Chapter 24

After all that effort, it turned out that one still had to buy a ticket to enter and exit the Black Iron Castle! Zhang Tie, sitting on the ground, gave a bitter smile. The sudden feeling of his mind being emptied and his body collapsing into a dark tunnel was truly terrifying. For a few seconds, Zhang Tie suspected that he might just die. If this was the feeling of mental energy depletion, he would rather die than experience it again.

Now that he had regained his senses, Zhang Tie found that in just a few short minutes, he was drenched in cold sweat, and his body seemed to have weakened. It seemed that mental energy depletion was no joke. He shook his head vigorously, but the terrifying sensation of being swallowed by darkness still lingered in his mind.

There must be something wrong, something not right!

Although his head was uncomfortable, it did not prevent Zhang Tie from using it to think about some issues. He felt that his actions of going in and out to fetch water to water the land might be a very, very foolish method for the Black Iron Castle. This place was clearly not ordinary. Since the "spiritual energy value" required the owner to continuously expand the land and plant vegetation to release so-called "life potential," it could not possibly ignore the water needs of the plants. It wouldn't make the owner use such a foolish method to water the plants. Even if the land here was very fertile and didn't need irrigation, and he didn't need to fetch water from outside to let all the plants grow well, what about the "basic energy reserve"? What about the "Chaos Pool"? The waste processing plant wouldn't need to constantly throw things in to convert matter into basic energy, right? To obtain the "basic energy reserve," would he have to act as a "porter" and constantly move things in and out?

Thinking about how the use of certain functions in the Black Iron Castle could consume tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even a massive amount of basic energy, Zhang Tie became furious. Damn it, it can't be like this. If it were, what kind of castle lord would he be? Wouldn't he be even more of a porter than the porters at the train station? If he went in and out five or six times a day for thirty to fifty years, could he expand the land by one acre? Isn't this just a scam?

No, it can't be like this. There must be something he's missing or some mysterious function of this space that he hasn't discovered. The Black Iron Castle looks very advanced, and that damn system has a high and mighty attitude. How could it make such a low-level mistake? If it were, wouldn't it be like the rich people of Black Flame City having to take off their clothes, dig the ground, and plant vegetables and coal to cook before they could eat at the Black Gold Hotel in Black Flame City?

No matter how he thought about it, Zhang Tie couldn't find an answer. Feeling his intelligence was being insulted, he cursed a few times in his mind and then put the problem aside—damn it, he wouldn't think about it anymore. Let it be. He was just being pranked by the bastard who created the Black Iron Castle. So what if he was a porter? Some people wanted to be porters but didn't have the qualifications. Isn't it true that imperfection is perfection? Now, the handsome and majestic castle lord would become a hardworking porter in the future, making the Black Iron Castle perfect. Could there be anything more perfect than this?

This was Zhang Tie's personality. Sometimes he was a bit neurotic and slightly pessimistic when faced with setbacks, but other times his nerves and mind were quite broad. Once he decided to let go or do something, he could find countless reasons to comfort himself and start feeling proud and even reckless. One second he thought Teacher Daina was his lifelong love, the next second he thought a man with a harem was truly a colorful life; the love he had never experienced had to be grand and earth-shattering to be perfect. The more big-breasted, big-bottomed, variously shaped, faced, scented, and seductive girls, beauties, and mature women, the better.

Perhaps humans are inherently a collection of contradictions.

While putting this problem aside, another pressing and unavoidable issue appeared before Zhang Tie—how to restore his mental energy? How long would it take to recover? If it took too long, his parents would come home and find him not at home, the bathroom door locked from the inside, and no one responding to their calls. How much trouble would that cause, and how would he explain it? Or what if he suddenly appeared right in front of his parents who had already returned home?

This problem was also unsolvable for Zhang Tie's intelligence. Whatever, one step at a time. If it came to that, he would just confess and take a beating, but he had been beaten before, and his parents wouldn't sell him, right?

Once he decided to be carefree, he felt all the problems weren't so scary. Zhang Tie patted his butt, stood up from the ground, walked a few steps, turned around, picked up two empty buckets, and walked towards the small tree. The small bag of seeds given by Sister Theresa was still there, and Zhang Tie hadn't had time to open it yet. Now was the perfect time.

