Castle of Black Iron

It was said that it was very simple to make explosives before the catastrophe. In that age, people had grasped a lot of methods to explode substances. They could also make bombs with terrifying power. With only one bomb, they could even destroy a city, killing millions of people. Many people could even easily make a lot of explosives at home.

With the arrival of the catastrophe and the God’s star, every rule in the world had changed, which caused people to lose their ability to make explosives for hundreds years after the catastrophe. This lasted until the time before the second holy war between humans and demons, when during an excavation of underground relics and under the enlightenment of far-east civilization, people gained this ability once again. It was said that this ability was related to crystals. However, compared to before the catastrophe, the number of people who were able to make explosives was even less than the number of rare animals in the zoo before the catastrophe.

Many people were still attempting to find the mystery of why the substances that could explode before the catastrophe failed to do so after it. They posed many explanations, the most famous two being: first, the string change theory based on the opinion of the string science of universe; second, the God’s particles theory based on the God’s star.

According to the string change school, the catastrophe and the God’s star changed the string state of materials, the basic constitution state of substances in this galaxy. As a result, many basic rules in this galaxy changed.

This opinion had a lot of supporters. The string theory was still disputable before the catastrophe. Although the opinion of string change theory seemed able to explain everything after the catastrophe—it was meaningless. Because average people could not understand it.

Besides the string theory, there was a theory about mysterious particles brought by the God’s star. This theory also had a lot of basis and supporters. According to the God’s particles theory, the God’s star brought a kind of mysterious particles. After they were cast in this galaxy, every rule in this galaxy changed.

Besides always mentioning people’s successful researches on the macro world before the catastrophe, people who supported the God’s particles theory favored the "one vacant chair theory"—in a classroom with 50 chairs, even if 49 of them were occupied, with one chair vacant, all the other 49 people could change their locations for free. Because no matter how they changed, there was always a vacant chair.

This was the scientific rule worshiped by the world before the catastrophe. The foundation of this rule was that vacant chair in the classroom. With that vacant seat, everybody in the classroom could remain mobile and active to a certain degree.

However, after the catastrophe, the God’s star occupied the vacant chair in the classroom. As a result, the mobility and activeness that was in the classroom suddenly disappeared. Although there was no vacant chair any more, with the brilliant rays of the God’s star, the people in the classroom could now see the outside world. They started to realize the limit of their original living space. At the same time, they also begun to enjoy the colors of the outside space where they thought was nothing but darkness before.

This was the most popular opinion. The science teacher at Zhang Tie’s school was also a supporter of this opinion. According to the current study and understanding of the human world before the catastrophe, humans before the catastrophe had already collapsed into an alleged "scientific trap" under the seduction of the demons and extreme self-consciousness.

In that age, people blindly thought that the science they grasped was the only and ultimate truth in this universe. However, the truth was that people’s crazy worshiping of science was just a game of blind people touching the elephant [1] that most people played under the guidance of others. The elephant was the overall existence and truth of the universe while human science was not even a finger in front of the overall existence and truth. Even if it was a finger, the moment it touched the skin of the elephant, people would mistake the universe as a rough and flexible wall that could confine people’s living space.

The largest myth of science was rooted in the limits of people’s senses and awareness. What people could see, hear, smell and touch was actually an existing form of a substance within the range of a narrow frequency of visible light. The frequency within that range that people could perceive was only a bowl of water in the water vat or a key on the entire keyboard of the piano. When the hand of science pressed that key, people heard the sound and took that single key as the whole piano.

The alleged science was just an extension of people’s five senses and awareness in exploring the universe. The limits of people’s five senses and awareness led to the limits of science. At the beginning, the science that people grasped truly had played a positive role in their development. But after that, especially in the hundreds of years before the catastrophe, the alleged science became the shackles of confinement and the tool that demons used to destroy human beings.

At that time, the "science spokesman" told people that humans were the only smart life on this galaxy, even the entire universe...

At that time, the "science spokesman" told people that the galaxy was solid. Besides magma and rocks, nothing was inside...

At that time, the "science spokesman" told people that the full potential of people was to run faster, jump higher, and be more intelligent...

