Castle of Black Iron

After talking with the other 4 clan elders until midnight, Zhang Tie went to bed in an attic being not far from the Ancestral Hall where only elders could live in.

Although Zhang Tie went to bed, he was still troubled with too many messages.

After promoting to a knight, one would be destined to be a clan elder. This was indisputable in Huaiyuan Palace, or any place in Jinyun Country or Eastern Continent. Honestly, Zhang Tie didn’t make any mental preparation about becoming the clan elder of Huaiyuan Palace. However, he could never stop it happening unless he broke himself away from Huaiyuan Palace. If a knight was not a clan elder, it would definitely bring a lot of negative gossips and doubts to Huaiyuan Palace and himself. Therefore, Zhang Tie had to accept the position.

Actually, Zhang Tie planned to return to Huaiyuan Palace for clearing some misunderstandings between him and Huaiyuan Palace in case of later concerns. He had never imagined that he could become a clan elder, which meant that he directly became a supreme leader of Huaiyuan Palace and a decision-maker on clan events. The conflicts between him and Huaiyuan Palace were nothing serious compared to the position of clan elder. The God joked with Zhang Tie once again.

Last night, none of the elders asked Zhang Tie about his cultivation, which made Zhang Tie a bit shocked.

However, what shocked Zhang Tie the most was the arrangement that Zhang Clan made for Huaiyuan Prefecture in the future.

After the super fleet arrived at Huaiyuan Prefecture from the Eastern Continent, Huaiyuan Palace would accomplish the evacuation of all the Hua population from Huaiyuan Prefecture. This task had been carried out a few years. Up to now, there were still over 2 million Hua people left in Huaiyuan Prefecture. This was a complete transfer of Huaiyuan Palace’s power. Not only this, all the major clans across Jinyun Country had been doing this.

When the 3rd holy war arrived, no major clan would lay their own clan’s hope in Waii Sub-continent, a remote place. It was an inevitable choice that all the major clans would return to Taixia Country for their origins.

It was not a hasty decision for Huaiyuan Palace to return to Taixia Country. In Elder Muen’s words, since Lord Huaiyuan founded his first city in Waii Sub-continent, Huaiyuan Palace had been preparing for returning to Taixia Country one day.

90% of population across Huaiyuan Prefecture would be transferred to Youzhou City, Taixia Country. Youzhou State was a lower state in the north of Taixia Country. It was just an underdeveloped place.. The area of the entire Youzhou State was equal to 2/3 of that of Waii Sub-continent. 5 decades ago, Taixia Country expanded its territory towards the north. When the border of Youzhou State was fixed, Huaiyuan Palace bought almost 1 million sq miles’ land in the southeast coastal area of Youzhou State, Taixia Country. These years, besides Huaiyuan City in Yingzhou State, Huaiyuan Palace also had its undertaking in Youzhou State. They had not founded a city in Youzhou State yet. They just founded a big harbor. This time, after returning to Taixia Country, Huaiyuan Palace would find 8 cities in Youzhou State at one time so as to hold so many people which were transferred there.

According to the regulation of Taixia Country, after founding the 8 cities, Huaiyuan Palace would have a clan prefecture in Youzhou State, which indicated the official return of Huaiyuan Palace, instead of being overseas refugees. With this honor, Huaiyuan Palace would have a greater potential in development in Taixia Country. In the future, Huaiyuan Palace would help Count Long Wind to ascend to the prefectural governor of Youzhou State, Taixia Country...

These years, Count Long Wind had been in Taixia Country, preparing for Huaiyuan Palace to return to Taixia Country and accumulate human relationships for him to ascend to the prefectural governor of Youzhou State, Taixia Country.

It was a great 100-year plan for Huaiyuan Palace to return to Taixia Country!

Compared to Waii Sub-continent, the remote place, Taixia Country was the real stage of Huaiyuan Palace.

Zhang Tie felt that everything that Huaiyuan Palace did in Jinyun Country was for this day. The abrupt holy war just stimulated Huaiyuan Palace to reap its harvest in Jinyun Country and return to its home to restart its undertaking with great population and wealth.

Huaiyuan Palace was just accumulating its power in Waii Sub-continent. When they came back to Taixia Country, they would lay their foundation for greater development potential.

The other major clans of Jinyun Country had similar plans, including those in Qilan Country. After the holy war broke out, the only choice that all the overseas major Hua clans could make was to return to Taixia Country!

