Castle of Black Iron
Castle of Black Iron - Chapter 67: Starting Off

Every undergraduate opened their luggage and placed it before their feet, waiting for the inspection of the coaches and Captain Kerlin. Besides 5kg of food, some undergraduate had also hidden some in their luggage. Using Zhang Tie as an example, his mom had prepared some fried rice for him and had hidden it in the inner layer of his luggage. If wasn’t too excessive, the coaches and teachers would not punish them for it. Of course, if anyone brought too much food, the surplus food had to be handed in, and at the same time, the coach or teacher in front of him would give him a stern look. If such a thing were to occur, it would perhaps not be worth it to bring so much food.

Based on the experiences of their predecessors, all the horny students understood the bottom line—they could not secretly bring more than 1kg of food, which was basically one day’s worth of food. If anyone exceeded this amount, then they would be punished.

Soon after their luggage were checked, Captain Kerlin sent his order, “Set Off.” Hearing his order, those horny students shouldered their luggage and walked out of the school in lines in their respective class towards the west gate of Blackhot City.

It was only when they had walked out the school gates did the students from the lower grades arrive at school. With a complex look in their eyes, they stood on both sides of the school gates as they saw off the undergraduates equipped with weapons!

For the kids from commoner families in Blackhot City, none of them would be able to avoid participating in the survival training; it was their destiny, and it was the destiny of everyone in this age. For humans to expand their living domain, they relied on sending out young men from the school gates every year despite the fact that some would lose their lives.

“Little brothers, work hard! Next year, it will be your turn!” Some guy at the front loudly shouted. Unfortunately, only a few people responded, as his words had made them depressed.

Remaining silent, Zhang Tie moved on along with the others. Compared to when he had first arrived at school, his luggage had become heavier. The most obvious change was the black pot covering his luggage. All the other members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood were shouldering more goods than when they had arrived at school. Everything extra they had been carrying was something that Fatty Barley brought. In regards to the huge pot, Fatty Barley only had one reason: if they could drink soup, they would have ⅓ more choices to choose from for food, and they could also reduce their food consumption by ¼ while being able to recover their physiques a bit faster. The reason Fatty Barley gave was convincing and persuasive, thus Zhang Tie shook his head and carried the ridiculously huge black pot along with his luggage.

Ever since the morning, he had been carrying the black pot. For some unknown reason, perhaps due to superstition in the eastern countries[1], Zhang Tie faintly felt that he would encounter troubles during this survival training. Before he had left, he had noticed a vicious glare from Sharon, who was standing beside Glaze. Thinking of how low-key Glaze’s group has been acting these days, Zhang Tie felt as if something bad would happen to him.

In fact, they actually didn’t need to bring a pot; if they wanted to drink soup, they could simply use their own helmets or food container, which was what most people did. Zhang Tie had also suggested this; however, Fatty Barley gave him a mysterious smile as he told Zhang Tie that he would know the advantages of the pot when they arrived.

Therefore, Zhang Tie set off with that huge black pot on his back. It was such a big pot that even Captain Kerlin gave it a look a few times.

However, the black pot paled in comparison to the killing machine known as the “Iron Gate T21”, a light, complex pulley-based crossbow used by professionals, that hung on Doug’s shoulder. Although it was lighter than other crossbows, it was 1m in length and weighed 30kg before having been loaded with arrows. As all the important parts of the “Iron Gate T21” were made of a special alloy, it looked like a huge steel kite on Doug’s back, making it really eye-catching.

While carrying the “Iron Gate T21” that was not too heavy around his shoulder, Doug gave off an arrogant air, causing Bagdad’s eyes to turn green with envy.

The “Iron Gate” was also brought by Fatty. Compared with Sharwin’s miserable treatment, Barley’s dad had really paid an exorbitant amount for the survival training. From what Zhang Tie knew, an “Iron Gate T21” was worth at least 15 gold coins since it had to be made from a special, high-performance alloy. It was not possible to produce the crossbow in Blackhot City; only Kalur of the Andaman Alliance, known as the city of machines, was able to produce the series of long-range weapons which the “Iron Gate” belonged to.