Walking to the small tree, Zhang Tie put down the buckets, squatted on the ground, picked up the cloth bag, untied the rope at the mouth of the bag, and shook it, letting the seeds inside fall out.

It was clear that Sister Theresa was a very meticulous person. The cloth bag contained eight small paper bags, each labeled with the name of the seeds.

The smallest paper bag was labeled "Green Leaf Grass." The other paper bags were slightly larger, labeled "Morning Glory," "Olive," "Privet," "Red Leaf Photinia," "Pear," and "Radish." When he saw the word "Radish," Zhang Tie scratched his head in confusion, wondering if Sister Theresa had made a mistake. Why did she bring radish seeds? "Olive" was easy to understand; it was a symbol of the Grispius faith, and it made sense for Sister Theresa to give it to him. "Pear" was not only edible but also had beautiful flowers, which made sense. But what about the radish? If you counted the "Olive" and "Pear," three out of the seven seeds were edible. Adding one more would make half of them edible.

What did this mean? Zhang Tie scratched his head, wondering if Sister Theresa was using these "seeds" to repay the porridge the Zhang family had been sending to the orphanage for years. This logic seemed a bit strange.

Seeing a large paper bag lying on the ground, which was round and seemed to be full, Zhang Tie didn't even look at the name, just tore it open. A few walnuts rolled to his feet, leaving Zhang Tie speechless—another edible thing.

Forget it, whatever. As long as they could grow and provide spiritual energy to this space, any seeds would do. Edible ones were even better, a win-win. Anyway, there was so much land here; what difference did it make what he planted? However, with so many seeds and such a large space, he needed to plan where to plant them. These seeds could serve as natural landmarks, and after planting them, Zhang Tie felt he could divide the "north, south, east, and west" of the Black Iron Castle.

If the Manjusha Tree was the center, and following the default perspective of the Black Iron Castle map he saw last time, the top of the map was north, where he would plant the olive trees. The bottom of the map, which was south, would have the red leaf photinia. The west would have the pear trees, and the east would have the walnuts. The rest, including the green leaf grass, morning glory, and privet, could be scattered in the four directions. The radish, being an edible vegetable, would be planted next to the potatoes and corn for easier management.

Once he made the decision, Zhang Tie took action. He opened the bags of green leaf grass, morning glory, and red leaf photinia, shook the seeds together, and scattered them. Zhang Tie was not skilled at planting, but he instinctively felt that since these plants were commonly found in the wild, they would grow naturally without much effort. He treated this place as if it were the wild.

About twenty meters from the small tree, Zhang Tie ran in a circle, scattering the seeds. In less than three minutes, he had planted the seeds from the three bags.

After planting the first three, Zhang Tie became more serious. About fifty meters north of the small tree, he used a steel bar to dig a row of small holes and planted the olive seeds. He then did the same for the south, west, and east. When planting the walnuts, he noticed they were larger, so he dug the holes a bit deeper. Actually, it wasn't really digging; for Zhang Tie, it was just pushing the steel bar deeper into the soil and stirring it to create a hole, then burying the walnut. He didn't know if it was correct, but that's how he did it. The rest was up to fate.

Since walnuts were very expensive, Zhang Tie had rarely eaten them. When burying the walnuts, he couldn't resist the temptation and shamelessly ate one. In the end, out of the eight walnuts Sister Theresa gave him, only seven were planted.

After planting the walnuts, he ran to the "vegetable field" and found a patch of empty land next to the cornfield to plant the radishes. He then stuck the steel bar into the ground and patted his hands in satisfaction.

For Zhang Tie, this seemed to be the biggest achievement of the day. As for whether to water them, his current thought was to wait a month. If the seeds he planted today didn't sprout in a month, then today's efforts would be considered a lesson learned. If he needed to plant something else in the future, he could always water them later.

After finishing these tasks, Zhang Tie casually opened the basic attribute panel of the Black Iron Castle. The huge changes in the castle's attributes over just one day left him speechless.