At that time, the "science spokesman" told people that the ancestors of human beings was a kind of carbon-based protein existence formed by a lightning bolt hitting water. After many years’ evolution, the carbon-based protein finally became a kind of single-cell organism. After another long period of evolution, it became another kind of living being... In the end, apes became human beings. Human beings had no history at all. As long as you walked around a zoo and a geological fossil museum, you would understand it.

Oh, at that time, "science" told people that above 98% of human genes were wastes.

People trusted it. As a result, demons hiding among them became very happy.

At that time, humans were actually a lamb led to slaughter, its eyes covered with a black cloth by the demons. Humans were killed by demons in great batches in various ways, however, they didn’t know who did it. In the human world, when unprecedented progress was made in science, the biggest role of science was actually to weld the cage that contained human beings more closely, to tighten people with ropes, to kill them in more terrifying ways, and to bring forth something new from the old to play the people.

Many people before the catastrophe were inserted with chips controlled by the demons the moment they were born. They were then tightly monitored by the demons.

In the name of injecting vaccines, some viruses would be injected in their bodies so as to completely destroy people’s immune system. Those viruses could even restrict people’s potential, as well as further improving and liberating people’s DNA. After that, everybody was thrown into that terrifying world full of terrors, enmity, and violence designed by the demons.

In that world, people were killed in wars, chaos, environment that people had damaged and polluted. Besides, people were killed by the food that had been renovated by demons, the animosity, the gap between the rich and the poor and the oppressive system... Everybody was serving a set of terrifying orders that would finally eliminate all the people knowingly or not.

Many people in this age believed that the God’s star had set people free from that terrifying, internecine trap. Most of people attributed all the changes that happened in this world to that God’s star, expecting to find the answer to explain everything in it.

The arrival of the God’s star indicated that the human science’s curtain fell and the Black Iron Age started. Therefore, the God’s particles theory became more influential.

Besides the above two explanations, Zhang Tie had heard another explanation from Donder—starting from the catastrophe and the arrival of the God’s star, the galaxy in which the people were living in had entered another time and space density in the position of the universe. In a different time and space density, all the substances had different properties and performance. This theory of different time and space had already existed before the catastrophe, spread around in some mysterious associations. It was the most aged theory.

Based on Zhang Tie’s knowledge and intelligence, he could not identify whether these theories were true or not. He only focused on the facts before him. These theories and hypotheses only stated one fact—in this age when the curtain of science had fallen, substances that could explode and the producers of explosives were both jewels.

Average people could not even have a chance to see a single explosion in their whole lives. Even in wars, explosives were rarely used. It didn’t mean that they were useless, but the opposite - too useful. Few people could afford them. Using explosives in wars was akin to hitting people with gold bricks. Without above ten times’ return, nobody would like to hit people with gold bricks.

Explosives came with thunder-like loud sounds and flames, which were two important features in identifying explosions, or so Donder had said. Because Zhang Tie had not seen explosions before, he was not absolutely sure whether it was an explosion or not. He only felt that the flames in the sky outside the window were very amazing at the midnight.

After that loud sound, the whole Blapei turned chaotic for the rest of the night.

...

The next day, when Zhang Tie prepared to leave his residence in his first lieutenant’s military uniform, he found the streets in Blapei covered with soldiers in dark red military uniforms. They were interrogating passers-by. The atmosphere in the whole Blapei became ten times more intense compared to yesterday.

Since Blapei was only over 100 km or one hour’s drive away from the frontline, the smoke and destruction due to gradually escalating battles between the two countries unavoidably extended toward it from the frontline after two weeks since Zhang Tie had come to the logistics department...

The tranquility of Blapei was broken.

The troubled times were coming. Where was peaceful?

A sense of crisis rose in Zhang Tie’s heart once again.

[1] In ancient China, a king told a chancellor to present an elephant to a group of blind people. The blind people then touched the elephant with their hands. One touched its ear and said it was a winnowing fan; one touched its head and said it was a rock; one touched its nose and said it was a round wooden bar, bigger on one end and smaller on the other end, which was used to grind rice in ancient China; one touched its foot and said it was a mortar; one touched its back and said it was a bed; one touched its abdomen and said it was a jar; one touched its tail and said it was a rope.