Castle of Black Iron

Chapter 73: Becoming a Miner

Translator: WQL Editor: Geoffrey

The castle square was even more boisterous than the municipal square in Blackhot City. With just a slight glance, Zhang Tie knew that there were at least 800-900 people there. The male students were trading goods, mostly food, with the female students. Some of the male students exchanged the prey they had caught with the female students for various wild vegetables, while the other male students formed small groups with the female students in an attempt to get acquainted with each other. With a simple sweep of his glance, Zhang Tie was able to see dozens of horny male students proudly displaying their strong arms and patting their chests in front of the girls. In order to make their weak bicep muscles stand out, some of the seemingly weak guys had even turned red all over, causing the girls to giggle.

This was also the most attractive factor in the survival training—once both parties agree, the male students and the female students could form a group to complete the survival training together. As long as the female students return to the castle before 8:00 pm, nobody would interfere with their movements. After several years of compulsory education, which separated the male students from the female students, the sheer terror of talking to the opposite sex was finally conquered. Unless the female students were forced to do something against their will, they could do whatever they wanted. In the end, love was both a trivial matter and an important matter; it was trivial when it was private, but at the same time, it was also important because it is the foundation of the existence of the human race and was something which could not be easily controlled.

At the beginning, as female students had the initiative, the horny male students could only try their best to attract girls.

For the shy guys, they would get familiar with the girls through exchanging goods and food. For the shameless guys, they would rush towards girls and ask, “Beauties, how about joining us? We’re powerful. If you join us, we promise you will have meat to eat every day!” Most of the guys from this group would then suffer from glares filled with contempt. In contrast, the lucky and power guys who were more experienced with women would directly bring their hunted prey to the square and would loudly shout, inviting girls to eat supper with them. These guys would always easily succeed.

A few moments after Zhang Tie arrived at the square, Zhang Tie saw a group of horny students from the Second National Male Middle School carrying a dead boar. Soon after they shouted to invite girls to eat roasted boar in the valley tonight, two groups of girls joined. Feeling spirited, those horny students left together with the two groups of girls. Only at the sight of this scene did Zhang Tie understand why Barley had brought such a huge black pot. Needless to say, he was preparing to attract girls with it, as there was a clear difference between cooking food with a pot and without. Since they had to stay here for two months, no matter how powerful one was, even though one could capture prey every day, one would not be able to find a girl who liked to continuously eat roasted meat for two months...

Zhang Tie seemed to see the cunning smile on Fatty’s face!

Besides mutual recognition, they could also show off their strength and special abilities in the square. Seeing some of the goods traded by the students, Zhang Tie was amazed. It was only the third day of the survival training, yet someone had already made some practical goods, like bamboo woven mattresses, medicinal herb cages, pillows, wooden stools, bowls, basins, and barrels. Practical application was truly the best way to test one’s talents. Those handmade goods reminded Zhang Tie of the pride of Seventh National Male Middle School, Li Shizhen—the talented Chinese student who was always average school but showed off his exceptionally high talents in medicine by continuously making several types of potent medicine in order to sell it. Immediately following the survival training, he became well known and obtained an opportunity to be recommended by the school. Thus, at this moment, for the students, this survival training was the most important opportunity for them to win a school recommendation.

If one had already advanced to become a power fighter, then they would use their strength to kill wild beasts and bring them back...

If one had the talent to become a medicinal master, they would create miraculous medicinal pills and medication...

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If one had a pair of delicate hands and special techniques, they would create something special and show them off...

Of course, if one was a good-for-nothing and didn’t even have the confidence to gather food in the wild, then they could only dig in the mines and do laborious work. If one suffered from labor work, then they wouldn’t have to starve to death during the survival training. People who were able to withstand the suffering and do labor work were always needed in human society, as not everyone could be surrounded by glory and fresh flowers.

Standing before the outer castle, a few guys were reading the notice on the door. Seeing the missions on the notice, some shook their heads and left, while others looked happy and intended to give it a try...

Zhang Tie easily pushed his way through the crowd. Raising his head, he looked at the notice that had just been released.

The first mission: Wild Wolf Castle was preparing to create coal, which burns through a large amount of wood in a short period of time. The people with strength but have yet to acquire prey can go get an axe and chop some wood. In exchange for the firewood, one can acquire food. For those who have confidence in their ability to make charcoal, they are free to apply to join this team. Since making charcoal was something that had been taught at school, many students would be able to survive in this manner; however, neither of the two jobs were something to be proud of. Those two jobs would only allow them to survive, temporarily avoiding death by starvation.

