Castle of Black Iron

Zhang Tie was locked in a narrow cell alone. The prison cell was close to the torture chamber. Zhang Tie could only judge time through the sunlight penetrating through the fist-sized windows on the shared wall of the prison cell and the torture chamber.

Besides Zhang Tie, there were only Navas and some jailers who were responsible for torturing him everyday in the two rooms. Zhang Tie didn’t know exactly where he was. He only knew that this place ought to be nearby Tokei City.

Only after 3 days, Zhang Tie had been tortured too much. He would be in the coma several times a day. Besides, 3 fingers were broken, 4 toenails were pulled out; furthermore, the bones on his left shin was broken into many pieces by an instrument called grinding rod.

Anybody else, if being tortured in this way, had long been collapsed, except for Zhang Tie.

Senel Clan wanted the recipe of all-purpose medicament. Zhang Tie knew that he was doomed to die as long as he exposed his secret.

...

On the 4th day, Navas inserted hot-red steel needles into Zhang Tie’s ten fingernails, causing Zhang Tie quiver all over. Due to extreme pain, Zhang Tie uttered a shriek before passing out.

Before passing out, Zhang Tie remembered that some sunlight penetrated through an air vent on the wall of the torture chamber. When he was woken up by a basin of water, he saw no sunlight from the same air vent anymore.

Zhang Tie didn’t know how long had he been in the coma. He only knew that it ought to be dark outside. His 10 fingers were too painful that it even became numb. He felt that those fingers were not his.

"You really have tenacious bones!" Navas sneered as he walked in front of Zhang Tie. In front of the glow of the furnace, his face became as grim as that of the ghost. He clutched Zhang Tie’s hair brutally, "How about that? What else do you want to say? We’ve got something more funny for you!"

"F*ck..you!" Zhang Tie said weakly as he opened his eyes. At this moment, Navas’ look had become blurry and trembling in Zhang Tie’s eyes.

Navas replied with a sneer. After putting down Zhang Tie’s hair, he turned around and looked at a jailer who was immersing kurbash into the water, "Have you added salt?"

"Not yet..."

"Idiot. His wounds are just going to form scars, if we add some salt to the water and dip it with kurbash, it would have a better effect. He would feel getting burned all over. Nobody could stand that, hurry!"

The jailer then went away to take salt. He came back very soon with a bag of salt. After pouring it into the bucket, he started to mix it with kurbash.

After a few minutes, the jailer kept slashing Zhang Tie so forcefully that he even sweated profusely, causing Zhang Tie’s blood and fleshes fly in all directions. However, Zhang Tie remained silent. In the end, even the jailer was too tired to move. Navas then ordered the jailer to check Zhang Tie’s physical situation. He told the jailer to pour some saline water and medicament into Zhang Tie’s mouth and throw Zhang Tie back into the cell. One set of alloy shackles were added to Zhang Tie’s neck. In order to restrict Zhang Tie’s ability to move, an iron chain on the shackles was fixed onto a wall of the cell.

"Let’s call it an end today. We will continue tomorrow. This brat is really strike-resistant. It’s been 4 days. I really have not seen a guy who could bear being beaten for above 3 days." Navas grumbled to the jailer.

With a sound ’bang’, the door of the cell was locked from outside. Closely after that, the door of the torture chamber was also locked, leaving Zhang Tie alone in the cell.

After a long while, Zhang Tie, lying on the ground, opened his eyes as he felt being gradually recovering.

In the evening, the preliminary recovery body started to take effect. As a result, Zhang Tie could recover in a faster speed. This was also the main reason that Zhang Tie could stand these days’ torture. Senel Clan sealed his surging points; however, they could not seal his preliminary recovery body. Because preliminary recovery body had become his instinct.

Lying on the ground, facing down, Zhang Tie was too weak to pick himself up. He could only wait until he gradually recovered a bit aura value. In order to keep his ability to recover or prevent him from being starved to death, Navas would pour some saline water and low-end nutrients into his mouth after each torture. Sometimes, he would throw some pieces of bread to him.

Face touching the icy ground, Zhang Tie suddenly saw a rat in front of him. It sniffed and shook its beard. It seemed that it was going to check Zhang Tie’ situation. Perhaps it found that Zhang Tie was not eatable or sensed the existence of All-spirits Pagoda, it didn’t bite Zhang Tie. Instead, it started to wander around the cell. Finally, it found breadcrumbs in a corner and started to enjoy it.

When the mouse was eating its supper, Zhang Tie suddenly felt the Shrine surging point gradually warming up. Only after 10 more minutes, the Shrine surging point seemingly had already broken a bind while an eccentric and relaxed feeling spread over Zhang Tie’s body.

Zhang Tie knew that his Shrine surging point had already broken through the bind on him applied by the Senel Clan.

After breaking through the bind, the Shrine surging point brought a wholly new energy to Zhang Tie’s body, making Zhang Tie feel like lighting his Shrine surging point and becoming a LV 1 newbie soldier from a commoner once again.

Although being a newbie soldier, the new ability was also very important to Zhang Tie.

The moment Zhang Tie wanted to support himself and pick himself up with his hands had his face turned pale. Due to the sharp pain from the 10 fingers, his forehead oozed sweat all over at once. As a result, he almost knelt down once again. Gritting his teeth, he supported his upper part of the body using his elbows and struggled to pick himself up. Finally, he threw his butts on the ground. The moment he leaned against the cold wall, the wounds on his back made him quiver all over. He then hurriedly kept his back away from the wall...

Zhang Tie painted the dirty air in the cell a few minutes. After the pains on his hands, shoulders and back relieved a bit, he closed his eyes as he started to check his conditions.

