Castle of Black Iron

More than 10 colorful light spots were in the mysterious void, large or small. They were sparkling bizarre lights, yellow, blue, red or a crystal-like transparent light. Each light spot was a marvelous geometric crystal which constantly changed its shape. Each geometric crystal was a blooming flower of life. The crystals flew irregularly as fast as a lightning bolt and spirits in the mysterious void. Some crystals would fly out of the mysterious void while some would fly in, both at a very high speed.

This world of elements could only be seen by knights after forming their Chakra and entering meditation. The four basic elements of earth, water, wind and fire that formed everything in the universe truly existed independently and could be sensed with knight’s consciousness in the free, pure and most basic form.

Different basic elements were colliding, combining and annihilating in the world of elements under the traction of mysterious strength.

Of course, they were not really annihilating or disappearing. They were just changing a pattern of existence after combination. They started to appear in the world of materials in the form of sensible material or energy.

World of elements was a vast sparkling ocean. By contrast, the real world was like the submarine world that deposited in this ocean. All the lives were living in that real submarine world. Only very few lives’ senses and consciousness could get rid of the gravity and bond of the world of materials and enter this colorful ocean of sparkling basic elements when the energy frequency of their spirit and awareness rose to a pole.

The power of knights originated from their gnosis and recognition about the source energy.

At this moment, Zhang Tie’s spiritual energy had become a huge hand and was chasing after a yellow crystal in a tiny "pit", which had a bizarre force field in the world of elements. Due to the existence of that "pit", the elements over there were more than those in the surrounding space. Therefore, it was a bit easier to capture those basic element crystals which were flying everywhere in the void like meteors and spirits.

The yellow crystals were earth elements, the only element that Zhang Tie’s huge hand could capture in the world of elements at this moment. Red crystals would directly burn a hole in the huge hand and penetrate through it. Blue crystals would depart into numerous parts in front of the hand of spiritual energy and combine with each other behind it like a naughty fish shoal. The crystal-like meteors and spirits directly ignored the hand and penetrated through it like breaking through a broken fish net; only those yellow crystals could be caught by this hand like real objects.

After chasing them for a long while, the hand finally caught a tiny yellow tetrahedron crystal in the world of elements. After tightly holding it, the hand retreated back to the world of materials and threw the yellow crystal into a huge and complex Chakra which was rotating like a millstone. The Chakra devoured the yellow crystal, crushing it and converting it into the purest energy of land element. Finally, it was output into the void shadow in the peripheral of the solid Chakra.

A bigger and more complex earth Chakra was looming in the phantom shadow, which was made of numerous complex geometrical patterns like an extremely delicate mandala...

The yellow crystal was converted into earth element before running into an inconspicuous place on the edge of the solid Chakra and manifesting a line, which was less than 1/10 of a tiny geometrical pattern at its bottom...

There were over 10,000 basic tower-shaped geometrical patterns in the huge Chakra mandala. The function of the yellow crystal was as trivial as throwing a brick in the construction site of a thousands-meter high skyscraper...

...

Zhang Tie opened his eyes and threw a glance at that wall clock in the cultivation cabin of the airship. It was already been the evening of September 23rd, 4 days after Zhang Tie entered meditation...

This was Zhang Tie’s first time to enter cultivation as a knight.

There was only one cultivation task below knights, namely, polishing surging points. By contrast, knights only had one task in cultivation, namely, forming Chakra.

If the process of polishing surging points was like drilling wood to make fire, the process of forming Chakra could be described in three terms, namely, picking off stars, pushing millstone and casting mold.

Picking off stars referred to capture earth element in the world of elements; pushing millstone referred to input the land element that the knight had caught into his Chakra and had it crushed into pieces so as to assimilate the knight’s own strength; casting mold referred to pour the assimilated earth element into the peripheral phantom of the earth Chakra. When the peripheral phantom ring of the entire earth Chakra completely turned solid composed of earth elements, it would rotate independently instead of having to follow the first Chakra, the black iron knight would promote to a land knight.

In the three steps, the first two steps could run automatically. When the knight’s Chakra was rotating automatically, all the steps would run automatically due to the "King Roc Sutra" that he cultivated. It was similar to other knights. After surging their surging points, once the first Chakra came into being, each one’s later cultivation process would be pushed freely by the Chakra like how intestines and stomach digested food and how stars ran on the orbits. You only needed to consider whether your intestines and stomach could enjoy good food or not.

Therefore, capturing four basic elements using spiritual energy and forming the energy of elements of Chakra, it became the core contents for knights to cultivate and raise their realms.

It was very difficult for Zhang Tie to enter meditation and sense the world of elements for the first time. It took Zhang Tie two days to do it. In the latter two days, Zhang Tie finally captured three land elements from the world of elements and started his official cultivation since he promoted to a black iron knight after numerous attempts.