The second mission: Charcoal was naturally used to smelt iron, and an iron smelting workshop was opened together with the charcoal kiln in Wild Wolf Castle. Besides needing charcoal, they also needed iron ores and people who were confident in their abilities of smelting iron and striking iron. Although they were also skills, iron smelting and iron striking were much more advanced than making charcoal and digging in the mines. Anyone who was able to smelt and strike iron could directly show off without restraint.

The third mission: A lot of people are needed to create lime in the lime kiln. As lime was needed to taw numerous hides later, it was a necessity.

As for the remaining missions, Zhang Tie didn’t feel like reading them anymore...

After scanning the notice, Zhang Tie directly entered Wild Wolf Castle. Entering the gate of the castle, he took a right took and walked for more than 30m. There, he saw a small room in the small square in between the inner castle and the outer castle; it was labeled as “Comprehensive Logistics Management”. In front of the door was a desk which was occupied by two girls, who were chatting like a pair of birds, sitting behind it. It was only when Zhang Tie had moved closer to them that they raised their head and glanced over Zhang Tie. At the age of 15, Zhang Tie looked average and was neither tall nor short. His appearance was not particularly pleasing to the eye, but at the very least, he wasn’t irritating to look at. After glancing over Zhang Tie, the girls were not interested. With an official sounding tone, one of the two asked Zhang Tie, “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to get a shovel and a basket!” Zhang Tie calmly answered.

“You want to dig in the mines?” Hearing Zhang Tie’s words, the two girls were startled. They once again glanced over Zhang Tie. The strange look in their eyes had hinted to Zhang Tie that there was some sort of problem.

“Yes. Although I have not done it before, I find it to be quite interesting, so I want to take this opportunity to experience it...” Zhang Tie replied with a smile without feeling the least bit of embarrassment. Seeing Zhang Tie’s smile, the strange look in the eyes of the two girls lessened as they looked at each other with a look that seemed to say that male students really do like to do strange things.

“Fine. Fellow classmate, please show me your student number plate, so I can help you register...”

After undoing the metal student number plate hanging from his neck, Zhang Tie handed it to her. Each student was given a student number plate when they entered school. It was akin to the identification card used by the students in Blackhot City, but these would not be used during normal times; it was only during the survival training that the schools required the students to bring with them their student number plates. There was a saying among those horny students: the student number plate was used to identify the corpse of any student that had died so miserably that they couldn’t even identify the face.

After registering the number from his student number plate, that girl gave it back to Zhang Tie. “I need to warn you that you should not damage the shovel or the basket. If you damage them, you will be asked to pay for them at their original prices. From now on, you are expected to hand in at least 100 kg of iron ores a day. You can exchange them for food; the more ores you hand in, the more food you will get. If you are not able to hand in the minimum amount of ores for three consecutive days, then you will lose your qualification to be a miner. At that point, you will be asked to hand back the shovel and the basket.”

“Fine. Is there anything else I need to remember?”

“Do you know where the abandoned mines are in Wild Wolf Valley?”

“Yes, I know. The closest one is less than 200m below the castle!”

“That’s fine. If you don’t know how to identify iron ore, you can go to the iron smelting workshop to learn about it. They have many samples over there!” As she said this, the girl pointed at a direction in the small square of the outer castle.

“Fine!”

Submitting 100 kg of iron ore each day was a pretty low requirement. This made Zhang Tie feel reassured that he would have enough time to do what he wanted. It seemed that only a few people wanted to take this job since it was too easy. Most people felt that it was too shameful to do this job since it was prepared for those who were on the brink of starving to death.

After telling him about these matters, the girl turned around and entered the warehouse beside her. Less than half a minute later, she returned and brought out a steel shovel as well as a basket. It seemed as if someone had cleaned the two items in the past couple of days; despite not having been used for the past year, it was not dirty at all. Throwing the shovel into the basket, Zhang Tie carried the basket that was higher than a child. Waving his hand to the two girls as he bade them farewell, Zhang Tie awkwardly walked out of Wild Wolf Castle with his spear in hand

As expected, his equipment caused everyone on the road to glare at him.

The moment he moved past the gates of the castle, Zhang Tie heard a weird voice full of cynicism. “Wow, who’s that fish? Isn’t that the brave guy from our school?”

Turning his head, Zhang Tie saw Glaze’s group casting a glare full of contempt at him. As the old saying goes—one can not avoid one’s enemy...