Castle of Black Iron

By now, the inside of the Castle of Black Iron had become verdant. Entering it after a month and a half, Zhang Tie felt like he was in the suburban area of Blackhot City. The feeling was especially brought out by the two buildings that he had built near the small tree. They really gave him a sense of wasteland reclamation in the wild.

After loading off his burden inside, Zhang Tie treated himself as a bachelor with a cheap life. He took a deep breath and immediately thought it through. No matter what, as long as he was still alive and could enter the Castle of Black Iron, he could still use it to do a lot of things such as helping his beloved people, even if his cultivation had been completely disabled.

With this mentality, the following dialog boxes that popped out didn’t shock him too much.

——Because the energy maintenance system of Castle Lord had been severely damaged, the Leakless Fruit could not collect energy. The Manjusaka Karma Fruit Tree will terminate the bearing of Leakless Fruits.

——Castle Lord, because your bones, muscles, veins, channels, as well as your guts, had been heavily wounded and have not yet recovered, your automatic recovery function was at the edge of collapse. Your physical condition didn’t even meet the minimum conditions to form Iron-Body Fruit. The Manjusaka Karma Fruit Tree will terminate the bearing of Iron-Body Fruit.

——Based on the above reasons, because your body could not bear the renewal and the expansion of your life energy from Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit, Manjusaka Karma Fruit Tree will terminate the bearing of Wild Wolf Seven-Strength Fruit. Based on the same reasons, the Trouble-Reappearance Fruits will also be unavailable.

——Special alert: Castle Lord, until your health and life energy completely recover, the effects of the first Toxin-Resistance Fruit that you ate will be reduced by 92%.

The continual dialog boxes and the content inside them brought Zhang Tie a sense of being peeled off and turning from a rich man to a beggar. The price for joining the Kalur battle was so huge that he couldn’t stand it.

After slightly recovering his composure, Zhang Tie touched the management panel of Castle of Black Iron to check the current basic attributes.

——Castle of Black Iron

——Length: 1 Krosa

——Width: 1 Krosa

——Aura value: 89713

——Merit value: 32135

——Basic energy storage: 712

——Special output: basic aura yeast.

The growth of aura value points was within Zhang Tie’s expectation. The basic energy storage of 712 remained unchanged since he had come back from the survival training. What really startled Zhang Tie though were the merit value points. He remembered that when he checked them last time, they were just a bit over 6000. How could they increase by so much?

Zhang Tie opened the log on merit value points to check inside carefully. When the first evolved and mutated living beings "Basic Aura Yeast" formed in the Castle of Black Iron, because he killed a number of scumbags in the prison of Blackhot City, Zhang Tie’s merit value points had surged to more than 6000. After that, he didn’t check the merit value points any more. Based on his experiences, after he donated to the orphanage twice, his merit value points should have grown.

But he hadn’t made a point to check it for a long time.

For the first donation, he spent more than 20 gold coins to buy a truck of food which won him 876 merit value points; for the second donation, he directly gave the orphanage 200 gold coins and won himself 3617 merit value points. Additionally, when he sent rice soup to the orphanage and donated 10 copper coins at the beginning, he had won more than 30 merit value points.

According to the exchange ratio, it seemed that the merit value points could not be equally exchanged by the items or money he donated to the orphanage. There was a sophisticated karma between his donations and the merit value points as payment. Based on the exchange ratio, the 10 copper coins and that rice soup he had donated when he was in the poorest situation brought him more merit value points.

Since he had no idea how that worked, Zhang Tie didn’t bother to think about this question any more. What really caught his attention were the two messages after.

"On August 22, 889th year of Black Iron Calendar, Handsome and Magnificent Castle Lord saved 61 golden uangs who were going to be killed and helped them regain freedom and a new chance at life. As a result, merit value was increased by 286 points."

...

"...Do the righteous thing for the heavens. You killed the Double-Moon Muling of the Sun Dynasty and ended his evil life, sending his evil soul into the darkness, which allowed the mercy of gods to reappear in the world. As a result, merit value was increased by 21018 points in total..."

The first log was really unexpected. Zhang Tie had not imagined that when he killed Samira in the Blackhot City and casually grabbed Master Abyan’s uangs which were going to be killed for tests and set them free in mother nature, he would gain some merit value points as payment.

Of course, Zhang Tie was very pleased with these unexpected merit value points.

However, what he hadn’t imagined even more was were that the merit value points he gained after killed a muling of the Sun Dynasty would be almost equal to killing 20 of the heinous red-scarf burglars like Huck and Snade. From this, Zhang Tie learned how many bad things those bastard priests and mulings who believed in the Brilliant God of the Sun Dynasty had done.