The Shrine surging point remained unchanged. In that surging point, the stick of spiritual feather being incarnated by the king roc’s golden seed was still shining brilliantly, showing the supreme dignity of the emperor-level secret knowledge. It seemed not being influenced at all. The Shrine surging point was like a warm flame. When it emitted warm light in Zhang Tie’s cold body, it brought limitless warmth and hope to Zhang Tie.

After the Shrine surging point broke through the bind, Zhang Tie found that the spiritual energy that had been frozen in his mind sea also became dynamic. Even the god’s rune and the All-spirits Pagoda in his mind sea became more sensitive.

Zhang Tie ran his spiritual energy and instantly poured a lot of all-purpose medicament into his mouth. After engulfing about four vials of all-purpose medicament, he finally stopped...

The moment the all-purpose medicament entered his stomach had its powerful effect started to exert.

The sense of hunger and cold gradually faded away. His pains also relieved greatly. The 10 fingers which had been heavily wounded also started to recover gradually like being soaked in a thermos flask.

Zhang Tie picked himself up once again. Although it was a bit difficult, he finally succeeded. He then touched that metal shackles over his neck and stretched the thick iron chain being linked to the shackles. After that, he tried to turn his head to the left and right.

"Heller, can I enter Castle of Black Iron now?" Zhang Tie asked Heller.

"No, that set of shackles and chain are like your clothes. They are closely linked to your body. If you want to enter Castle of Black Iron, you have to drag them in too. However, as they were fixed onto the wall, when you enter Castle of Black Iron, your neck would be broken!"

"D*mn it", Zhang Tie swore inside, "Those sc*mbags of Senel Clan. This father has been as same as commoners, they’re still restricting my movement in the cell."

"Is there any method?"

"You could only open it by key or open it with a saw."

Zhang Tie ran his spiritual energy and had one small saw appear in his hand. After looking around, he found nobody was paying attention to him. Therefore, he nipped that saw with his hands and started to saw the chain on a hidden location while bearing the huge pains and discomfort.

However, the moment he started to saw it had he found the chain was made of a special alloy. It was far firmer than that he could imagine. After over 10 minutes’ work, he could not leave a mark on it. As his hands had just been heavily wounded, although he had drunk so much all-purpose medicament, the wounds could not recover so fast. As a result, Zhang Tie was covered with sweat all over as his face turned pale. Finally, his hands quivered uncontrollably. The saw dropped onto the ground, causing a light sound in the cell...

The rat who was eating breadcrumbs was startled greatly. It instantly sneaked into a dark corner, where there was a narrow entrance of a sewer.

After hearing the light sound, Zhang Tie realized that it would bring him a trouble. He hurriedly squatted down as he teleported that saw into Castle of Black Iron. Meanwhile, he pretended to lie on the ground due to heavy wounds.

As he had predicted, after a few seconds, the iron door of the torture chamber was opened from the outside. After hearing the footsteps, Zhang Tie knew that a jailer was entering. He seemed to check what happened inside after hearing the sound...

Zhang Tie pretended to twist his body painfully on the ground, causing a light sound using the chain.

"Jeff, what’s wrong?" Someone shouted ambiguously outside the torture chamber as he was chewing something.

"Nothing, the brat moved, causing a sound of friction between the chain and the ground!" the person who had entered the cell replied.

"Don’t make a fuss about that. The brat is under our eyes. He could never escape away from here. Hurry, come back. If the drinks and dishes were cold, it would not taste good!"

After mumbling some words, the guy called Jeff locked the door and left.

Zhang Tie judged that the person had walked away based on his footsteps. Finally, he heard a bunch of keys being dropped on the table...

Right then, when the keys were dropped on the table, Zhang Tie suddenly became vacant as a whim occurred to his mind.

Zhang Tie became thrilled as he realized that it was his only chance to escape.

In such a situation, such a method deserved his attempt.

After a few minutes, Zhang Tie crossed his legs and sat down once again. After inhaling deeply, he kept his eyes focused on where the rat had disappeared as he made a hand gesture and started to mumble.

After a short while, the rat drilled out of the sewer in the dark corner and sneaked all the way to the front of Zhang Tie. Sitting still on the ground, it watched Zhang Tie in a cute way.

"Alright, so let it be a rat. Hope the secret skill of the Great Wilderness School could work."

Zhang Tie forced a bitter smile as he ran the All-spirits Pagoda in his mind sea. When he touched the rat’s head, a Great Wildness Seal which represented the most powerful and effective contents of Great Wilderness Sutra and could control all the living beings below LV 1 fell on the rat’s body.

In a split second, Zhang Tie felt something flying onto that rat from his body.

In the next second, Zhang Tie was so scared as he sprung up from the ground and uttered a sound, "zi..." Because, his soul had already left his own body.

In front of Zhang Tie was that extremely tall guy who was sitting still on the ground with crossed legs while being covered with wounds.

Even though Zhang Tie had looked into the mirror so many times, he was still shocked by such an experience from such a visual angle.

"Am I dead?" Zhang Tie asked himself.

The moment he posed such a question had Zhang Tie realized that he was not dead; instead, he turned into that rat; precisely, his awareness and senses were transferred to that rat. At this moment, he could control the rat’s thoughts and movements.

This was soul-based animal controlling skill, the most mysterious method of humans in the far-ancient times. The Great Wilderness School became prosperous and died in the Eastern Continent because of this skill. After understanding the principle, Zhang Tie became thrilled at once.

At this moment, if Zhang Tie could see the look of that rat, he would find that the rat was also surprised and shocked...