain a recommendation. Certainly, Glaze would not allow for such a thing to happen.

……

When Zhang Tie with his awkward mining basket finally returned to the trap that he had set in the hidden stream, it was already afternoon. The afterglow from the setting sun started to scatter off Wild Wolf Valley. Seeing that none of the traps he had set in the forest were able to catch prey, Zhang Tie was slightly disappointed.

On his way back, Zhang Tie had paid attention to whether he had been followed by the others or not. During this time, he pretended to be wandering about in the forest. Seeing that nobody was following him, he stealthily slid to that stream.

When he arrived at one side of the stream, Zhang Tie was still somewhat nervous. After all, this was his first attempt. He was not sure that he could capture fish.

After taking a deep breath, Zhang Tie moved away the twigs that sat above the pond. The scene in front of him immediately surprised him. There were eight fish joyfully swimming in the pond, five of which were grass carps. The other three were much longer than a chopstick, and each weighed at least 2 kg. On their jet black backs, one could see two pale golden lines. Seeing all of this, Zhang Tie became really excited...