At the sight of this, Zhang Tie let out a long breath. It was worth it to kill such a scumbag and give a chance to survive for his brothers of the Iron-Blood Camp in this battle even if his cultivation base had been fully disabled for it.

Thinking of this, Zhang Tie relaxed.

After shutting off the log windows, Zhang Tie walked towards that small tree. He felt that after killing that scumbag, he would not have only gained merit value points, but also at least a Fruit of Brilliance. According to the tip just now, the Fruit of Brilliance was not included in the fruits that could not be produced on the small tree, which meant that he could still enjoy one kind of fruit.

Before Zhang Tie drew close to the twig where which used to produce the Fruit of Brilliance, he saw a round fruit. It was dark golden with wisps of golden luster on it.

What else if it was not a Fruit of Brilliance?

——Fruit of Brilliance has become ripe. Usage: Pick and directly eat it. Notice: The fruit cannot be taken out of the Castle of Black Iron. After twelve hours of having been picked off the tree, its energy and vitality will gradually decline.

Reading this message, Zhang Tie revealed a wisp of a smile.

He didn’t immediately eat it, instead, he moved to the other side of the small tree.

Compared to the twig that bore Fruit of Brilliance, the twigs that bore Leakless Fruits and Iron-Body Fruits were cleared. Additionally, the ripe Leakless Fruits and the unripe Iron-Body Fruit had all disappeared.

Ah!

When Zhang Tie moved to the Fruit of Brilliance to check how much spiritual energy it could bring him, he was stunned. Behind the weird tree leaves of a twig beside the one that used to bear Leakless Fruits, a fruit that Zhang Tie had never seen before was hanging.

It was a weird fruit in the shape of a cross dart. It was all dark, containing a weird tadpole-like rune swimming inside like gathered starlight.

Greatly shocked inside, Zhang Tie stretched his hand toward it.

——Fruit of Judgment has become ripe. This Fruit of Judgment contains a god’s rune, the effect of which is to "bind". Usage: Pick and paste it between your eyebrows, then activate with your spiritual energy. Notice: The fruit cannot be taken out of the Castle of Black Iron. This fruit can only be activated and integrated by Castle Lord. After twelve hours of having been picked off the tree, its energy and vitality will gradually decline.

As he read that paragraph, Zhang Tie’s hands started to tremble. However, it was not the end.

——The people who profaned celestial beings in the name of celestial beings and those people who did evil things in the name of celestial beings are doomed to be judged. Their existence is the greatest harm to all the beautiful and kind things, and the greatest profanity to gods. Their dirty lives and deeds shall be ended by sabers and swords. This is the condition for bearing a Fruit of Judgment, and the biggest award from gods to a dauntless man who dares to wave his saber towards dark forces. Ah! The brave man who spreads the gods’ glorious light over his mother land. Please take this reward and use the strength gifted by it to judge those who profane the gods so as to relieve people’s fear about celestial beings. Gods don’t need their fear as fear is the food of ghosts. According to the law of creation, the more judgments you make, the more power you will have to judge with.

After reading this paragraph, Zhang Tie immediately understood that, the Brilliant God School was carrying out a very terrifying coercion in the entire Sun Dynasty in terms of people’s belief in celestial beings. This coercion was profaning celestial beings in the name of celestial beings. They were doing evil things in the name of celestial beings. In this case, since he killed that Double-Moon Muling in the black robe of the Brilliant God School that night, the Fruit of Judgment’s condition was triggered.

Looking at that cross-dart like weird fruit and that weird group of runes composed of tadpoles inside it, a thought flashed across Zhang Tie’s mind. Hie instantly raised his right hand and took off the ring on his right hand.

——Ring of Energy. It can recover your physical strength 4% faster after you use it up, enabling the wearer to be more energetic. This item was made by rune master Andariel.

Although Zhang Tie had not seen a rune item before, the Ring of Energy and that Fruit of Judgment on the twig let him know that all rune items were exceptional, especially the god’s rune that fruit on the twig contained; it seemed greater.

There was always a way to survive. In this case, he could still gain such a marvelous fruit, which meant that the small tree considered that he could use this fruit even now. The effect of the god’s rune was to "bind", which seemed simple, yet its usage would be unknown until it was used.

When Zhang Tie prepared to pick off this Fruit of Judgment to activate and integrate it, he was stunned when his eyes caught onto a twig in the middle of the small tree. He was immediately overcome with great surprise...