After the first earth element crystal that Zhang Tie captured was crushed into pieces by his Chakra, the mandala peripheral ring of that earth Chakra loomed around the first Chakra. After capturing the other 2 earth element crystals, Zhang Tie had just moved a bit forward towards the earth knight.

After recalling the cultivation process these two days and watching the second Chakra’s phantom ring in his consciousness, Zhang Tie gradually recovered his composure.

According to Jaray, the mandala peripheral ring of most of knights’ land Chakra was composed of 300-1,000 geometrical patterns. When Zhang Tie counted his geometrical patterns, he almost passed out. The mandala peripheral ring of the entire earth Chakra of his "King Roc Sutra" was a vast, delicate picture, which contained over 10,000 geometrical patterns in different shapes such as a tower, triangle, square, round and feather, etc.. Such a phantom Chakra looked extremely magnificent. However, it was also extremely difficult to form it. It would require several times even dozens of times more land elements than that required by other knights.

In this age, commoners could live about 90 years. When one reached LV 9 after lighting all the surging points on his spine, one would be able to live 120 years. With each level higher, one’s life expectancy would increase by 30 years. When one reached LV 15 battle spirit, one’s life expectancy would reach about 300 years. After promoting to a knight, one would live 400 years. Even though knights had great life expectancies, a great number of black iron knights died due to various reasons before promoting to earth knights. Given this point, we knew how difficult it was for black iron knights to form their second Chakra.

Some black iron knights even failed to form their second Chakra after promoting to black iron knights for 100-200 years.

’I wonder how long would it take me to form the second Chakra of "King Roc Sutra".’

Such a question occurred to Zhang Tie’s mind when he was sitting on the cushion with crossed legs and had not fully recovered his composure from the "pleasure" that was brought by picking off stars. Zhang Tie then felt a headache. After letting out a sigh, he picked himself up. By the way, he put that ’Basic Elements Gathering Matrix’ into a special bag and hung it over his shoulder.

That "Basic Elements Gathering Matrix" was composed of 3 bronze obelisks, each of which was about 10 cm in height. Being covered with bizarre runes, although they looked trivial, they had a great effect on his cultivation.

This was a gift from Raymlan Empire’s royal. As a bronze secret item, it was a collection of the royal of Raymlan. Its usage was very simple. Before entering the world of basic elements, Zhang Tie only needed to put the three bronze obelisks in the shape of a triangle on his side. He then sat in the triangle. In this way, the Basic Elements Gathering Matrix could form a marvelous force field "pit" in the world of basic elements. This force field "pit" was like a puddle, which could increase the density of four basic elements around him by 20% in the world of basic elements. Benefited from this, Zhang Tie could capture basic element crystals more effectively.

After trying it, Zhang Tie sensed an obvious higher efficiency in capturing the four basic elements on his side with the help of Basic Elements Gathering Matrix.

’There must be some more methods to increase my efficiency in picking off stars. Now that there’s a Basic Elements Gathering Matrix, it indicates that other knights also met the same problem about low efficiency in cultivation. They must have other methods to deal with it. Thankfully, I’ve already been a black iron knight. I have enough time to do that. ’ After comforting himself, Zhang Tie opened the hatch and walked out of the cabin of cultivation.

This airship was the private airship of Princess Candis, a royal of Raymlan Empire. Although it was not as large as fury-level airships, it was the most comfortable and luxurious one that Zhang Tie had ever taken.

A luxurious bedroom with a huge princess’ bed inside was next to the cultivation cabin. The bed still maintained the alluring body fragrance of Princess Candis and her groans...

Princess Candis showed her private airship to Zhang Tie that night. Finally, after spending 15 years in the tower of time, Zhang Tie visited every place on her naked body...

’That’s a nice memory.’ Zhang Tie smacked.

...

"Are we arriving at Huaiyuan Prefecture?" Zhang Tie came to the cockpit.

"Your Excellency, we will arrive at Yuanjiang River after 600 miles!" The coxswain answered respectfully.

"You can land in Golden Sea City of Huaiyuan Prefecture for some supplies. After landing there, take this letter to the director of Jinwu Business Group. He will prepare something for you as my gift to Princess Candis and Your Majesty Alta VII. By the way, I have to extend my thanks to Princess Candis and Your Majesty Alta VII for their hospitality on behalf of me!" Zhang Tie said as he handed a letter into the hand of the coxswain. Zhang Tie’s gift was 50,000 vials all-purpose medicament.

"Alright!" The captain carefully took Zhang Tie’s letter.

...

After doing all this, Zhang Tie directly flew off the deck of the airship towards Yiyang City and disappeared into the clouds.

All the crew members saw Zhang Tie off with admiring looks.

"What if I can also be a knight one day..." A crew member mumbled.

"It’s easy. You will make it come true in your dream very soon!" An experienced sergeant first class patted another one’s shoulder.

After hearing this, all the others burst out into laughter...