While Doug carried the “Iron Gate T21”, Sharwin and Leit carried two arrow containers. Each cross-arrow container contained 80 standard, steel armor-piercing arrows and 2 clips[2]. In addition, Bagdad also helped Fatty carry a steel pike that could be assembled, while Hista was carrying a professional outdoor bag for Fatty. Zhang Tie was really speechless about Barley, as there were still a lot of things on him. This time, Zhang Tie knew clearly how afraid of death Fatty Barley was.

When they were setting off school, the first morning rays cast down in Blackhot City. Walking on the street, the tidy footsteps arouse the attention of all the passersby. Seeing these young men leaving the city, some kind-hearted, middle-aged women would stop walking and would start to pray with clasped hands. In addition, pastors and priests from the church of the Brilliance God had long prepared to spray holy water over each horny student on the roadside.

“Children, God will bless you. Use your machetes and spears to deal with those beasts outside the city walls. Go and spray the glorious rays of humankind in those remote places. The believers of God will definitely return safely!” shouted the big-bellied nun.

Zhang Tie’s clothes and face had also been sprayed with several droplets. The Brilliance God was worshiped by the Sun Dynasty, a country that had unified both state and church. The school of the Brilliance God covered every nook and cranny of that country. It was said that all the government officials in that country were assumed by clergymen. In the Sun Dynasty, government officials owned the sovereign powers; however, they didn’t refer to themselves as government officials and had even forbade others from calling them that. Instead, they preferred to be called the most pious servants. In Barley’s words, they were just a group of bastards that wanted to erect memorial archways[3] for themselves.

“That priest is obviously obsessed with alcohol and women. Those young nuns beside him are not virgins!” Passing by that bastard who was spraying holy water, Hista, the obscene guy, lowered his voice and told Zhang Tie, “Seeing the look in the nuns’ eyes and their eyebrows, I can tell that the two nuns had just made love with someone an hour ago and are still fascinated even now. Motherf*ckers, do they really think we’re still virgins?”

“You could even see this?” Zhang Tie was really startled.

“Of course, if you spend as much time as I have on women, you can also easily tell whether they have just made love through looking, tasting, smelling, and touching. Let alone the eyes, I can even tell just by using my tongue…” Hista replied pleasantly.

“How do you identify it by tongue?” Zhang Tie doubted.

“If you have kissed them, you will be able to find that women having made love always have a cold tongue tip…” Hista answered confidently.

Hearing Hista’s words, Zhang Tie immediately became self-abased and speechless.

……

Zhang Tie and the other horny students walked across half of Blackhot City. On the way, they had encountered several groups from other schools. After some greetings, they would head to their own destinations. There were more than 10,000 undergraduates in Blackhot City. Naturally, not all of them would go to Wild Wolf Valley for their survival training; instead, they would scatter to areas 50-80 km away from Blackhot City. After special inspection, the difficulty in those areas used for survival training did not vary too much, thus every year, representatives of the schools would choose the place for survival training by drawing lots. This year, the Seventh National Male Middle School drew the Wild Wolf Valley, which was neither too bad nor too good. Generally speaking, the closer it was to Blackhot City, the less dangerous it would be. As Wild Wolf Valley was 70 km away from Blackhot City, it was neither too dangerous nor too safe.

When Zhang Tie and his team passed by the municipal square, Zhang Tie glanced at that mailbox one last time before forcing himself to forget about it. 20 minutes later at 8:00 am, the team arrived at the west gate of Blackhot City and soon left Blackhot City through the gate.

While passing through the dim city gates, Zhang Tie really felt like he was drilling through a mouse den; inside the tunnel of the gate that spanned 50m, it was so dim that lamps had to be lit inside during the day. Leaving Blackhot City, the horny students were really shocked by the magnificent Blackhot Mountain Ranges which were twisting like huge dragons in front of their eyes. The scene made them breathless. On average, the mountains were taller than 10,000m, and at the top of the mountains, were snow white lines. Several huge shadows of eagles hovering in the sky brought them a sense of desolation.

[1] Carrying a black pot means shouldering the blame for others.

[2] An arrow has to be put inside a clip before being shot out.

[3] Memorial Archway is a symbol of humble behaviors and good popularity.