However, this time, Huaiyuan Palace could not take away its cities, neither could it just leave everything here. At least for the time being, before the demonized puppets corps arrived, the entire Huaiyuan Prefecture was still prosperous. Those cities were still bringing great profits to Huaiyuan Palace everyday. Therefore, the Hurricane Corps of Huaiyuan Palace stayed here and wouldn’t leave Waii Sub-continent until the last moment. As a deterrence, Huaiyuan Palace would also leave an elder to guard its interests in Huaiyuan Prefecture as the head of the Hurricane Corps.

After promoting to a knight, although his status as a clan elder had not been exposed, Zhang Tie had been qualified to attend the confidential events in the clan.

Zhang Tie bargained with the other clan elders in the latter half of their talk last night.

The discussion only contained 2 topics: Zhang Tie’s duties in Huaiyuan Palace after promoting to the clan elder of Huaiyuan Palace; The bloodline heritage of Zhang Tie’s 3 babies.

The two topics were both major events for Huaiyuan Palace. The first one was involved with the position of the new clan elder in Huaiyuan Palace; the second one was more important. The continuity of ancestral bloodlines was involved with a clan’s prosperity. Especially the latter one, which was the biggest concern of the clan elders.

"I didn’t know about the secrets of my 3 babies until I contacted my elder brother. I didn’t know why they inherited my ancestral bloodline. I think this is related to my experience when I was once struck by thunderbolts in Blackhot City. After that, I felt my body had experienced subtle changes. I couldn’t describe them in words. Maybe it’s just an accident!"

Zhang Tie flickered to the elders with the most effective reason——thunder strike once again.

It was indeed the best decision for him to owe all the problems to thunder gods and the acquired lightning functional scholar syndrome. Zhang Tie would never admit that he could control the inheritance of ancestral bloodlines. Otherwise, he would never have a "tranquil" life in the future.

After hearing Zhang Tie’s explanation, the elders became silent.

Although they didn’t speak, all the elders reached an agreement that the most important thing that Zhang Tie should do now was not cultivation, but to marry some Hua girls and deliver more babies so as to ensure whether Zhang Tie’s ancestral bloodlines could be inherited again. Especially after Zhang Tie confirmed that he had awakened the powerful Kuafu bloodline and sword affinity in the past one year, the elders opened their mouths so widely as if they wanted to devour Zhang Tie alive.

When bargaining with the elders, Zhang Tie was also considering his own problems. He was thinking about the relationship between him and Huaiyuan Palace. Finally, they fixed two events.

——After promoting to be a clan elder of Huaiyuan Palace, Zhang Tie would serve the office of the head of Hurricane Corps of Huaiyuan Palace and stay in Waii Sub-continent.

——Before Zhang Tie returned to Taixia Country, Huaiyuan Palace would not interfere with Zhang Tie’s marriage and personal life. However, after returning to Taixia Country, Zhang Tie was obliged to coordinate with Huaiyuan Palace to sustain the ancestral bloodline of Zhang Clan.

...

Zhang Tie didn’t sleep well that night as he kept digesting the messages that he was told by the clan elders.

As a knight, one could still be energetic after being awake for a few days; therefore, Zhang Tie didn’t feel sleepy at all. After getting up, he entered meditation with crossed legs for a short while before feeling refreshing all over once again.

After cleansing his face and teeth, Zhang Tie left the attic.

...

Only after one night, all the deacons and disciples on the Yiyang Mountain had been busy.

After coming to the Ancestral Hall, Zhang Tie found that a lot of deacons and disciples were cleaning the huge pillars while standing on the huge steel frames that they had put up.

"Take care, take care..." A deacon told a team of strong men who were carrying a lot of heavy crates into the Ancestral Hall. After that, the deacon told them to put down the crates, take the objects being padded by soft velvet out of the crates and pave them onto the floor of the hall.

At the sight of those objects, Zhang Tie became stunned. Because all the crates contained extremely brilliant square gold bricks, each of which was 2-3 cm in thickness, 10 cm in length and width. All the gold bricks were covered with brilliant patterns of bliss clouds. As the bricks were heavy, it required 2 deacons to take each brick out of the crate carefully and pave it onto the floor.

The moment the crates were empty would they be taken away. Closely after that, another team of strong men would carry in another batch of crates.

’Cleaning the hall and paving the floor with gold bricks. What for?’

Seeing Elder Muen standing in the hall and arranging jobs for some deacons, Zhang Tie walked over there.

At the sight of Zhang Tie, Elder Muen waved his hand, telling those deacons to leave.

...